Good morning, everyone. For today's briefing, we have our Executive Chair, Olivia Wirth, and Group Chief Financial Officer, Cathy Carybatsis, on the call. Olivia will provide an overview of FY2025, and then Cathy will step us through the financial results in more detail. Olivia will then provide an update on our growth strategy and a brief trading update for the first seven weeks of 1/H2026. There will be time for questions at the end. I'll now hand over to Olivia.
Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our FY25 overview on slide five, FY25 was a transition year for Myer Group as we reset the base to drive growth across the Myer Group. We delivered a positive sales performance in our first period, reporting as the Myer Group. Total sales were $3.7 billion, up 0.5% on a pro forma basis, including Myer Apparel Brands. Sales proved resilient, however, profitability was impacted by soft macro-economic conditions. This was reflected in subdued consumer demand and increased promotional activity. Group online sales were $818.9 million, up 15% on FY24, a strong result that reflects our ongoing investment in digital and omnichannel capabilities. Earnings before interest and tax were $140.3 million, down 13.8% on the prior year. The inclusion of Apparel Brands was more than offset by challenged retail conditions and increased cost of doing business, which impacted both businesses.
Underlying EBIT was $36.8 million, down 30%. Our statutory loss of -$211.2 million was impacted by a one-off non-cash impairment of $213.3 million for Myer Apparel Brands goodwill, arising as part of acquisition accounting. Acquisition accounting requires the purchase consideration to be valued using the closing share price at acquisition date. Statutory loss was also impacted by a further $34.7 million, relating to other significant items, reflecting a period of significant transition and merger integration. We ended the year with net cash of $168.1 million, up $54.3 million versus FY24. Apparel Brands' integration is progressing well, and we continue to target $30 million of annualized synergies by the first half of 2027. We're moving at pace, executing against our Myer Group growth strategy, which we presented at the Investor Day in May.
Early traction is evident, including the Myer One brand expansion, the planned Myer One relaunch in October, our Just Jeans Store of the Future rollout, and the introduction of new brand partnerships, with additional brands also returning to Myer. While challenges at our National Distribution Centre persist, we have short-term measures in place to mitigate operational challenges, with a long-term solution developed and being deployed. We're seeing positive trading momentum in the first seven weeks of first half 2026. Total sales versus the comparable period are up 3.1% on a pro forma basis. Now moving to slide six. You'll notice that we've adopted segment reporting for the Myer Group, presenting as Myer Retail and Myer Apparel Brands for the first time. Here we show the performance of each of these segments by category for Myer Retail and by brand for Myer Apparel Brands.
FY25 was a mixed year across Myer Retail and Myer Apparel Brands. Our performance in Myer Retail in the home and beauty categories was pleasing, given their overall importance to the business. Within category, there are elements that are working well, and others where we have more work to do. As we shared at the Investor Day, we have plans underway for addressing this. In Myer Apparel Brands, our overall performance was down. This was largely due to the performance of the Dotti brand and particularly New Zealand. As a group, we recognize we have more work to do to get all of our segments performing to their full potential. Moving to slide seven, I'm pleased to report that there is real momentum building across the business as we implement our strategy. We're moving at pace as we build a diversified omnichannel retail platform.
There are a number of key achievements since we first presented the Myer Group growth strategy at our Investor Day in May. These include expanded loyalty partnerships with Virgin's Velocity, introduced new brand partners with other brands returning to Myer Retail. This includes Sports, Craft, and Jag. Launched Myer One for Myer Apparel Brands, progressed the rollout of our new store format in Just Jeans, grew sales in Marketplace, and implemented short-term mitigations at our NDC, with a long-term solution developed and then deployed. Commenced a value creation program with initiatives to manage increasing costs across the business. Now moving to slide eight. This slide shows some of the highlights for the year. I've touched on some of these already. A couple of points to draw to your attention. Myer One continues to go from strength to strength.
Myer One tag rate achieved a record high at 79.5%, up 230 basis points versus FY24 for Myer Retail. Our tag rate for Myer Apparel Brands since the launch is ahead of expectations and currently at 47%. Our Myer One total active customer numbers also grew, and they're up 6.9% versus FY24 to 4.7 million. In products and brands, our Myer Retail exclusive brands margin improved 46 basis points, and we're on track to launch additional Myer Retail exclusive brands in the second half of 2026. These will be launched in February. Against our omnichannel network pillar, online sales are up 15%, assisted by growth in Marketplace. In FY24, we experienced challenges related to shrinkage. In FY25, we made targeted investments to address shrinkage, as well as to combat theft and other antisocial behavior to keep not only our team but our customers safe.
As a result, we're pleased to note that our shrinkage expense was down 20% in FY25. Slide nine highlights where we have experienced key challenges and, importantly, what we are doing to address these. Our NDC challenges persist, and we estimate that this has had a full-year EBIT impact of $16 million. As already mentioned, we have short-term mitigations in place, and a long-term solution is developed. As foreshadowed, we experienced significant increases in our cost of doing business in FY25. It's important to note here that our cost of doing business includes fixed, as well as a component of variable costs. The major components of costs are store wages, occupancy outgoings, distribution, and group charges.
As we highlighted in our trading update and at our Investor Day in May, increasing costs was a significant challenge for us, and in FY25, would include higher store wages and occupancy outgoing costs impacted by inflation. We also highlighted the importance of needing to invest in additional people capability to execute against our growth strategy. Of course, it will take some time for the benefits of that investment to be realized. Given these pressures, the second half of 2025, we commenced a value creation program to implement short and medium-term initiatives to reduce complexity and cost, as well as increase productivity across the business, partially offsetting the continued cost of doing business pressures being observed in FY26. In FY26, the group is targeting cost of doing business as a percentage of sales for the full year to be lower than the second half of 2025.
This is the first full period with apparel brands. Shrinkage and antisocial behavior also continue to be a challenge for the safety of our team and the performance of the business. There is, quite frankly, an alarming rate of antisocial behavior towards our team. In Myer Retail, there was a 79% increase in antisocial behavior in FY25. Approximately 58% of all incidents included verbal or physical abuse. In Myer Apparel Brands, we record an 11% increase in antisocial behavior, with about 44% of incidents involving aggressive behavior, physical or verbal abuse. In FY25, we invested in product protection and technology, including CCTV and personal safety cameras, to help keep our team members safe, as well as addressing the financial impact. We recognize that the Myer Group is not the only retail business navigating the challenges associated with retail theft and antisocial behavior in its stores.
The problem is endemic and has clearly escalated in the past 12 months, particularly in Victoria. Not only is it happening more often, but the severity of incidents is growing. We understand there's no quick fix. The issue requires a collaboration across industry, government, and authorities to develop a comprehensive response to support the community. Given the priority we've placed on health and safety and the well-being of our people, this remains an important issue for the Board and Executive Team. Myer is committed to playing its part in developing a response to protect the retail sector and our people. Slide 10 underscores the point that we are really pleased with how Myer One continues to go from strength to strength, as I touched on before. We've extended Myer One to apparel brands with increased active members, and our tag rate is at a record high.
With the growth we're seeing in the online channel and as customers increasingly engage in omnichannel, this tag rate for Myer Apparel Brands is exciting. This increased data will help us to better understand our customers. As we approach peak season, this is even more exciting and presents significant opportunities. Our plan is to harness the power of our popular loyalty program to develop data and customer insights to help inform decisions as we look to reposition and grow apparel brands. These insights will help shape the brands, how we market, and how we influence product development, as well as pricing and promotion. We believe Myer One is a strategic differentiator for our business and will be a core driver of growth across the Myer Group. With that, I'll hand over to Cathy, who will take you through the financials in more detail.
Thank you, Olivia. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to present my first full-year financial results for the company and the first-ever results as the Myer Group. Moving to slide 12. Slide 12 indicates we have adopted segment reporting for the first time to reflect the two operating segments within the group. Myer Retail includes our department stores, Fashion By Marcs and David Lawrence brands, and our online business. Myer Apparel Brands are the brands and stores that have come into the Myer Group this year by the Just Group acquisition. We separately show our unallocated and corporate costs in other. Moving to slide 13. Slide 13 shows our sales composition for the group, Myer Retail and Myer Apparel Brands. Following the combination with apparel brands, our sales are more diversified, with approximately 26% or $1 billion of sales now coming from brands owned by the Myer Group.
On slide 14, you will see for the first time in FY25, the Myer Apparel Brands have been included in our results, reflecting its half-year performance. Comparisons, therefore, for total sales, operating gross profit, and cost of doing business should also be considered on a 12-month pro forma basis. To help you understand this further, we have included a pro forma income statement in this presentation on slide 37 for your reference. The total sales in FY25 were $3.7 billion, up 12.5% and 0.5% on a full-year pro forma basis, with the increase largely driven by growth from Myer Retail in the online channel and the home and beauty categories and the concessions segment.
Operating gross profit of $1.4 billion was up 17.8%, and operating gross profit as a percentage of sales was up 172 basis points, reflecting the inclusion of Myer Apparel Brands' segment with higher operating gross profit margin than the Myer Retail segment. Cost of doing business was up $188.6 million, or 22.6%, and cost of doing business as a percentage of sales was up 230 basis points. Of the $188.6 million increase, $145.4 million related to the inclusion of apparel brands. For Myer Retail specifically, cost of doing business as a percentage of sales was up 100 basis points. EBIT for the group was down 13.8%, and underlying impact before significant items and impairment was down 30%, reflecting a challenging and complex year. Statutory impact was -$211.2 million. Given the quantum of this, it is important to make a few comments here to explain.
Statutory impact was impacted by one-off non-cash impairment of $213.3 million for Myer Apparel Brands' goodwill, arising as part of acquisition accounting. Acquisition accounting requires the purchase consideration to be valued using the closing share price at acquisition date. The Myer share price at the time of transaction completion was $0.985 compared to $0.645 at the time of announcing the proposed transaction on 2024-06-24. The effect of the impairment is to recognize apparel brands on Myer's balance sheets in line with the value implied by the $0.645 share price. Additionally, we recognize significant items of $34.7 million, including costs for the transaction, strategic review, apparel brands, and Fashion By Marcs and David Lawrence implementations, restructuring and integration costs, and other asset impairments and write-offs. Moving to slide 15. The two biggest drivers of sales performance for the group were the inclusion of apparel brands and the growth in concessions.
We also achieved growth in home and beauty. This growth offset the adverse impact experienced in the first half relating to the challenges at our NDC. The sales bridge on the left also shows the total sales for Myer Retail were up 1.2% in the year, with an improving trend quarter on quarter. For operating gross profit, again, the largest driver of the increase year on year was the inclusion of Myer Apparel Brands. In Myer Retail, operating gross profit volume increased, and this was offset by mix and rate. Excluding the NDC impact, Myer Retail's operating gross profit would have been flat to slightly positive for the year. It's a solid underlying performance given the challenges in the year. Moving to slide 16. On this slide, we've included 12 months for Myer Retail actuals and six months for apparel brands in both FY2024 and FY2025 for comparative purposes.
The increase in cost of doing business related to higher store employee costs associated with minimum wage increases totaling $26 million. Investment in building capability across our store support centre to enable the execution of our strategy, totaling $11 million, and the impacts of the NDC in our cost of doing business, totaling $6 million. These increases were offset by the restructuring benefits associated with Fashion By Marcs and David Lawrence. As Olivia has already noted, cost of doing business was a major challenge for the group, and as we shared with you at our Investor Day, cost management in the current macro-economic environment is critical to supporting the delivery of our strategy. Therefore, we have commenced a structured value creation program, focusing on initiatives to reduce complexity and cost, as well as increase productivity across the business.
While this will take time to implement, in FY2026, we are targeting cost of doing business as a percentage of sales for the full year to be lower than the second half of 2025. This is the first full period with apparel brands. Moving to slide 17, we are reporting our segments at total sales, operating gross profit, and contribution. This is the Myer Retail segment. Our contribution is not adjusted for corporate costs, which we will show as another segment in our segment note in our accounts. As previously mentioned, Myer Retail sales performance was driven by growth in beauty, home, and concessions, and was offset by lower sales in Myer exclusive brands and national brands. Comparable sales were up 1.4% on the prior corresponding period.
Sales from our online business were up 6.4%, which was assisted by growth in sales from Marketplace, up 41%, albeit off a lower base in FY2025. With our sales mix shifting towards concessions, an increased level of promotional activity, and the impact of the NDC, Myer Retail's operating gross profit was down 65 basis points to 35.9%. Contribution margin was also down 100 basis points, reflecting channel mix shift to online, brand mix shift to concessions, and category mix shift to home. Contributing to the decrease was the increase in store costs, predominantly in labor, either as a result of minimum wage increases and online variable costs to support the high volume. We are pleased that Myer One has continued to record solid growth, achieving a record high tag rate at 79.5%. Moving to slide 18.
The sales bridge on the left highlights the main growth driver of sales performance, being our concession brands. The middle chart reflects operating gross profit, highlighting volume growth as the key driver of operating gross profit growth, driven by homeware and entertainment and the beauty category, with mix reflecting, as previously mentioned, the shift to concessions. As we have also previously mentioned, operating gross profit was impacted in the first half of the year by the challenges of the NDC. Overall, Myer Retail's segment contribution was down 6.1% for the year, impacted, as previously mentioned, by store and occupancy costs. Moving now to Myer Apparel Brands. Sales in Myer Apparel Brands decreased 1.7% on the prior corresponding period. This was driven by a softer performance in Dotti, partially offset by growth in Just Jeans. Dotti's winter range underperformed, particularly in key seasonal categories.
A large factor in the Myer Apparel Brands' result was the impact of the macro-economic environment in New Zealand, which remains subdued, impacting consumer sentiment and discretionary spend. These headwinds were partially offset by stronger sales in quarter four across the Australian market, led by a solid performance in Just Jeans. Comparable sales were also down on the prior corresponding period. However, excluding the underperformance of Dotti, comparable sales were flat. Operating gross profit was down 1.8%, driven by Dotti's performance, with reduced margins as deeper promotional and clearance activity was implemented, driven by competition in the market. Segment contribution performance was down 13.1% in the second half for Myer Apparel Brands, driven by the increase in store costs associated with the mandated minimum wage increases in the year across both Australia and New Zealand, as well as the underperformance of Dotti.
We are excited to have launched Myer One in Myer Apparel Brands, with the tag rate already at 47%. In a similar way to the data we have for our Myer Retail customers, we expect to be able to harness the power of Myer One to unlock data and customer insight in apparel brands. We expect this data and deeper insight to help us work towards repositioning the brands for growth in the future years. Moving to slide 20. Slide 20 shows the sales, operating gross profit, and segment contribution bridges to help you understand the key drivers of better performance for Myer Apparel Brands. As already discussed, the lower sales largely reflect the performance of Dotti, with flat sales in Jay Jays, Jacqui E, and Just Jeans. Volume was a key driver to operating gross profit performance, driven by Dotti, but offset by strong performance in Just Jeans.
Segment contribution for the second half of FY25 was $77 million, down $12 million from the second half FY24. Moving to slide 21. On slide 21, we break down significant items and the one-off non-cash impairment of goodwill related to apparel brands. As we have noted, the impairment of Myer Apparel Brands' goodwill has arisen as part of acquisition accounting, which requires the purchase consideration to be valued using the closing share price at acquisition date. Significant items pre the goodwill impairment totaled $43.9 million before tax or $34.7 million after tax and include costs related to the acquisition of the Just Group business, as well as costs associated with the Myer Group strategic review. Moving to slide 22, our total capital expenditure was $9.6 million lower in FY25 compared to FY24. Our largest investments for the year were in stores for redevelopments, in our brands, and in our operations.
Myer Apparel Brands' capital expenditure was also primarily related to new stores and store refurbishments. During the year, we also invested further in our online business and in our systems, albeit at a lower level than the prior year. Finally, on slide 23, we show our performance for the group for the second half of 2025. We are encouraged by the performance in the second half. On a pro forma basis, we delivered 1.7% total sales growth, and OGP as a percentage of sales was up 388 basis points. That said, cost of doing business was also up, reflecting the inclusion of the Myer Apparel Brands' business in the second half of the year, and as a percentage of sales, it was up 386 basis points.
As we have noted elsewhere, we have commenced the implementation of a value creation program to partly offset the continued cost of doing business pressures being observed in FY26. We are targeting our cost of doing business as a percentage of sales for the full year to be lower than the second half of FY25 for the first full period with apparel brands. With that, I'll hand back to Olivia.
Thanks, Cathy. I want to spend a few minutes providing a quick update on how we're executing against our strategy and on our trading performance for the first seven weeks of the first half of 2026. Slide 25 shows some of the highlights for FY2025 and year to date in the first half of 2026, as we move at pace and execute against our growth strategy. We said that FY2025 would be a year of resetting the business, and we've progressed that, while recognizing there is still more to do. We remain very focused on delivering against a program of initiatives to drive growth and to also build advantage. It's, however, important to note that we've commenced executing our strategy, and we are focused on positioning the business for growth. The next two slides provide some color on specific areas of progress since Investor Day.
On slide 26, we're pleased with the launch of Myer One for apparel brands. As I've mentioned earlier in the presentation, the already strong tag rate post-launch gives us confidence that we'll be able to gain more data, better understand our customers and segmentation, and use those insights to help inform decisions as we make to reposition and strengthen the apparel brands' business. The apparel brands' transaction accelerated our key strategic objective of creating a leading Australian retail platform. It delivers enhanced scale and capabilities to drive growth, as well as operating leverage. This slide also notes the overall launch of Myer One is on track for October. In fact, it'll be in a few weeks' time.
The Just Jeans Store of the Future rollout has progressed with stores at High Point, Riccarton, and Marion open for business, and an additional store in Miranda is open to reopen in a few weeks. Myer One data will also further support us developing insights from these new stores that will help inform the continued rollout of this new store format. On slide 27, we've shown some of the new brand partnerships and brands that have returned to Myer. This has included the introduction of brands including Endota, David Beckham, Guess, Glasshouse, Custom Chef, and Cook Shop, and returning brands such as Sports, Craft, and Jag. On slide 28, we've provided additional detail on the NDC plan.
The plan includes several functionality and capability benefits, such as a new warehouse management system that can support the NDC, improved cross-stocking capabilities to drive store efficiencies, and a central replenishment capability designed to improve inventory processes and reduce markdowns. We expect that this long-term solution will have capacity to fulfill approximately 70% of online home deliveries. This generates significant benefits for the business and also our customers by improving single package delivery. Importantly, the plan will also see the consolidation of Myer Apparel Brands into the NDC, with automation delivering reduction in operating costs. We are targeting to invest an incremental $32 million in the NDC and benefits of approximately $20 million on an annualized basis once complete. Just as importantly, the NDC will underpin our omnichannel network strategy, allowing for future growth.
Slide 29 is a reminder of the areas we are targeting synergies from the integration of Myer Apparel Brands and the integration of Marcs and David Lawrence. We're progressing well on integration, and in FY26, we'll deliver one-third of synergy benefits previously announced. We continue to target $30 million of annualized synergies in the first half of 2027, and into FY28, we'd still expect to exceed the $30 million. We have delivered significant refinancing benefits in FY25, with a small benefit included in FY25 with a full-year benefit from this in FY26. We've also renegotiated some major supplier agreements for apparel brands and progressing the Marcs and David Lawrence integration, including consolidating support functions into Myer Group, reducing store footprint and concessions, and reviewing the brands and their positioning. Slide 30 is also a reminder of our focus areas for FY26, which we presented at Investor Day.
We will progress each of these over the course of the year and provide updates as we go. Finally, on slide 31, we've had an encouraging early momentum in FY26. Total sales for the first seven weeks of the first half of 2026 are up 3.1% on the prior corresponding period. That said, performance remains mixed across the retail segments. This includes total sales for Myer Retail up 4.3%, while total sales for Myer Apparel Brands is down 1.3%. We continue to see growth in key categories for Myer Retail, including in home. This is encouraging as we approach peak trade season. The recent easing of interest rates has supported retail activity in some sectors. However, the consumer in Australia remains cautious, and the retail environment in New Zealand remains subdued.
It's anticipated that the NDC challenges will continue to impact financial performance in the first half of 2026, with the cost of doing business pressures experienced in FY25 continuing in FY26. As we've noted, the cost of doing business pressures experienced in FY26 are continuing. In FY26, we are targeting cost of doing business as a % of sales for the full year to be lower than the second half of 2025, which is the first full period with apparel brands. That concludes our presentation, and I'll now hand over to David for Q&A.
Thanks, Olivia. We have time to take your questions. I'll ask that you please limit yourselves to two questions and then rejoin the queue. Harmony, can you please open the line for our first question?
Thank you. Once again, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Garth Francis from MST Marquee. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thank you so much for taking my question. Just regarding the FY26 cost guidance being below second half of 2025, so that was what, 30.5% of sales? In the PC period, it was at 26.8%. Can you give us a sense? Is that going to be closer to 30%, or is that going to be somewhere in the midpoint of those? Just to get a sense of where that might land.
Garth, it's Cathy here. I would ask you to consider somewhere between 29 and 30.
Okay, terrific. Thank you. The NDC, the cost you called out of $32 million to resolve that, is that all going to fall in 2026, or is that spread a little bit over 2027? The resolution of that is planned for 2027. When can we expect that full $20 million run rate to uplift from the resolution of the NDC issue?
Yeah, Garth, it's Olivia. The investment will largely fall in 2026. That investment, as we explained, obviously looks at everything from the warehouse management system, additional automation, and for it to be operational by July next year. The $20 million annualized is also coming through, we believe, in 2028. That's $20 million annualized, but obviously there'll be benefits throughout that, but the full annualized amount will be in 2028.
Thank you. Your next question comes from David Errington from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Morning, Olivia. Morning, Cathy. Olivia, if you could go to slide six, your sales overview. I find this quite an enlightening slide. It's quite encouraging, but there's areas there that you probably need to work on. If we start off with apparel brands, I was quite worried at your May trading update when I think you were down 3.9%, and you seem to have had a very good fourth quarter. Could you go into where, how, why, what drove that very strong fourth quarter? What, you know, it seems to be down in that first eight weeks, you're still only, you're down 1.3%. My suspicion is Dotti is really dragging you down. What are you going to do about that? Because, you know, down 9% is the rest of the business looks pretty good. I thought, I was really worried. I thought, oh God, Saul's sold us a puppy.
I thought, no, it looks, it's manageable. It's just Dotti. What are you going to do about that? The second part of that first question is on Myer, it looks pretty tidy. There's some areas there that you could need to improve. Cathy's slide there, I think it was slide 15, showed that Myer exclusive brands was down $11 million. Given the strategy day and conversations we've had, you've got to get Myer exclusive brands really wriggling along if you want to get your margin growth. What are you going to do there in the next little while to get Myer exclusive brands going? There's two parts to the question there, or three parts. What's going on with apparel brands? What's going on with Dotti? Then your Myer exclusive brands.
Thank you. Thanks for the question, David. I think your assessment of apparel brands is the right question to ask. You're spot on. We did see a strong performance in Q4, and that was obviously driven by brands like Just Jeans, for example. We've seen denim trade particularly well across the group, and that includes Just Jeans. If you take a step back and have a look at overall trade, it has been challenged, particularly around the apparel category, and we've seen that across the group, and you've seen that across the market. Importantly, the question is, what are we going to do about it, and where do we see the opportunity, including in Dotti? Our approach is similar to the approach that we've taken with Myer, which is that when we have a look at these brands, we need to really understand the customer to understand how they're trading.
The rollout of Myer One is the first step in this process. This has been in place for now coming up seven weeks, and Myer One will give us information around who the customer is, where they are choosing to spend their money, what other categories they are purchasing in. It will give us a more rounded view from a customer perspective of who the customer is today. That is important for a number of reasons because it helps identify who the customer of the future should be, where those customers are that we need to acquire, and what is the best approach for each and every one of these brands.
This information will help us be very clear around what the aspiration should be for the brand, who the customer is today, who the customer is for tomorrow, and what changes we need to make, and changes when I talk about change, including in product. There's clearly been a few areas of product failure in Dotti, which the team are working on so that we can have improvement over the next period of time. These brands, from the research that we've done, are brands that are loved by the Australian public. They've got great resonance with their core customer. The opportunity for us is to continue to make them relevant for the customer of today, to invest in the right areas, and to make sure that we can have an approach which is going to attract new customer segments.
Data is the key to this, understanding the customer, and really making sure that we can make product refinements and also invest where we need to to target the new customer. When I say invest, I'm just talking about understanding the customer, understanding who they are, and working out what the right one is to attract them and market to them. That's what I'm talking about there. We see there is opportunity. We're starting to get a good sense of who the customer is, and it's about making sure that we're very clear across all brands so that we can orientate them for growth. We're on that journey, David. Let me get to Myer exclusive brands, yeah.
Yes, so David, on Myer exclusive brands, on your second question, yes, you're correct. At Investor Day, we did say we are investing behind these brands for growth because they are high margin, as you referenced. The waterfall chart that you see in the pack and also on slide 18 actually reflects the impact of the NDC in the first half of the year because the NDC, if you recall when we did our half one result, it was all about our Myer exclusive brands being trapped, and we couldn't actually get them out for sale in Victoria and Tasmania and South Australia in particular. You recall we said we had an $11 million impact at sales for Myer exclusive brands at the time.
That's driven by the NDC, and it's also driven by we are starting to rationalize those brands in the second half of the year as we make way for the new five Myer brands. If you recall, we have 13 Myer exclusive brands. We're retiring eight, and we're going to invest behind five. That's what that downside is in sales. That obviously plays out in our operating gross profit as we reflect what it means from an NDC perspective. Obviously, it was more than the Myer exclusive brands that were trapped, but the majority of that trapping was involving the Myer exclusive brands.
David, just to follow up on that, Cathy’s spot on about what has occurred this year. We are very focused on bringing back the Myer exclusive brands. We are, as Cathy said, we’re taking five to market. We outlined that on Investor Day. They will land in February, and these brands will be focused on a particular customer segment and delivering to their needs. You’ll see that in the second half of FY2026, and we’re very focused on delivering that. We’re excited about that opportunity and making sure that we can have all our 13 brands, not just our five exclusive brands. All 13 brands within the Myer Group need to make sure that they are performing as best as we can.
Okay. I think I've had more than the two questions, Olivia, so I'll follow up with a few more afterwards. I've got a couple more, but I'll follow them up because I think I've had more than two questions.
No worries, David. Okay.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ari Mervis from Baron Joey. Please go ahead.
Okay, hi to you all. Just first on for me, just on the $20 million of annualized benefits from the NDC solution, just to confirm, are you looking at that compared to fiscal 2025? FY2025, there was obviously a $16 million total impact. Are you saying the $20 million is basically the unwind of the $16 million plus an extra from other benefits?
No, Ari, the $16 million is separate. The $20 million is off the FY25 cost basis that relates to the current operations of the NDC, the in-store fulfillment that we're doing. It's the cost per unit pick in FY25 as an aggregate cost per unit pick compared to what the cost per unit pick will be once the NDC is fully functional.
Gotcha. If you have to bridge FY2025 to FY2028 when you get to full run rate, then you've got a $16 million of benefits or cost unwinding from the NDC that hurt your business this year, plus an additional $20 million from improved cost per pick. There's about $36 million of benefits over the next three years.
Yes, Ari, yes, that's correct. The $20 million also includes the $5 million as it relates to we're now bringing the apparel brands into the NDC as well. That's correct. You just need to keep that in mind when you're considering the $20 million. That's $15 million for Myer Retail and $5 million for Myer Apparel Brands.
Is the $5 million part of the $30 million synergy? Are we double counting it, or is it incremental to the $30 million synergy?
No, we're not double counting it. It is part of the synergy, correct.
Okay, gotcha. There's $15 million of extra benefits plus $5 million of synergies from moving it over that gets you to the $20 million.
Correct.
There is another $16 million benefit from just the one-off cost unwinding over that period of time.
That's correct because ultimately we're now with a 3PL for this peak, so we won't be having that $16 million cost in post that we had given the challenges of the NDC in half one.
Gotcha. For the synergies, $30 million annual by first half 2027, are you saying you'll get to annualized run rate by the end of first half 2027? The first part of it. The second part of it is, how do we think about the phasing? Obviously there hasn't been any synergies realized this year, which is understandable because it's a transition year. How do we think about how much contribution will be from synergies over FY2026 and then into fiscal 2027, please, to get either the $30 million?
In FY26, we should have just over a third of the synergies realized. As we bring the NDC online in FY27, we should pretty much have at least two-thirds realized, with the balance of it in 2028. There are obviously some synergies that we are unable to commence that we had called out as yet, but we have to wait to get into the NDC, and that specifically relates to putting the apparel brands on myer.com.
You get about $10 million of benefits on the EBIT line in FY2026, another $10 million in FY2027, and then the rest in FY2028 because that annualizes into fiscal 2028.
Correct. Yes, because we're talking about annualized all the way through.
Yes.
Last one, please, just on the sales. The trading update, total sales are up 3%, but I recall your Veribee store was closed same time last year. Do you mind giving us some color around what the like-for-like sales growth is in the first seven weeks, I guess?
We can probably come back to you on that. We've got a pro forma total sales in there as it relates to including Myer Apparel Brands, but we will come back to you on that, Ari.
Sure, thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Charmee Ratnapala from Bell Potter Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Olivia, Cathy, and the team. Thanks for taking my questions. I think the first one would be just expanding a bit on the categories from one of the earlier questions. I think beauty and home have outperformed in FY25. For the first five weeks of FY26, the categories women's wear and home, if I believe, were noted. Are we seeing a bit of a category shift, or maybe could you elaborate on where it's moving or which ones are outperforming and underperforming?
Yeah, look, I think home is a category that's performed incredibly well over the last 12-month period, and we've indicated that along with beauty, which you can see in the numbers there. Home, that's actually the best result for home that we've had since 2009. Just to give you a size of how well that business is performing, and it's performing across the board. We have wholesale, we have some concession partners there, but importantly for home, we also have Myer exclusive brands, which we outlined at Investor Day, such as Vue as an example. It's a category that's performing well, and we're continuing to trade well in that category. Beauty for us is obviously a very important market for us. It is important for our growth strategy, and it traded well in the year, but there are more opportunities.
Between now and Christmas, for example, there are 38 new brands that we'll be introducing into Myer. We are very much focused on our growth strategy, which is focusing on new brands in skincare, K-beauty, younger brands, and also ongoing growth in the fragrance category. If you reflect on the trade period that we've provided, that seven-week update, yes, we have seen some, from a Myer perspective, we've seen some improvement in women's wear, and also home continues. This is where we're saying that there is some, you know, there is some patchiness in the market. Some sectors are performing better than others. Home continues to strengthen. Beauty has been a constant for us, and we're starting to see some improvements in women's wear in Myer.
Perfect. Thanks, Olivia. The second one from me would be on online sales. That looks pretty high as well, compared to the historic penetration that Myer Retail or Myer Department stores have had.
Yeah.
Marketplace contributing there, but what's the thinking? How much will penetration go up to, or what's the thinking on the channel make sense?
Omnichannel is very much part of our strategy around making sure that the customers can choose to shop wherever they choose to, whether that's online and in store. As you've mentioned there, online growth has been, is strong for Myer, and that's driven by the loyalty business. We have a very strong tag rate, both online, also in store, but online, and it is an important channel for us to continue to invest in and grow. We've got a very engaged customer base, and the data and the insights that we can have absolutely drive that online engine. That is part of our strategy into the future. As Cathy Carybatsis mentioned before, we also intend to bring the apparel brands into myer.com. We can't do that until the NDC, so that will be from between July to October next year, and that presents a further opportunity for apparel brands.
That's important because of the number of visitors that we get to myer.com every year. It is important, as is Marketplace. At Investor Day, we outlined our intentions for further growing Marketplace. We are also undergoing a platform change there, but we're seeing strong online growth. It's going to be part of our future. The data and the Myer One program is critical for it, and we see there's opportunity for apparel brands into the future as well.
That's clear. Thank you very much.
If I might just come back to Ari, that comp sales growth in the second half, Ari, for Myer Retail was 2.3%.
Thank you. Your next question comes from James Tracy from Blue Ocean Equities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, Olivia, Cathy, and David. Thanks for giving that like-for-like sales growth 2.3%. It looks like there's a distinct acceleration if you compare that to the pro forma sales growth in 2025 to the level that you've started FY2026. Could you provide a bit more detail on what's driving the acceleration? Also, in the context of that slide six, you noted that the home category is growing more rapidly than in a long time. At the Investor Day, you mentioned that there'd been a lot of work done around the product there, particularly Myer exclusive brands. Is this, I guess, evidence of the work that you've done bearing fruit? Is it a sort of a leading indicator for what could happen in other categories as you start to do more of that?
Absolutely. I think, you know, things that we've touched on already around what is driving it. Home is a category that's obviously important for us. If you take a step back, it demonstrates one of the strengths of Myer Retail, which is that we participate in multiple markets, and it gives us that diversification, whether it be home, whether that be beauty, whether that be intimates, which is also performing well. It gives us that diversification. Home as a category for us is, as we've mentioned, had best years since 2009, and we're seeing encouraging signs this year as well. That's really driven by the approach around understanding the customer, making sure that Myer exclusive brands are delivering on what the customer wants for today, picking up on key trends into the market and leaning into them, and making sure that we have an offering across all customer segments.
That's been a particular focus of the team in product development. This is across soft and soft furnishings and also against other categories such as electronics. It's really an approach around understanding customer, meeting the demand, and trading into it. The team has done a great job. One example here, there was Bubble Ceramics. For those of you that follow Myer on TikTok, you'll be familiar with it. For those that aren't, I'll fill you in. This is a great example. We've sold out three times. The team has done a great job to sell this as part of our social e-commerce strategy, very much targeting the younger customer. We saw a significant shift in the customers 18 to 24 and under the age of 40 became the number one purchaser of this particular item that, as I said, has sold out three times. It's a home product.
It's under the Vue label, margin behind. It just gives you an example of understanding the customer, understanding where the trends are, using the right channel to sell it, using our data to drive the sales. This is going to be an ongoing theme for us. In terms of MEB, it demonstrates that when we understand the customer and delivering a product, we can make it work. That's what we're looking to replicate across our apparel offering in women's wear and men's wear.
Yeah, that's good. That's very helpful. Thank you, Olivia. A question around the guidance you've given. You know, a reduction in the cost of doing business as a % of sales. It looks like a significant improvement versus last year. It looks like pro forma cost of doing business went up around 130 basis points in FY25. There's a big swing there. Can you comment on expectations around gross margins? If you back out the NDC costs, it looks like gross margins would have been flat to slightly up as well. What's your view on sort of gross margins and, I guess, EBIT margins for FY26?
I'm not going to give you any guidance here, but what I can say is I think we did comment, or I did comment earlier on the fact that if we didn't have the impacts of the NDC in particular, our operating gross profit would have been pretty much flat. I won't be giving guidance on gross margins or EBIT margins.
Fantastic. Thank you, Olivia.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sam Haddad from Petra Capital. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Just first question, just on the NDC, the remediation support cost in the second half to about $4 million that you've quoted. Should we just extrapolate that into 2026 in terms of the ongoing support costs for 2026, around circa $8 million?
Sam, it's Cathy here. What you can assume is that those costs won't be ongoing in FY26 because we've now engaged a 3PL provider, and we don't anticipate to have any of those remediation costs going forward.
Right. In 2026, that $16 million becomes zero, that drag.
Correct.
Right. Just on the MEBs, you called out at strategy day 400, 450 basis points in terms of product margin opportunity once they launch in February. Does that EBIT benefit, is that over and above the $30 million of synergies with the apparel brands?
Yeah, that's not part of the synergies, the MEBs. You should consider that differently. Myer exclusive brands is part of our growth strategy. That's not to do with the synergies for apparel brands. That's completely separate there.
Okay. Just going back to the cost of doing business, looking at the apparel brands, that's obviously the main drag there on slide 23C, 386 basis point increase there. You sort of addressed this in one of the earlier questions that you're looking to focus on, you know, understanding the customer, turning around those sales. Just wanted to talk about store footprint. Are you still comfortable with the store footprint? Is there a tail end of stores that are sort of really dragging the chain that you might reassess?
Yeah, as you'll recall, Josh, who's our Head of Property, talked about this at Investor Day, and there is a network review ongoing. We obviously want to optimize our network across the group, not just for apparel brands, but across the group, and that's an ongoing piece of work. We made a number of decisions for store closures in New Zealand, given the performance of those stores over consecutive years, and this is an ongoing approach. Yes, we will continue to right-size. There's no new news at this stage, but it will be an ongoing conversation that we're having inside the business to ensure that we deliver the right returns for our shareholders.
Sam, if I could just clarify, I think you mentioned that Myer Apparel Brands was a drag on the cost of doing business. It's actually not necessarily a drag. It's just the inclusion of it in the second half of 2025, and on a comparative basis to FY2024, it's not included. That's why the number looks significantly higher on slide 23.
Okay, thanks for your time.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Alan Franklin from Canaccord Annuity. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hey, morning. Thanks for your time. Just a query on CapEx, please. Just a little bit of layering on forward intentions and timing. Just noting there are some refurbishments on the Just Jeans. Any sort of commentary on Myer Department store refurbishments? Just to clarify, on the NDC side, much of that cost will be coming through CapEx as opposed to OpEx. Any other sort of draw-outs we should be thinking from a CapEx perspective?
No, there aren't any. I think we're very clear our investments for FY26 are specific to the NDC. There's no Myer Retail store refurbishments on the plans for this year at this point in time. As it relates to the Myer Apparel Brands business, we have an ongoing program of work as it relates to store openings or store refurbs that are captured in our CapEx plan.
Just a quick one on the Myer One, please. In August, you removed your family pooling within memberships. I'm just interested in terms of what impact that has had and perhaps just when you do have the shoppable app, you know how long will it take to get sort of meaningful insights from how that is going in the market?
Yeah, Al, I think you are one of the few people that were impacted by family pooling. I think you raised that with us some time ago. We did remove it with the view that we're making changes to relaunch the program in a few weeks' time, as you're aware, in October. Minimal impact. It was done for a reason that we're just, from a systems perspective, we're launching the loyalty management system that we put in place, which is now live, which is why the shoppable app is soft launched. In the future, there will be a way for our members to transfer points to family members. It's in our plan, minimal impact, and the program will be relaunched using the LMS in a few weeks' time. Hopefully, that helps. Shoppable app is now live. This will continue to reiterate.
It will be officially launched off the back of the Myer One relaunch in October. We obviously have a highly engaged membership. We're already seeing encouraging signs. It is very early stages in this, and as I said, there'll be an improved version of it that gets relaunched when the Myer One program gets relaunched in October. It's going to be a really important, really important channel for us. A lot of our customers shop on the mobile now, so we think that this is going to drive further online activity for not only Myer, but in time to come, apparel brands.
Agree with that. Thank you.
Pleasure, Al.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sean Cousins from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Just a question regarding the first seven weeks in apparel brands. Are you seeing sort of any of the brands in growth, or are some of the other brands in growth? It's really a Dotti and New Zealand issue, as you called out, for the second half 2025 that seem to be the challenges to date in the first seven weeks, please.
Yeah, look, I mean, Just Jeans, we saw perform well in the fourth quarter, and that's continuing to perform well. We haven't obviously broken it down by brands, but you should expect that what we saw in Q4 is continuing. Yes, we do have ongoing issues with New Zealand, given the subdued nature of that economy and consumer spend and some matters that we're obviously working through with Dotti. Similar trends that you would have that we saw in Q4 continue into this year. Great.
You've made some solid work on theft. Could you just talk a little bit about what shrinkage is as a % of sales in the Myer Department store business? I believe your number only incorporates your own brands and national brands. It doesn't include concessions. Could you talk a little bit about the broader sort of shrinkage that's going on in the store in aggregate, not just across the... If those trends in shrinkage that you've seen, have they also played out for the concession brands because they had more stock in store and can possibly be at times easier to sort of on-sell?
Yeah, look, I mean, shrinkage has obviously been a focus for the management team, and I think you can see the benefit that that has delivered. We've done that through the investment across CCTV and cameras, all those sorts of things, and also looking at high-theft items, as you would expect in, say, for example, perfumes, and making sure that we've got the right level of glass or encasing to make it far more difficult for these items to be stolen. It's about 1.4, approximately. We're down to 1.4. This will continue to be a focus for the team. We need to continue to be quite regimented in the way that we focus on shrink. It's not a set and forget. We need to make sure that we're very focused on this because it can quite easily, you know, quite easily change. We're very much focused on that.
You're right, it doesn't obviously include concessions because that's... Yeah, but it does include wholesale, right? It doesn't include concessions because that obviously goes back to those partners. We've made good inroads, more to do, and it'll be an ongoing theme given the environment that we're operating in with violence in store and ongoing organized crime. It'll be a focus for us as it is all retailers.
Sean, it's Cathy here. It's down from 1.7% last year.
Yeah. Fantastic. That's great. Thanks so much, Cathy. Thanks, Olivia.
Pleasure.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Garth Francis from MST Marquee. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking a follow-up, Olivia and Cathy. Just a quick one on just the mix of concessions. It sounds like you've had some wins that have been publicized. Can you just maybe talk about what you're expected to see as part of the concession mix and whether there are any other changes for FY2026 that we should be aware of?
Yeah, part of our growth strategy in apparel for men's and women's is to make sure that we have the right brands on offer as part of our assortment. There has been a review, which we outlined in quite a lot of detail at Investor Day, about where we're focusing and what the focus is going to be for apparel. That includes not just concessions, but wholesale and also MEB. You should expect new brands coming into the business and also underperforming brands exiting. Between now and Christmas, there'll be 18 additional brands coming into apparel for Myer Retail. That's 18. We've already seen, obviously, Sports, Craft, and Jag, and we are continuing to roll out new brands which are meeting the needs of our customers. Concessions have performed well in FY25. They play an important mix, but it's important, it's very important.
Make sure that we also have the right offering from a wholesale perspective and also get our Myer exclusive brand back to where they need to be, which is why we're relaunching the five brands in February.
Terrific. If I can just on the store network, I know you said that was an ongoing discussion internally, but are you expecting to see, you mentioned no refurbs for 2026 Myer, but are you expecting to have to give up any store space in terms of your renewal?
I would just say, on store renewal, we are looking at beauty halls across the network. What we were saying is that we don't have anything to talk about today around firm CapEx, around an overhaul of a particular store. There is going to be investment in beauty halls over this period of time. It's a focus for us. It's a key competitor set for us, and we'll continue to make investments where it makes sense. For example, in Liverpool, a top performing store for us, we've just rolled out four new pads there. It's an investment that we need to make along with our partners. There will be a targeted investment where we know the return on that investment is the right one.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from David Errington from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi Olivia, hi Cathy. Look, just a quick follow-up. There are a few concerns out there. I just wanted to have this cleared up. In the first half with Myer, your cost of doing business, you did a really good result. I think your cost of doing business in the first half, if I look at your slide, only increased by about $9 million. There seems to be a significant step up in the second half. Can you just give us a bit of comfort that there hasn't been a blowout in cost of doing business in that second half? Is that just, you just did such a great job in that first half that you didn't, you weren't, because I noticed in that first half you took $5 million out of operational cost savings. That didn't seem to come through in the full year.
Can you give us a bit of an update there? There is a bit of discussion out there on the operating cost of doing business in the Myer business. If you could do that, that'd be great.
Thank you for the question. That's the right question to ask. There are a few things at play here, particularly as we outlined in the strategy data, investing in capability to ensure that we can deliver on the growth strategy. That was not in the first half, that was in the second. We moved on.
How much is that, Olivia? How much, how much, Dirk, can you say?
Yeah, no, $11 million. $11 million.
Right. That wasn't in the first half. That's all second half.
Yeah, that's all.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, does that make sense? Also, the.
That's important to know.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's important. That's 11 in the second half that wasn't in the first half. That's important.
Yeah.
Sorry, I cut you off.
That's okay. There's a slide that details that. The 11 that I've mentioned there, we'll just get the page number.
Slide 16.
You see the.
Slide 16.
SSO costs. There's investment in transformation. These are all transformation capabilities and investment in new capabilities. It wasn't in the first half, it was in the second. I think, David, the way that this sort of transpired is we locked in our strategy at the end of the first half, as you remember, and then we went about recruiting for the increased capability to execute on the strategy, which is what we spoke about at investor day.
Yeah. Now going into 2026, that 11, that was all in the second half. That's probably what's going to keep it up a little bit for 2026. Hopefully, 2027, not want to put words in your mouth, but we could probably expect that to start coming out or at least being worked more efficiently. Is that what you're doing?
Correct.
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Can you give a bit of sugar on this efficiency program that you're doing to do that?
Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. Which is why we've launched, you know, what we've called the Value Creation Program, which is really important because we absolutely want to be vigilant to make sure that we can keep the cost of doing business down. There are different ways that we can drive efficiencies across the business. I'll give you a few examples. We've talked about needing to have more efficient ways that we're doing sourcing and supply, for example. Darren, you'll recall on investor day, talked about the complicated network that we have around how we go to source, but in MSAL, which is our office based in Hong Kong. This is one of the initiatives as part of our value creation, which is removing and walking away from MSAL and moving to direct sourcing.
That will mean that we'll have, that's important, and it's an important first step because once we have the direct sourcing model in place, obviously that reduces our cost of doing business, David. Importantly, it also brings us more in line with how our power brands do their direct sourcing, which means that we can get benefit from actually working together and getting benefit from scale. That's an unlock of the scale. Another example is the way that, again, referring back to what Darren talked in investor day, is simplifying our distribution network, removing the hubs, which will lower our distribution costs as well. That's another example. The other bucket that we're looking at is just operational efficiency. Reviewing the way that we go about our business, one example, which is underway, is getting optimization of store hours of our employees in store and having greater flexibility there.
That is a significant program of work, which is already underway. We will continue to keep you updated around what's in the value creation pipeline, but this is going to be critical to make sure that we can continue to manage the inflationary pressures that are in the business and investments that we're making, which will ultimately deliver the growth to the business as well.
Yeah, I think that's important. Sorry, Cathy.
Yeah, so value creation is targeted specifically at cost, the cost lever of the P&L. The strategic initiatives are more so targeted that we talk about, like with our Myer exclusive brands or what have you, more our strategic initiative delivery. Then we've got our integration synergies. In some cases, the value creation opportunities or initiatives are step one to unlocking some of the integration synergies as well. It's important to think about it. There are three buckets of benefit that we're looking to deliver: strategic initiatives, value creation initiatives, and integration synergies.
Yeah. As well as putting investment in, a large chunk of it, you're putting investment in to set the business up so as a congruent future.
That's part of our strategic initiative. I'll give you an example. The loyalty management system, which we've put in place, is a very important one because you wouldn't be able to relaunch the program. The reason why loyalty management system is important is because you can use the data at scale. It doesn't have to be as manual as it is, and you can actually optimize, which drives greater personalization, greater targeting, will drive cross sales, drive online sales, and ultimately reduce the cost of acquiring new customers. That's a very important investment. Yes, we are making investments which are very much linked to how we're going to be driving the growth. Some of those investments, David, are not necessarily CapEx in nature, but OpEx. We are continuing to invest in our e-commerce platform, and we have in FY2025. That cost hits our cost of doing business.
I think it's just important that it's not just all headcount that we've put in, that we are continuing to invest in our current systems as well from an OpEx perspective.
Yeah, yeah. It's natural to expect an increasing cost of doing business. All power to you for OpExing it. I know another company that puts everything in CapEx if they can. Thank you for your great answers. I really appreciate it.
Pleasure, David.
Thanks, David.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Ms. Wirth for closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone. We really appreciate you taking the time to dial into today's session. Hopefully, we've provided as much information as we can. We are making great progress on our growth strategy. We're moving at pace. It's very clear that there is opportunity here. It is a multi-year transformation, and we'll continue to work towards our plans to drive growth and build what we believe will be Australia's most powerful retail platform. We appreciate your support, we appreciate your time, and we look forward to meeting many of you over the next period of time. Thanks for dialing in.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.