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Thank you, David, and welcome everybody to the, I think it's the 11th call that we've made as a publicly listed company. I t's my pleasure to explain to you today that we're going to do our call a little bit differently than what we've done in the past. In fact, the people that generate the cash that produces the profits at Steadfast, and then ultimately produces the dividend flow, w e'll all talk. Instead of me rattling on and trying to cover things that they might say, you get to speak to the real people that are at the head of the cash- generating units contained within the network. If David, you could go to page four. This is a boring slide that people look at and say, "S o what?" I w ant to get into the meaty part.
I have to tell you, this slide is the DNA of how we have run this business since August 2013. It is the way we look at the business every month to make sure that whatever we do is better than what we did the months before, to make sure that the end result of handling nearly $7 billion of public money produces what we said that we would do when we actually put the prospectus out back in the beginning of 2013. You'll see if you read from left to right, that we have achieved compounding growth all the way along. This is what we strive for. This is what we believe Steadfast has to represent as a public entity. I ask you to reflect upon those areas. Boring as the slide may look, simple as the slide may look, it is exactly how we drive the business.
If you could go now to page five of the deck. We're just extremely proud of what we've just achieved in the last 12 months. Our underlying NPAT A, up 14.5% to $346.2 million. Our underlying NPAT, up 17.2% to $295.5 million. Our underlying EBITDA, up to $591.4 million or 11.9% and our diluted EPS NPAT, up 14.2% at 26.7 CPS. We as a group, are extremely proud of those numbers. We think those numbers are outstanding. We think for a group of people that operate in various sectors of the insurance industry, to be able to continually show accretive compounding growth like that, it is our job done. Part of how we do that is the selection, and working with a group of people that are the engine room behind Steadfast.
I'm very fortunate and proud to say that this transition that we've been making over the last few years is well represented. I'm pleased to say that this year Tim Matheson has stepped into one of our chief cash generators, the insurance broking operations. Tim's been with our business into his 11th year. He's done many things for me during those 11 years. Firstly, he came in and understood what we were trying to do, and then helped build their businesses by producing business plans for them. Secondly, he undertook a few years ago, to step out of the executive role and into the job I gave him to build a mini network of Steadfast up in Queensland. He completed that job for me about a year ago, and I asked him to come back in to Steadfast Executive and he said to me, "What would I do?"
I said, "I'm not sure." He said, "Well, when you're sure, ring me up." Earlier this year, I got sure and I rang him up and I said, "I want you to take over nearly 45% of our revenue, which is the insurance broking network, and I want you to be CEO and I want you to build a team underneath you." He came and started with me. The next person that I want to reflect upon, and in no specific order, so please don't draw any inference that I'm saying this, is somebody that I've worked with for, into the second decade, Mark Senkevics.
I worked with Mark during his various iterations at the highest level in Swiss Re. I was fortunate enough to convince him that the job of running a $2.5 billion MGA business was more important than working for the second or the first largest, depending on what you are, reinsurer in the world. Mark's skill level has been outstanding as he worked across a whole range of disciplines contained within Swiss Re, not the least being managing and executing many MGA initiatives, supporting us back 21 years ago almost, as Swiss Re underwrote our ERATO program, which is the system that we have for providing $100 million cover for our network brokers if they make an error or omission in the execution of the duties. That relationship with Swiss Re goes back to June 2004.
I welcome Mark in. I welcome all his skills. I welcome all the things that he brings in, having worked on an international basis and his kind way that he usually is able to interact with people. What when Nigel decided last year that he was not going to make public life his future, but in fact he wanted to go out on himself, we're supporting that in other ways. We were lucky to pull a fantastic woman to come in and be our Chief Operating Officer, Noelene Palmer. Noelene came in as an understudy to Nigel last year, which is a terrible way to express it because candidly, when she knew she was going to be COO, she pushed past everyone and actually in a de facto way, started from day one to be the COO. Her CV is exceptional.
It's at the highest level of corporate life, and we're very, very happy to bring that sort of influence into our organization. It's been a successful integration, and a powerful start to her career with Steadfast that goes back well over 12 months ago now. We also have for years struggled, I believe to get a really appropriate and correct person to run the technology division. We've had a few iterations, and whilst we've developed and gone extremely powerful with our IT division, it's the envy of the market. I say that with great gusto, and I say that with great, great direction that it is. We were fortunate to get the ex-CIO of Allianz to come and join us, David Gillespie. The impact that he's made directly in our IT division, remember our IT division is a huge function of anything you do in the insurance industry, has been outstanding.
Ferzana Yale has stepped into our Chief People Officer. Ferzana comes with experience in a couple of companies that we've known, and we welcome her into the organization. Lastly, but by no means least, is one of our long-standing employees. Over nine years, Hannah Lee has worked in Steadfast. She'd work assiduously to produce a credible framework of how we produce our balance sheet. When we decided that we were going to put an international division together, we asked somebody that was actually shadowing Stephen, if he ever was going to leave, to move into the CFO of International. That gave Hannah the opportunity to shadow Stephen, which has been going on for quite some time.
As Stephen's leaving the organization this afternoon, after 12 and a half years of penance by working with me and doing an incredible job, and producing 11 wonderful results, Hannah will do an interim job of doing that. I just mention those new people that have strengthened the team. I want to make reference to the transition that Samantha Hollman's made from COO over the last couple of years, and to take on the CEO role of the international assets. It's been an outstanding job, and a great relief for me to not have her breathing down my neck every day and telling me what I'm doing wrong. Although she's not on the screen, she's intimately part of what we do. Let me reflect upon the business structure and how we work.
I always get asked after we do our results, "Oh, they're complicated. We're not quite sure what it means." I think Stephen for years has absolutely explained that to people, to make sure they absolutely know what it is. The way of the future for us will be to actually demonstrate our cash generating units, and we'll give you their performance towards their budget, towards their contribution to the guidance. In future, it'll be a simpler and a clearer way for you to understand how our money comes in, how our divisions work, and you will be able to look carefully at the prior year's performance and the ongoing performance as it performs to guidance. In the Steadfast broking system, FY 2025 saw us complete all of the acquisitions that we put into our FY 2025 guidance.
We completed the numbers, we did what we said we were going to do. Sometimes people say to us that we are a little boring about what we do. I want to tell you that when we make a determination of what we're going to do, we work very, very carefully to make sure that we achieve that. Part of that was, the questions that got put to me all the time is, how are you going with the completion of your acquisitions? The answer was, we're going really well and we're doing what we did. I've just been told that I'm flicking the paper that I've got in front of me, so I'll stop flicking it. Our investor relations AGM took my pen off of me, so that I didn't sit at the table flicking it. I have very little to play with. I will stop playing with the paper, like that.
The person who did that first is one of our key people in our IT division. [crosstalk] has christened her Google, which some people think is a bit rude. It's not. Why would an IT expert be christened Google? I answer that question for people that are wondering and thinking it's a terrible thing to do, because she knows everything. Thank you for reminding me that I was flicking the page, but just getting back to it, o n the broking, we made the decision to bring Tim in, as I've explained who Tim is. We also brought over, you met those who attended the conference and the investor briefing, Rhiannon To ohey. Rhiannon was doing the analysis of how we improve all our businesses. She’s accepted the role of CFO of the broking division under the CEO, which is Tim Matheson.
Our data analytics and reference system that we have, has just been completely and utterly the success of our business in many ways. We started data analytics in this organization in June 1999. Our database, that we know about what we do and who does what in the insurance industry is the envy of everybody. We actually have major insurers coming to us and asking us, "Hey, what do you think about this b ased on our data analytics?" T he reference center has been completely upgraded. Our benchmarking process has been expanded. The ability to be able to tell 403 brokers what their peers are doing over a range of income and a range of areas of expense, has been outstanding and been fantastic. Our compliance audit system has been centralized. The rollout of CX360 has been immensely helpful to people about what they should and shouldn't do.
It's a system that automates their responsibility and delegates who should do what in their organization, and produces reports. Our network needs to grow, and I’m pleased to say that we are continually growing the network. 17 new brokers joined the network in FY 2025. Just reflecting on the insurance markets, everybody talks about, is the insurance market dropping? Everybody thinks that by dropping premiums, that obviously our net profit is going to go down. The mid market, which is 96% of the businesses in Australia, which we own a vast percentage of in the distribution in this country, the mid market is still pushing rate. Whatever you hear, it's at our end and we're reasonably successful in insurance distribution. We're seeing rate being pushed in the mid market.
The reality is that some select lines, cyber is a big example, D&O, of course you’re aware of over the last two or three years collapsing, and some parts of the PI market are softening. In broad terms, it is not a waterfall. It is a moderation and softening of compounding increases that we've seen over the last four or five years. Eventually, it had to stop and eventually they had to get towards technical rating. Now, some stupidity is occurring out of the Lloyd’s market, by Lloyd’s throwing some capital into this market at silly prices. That will reflect in a few ways. It reflects a little bit in the strata industry. In other places they spoke about that, we would say that, yes, the impact of some new strata players into the Australian market has created, others are saying a drop in price, I'm saying competition.
An example of that was Hutch, w hen it came together. W hen the CEO of Hutch came and spoke to me and said, "We're going to set up a strata agency in competition to you, what do you think?" I said, "We'll connect you into our client trading platform to put competition into the market, b ecause that's the DNA of insurance broking. To be competitive, to be on top, be ahead." Now I'm proud to say that we are a major supporter of companies like Hutch, and we will continue to bring people into our organization that create competition, that create price efficiency for the consumer. Just let me reflect on a statement that everybody asks. If you ask this question, I'll still answer it, but every time I am asked, "Well, is the market softening?"
When is the investor market and the analyst market in Australia going to realize that insurance broking doesn't get predicated completely on the horizon fall of premiums? You've seen our own organization be at the forefront of asking for reductions in commission on households. The simple proposition that we put to the market was, if a consumer's paying three and four times more for their household policy than they were five years ago, is the rem we got four or five years ago worth four or five times more in the consumer's eyes? I want you to reflect on that because when we say we want to reduce the commission on some product lines, it's not because we're raising lunatic. It's because we want to meet the expectations of the consumer and provide what we should do.
In other words, charge a price that's reflective upon the advice and the detailed work we have to go through to place it. Please reflect on us when you look at us and say, if we say we're going to get 3%- 5% rise, that's probably just the normal rise you would expect to get on an inflationary upset for increased costs. It doesn't mean that our net profit's going to drop. Just reflecting on Steadfast underwriting agencies, I'll highlight Sure. Sure was an acquisition that people looked at us as if we didn't know what we were doing. "Hang on, you're going to buy an agency in Queensland that helped people that couldn't get insured get insurance free?" Nobody looked past the efficacy of how Sure did business. Nobody looked at the fact that they knew how to underwrite householders in fact better than most major insurers did.
Nobody looked at the fact that they selected their risks, they underwrote their risks. Now, interestingly, Sure wanted to expand around Australia. We were the ones that wanted to buy it, to expand it around Australia. The existing overseas insurers and in some places, Lloyd's were not anxious to put more capital in certain areas. We had to realign the binders of Sure. I can tell you that we did it nicely and we did it effectively. Nobody got offended. We have two of the major insurers in Australia taking 40% of Sure's binder business, CUFG and QBE. Now, you think CUFG and QBE, who are two of the most astute insurers in Australia, are going to back something that they don't think is viable? We're very pleased to say that the Sure binders for Queensland and far north Queensland now have 40% support of two Australian insurers.
Interesting. What morphs out of that was, before people will come in and underwrite a binder, they actually come and look, the astute ones do, the smart ones do, and how you do business, how you go about getting your business, how you handle your claims and how you underwrite for profit. I'm pleased to say, as a result of that, one of those insurers, QBE, elected to allow us to take Sure under a different name, Castle, all around Australia, with their system, with their digital way they analyze things and 100% supporter of Sure. Another thing that we've done is, with the advent of Mark coming in and Stephen Ward supporting him in what you might call Chief Underwriting Officer role, is the consolidation of the 30 underwriting agencies that we've got. T he ability to bring capital together. That's been effectively done over the last 12 months.
I think you're going to see a bit of a renaissance that Mark will talk more about a little bit later on. Finally, in terms of the underwriting agencies, our binder system, which Sam Holland will talk about a little bit later, is in a two-year period of moving it out of where it's been in the past and into HWS specialty. O n international, w e did the H.W. Wood acquisition. It operates in all sectors of the world. We're very happy with what we've got. Sam will give you a section on it. We also just completed the acquisition of Novum. I'll talk about Novum in a little while on the next page. ISU, which was our first foray into North America, has been extremely successful and there's a couple of iterations on it. I won't talk any more of that.
I'll talk a little bit about Novum, and then I'll allow Sam Hollman to talk about it. S he runs that. In the technology side, I spoke about David Gillespie, his impact on it. Also, we've just acquired Insurebot, an online little broker system which we thought was sensational. Could we have built it? Yeah, we could have built it. Would it have taken us time? Maybe a year to get it running ? We liked the guys in Insurebot. We thought they were absolutely aligned to the way we think about business, and we were fortunate enough to buy them and run it alongside our other digital platforms. T hose guys will make a big difference to our business. Finally, I'll get off at this particular time, I'm s orry if I've been rattling the thing again.
Finally, let me say that the Steadfast Apps, which Tim will talk about, unfortunately David Gillespie can't present today. He's got a death in the family, and he's flown home to look after that in Europe today. Tim will go through that. What we've done in Steadfast Apps is the most revolutionary thing that has ever been done in the Australian insurance market on a technology basis. It takes INSIGHT and Client Trading Platform to another area that nobody is going to understand how efficient it is.
People think it's efficient and works well now. Strap in for the ride when Steadfast Apps runs up because it's going to be hard and fast, and you're going to wonder, "H ow did anybody do that?" Well, we did it. Not me, thank God, somebody else that works with us. Okay, page six. Thanks, David. If you understand that, you're a genius.
I put it up there to confuse you, to make you think, "God, that's really incredible the way that looks." The reality is, it is incredible. It's a raison d'être for why we bought Novum. If you're going to go into North America with 350 million people and you want to flog general insurance, if you think you're going to get people in cars with hats running around and buying people donuts, you are mad. You have to work digitally in North America. We needed a platform. We have a platform in Australia. We could have picked it up. We could have put capital into North America. We could have made it work , we could have said how great it was. That would probably have been 1929. Okay, we got the opportunity to buy this platform. 8,000 agents use the platform. It's an MGA platform.
In the last 12 months, 2,000 of those agents placed over $100 million U.S. business into the platform. We can bring our MGAs into North America in an orderly manner, in a simple manner. For instance, the first one will be Emergence, probably. The day Emergence connects into the platform in Cleveland, it'll have access to 8,000 agents. Novum can put out an advice and say, "Hey, we write cyber insurance through this area," and then those 8,000 agents around, remember 2,000 did business with us last year, t hey have the opportunity to just send a slip in. It's a great way. Sam will talk more about that, as long as I haven't said too much. She can't kick me under the table. She's too far away. If I've stolen [crosstalk] , don't worry, I apologize. Okay, page seven. For those that are bored with me speaking, this is the last page.
This is our guidance. The NPAT A, w e're guiding 360- 375. The NPAT, 315- 325. EBITDA, 650- 665. Our EPS underlining NPAT of 6%- 10%. People always say to me, " Why do you guide high and low?" I think Stephen and I have ad nauseam said, "We give you a high to low, is that you can bank below. W e give you a high n ot because we thought, put the thumb in the air and say, oh, I wonder where it'll be." There are things and machinery within Steadfast that could get you that high level. They may or may not come off, but we want you to be able to bank below.
I ask you to have a look at the guidance below, and have a look at FY24, we did 23.4, 26.7 in 2025. G o across to the FY 2026, you'll see it's between 6% and 10%. If you have a look at the organic, just back from there, it's 3%- 7%. The target is 7%. The minimum before we cut our throats is 3%. We're working to, if we get the 7% and the 3%, we get the 10%. We're trying to bring you in to show you that what we put out is not some fallacy, it's not some, I hope that works. It's actually predicated and those figures are correct.
We want to never confuse the market by saying, "Hey, we're going to do this and we're going to do that." The bottom will be 6%, top will be 10%. Key risks, obviously we have to do that disclaimer and we expect a 3%- 5% which rise in premiums. That I think is probably just covering the cost of increased claims. Without further ado, I'll stop talking. F or those that are sick of me talking, t hat'll make a pleasure for you and I'll introduce you to Tim Mathieson.
Great. T hanks very much, Robert. I have to start off by saying how wonderful it is to be back here at Steadfast. I can see so much opportunity ahead, and it feels a bit like coming back home again. Ne xt slide please, David. The Australasian broker network performed strongly in FY 2025, with gross written premium up 6% to $12.5 billion. Our growth was primarily due to increased sales volume over the prior year, and premium rate increases from our strategic partners.
During the year, we had 17 new brokers join our network, taking us to 402 network brokers. 297 of these are in Australia, 70 in New Zealand, and 35 in Singapore. Steadfast Group now has equity holdings in 68 of the 402 network brokers who place around half of the network's gross written premium. It's important to note, the spread of our brokers across geographies and product lines has offered us good protection from the moderating market.
Next slide, please. Looking across our global broking network, broking achieved solid underlying earnings growth of 10.6%. Includes a number of step- ups in existing equity businesses, taking our ownership of EBITA from 77% in FY 2024 to 81% in FY 2025. Included in t his table and waterfall chart for comparison to prior year investor updates, shows that on a consolidated basis, assuming 100% ownership of all equity businesses, underlying EBITA has grown from $412 million in FY 2024 to $441.2 million in FY 2025. The group has achieved a good balance of organic growth from our core broking businesses, while complementing this with acquisitions across our global network. Next slide please, David.
As Robert mentioned earlier, InsurTech is such an important part of our strategy and I thought I'd spend some time on this, discussing how these platforms are key to driving revenue growth and margin improvements into the future. Market-leading InsurTech platforms enables brokers to operate more efficiently and grow their business. These platforms free up brokers to focus on client engagement, providing them tailored advice and in-depth risk analysis. Firstly, the SCTP or the Steadfast Client Trading Platform. It's our digital marketplace, which provides brokers the ability to input client risk information in minutes and source quotes from multiple insurers in seconds. In FY 2025, GWP transacted through the SCTP, its gross written premium transacted through the Steadfast Client Trading Platform, increased 15.6% to $1.4 billion.
It's important to note, this figure excludes the likes of PSE, Honan, and Invest, who are no longer part of the network, so there's now $1.4 billion going through that platform. Secondly, Insight, our proprietary broker management system. It's a cloud-based system accessible anywhere in the world, and designed as an open platform to enable connectivity to other business applications. It provides integrated dashboards to show business insights, business performance insights, and allows brokers to make data-driven decisions. FY 2025 is now 235 broking businesses live on the Insight platform, with over 7,800 individual platform users. Robert mentioned, we recently announced the acquisition of Insurebot. The system uses rapid or robotic automation to source insurance quotes from multiple sources, speeding up the delivery of service to our clients.
Insurebot currently generates quotes for domestic motor, home and contents, landlords, and workers compensation products, with additional offerings planned to further improve automation for brokers. I'm told this morning that we currently have 38 brokers already using Insurebot, and 93 additional brokers within the Australian network who are waiting on demonstrations who are onboard to that system shortly.
In the appendices of today's pack from page 44, you'll find some further detail on each of our tech platforms, along with an overview of our new CRM and workflow automation solution which Robert r eferred to as Steadfast Apps. Steadfast Apps will bring together the entire technology stack, and provide incredible benefit to our broker network. On that note, I'll go to the n ext slide, David, and hand over to Mark Senkevics to talk through the underwriting agencies. Over to you, Mark.
Okay, good. T hanks very much, Tim. Before you start, you've actually got a proper job here [crosstalk]?
I have, yes.
Oh, good. I feel better.
I'm grateful you've welcomed me back here.
Oh good. [crosstalk] you do have 45% of our revenue.
[crosstalk]
Thank you. Come on, Mark. I'm s orry.
N o, thank you, Robert. I've also enjoyed working with Tim. Excellent growth in the GWP of the agency space. We have 30 agencies and brands delivering 100 different products, and the important element here is that we have a very diversified portfolio mainly focused on SME, but it sits across commercial, consumer, and specialized products. I think that's a really important element when we speak about the moderation of the market, that we have a strong immunization delivered by that diversification. A few highlights I think that have taken place in the year and a l ittle bit of a look forward.
First of all, CPS 230 has been a theme in the agency space. I'm really pleased to say that we've gone a long way across all of our agencies , in achieving the regulatory requirements that are required by our insurers as a result of the CPS 230 regulation. In doing that, we've also looked therefore across , how do we align our businesses? We've taken our in-house underwriting agencies, and we've separated those into a consumer, a retail- focused business, and a commercial business. That has seen some consolidation of a number of our smaller agencies into that space, to provide greater efficiency and delivery to market. As part of that, we're investing in underwriting platforms.
We've seen that in our high net worth offering throughout FY 2025, and as a result, great broker participation in the portals that we have, and therefore an increase in revenue that's being derived from that. We'll be rolling out similar platforms into our commercial agencies as we look forward, and that will also offer us an ability to put more of those agencies onto the Steadfast Client Trading Platform, which I think will be an excellent revenue driver. The underwriting platforms and actuarial capability that we've built in-house will also facilitate much deeper relationships with our insurance carriers, which is critical to us. You would have seen throughout the year, that both CHU and UAA signed on for long-term deals. Robert mentioned the Castle binder with QBE. That also is a relatively long-term deal proposition. That will help us carry that b usiness forward into the future.
Moving forward onto slide 14, David, please. If we look at the results for t he agencies, we see a revenue growth of 11.1% for the year, and a 10% growth of EBITDA that sits slightly behind. T hat's explained by the investment that we've made into CPS 230 and the underwriting platforms that I mentioned earlier. We've seen continued strong growth across the agencies and actually profitable growth. We've delivered profit to our underwriting partners, which is, as you can imagine, really important for us. Plenty going on for FY 2025. Robert mentioned the Castle brand, and you'll see from us a number of other brand launches and new product launches looking forward. With that, I'll hand over to Sam Hollman who has the exciting years o f some growth in our international network.
Thank you, Mark. I'll move to slide 16 please, David. T hank you. I'll start with ISU Steadfast. ISU Steadfast, it's the first full financial year we've had ownership of this organization, and really pleased to say how it's performing strategically, financially, and operationally at this point, it's continued to grow its earnings base and exceeded budgeted FY 2025 profit, and we've had 7% net growth in members. We're receiving more interest than ever before for independent agencies to join the network, due to the combination of our improved value proposition and marketing initiatives. We've rebranded the company to ISU Steadfast. We ranked third largest agency network in the U.S. based on agency revenue, and we've been awarded the five- star Insurance Network agency and alliance in the U.S.
We're also receiving a lot of demand from independent agencies that are smaller agencies that don't quite meet our criteria to join the membership. Due to this incredible demand, we are considering and implementing a lighter membership tier that will be able to attract these independent agents who are representing a growing market in the U.S. segment. H.W. Wood , I will move on to. It was a new acquisition for us in FY 2025. We've since rebranded it to HWS Specialty, and it's really an important acquisition to support our international expansion and global networks. We've already put our Steadfast placements team integrated into HWS Specialty, and the synergies are being realized by merging those businesses already, with more to come.
We've also launched this proposition and opportunity in our Australasian, our U.S., and our Unison Steadfast networks, which basically equates to 900+ new agencies and networks for them to be dealing with. We are building out the capability in the property and casualty teams to service the demand of the global networks. When we purchased this acquisition, they had seven specialty areas that we knew weren't the strengths 100% of where we wanted to build out, which was the demand of the network in property and casualty. We're building that capability in that business to service those needs. We're also building out capability in the delegated underwriting authority space to move the management of the agency binders in- house over the next two years, which will create a new revenue opportunity for Steadfast. Of course, finally, on this page is the Novum Underwriting, our most recent acquisition post 30 June.
We needed to mention this and talk about this, as it will be significant to our strategic foundation. That moves me on to slide 17 p lease, David. Thank you. We completed the strategic acquisition of a majority stake in Novum Underwriting Partners, a specialty underwriting agency and wholesale brokerage located in the U.S. Novum was acquired in line with our previously acquired international businesses, and will be value accretive day one on a standalone basis. It is a strong and fast-growing business today, but I emphasize it is the runway of additional growth opportunities to come , we are excited about. The rationale for acquiring Novum is to leverage our U.S. strategy, creating growth and accelerating our opportunities. It will significantly expand market and technology capabilities for our ISU Steadfast Network, our underwriting agencies in Australia and HWS Specialty in London.
We will use Novum as our program development and management platform in the U.S., offering the specialist managing general agency and wholesale solutions for our ISU Steadfast Network members and the broader market. It will also serve as the platform and marketplace to support the launch of select Steadfast underwriting agencies into the U.S. market, and binder solutions created by HWS Specialty in London. The Novum acquisition is an exciting step forward in building out our global operation. If we could move to slide 18 please, David. T his explains our international strategy, how it interconnects our distribution networks and solutions we provide across geographies, all benefiting from being part of the size and scale of the Steadfast Group. It encompasses five main areas, one being referral network. Our U.S. and Australasian networks have access to international broking solutions by Unison Steadfast and referrals can go both ways.
We also have retail distribution via HWS Specialty and Novum, and wholesale brokerage via HWS Specialty and Novum. All three networks have access to HWS Specialty, providing London market access for individual risks and the development of London binders for other product and program solutions. We also touch on the underwriting agency space in the binders and the programs. HWS Specialty provides capability to existing and new programs for Novum and Steadfast underwriting agencies. Both also have the ability to distribute HWS Specialty solutions to their broker and agency clients. This will also allow us the ability to expand our underwriting agencies into the U.S. Novum will provide that platform for Australian agencies to expand, and it will expedite the process and make it more economical with technology already in place.
We also underpin this structure with the ability to share expertise and resource across the entities in technology, functional support, capital, and market relationships. This map is the strategic foundation we set out to establish and will serve our members, their clients, our subsidiaries, and Steadfast Group with a runway of additional growth and opportunity. Thank you. I can move on to the next slide. Thank you, David and to o ur next topic.
This is Stephen Humphrys. Now, you may remember Stephen Humphrys. He's been my CFO for the last 12 and a half years. You may also remember that he actually set up Steadfast 29 and a half years ago in 1996 as a young accountant in a firm, which he ended up heading up and being the managing partner for. Stephen retires today, after delivering this, another outstanding result. I'd just like to say, as far as I'm concerned, he's been an unbelievable support to me. He has terrible jokes. I won't miss his one-liners and hi poor judgment on football clubs. He backs the Wests Tigers. I don't think I've had more intimate a relationship with anybody in my life than I've had with Steve and how we think about life, how we think about people, and how driven we both were to make this a success.
Just on behalf of the shareholders, the 1 billion and 47,000 shares that we have out in the market and $7 billion worth of capital, thank you, Stephen for the work you've done to produce the side-by-side support of me. I hope in your retirement, you get your health back in order and spend a bit of time with your family. On behalf of everybody, thank you, and this is your last rodeo, so off you go.
Thanks, Rob. I didn't realize our relationship was that intimate.
It was that one night. It was that one night [crosstalk].
Good morning, everybody. I'm going to actually share the financial section today with a very capable Hannah Lee, who's accepted the role of Acting CFO going forward. Hannah's actually been working with me for nine years, most recently as the Group Financial Controller. S he's across the complexity of our group, shadowing me on various strategic and capital management initiatives. I'll start on the results. The FY 2025 results were actually in line, as you know, with our guidance metrics, delivering that bottom- line NPAT growth of 17.2% and our earnings per share uplift of 14.2% over last year. The cash earnings per share were up 11.6%. There's solid organic growth delivered by the brokers, the agencies, as well as our complementary businesses.
The moderating insurance market conditions have been well publicized, but it was pleasing to see what you might call the first fruits of our performance initiatives come through in the second half, which allowed the earnings momentum of that first half to flow through into the second half a lso. W e flagged that there would be more moderate revenue growth, but this would be coupled with a moderating expense base. That showed in our sectional results, particularly in the broking that we've already mentioned. The organic growth was again supplemented by that further acquisition growth, with acquisition of new businesses as well as increased ownership stakes in existing subsidiaries. Some opening remarks on the results. First of all, as I said, we noted that the pricing momentum from our strategic partners was moderating, and that did continue in the second half.
The guidance for next year assumes that more moderate pricing environment. Secondly, we executed slightly early on some of our Trapped capital acquisitions, which delivered say, that strong results. We continue to have a strong pipeline of acquisition opportunities. It's never dried up in the time we've been here. As noted at the half- year call, some of those acquisitions were step- up in existing equity holdings in our current businesses. That means the way you account for it, you don't have additional EBITDA, but you actually have reduced non-controlling interest. Which is why on the slide that Tim talked to, we wanted to show the fact that a lot of our acquisition spend actually did increase our bottom line earnings, even though it may not have flowed through to EBITDA. It just comes through that less non- controlling interest.
In contrast, for next year, in late June 2025, we actually bought two further stakes in two businesses, one in New Zealand, one in Australia, where those businesses go from an associate to a subsidiary, which means we actually have additional earnings next year, but greater non- controlling interest. For instance, there's $140 million of revenue and $100 million of expenses that will now come into the P&L. That $40 million will replace roughly $17 million of profit from associates. However, you then have to record the additional tax, amortization, financing expenses, and the non- controlling interest when you flow through to the final guidance metrics. Hence why the EBITDA guidance is a slightly stronger number than what you had for the bottom line. It's all to do with our lovely accounting standards, which I've never tried to justify.
The seasonality for FY 2025 was just over 43% in the first half and just under 57% in the second half, which is what we forecasted in February. N ext year, 2026, we would expect first- half seasonality to be around about that 44%- 45% range. As per usual, it's always subject to the timing and the quantum of acquisitions that we complete through the year. Given time constraints, we've actually shown the normalization of statutory profit to underlying in the appendices this year. They have the same typical items that we always adjust for. S lide 22, please. Sorry, David. Slide 22, g rowth in EBITDA, as I said, has c ome from both our LIMs, organic and acquisition growth. Sorry, back one slide. Sorry there, Dave.
21.
Beg your pardon. I'm sorry, slide 21. We've talked about the pricing environment. There's continued volume growth in agencies in particular, they continue to win market share. We have higher interest received obviously in 2025 on the trust and operating bank accounts, but that expense discipline across the business, including the head office was leveraging across our expanded business footprint. That's come through, and that's rebased our spend. You don't necessarily get that uplift in 2026, but you certainly saw it coming through into 2025. We also had positive contributions from our whole range of our complementary businesses this year, including the premium funding, the risk area, and the claims. Some of those areas, they don't show up in the broking and the agency slide, but they certainly come through into the group result, which is why that overall organic growth was 8.8% for the group.
Of course, the acquisition growth of 3.1% doesn't include the step up in the subsidiaries, as I explained on the last slide. You get another nearly 3% of acquisition growth that doesn't get shown on here. It gets shown in the non-controlling interest coming down. There was a little bit of bias in the acquisition growth in the first half, mainly because of the rollout of Sure that was completed in FY 2024. That's just how it flows through into 2025. If we can move to the next slide, on to the balance sheet.
Thank you, Stephen. Moving on to slide 22, we have our consolidated balance sheet and details of the debt facilities that we have refinanced in the last half. We currently have $1.1 billion of debt facilities with a range of three to seven years term. In addition to that, there are further accordion and shelf facilities that have pre-negotiated terms that we could seek to access for another $425 million. The board has approved an increase in our maximum gearing ratio from 30% to 35% in the first half. This provides us with greater flexibility for capital management, and allows the next range of acquisitions to be debt funded, further assisting our EPS growth. Our gearing ratio was 27% as of 30 June 2025. We could borrow an additional $365 million and stay within the maximum gearing ratio of 35%, providing considerable financial flexibility to fund growth opportunities.
We have limited risk exposure to interest rate movements. There can be some minor impacts to our P&L. In FY 2025, the strong interest rates have given us a 2% tailwind to our EBITDA growth, as we had circa $250 million more cash in our trust accounts compared to our borrowings. We're currently forecasting at about a 1% headwind for our FY 2026 as interest rates [come off]. We would forecast an increase in our financing costs in FY 2026, given we enjoyed an actual hedge on our borrowings in FY 2025, which has now been ceased and further leverage of our balance sheet as we fund future acquisitions by our debt facilities.
David, moving on to the next slide, please. Our businesses are working capital light and turn profits into operating cash flow. Ag ain, we had a strong cash conversion in FY 2025, with net operating cash flows of $374 million. We returned nearly $250 million to shareholders, with the remaining free cash flow of circa $125 million for the year. This of course, adds to our funding capacity for acquisitions each year. This $125 million of free cash plus $365 million of debt capacity that I have mentioned in the last slide, nearly equates to circa $500 million total capacity of the year. Now I'll hand back to Stephen for some final comments on the financials.
Before we go to the Q&A, if I could just make a couple of my little eulogy at the end, if I could. It does seem strange to say farewell. I remember on the road show, I coined the phrase that Steadfast is like Hotel California because you check in, but you never leave. S omehow I found the exit sign. I'd like to thank all the amazing colleagues in the Steadfast family. You've been a joy to work with. We've actually invested into over 300 businesses since 2013, and there's just such amazing entrepreneurial talent contained in each one of them. I want to acknowledge the strength of the C-suite historically, and of course the current team who've devised an incredibly strong business plan that just keeps on delivering.
The foundation stone's always been the network, and the ability for the brokers to obtain a whole range of services to better run their businesses and serve their clients. The technology tools that we have developed and continue to develop are global leading . F rom there, you get that opportunity to co-invest into their businesses as well as the agencies, providing that continued growth opportunities for us. We've always held the view, you only buy good assets at good prices and we've stuck to that along the way. We've actually been able to deliver growth throughout the business with that business plan, no matter what the economic cycle has been, no matter what the regulator environment has been, regardless of COVID, regardless of the insurance cycle l ike Rob's mentioned.
We've always had an eye on short- term growth, but most importantly, an eye on investing into that medium and the long term. W e believe that the most logical investor in Steadfast is a long- term investor who appreciates consistent growth on a defensive asset base, with solid recurring revenues that can just grow over time. With the latest acquisition in the USA, I think you've got now the key foundational assets from which Steadfast can execute on the international expansion plans into the future.
If I can quote one number for you, because I'm a numbers man, my number today is 20%. If you go back and compare 2025 to the 2013 prospectus to what we took to the market, the compound annual growth rate on both top- line revenue and the bottom- line profits is 20%. That's something that we're all proud of. It's been my pleasure to report to you record underlying profits each and every of the 25 half- yearly reports that I've been part of since the IPO. Thank you. I'll hand it back to you.
Thank you, Stephen. The biggest pain in the butt you were to your partners in the accounting firm that you managed before you came to us was, you were Mr. 20%. You used to drive them crazy. One thing they hated about you was the drive for profit. Thank you for what you've helped in this business.
Forgive my emotion, but obviously it's an intimate o ne. [crosstalk] .
Okay. Obviously, it's a [crosstalk] time for all of us with Stephen, I think. We are normal people, so we express the emotion, and this is the way we are. Okay, the final dividend up 14% to $0.195 from $0.171 last year. We managed to get you a 14% increase on the half year one, which was terrific. We've opened up the DRP this year to give a discount. We don't do that very often. The reason we've done that, is to allow the retail investors the opportunity to make some margin on the shares.
Sometimes the retail investor's forgotten by ASX 100 companies, we don't forget the retail investor. The reason we've opened the DRP up with a discount this time, is to recognize their support from day one and to acknowledge this is a segue for them to hopefully make some money out of their shares. Next dividend date, 3rd of September. Dividend record date, the 4th of September. DRP date is the 5th of September. Payment date, which is the exciting part, is the 26th September 2025. In saying that, I'll hand back to you, David. Thank you.
Thank you. If you have not yet submitted your text question or joined the live audio queue, please do so now. I will introduce each caller by name and ask you to go ahead. You will then hear a beep indicating your microphone is live. Our first question today comes from Julian Braganza from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys, and thank you so much for taking our question. Congrats, Stephen, again on a very successful career with Steadfast. Great to have worked with you over the last few years as well. Just my first question in terms of margins looking into FY 2026, I'd be interested in any commentary you may have just on how we should be thinking about that into next year, given some of the initiatives that you've taken particularly on the cost line. Thanks so much, [crosstalk].
Thank you, Julian. On the margins, obviously with the moderating revenue, we're trying to match that with a moderate expense base, which allows us to maintain the margins. We are consciously going to invest a little bit further offshore. That will also be part of that plan. We've got some investment we want to do to really build out that capability, which will bring the fruits back into the future years, 2027, 2028. I think maintaining margins is probably the key ta ke-away message.
Okay, great. Just by division between broking and agency, any color there just on margins, just given the investment you're making, particularly on systems in the agency side of t he business.
Maintaining margin particularly in broking, the agencies may add just a little bit further investment they want to do on some systems. There could be a little bit of a small decline there, but still obviously uplifting in the total profit for the group.
I think, Julia n, the MGAs can operate sometimes at a higher margin than the insurance brokers can. Sometimes t o expand an MGA doesn't necessarily mean you have to expand the FTE. The FTEs are a major cost in any MGA, so you would expect to have a higher margin out of the MGA network than you may have out of the broking network.
I can just add to that on t he broking side too. We have a really diverse portfolio of brokers across the Australasian network, who operate at considerably different margins. Despite us having a really strong average EBITDA, there's still plenty of opportunity in those businesses that are performing at a subpar level, which is why we've appointed Rhiannon Toohey into that CFO role, to continue driving subsidiary performance initiatives going forward.
I mean, Tim, you did hit rather expertly in the amalgamation of QIB.
Yeah.
How many did you actually put together into the QIB?
Yeah. We completed 18 acquisitions over the five years. With that same view that every one of those businesses was quite different, we took a considered approach to not only maintaining and growing that top line, but improving the margin. Most of the margin uplift opportunity doesn't sit within areas of discretionary spending, which is where people often start in that discussion. I think we find that focusing too much on that can have a negative impact on the culture of the business. I think there's still a large attrition rate. Not large probably compared to most industries, but let's say 10%- 15% of staff turnover each year in broking businesses.
There's an opportunity to utilize that natural attrition to our advantage, as we bring in new technologies that drive more efficiency as a result. I think that's how it needs to be done across our business. We bring together our 68 subsidiaries. We have serious conversations with them regarding the need to control expenses and have that focus. They're on board with this. We've been doing that for a couple of years now, aware of the moderating market conditions. I think we're slightly ahead of the curve there, t o protect us any further into next year.
Y ou did well for a Victorian who lived in New South Wales, who went to Queensland.
That's right, yeah.
Thank you. Our next caller is Andrew Buncombe from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations, Stephen, on an exceptional career. I might send you off with my first question, if that's okay.
Go on, you're not going to ask me about the premium rates, are you, Andrew? You're not going to ask about the premium rates, are you?
No, I know the answer to that already.
T hank you, Andrew.
Just in relation to slide 7, so i n the footnote, it has the number of shares. Y ou can see in the middle of the waterfall, the earnings. You've said 3% acquisitions for 2026. If you assume that's at a 10 x multiple, it gets you to an M&A spend of $90 million. Now, that's materially lower than what you've done in previous years. Am I doing that math wrong? What am I missing? Just any color there would be great. Thank you.
Okay. The actual share count there we put in has just a little bit of things like DIP, etc, that we assume may come through. You don't quite know what that number will be. The 3% acquisition is a little bit of a run rate from last year, but also, of course going forward for the acquisitions that we've got. We've mentioned already about Novum that's gone in there, and it's slightly EPS accretive. Again, that acquisition is more for the foundation strategic benefit as opposed to what we're looking for particularly on the bottom line t he first year, it's all about that strategic value. We're not actually putting commentary this year on exactly how much we spend or multiples for a particular commercial reason. Rob, you might want to talk to that part.
Yeah, I'm sick of telling the 300 acquisitions that we've done, the market exactly what we've done, how much we paid, and what we made out of them. I believe that now, as we head towards our 30th year, that we'll be [crosstalk] about that and keep it to ourselves.
Fair enough. The next question is for you, Robert. In relation to slide 36, you've been putting this up for a couple of years now. The non-equity GWP segment that you do not believe is available for acquisition, what is the strategy or what's the future around those brokers and their relationship with the group? Thank you.
Okay, it's a good question. I think that slide absolutely details our position, that out of $12.5 billion in sales, we do $6.6 billion that we control. T he $4.3 billion in the part up the top, the $1.5 billion, we take a very conservative view on some of the businesses there. I mean, there are some businesses in that $1.5 billion where they've already done succession. They've got kids that have come into the business, been successful and made an opportunity for the business to go ahead. I don't consider them to be potentially wanting succession.
Whereas that $4.3 billion on the left-hand side there on slide 36, there's no reason why when succession comes or some issue that arises where they may want to take some capital out of the business, that they will not come to us and at least ask us to value and put a price on their businesses. I think if you were to look at this business and say, what is the runway of Steadfast operating in Australia and New Zealand? The runway is $4.3 billion worth of turnover of businesses that are intricately linked into our services, in many cases, our software, reliant upon our expertise in the myriad of services that we provide into the network, the compliance, auditing, legal, technology, all of the training that we do. People stick in this network not because they make more money out of this network.
They stick with this network because the word network is just not a phrase that's thrown along. It actually is a network. If you saw the intricate infrastructure that runs this business and the amount of people that run the network services, it would be amazing to anybody to look at and I'm like, "How successful have you been?" When you look at what we do, that's the reason that we're successful. Yes, I think the $4.3 billion is potentially, over a period of time, upcoming, available for us to at least have a look at and compete again. For the most part, people will stay. There are some people who've sold outside the business, who've rung me and said, "I cannot believe how inept the people that I've sold to are, how they do not have a network and how their perceived solution for technology doesn't exist."
Is it okay if I ask Tim and Mark a question?
I didn't put him in here, Andrew, j ust film the seats in the boardroom. I put them here to open them up. The answer is yes.
Understood. Okay, let's go with Tim.
Yes, Andrew.
Tim, good to chat. Maybe a question for you. How do you think about balancing or how do you balance the need for M&A growth in the businesses that you've run while maintaining profitability in the core? Thanks.
Yeah. No, it's a great question, Andrew. I think that there's a real need to have a combination of both. I mean, the way that our organization is set up and the way that we deliver, broker services obviously is there to help with that organic growth piece, where the inorganic growth is led by a team of M&A professionals. I think we're quite segmented in the approach. Even though we work quite closely together, we have particular targets around where we'd like to be in those. Yeah, it's just by having a concentrated focus on that and teams that are aligned.
Yep. Maybe a question for Mark, please.
Yes, Andrew, on that [crosstalk] , are you ever told to go out and try to get people [crosstalk] have a target?
No, not in a particular way. I think it's led generally from the conversation from across the network. We get together, we have our annual convention, we have a number of engagement points throughout the year with our broker network. T hey know that we're available when they're ready to talk to us, and so it happens more reactively, you could say than p roactively.
For nearly 13 years. Yes. Sorry, Mark, he was going to ask you a question. Be careful. Andrew. Sorry.
Hey Mark.
Hello Andrew.
Hey Mark. Maybe digging into your current experience and previous experience for the next one, h ow do you think about the conflicts of interest that potentially arise when an insurance broker owns market leading MGAs? Thanks.
First and foremost, and I've had this discussion with a number of our broker heads who maybe do own MGAs, is that clients' best interest duty is first and foremost in any of their engagement. I've challenged them on that, and I feel very comfortable that that's the case. Andrew, m ore broadly, across our MGAs, while Steadfast is about $1 in every $3 in the network and equity brokers are $1 in every $3 in the Australian market, only 50% of our MGA business comes from Steadfast Brokers in the network.
That might feel overweight. However, if you consider that our agency is right in the SME space and Steadfast largely operates in the SME space, I'm quite comfortable with that. First and foremost, Andrew, clients' best interest duties must be served by brokers. Secondly, we openly compete across a whole range, with insurers and with MGAs. Our brokers likewise do, and 50% of our business comes from non-Steadfast brokers.
Excellent. Thanks, everyone. Congratulations on the result.
Thank you, Andrew. Thanks, Andrew.
The next question comes from Andrea Studnicka from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Stephen, congratulations on your career to date. If I can ask my first question around fees. I think some of your peers have mentioned that the market sometimes o verlooks the ability to drive revenue growth through higher fees. C an you talk a little bit about what options you see on the f ee front?
In terms of?
The fee [crosstalk].
I'm happy to take that question. I think there's an opportunity for brokers to effectively balance fee and comms based on the value that they're providing to clients. Most of our clients are SME, 85% of our clients are SME clients. They're dealing with those clients on a commercial basis. Providing a stronger value proposition to the client enables them to have those discussions around, what is an appropriate commission and fee rate to charge those clients? There's no push down from our end in relation to that. Robert's already touched on some examples where commissions have fallen, or we've proposed that commissions should be reduced accordingly. I think there's really no change in approach there. It's really about the broker's relationship with that client, to be able to support the fees and commissions that t hey charge .
Actually, be quite open and frank with their client to say, "This is the amount of money we need to give you this advice and service." I mean, if somebody's frightened to tell people how much they make for the provision of the service that they get, then there's something wrong with the pricing mechanism that they're putting to their consumer.
Yeah, it's not common, but there are a wide range of broker fee and comms models used across the network. We know of some brokers who have already moved to a full fee model service, and others that are still balancing the fee and comms equation. I t seems to have moved and adjusted over time, but i t comes down to that relationship t hat they have with the client.
There's an interesting statistic on that, one of our brokers that we're aware of, went a couple of years ago to straight fee [crosstalk] commission and their revenue in the first year fell by 14%. The second year, their revenue was 20% higher than what it was for the prior year when they dropped the 14%. People I think like to know transparency of what people are making when they're in a service industry. I think we went out with a proposition of, you need to be transparent with people when you do transactions, particularly with the retail client or the retail person who acquires insurance in Australia.
Any more, Andrea?
As a quick follow-up on that, is it fair to say that in the last few years, during hard pricing, is it fair to say that you held back on fees on average in terms of keeping fees flat?
Yeah. Yes, that's right. Definitely, y eah.
Okay. Thank you. If I can ask a proper setting question, Novum, can you talk a little bit about Novum in terms of, does it have an opportunity to become a network of networks in the sense that it is a network in itself, but then you plug it into ISU and your global capabilities?
I think Sam has better answer to that.
Sure. Novum itself, actually it's not a network, but what we do have now is a platform for an MGA and specialist wholesale broker that we can now build on. I f we were to bring the underwriting agencies from Australia in, it acts as a platform for that for MGAs, or if we were to make another acquisition or a startup in the U.S. of an agency, we would use that as the platform to bring the business in as well.
Of course, it already deals in the broader market, but it now has a channel through to the ISU Steadfast network that w e will be promoting to the members within that network, the products and services that Novum already have. We'll be using that network to create the intel they had in their businesses, of the products that are currently lacking in the market. We will build programs to service those needs and put them through Novum.
Thank you, Sam. If I can ask a last question, so s lide five, y ou've hinted about upcoming changes to divisional structures for changes to divisional reporting going forward. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What's going to change in FY 2026?
I might start with that. You've got a sense today that, thankfully from 1 July, you've got three key areas of the business, the brokerage, agency and the international. One of the key questions has always been, how do those areas connect into the total IFRS results? It's always been difficult to analyze our numbers because there are so many moving parts.
The thought process is maybe we should align our management and investor reporting to show the IFRS view of those three key segments. There'll no doubt be a fourth column for still everything else and intercompany reconciliations you've got to do, but just to give you a sense of how it connects into the whole piece. We're working on a reporting framework that we'll obviously give you in advance to be able to work through. Knowing how to align our ongoing management reporting will link into the ongoing investor reporting.
Thank you. The next question comes from Siddharth Parameswaran from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. C ongrats, Stephen, again. I actually only have two minutes. I'll be really quick. Just a question on, one of your peers I think commented that their average fee and commission revenue per client is about 10% - 15% below the market. I was just wondering if you do your own benchmarking, and how you see your fees and commissions per client versus the market, and whether there are opportunities for you to increase those. I think your comments were a little vague earlier, just on how you see that opportunity.
I think probably you should answer that, Tim. The reality is, I would hate to turn around to the consumer base and say, "W e're going to put your fees up 10%- 15%." That'd be an arbitrary thing that would be done with the spreadsheet and saying, "T hat's what we're going to achieve." T he small to medium enterprise insurance broking is done on a personal basis, isn't it, Tim? You would evaluate each one?
Yeah. No, it's conducted in the business at the table, looking at the client and having that conversation and what it's costing to provide service to that client, following up on claims, making endorsements throughout the year. There is a cost to serve those clients, and it's a commercial negotiation. It's not something that we mandate in any way to the brokers in our network. It's a choice that they make, I think [crosstalk].
[crosstalk] have you done any benchmarking? Have you done any benchmarking anyway?
Yeah. L ook, we benchmark across all of our businesses that provide the data to enable us to do so. We do that not just on a distribution point of view from looking at GWP, fees, and comms, but we also look at the revenue lines. We look at the operating costs of running a business and EBITDA, so that the businesses can have a good understanding of how they stand in relation to other businesses across our wider network.
That sounds like an accountant spoke to you rather than an insurance broker.
Okay, just one final question, if I can, Robert, just for you. Obviously, there's a transition. Frank O'Halloran has been with you since the start of the listing of Steadfast. Just maybe remind u s your thoughts on how long you're committed for, and also whether this in any way changes your thinking. What were the conversations you had at the board around transition? Usually, the board and the CEO don't leave at the same time. Does this extend your tenure at Steadfast? Maybe you could just give us some thoughts.
I guess if you look at Hank Greenberg, I've got another 22 years to go. Okay, so not comparing myself to Hank. I'm sure he's a much better off- roader than me. We would never exit CEO and Chair at the same time. We'd gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that the Chair replacement in Steadfast was done from the existing board, so that the transition is absolutely clear and seamless, and that we have a very cohesive board in Steadfast.
Everybody agrees how we go forward. To take Frank out, obviously , I've worked next to Frank for probably 35, maybe 38 years in the industry, and I've worked closely with him for the last 13 years nearly, probably a bit longer actually, if you think about it. At least 12.5 years, m ind you, I'm the Managing Director of the public board, w e were adamant as a board that the transition when Frank wanted to go would be seamless and that the person who would step into that role, would intimately understand what the business does, what the logic behind the business is, its ethics and the way forward.
I'm pleased to say that Vicki Allen is an outstanding candidate to come in, and was unanimously voted for on the board. There was no contestant about who would take over from Frank. If you look at my own position, then I guess at the moment I've committed that I would not resign before the FY 2026. I've also stated that I would like to probably over the next 12 months, relinquish some of my executive duties.
My wife did complain the other night when I got home, and she said, "How come you've got all these really good people working in the organization? You just work 13.5 hours." I think what I'd like to do by this time next year, is probably work 40 hours a week and maybe go to gym and maybe have a swim at lunchtime, and still maintain my position as Managing Director of a public company.
That would allow a transition of an executive basis from, I believe the ranks contained within. I guess I'm showcasing you, the people that are behind the scenes, that are absolutely not behind the scenes in the running of this business. That i f I was to stay on the Steadfast Group board post December 2026 in a Managing Director position, I would be helpful to their ascendancy into replacing me if that was to occur.
Thanks. Thanks so much, Robert. Thanks so much, Stephen, for your time.
Thanks.
Thanks, Sid.
Thank you. The next question comes from Shreya Patel from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi guys. Just two questions from me. Firstly, on the gearing headroom, I think Hannah called out $365 million headroom to borrow at the 30 June. Can you give us some indication of where that sits today?
Given that we can't really disclose the Novum' s consideration, given that that's commercially sensitive, giving that out will allow you to guess the consideration for Novum , so I can't really do that. As of today's date and also with Novum , we have funded mix of debt facility and free cash flow. We do have still ample headroom in our facility at the moment.
A little a t our existing cash holdings as well, yep.
Yep.
Remember, [crosstalk], we convert the cash. This company converts turnover to cash very easily.
Sure, s econd question. I'm just trying to line up your guidance with some of your FY 2026 LTI hurdles. It looks like you only need 4%- 5% EPS growth in FY 2026 to get 100% vesting outcome. Just keen to understand, are those hurdles too low or is your EPS growth guidance a little too high?
I hope you're right. I hope you're right [crosstalk].
Maybe if I could comment. I don't think we actually put into the REM report what the actual incentive structure is for the following year. I think it's fair to say that the board had similar expectations to the philosophy that was employed last year. No, it won't be 4%- 5% growth to get funds. That's for sure.
If you can get away with that, I'd be really happy.
It says 11.5. It says 11.5% over three years. To deny [crosstalk].
That's per annum. You've got 11.5%.
Yeah, exactly. [crosstalk] s trong 2024 and 2025.
No, that's the future three years. That's the future t hree years.
[crosstalk] g oing forward.
The future three years.
All right, great. Thanks, guys.
Yeah, that's the future t hree.
If you can convince the proxy advisors that 5%- 6% is good, [crosstalk] , I'd be very happy to do that. Okay, a ll I can assure you is that it's never going to be that low. I wish it was. 12.5% is our target to get something exciting out of this company. If you don't get that, then you don't get it. Also, we don't have a linear line as well. We have a benchmark that we have to reach. If we reach that, we don't get anything. If we didn't reach it, then it's linear to go up to a further level. I can tell you, the exciting parts are 12.5% benchmarks a 10% growth, and it's got to be compound every year. I'd like anybody in the market to compare that to the other top 200 companies, and tell me how we compare.
All right. Thanks, [guys].
Thank you. There are no further questions today. I'll now hand back to Robert Kelly.
Okay. L ook, it's taken a long time. I hope you enjoyed the new format that we're doing . I think understanding the people who run the business, I'll open them up for you to talk to is the way to go forward. We are a very transparent business. Thank you for your support. Thank you for buying our shares. Thank you for being interested in the company. We look forward to performing again in FY 2026. Thank you.