Morning. Well, good afternoon. In the east coast of Australia and the west coast of Australia, it's morning still. Good morning to everybody for joining us to for us to take you through the half year 2026 results and investor presentation. Today, I'll be presenting the first section of the presentation, which will provide you with the business update and also the strategy update. Matthew Green, our Chief Financial Officer, will be providing you with the financial summary, and then I'll rejoin to provide you with the value creation and pathway forward in terms of trading update and also outlook. First of all, if I can just take you through 4-K messages for that we wanna make known for today. Firstly, the company delivered record financial performance in the first half in its company's history.
It's 12 consecutive periods of growth at every metric from a profit and loss perspective. We've also created competitive advantages as well as differentiated capabilities. In that, we've also created strong, compelling opportunities, which we plan to take market share with as the alternative market leader. We've now got a position of strength that will drive sales and earnings growth across a very large ecosystem, distribution to all customer types. We've also created a long runway for shareholder value with a clear plan and also on a capital light model that is building momentum. With that said, I just want to take you through, first of all, corporate information. The company has continued to perform well in terms of its share price over the last 6 months.
Our ranking, both in sector and across the ASX, has significantly grown and positioned us into a company far ahead of where we were six months ago and twelve months ago. We have a market capitalization of almost 200%, AUD 200 million, sorry, and we've continued to deliver shareholder return of about 130% over the last twelve months. Top shareholders, the top 20 that is, represent about 53% of all shares held, and it's created a fairly big portfolio of the number of shareholders in our company in excess of 1,100. It's been quite a good period of hitting all those metrics in every level. In terms of financial performance for the half, we increased sales by almost 12% to AUD 82 million.
We grew by almost 17% in the hardware, industrial, and safety part of our operation and 2% within the consumer market. Our EBITDA increased by 17.5% to AUD 5.4 million, and our net profit increased by more than 50% to AUD 1.6 million. In addition to that, we have AUD 32 million worth of cash, which has increased in excess of AUD 20 million in the last 6 months, and our net debt we have reduced or improved by 34% down to AUD 7.3 million. Record performance, all the investments that we've been making have paid off, and it's really supported strong financial results.
This is just the beginning, and as we take you through our presentation, what we're excited about is our journey over the course of the next 2 to 3 years, and taking our business from $145 million in turnover in FY 2025 to in excess of $500 million in sales in the year of FY 2028. We have a pathway that is clear and structured to achieve that target. As you can see over the period of time, particularly over the last 3 years, we have continued to grow, and this period of first half of 2026 has been no different in achieving that. Great result from a sales growth perspective, great result ongoing from an EBITDA, and great result from an NPAT perspective.
Again, we're at the beginning of our journey with a lot of upside to come forward. I want to take you through eight key outcomes that we delivered in the course of the last six months, and some of this you're aware of for those who are ongoing shareholders, and some of those who are new, might not be aware of the scale that we've created in recent times. We outlined briefly in our AGM, the acquisition that was completed that has created compelling and transformational scale for the business. Hardware & Building Traders is Australia's largest buying group, privately owned, and what we've done by bringing that into our portfolio in November of 2025, is we've created Australia's largest independent distribution group in the hardware and the industrial sector.
There's 1,200 odd locations. There's AUD 800 million of annual purchasing volume that goes through that organization. At retail sales level, that's AUD 1.3 billion. From an earnings profile or an earnings engine perspective, that's been activated. With the things that I've said before, we now have structural competitive advantage. We're a scaled operator with a national distribution platform with a clear pathway of earnings embedded into our business. We come from a position of strength, where there's significant monetization or a runway of monetization in the levers of synergies. We're looking to capture half of that AUD 800 million purchasing value that is currently through HBT and convert that or reroute that into sales. That's possible and achievable, it's not something about winning market share.
This is something that's sitting there, that are available to us today. In addition to that, I've mentioned the balance sheet, which is completed in a capital raise undertaken in November, and that brought a number of new fund managers and institutional funds to our group. That has continued to significantly support us in recent times. That is not only about the journey that we're looking to take ourselves on, but it's also about supporting the business for future organic and inorganic activities that may come forward. The reason why we took that capital raise is through the interest of those parties, and we have always said, over a period of time, that we needed to increase the institutional and fund manager support.
As we've grown from a business with an AUD 20 million market cap to an AUD 200 million cap, market cap, clearly there's more interest in our organization. It's also important that we strengthen our shareholder base at retail level and also at institutional level. I do want to make note that none of the directors were available to participate, and I know there was some feedback from retail investors about their participation. They had every opportunity to do so over a period of time. This was clearly strategic, structured, and available to set up the company with strong support for its future. Particularly when we're looking to grow our company to AUD 500 million, with an 8%-12% EBITDA margin and an NPAT margin across a large distribution platform. Our end markets have continued to be resilient.
We've got strong presence across resources, construction, infrastructure, but also trade and home improvement sectors. A number of our customers, Monadelphous being one of those, that has come out in the last couple of days with their results and have outperformed. We are suppliers to those companies. The investment in infrastructure in Western Australia and also in Queensland continues to provide big opportunity for us. We're dominant in those locations. There's green shoots in New South Wales and Victoria, where on the back of the acquisition of Hardware & Building Traders, has now brought us capability in those regions. All new markets bring new sales growth. Existing markets have resilient factors or fundamentals that are underpinning the activity of our revenue, which is why we have confidence about where we're heading to achieve our AUD 500 million in sales target.
We've, in recent times, obviously 8 weeks in to the H2 2026, we've got momentum in the integration of HBT. All programs are continuing to run live. There's a number of benefits that have already flowed through. There's a number of activities that are continuing to flow through in the coming months, and then setting ourselves up for longevity. We expect in the H2 2026 to exceed the H1 2026. We expect FY 2026 to exceed the FY 2025 results. Beg your pardon. It's an exciting period. It's not about incremental growth, it's about structural repositioning. It's about making sure that we're, have portfolio activities that are reflected in shareholder value, and ultimately, we are really well positioned to win more market share and to continue to grow our business in the coming period.
There's a number of strategic activities that we've undertaken in our journey. 10 acquisitions, 7 private or exclusive label ranges that we've added, 2 own label ranges, and we've also developed 2 new companies. We've also had a, lastly, a joint venture in the UK, which was very strong and dominant in taking product into market. We're now one of Australia's largest diversified distribution organizations. We continue to grow scale. We're experienced in not only acquisition growth, but also other inorganic opportunity activity, sorry. We also now have a very strong management team that underpins that support as we move forward. Our strategy is to maximize the enormous growth runway ahead and to secure a clear number two position in the total market.
What I mean by 2, we are the 1 leading independent alternative to the major players, and that being Wesfarmers, Bunnings, and Blackwoods, or the industrial side of the Wesfarmers business as well, and Metcash Hardware. There is a clear distinction between the 3 of us and everyone else. We are excited about where we're looking to take ourselves in the future. We have a large platform now to leverage through our integrated wholesale model with our front-end retail and trade activities that also is supportive to the commercial sector. There is a large, highly fragmented, addressable market in hardware and industrial of AUD 93 billion. In addition to that, there is an available potential market of another AUD 60 billion. As we continue to grow our markets, we will continue to grow our market share.
Today, what does our business look like? We are a distributor, a wholesaler, and a retailer. We have 4,700 stores available across Australia, as well as online channels and also a large sales team. We have a wide range of product across multiple categories, and those are under arrangements of exclusive brands, our own brands, as well as ranging brands that are sold by leading distributors, or suppliers and manufacturers at a global level. We run a multi-channel, omni-channel approach, whereby we push our products and sell our products through multiple touch points to reach customers, from small, medium enterprises to large companies, and into retail and DIY.
The success of our platform, which is important about maintaining a capital-light approach, is to have a combination of not only our company stores and operations mixed with independent retail and trade partners that are essentially individual owner-operators, as well as retail resellers. Dealing with the major chains that obviously operate in shopping centers. We're well-structured to be able to push and promote those brands into all those areas. Our distinct competitive advantage today, where we sit, we're Australia's largest independent network. We have large buying scale, we have a large private, a large product range. Our people and culture is something that we continue to push, and instill, and value very highly in the success of our organization.
We've created an integrated or connected platform across the store locations that I mentioned of 4,700, with not only digital and media access, but also supply chain. Today, as I mentioned earlier, we're Australia's number one independent alternative wholesaler, distributor, retailer in the hardware, industrial, safety, and consumer tech accessories sectors. Capability-wise, we've really strengthened our platform, as I mentioned earlier. We have 1,300 suppliers. We have about 1 million products available for us. We're stronger and more agile company today than we've ever been previously. We're well positioned to capitalize on the growth opportunities in our market. The right-hand side, you can see that not only we've developed stores that are independent operators, which these stores are, but this operates under a licensed model, H Hardware. There's 50 stores that have been included in the HBT acquisition that come on board.
Our plan is to grow those to 200, and that will become a dominant brand that will be seen across Australia in the short to medium term. Where we play across those brands that I mentioned, in terms of our business model, what we do from an activity perspective, who we sell to and customers, and how we generate our sales, as well as who are the end users within our markets, are defined within HBT as a buying group, part of our wholesale division. Our wholesale distribution model, which is essentially a distributor of brands and value-added services. We have a B2B distribution business that is serving large businesses, organizations, and small medium enterprises, Heatleys Safety and Industrial, Heatleys Safety and Industrial and Hardware now.
H Hardware, the independence is retail and trade-focused, so the tradie, the retail consumer, both online and in-store, and DIY customers. Lastly, our Force Technology business, which is essentially a distributor of brands, that ranges its products into major retailers who are resellers of our product, both in-store and online. Very distinct brands, very distinct locations, and ultimately, that's how we present ourselves to market. Obviously, I've spoken a lot about the things that we now have available to us in 2 months post the HBT acquisition, what this has created. We also said previously, there are a number of activities that are underway, both in our exclusive brands as well as services that were made available to our market. Some of these were paused till we have access to the HBT business, and completed the acquisition.
In terms of just giving you some context for that, there were 32 stores in our previous operation. That's now 1,200. Things like putting our Caterpillar and our Harden range out to those stores, some of that has progressed. Obviously, there's significant runway now that we have 1,200 stores available to us. We've upped the number of stores that we'll be able to put those products in place in the course of the next six months and further beyond. Our RIVO SAFETY product has commenced within 7-Eleven stores. It's in its pilot stores of about 14 at the moment, and we're looking to have that put into both the convenience market throughout 7-Eleven, as well as in the independent space on the hardware business.
That will be in around about 1,000 stores in the coming months, and that is a safety range that is absolutely targeted for the convenience side of things. In addition to that, we have online and digital channels. We previously had said that we're looking to bring out United Supply Co. in the B2C environment. We've now rebadged that to H Hardware. Again, rather than taking that to 32 stores, we now have 1,200 stores accessible to be able to provide a national single brand online marketplace that is available to be fulfilled from each store in its location to customers of all types and sizes. The other key point of note around systems is we centralized our payroll from 5 businesses into 1.
A single payroll system, a single company that now does all the reporting, a single company that actually employs every individual within the organization. The productivity improvement in that is quite significant in its own right. The simplicity around payroll and the features and benefits that we can bring to our employees through one platform has extended past payroll into a fully blown employment package that is available to be run across every operating business. Our tool hire operation is ready to go. We've had a soft launch. We waited for the HBT business. The plan is to put that out across the HBT stores in the very near future. In fact, it'll happen in the last quarter of FY 2026. All the fundamentals that sit behind that are unchanged.
Our strategy remains on track in terms of what we want to do with it. Its accessibility now is almost on steroids. Similarly, with our loyalty rewards, we have rolled that out to 22 trade members, so that's on track, and we're now going to be pushing that out into the H Hardware and for the HBT members to access. Some of those are ahead of plan, some of those are on plan, some of those are behind plan. Cautiously for no reason than to be able to put ourselves in a position whereby we have access to the full complement of 1,200 stores within the network now, that we wanted to get maximum impact as we go forward. It's slightly delayed today, but where it will be in the course of the coming months will be significantly ahead of any original plans that we had.
I'll pause now. We'll go through the financial performance for the first half of 2026. I'll introduce Matthew Green, who's our CFO. Matthew joined us in May of this year. He's done a remarkable job for our organization in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and also his capability in that space. Obviously, I'll hand that over to Matthew, and Matt can present the numbers as we move forward. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike. Comprehensive and exciting all in one. Welcome everyone to the thing. Reiterating Mike's welcome. It's an exciting time in the business and it's as exciting not only to put up a performance for the half, but also for what we have on the runway ahead for the second half of 2026 and beyond, which we'll detail out further as we go forward. Just in terms of the financial highlights, record sales up AUD 82.2 million, as Mike had indicated, up 11.8%, half on half. Gross profit at AUD 21.2 million. Importantly, our cost of doing business has come down 4.2% to AUD 15.8 million.
enhanced by, as Mike alluded to, some of our technology enhancements, further simplification of process, and structures. Our EBITDA delivered underlying of AUD 5.4, up 17.5%, and an NPAT of AUD 1.6, on a like-for-like basis, up 51%. Our balance sheet strengthened significantly with the capital raise in November, of AUD 19.5 gross, AUD 18.7 net, and that's contributed to a very strong cash position at the end of 31st of December of AUD thirty-two and a half million dollars, and a low net debt of AUD 7.3 million and ratio of 0.7 leveraged. Just take a minute to work through the sales. Sales will be a measure that we use as we go forward, more often.
It's a better measure of our activity running through the business, largely because of the addition of HBT, which, as a buying group, we'll talk more to, but as a buying group, has a revenue recognized on an agent basis rather than a principal, so we will show gross as a principal through the sales line as we move forward. For this period, we, as we indicated, 11.8% increase to AUD 82.2 million. Hardware and industrial growing 16%, and that represents 73% of our sales. Really, as Mike had indicated previously, resilient growth through the resources, infrastructure, construction areas, and also through our geographies, particularly in WA and Queensland.
We have a small contribution from the HBT sector, and we'll obviously see that grow as we go through the second half of 2026 and into FY 2027. Consumer division, again, was very pleasing. Smaller growth at 2%. I think working and operating within a significantly challenged consumer market, we're obviously seeing some headwinds in terms of the consumer with, cost of living and interest rates and others. To get growth in that and penetrate some of the major national consumer retailers, JB Hi-Fi, Coles, et cetera, was really a strong result for the consumer division coming into its first full year within the group.
As I indicated before, post the HBT acquisition, we're looking at recording the revenue from the buying group as a agent rather than as a principal. The recognition of those sales on a half-on-half, we're showing half-on-half like, which adjusted AUD 2.7 million in sales for the prior half. Headline overview summary, see there, take it as read. Largely, all key indicators increasing. Our capital return was down, but really down because we only had a small contribution from our HBT acquisition, but the full capital employed was included in that number. We expect to see that continue to improve as the business profitability increases. If we go to the income statement, a few key highlights.
As we've indicated a number of times, the increase in sales, 11.8%. As Mike indicated before, 12-year period of growth, which is an impressive one for the business and one that we certainly aim to continue into the future. Growth driven, as we said, by active customers, distribution reach, contribution of HBT, and geographic locations. Gross profit margin, we maintained at AUD 21.2 million on a 29.4% gross margin percentage. Again, really strong in what is a highly competitive environment that we're operating. As indicated, lower cost of doing business, we maintained our delivery of profit through our lower cost of delivery of business, 4.2% improvement.
As I said, simplified overhead structures, innovation, technology, all driving to that, and we keep a close eye on our cost base as we go forward for growth. EBITDA up 18.8%, 17.5% underlying, at AUD 5.3 million. On our working capital headline, really is the cash at bank, where we raised the AUD 19.5 or AUD 18.7 net funds, giving us a record bank balance at the end of December of AUD 32.5 million, providing really a strong platform to be able to both grow organically and inorganically, as Mike indicated, into the future and support the business. Operating cash flows were solid at AUD 3.7 million.
The main reduction in that year, half-on-half, was the tax bill that we had for AUD 1 million, period on period. The balance sheet, again, the disciplined approach to capital management and the capital raising has meant we've put it ourselves in a very strong position to go into the second half of FY 2026 and beyond, for the ambitious plans that we have and ones that we're very excited and confident that we can achieve. We have a low net debt number, as we said, 0.7 leveraged, 12.8% on the leverage ratio, which provides us that flexibility and strategic and other opportunistic investments will be considered as we move forward.
As has been highlighted now for a number of financial reporting periods, it's a very capital-light business model, and we continue that with the HBT model, but still gives us the broad distribution base upon which we can utilize for our other initiatives. Intangibles increased marginally with our continued investments in technology, digitization, and other growth initiatives, which, again, we look to drive into both our divisions, but in particular into our hardware and industrial, with the addition of the HBT acquisition. Our increase in net assets, driven largely by that acquisition and capital raise. It also worthy to note, there's a significant increase in our deferred settlement.
Within the HBT acquisition, for those that followed it, we obviously have a de-delayed AUD 5 million tranche and then another AUD 5 million in two tranches in FY 2027 and FY 2028, based on achieving profit targets. Generally, a very strong balance sheet, a very strong foundation upon which to drive the growth of the business and support that growth. Strong liquidity, very comfortable with our covenants and our headroom, all of which were based pre capital raising. We sit very confidently with that. Just to round out that debt position, AUD 7.3 million net debt, up marginally from our 30 June figure of AUD 6.8 million, but down from our last December amount of AUD 11 million.
Gross debt obviously increased with the acquisition of HBT. That offset with our capital raise and a very healthy bank balance of AUD 32 and a half million. As we said, gearing ratios at historic lows, and we're now well positioned to take the business forward. With that, I'll hand back to Mike.
Excellent. Thank you, Matthew. Great job, as you can see, very, very considered in his approach. A number of things that obviously are pointed out there. One, we've achieved record sales. Two, we've achieved record EBITDA. Three, we've got low, low debt ratios or leverage, therefore, we're well geared to be able to deliver on our future program, which I'm about to show you. Financially, we're in the best position that we've ever been, and structurally, we're in the best position we've ever been. We have a really good runway ahead. With the benefit of only two months that we've had out of HBT in terms of that acquisition, of which obviously, two weeks of those two months were the Christmas period, where there's a fairly quiet process.
Six weeks in the process, and obviously activity that commenced from mid-January onwards. Let me take you through value creation. I just want to recap first on the HBT acquisition in its own rights. We've told you about what our capabilities are and what structural change that's done, and what the material opportunity that sits in front of us. If I just recap, the acquisition price, AUD 22 million, of which we paid AUD 17 million up front, is AUD 5 million deferred for 12 months, and that will be paid out of operating cash flows. There's AUD 7 million of revenue and EBITDA of AUD 3.7 million.
That AUD 7 million is achieved through commission. That commission is on the purchases that go through the group in FY 2025 at AUD 645 million, from 1,165 members across 490 suppliers, of which AUD 30 million of those are rebates. Which is uncaptured in revenue between both the supplier and the independent operator. We're looking to capture that purchasing volume. Today, collective is AUD 800 million. We're looking to reroute half of that into sales within the organization. Part of our journey to get to AUD 500 million is about rerouting those sales, but also there's margin benefit that comes out of that. We will increase not only sale, but we'll increase earnings. The increase in earnings profile is significant and material in its own right.
We are not looking to go and create anything else in market that excludes any new market gains. It is simply what is sitting there within the network available to us today. Therefore, in a large, fragmented environment of AUD 93 billion, of which we represent about 1.4% of that number, there's significant opportunity for us to take market share. Our model now scales. I've spoken about the 1,200 stores that it brings and the AUD 800 million worth of purchases, or AUD 1.3 billion at retail level, but has significant distribution margin overlay. The commission on purchasing volume will be leveraged. The increase of fee structure will alter.
The ability to set up central invoicing will be able to generate margin activities, and also better line of sight in terms of sell-through and the commerciality to not only support the supplier in terms of how they go to market and the volume they push through, but help the member win more customers and push more down the chain, into end customer channels through member networks. We are very much about volume and pushing volume through a national scale. As I said earlier, scale is one thing, but this is scalable economics. I've mentioned the numbers, but it's also about embedded operating leverage. It's about an expanded monetary or monetization runway and the structured earnings, which supports our guidance.
That comes from manufacturers that fall through our wholesale distribution model, integrated with then customer-facing businesses, both in retail, in trade, and also in commercial. Commercial is where we have about 75% of all our income at the moment is contributed by businesses, and that's all types, all sizes, from large across multiple sectors and in markets to down to SMEs, as I mentioned, and to a DIY. Our operating platform works in two divisions. We have hardware, industrial, and safety. Separately, our consumer. 77% of our total sales is through hardware, industrial, and safety, and 23% is through consumer. They're both important cogs within our distribution chain.
They've very much geared to business, trade, and retail in the hardware side of things and industrial. The Force Technology business is very much about putting products into the major FMCG supermarket lines, consumer electronics, as well as telco and specialist providers. That is a brand-specific take-to-market utilization from a wholesale to a retail model. We have a number of strength through range, price, and also experience, and that's probably something that a lot of companies use, but ultimately, having a low price, it's important we maintain margin. The procurement buying capability and a low capital operating model allows us to maintain our margin and put our best price guarantee forward.
Just to give you a bit of a snapshot of the highly fragmented home living and building environment, Bunnings is the largest player with around about 23% market share, followed by Metcash Hardware, and then we now sit as number three. We are the market leading alternative outside those two major players. There's a significant opportunity for us to be able to grow within that highly fragmented market, not only with our own operations, the independents that form part of our group today, but we also offer an opportunity for consolidation of the industry within our group to be able to attract new members, to be able to attract new volume in suppliers, and to be able to win more market share by providing solutions to the end markets and end consumers.
We are well positioned to pursue opportunities and go after the AUD 90 billion odd market of home living and building environment that we don't have today. It's significant in its own right, and these are our 2024 numbers. 2025 is slightly higher, but we're really well positioned to be able to win that market share. In terms of our scale fundamentals, again, on the back of the HBT acquisition, this is what it's done to support our long-term growth. I've spoken about the products enough. I've spoken about the 1,200 stores. We've got 3,300 consumer resale reseller outlets that we sell our range, our goods within, and then we've got the 50 H Hardware branded stores that operate under a license model.
It's not a franchise model, it's a license model, which means the complexity of a franchise, the cost of running a franchise is a lot higher, and that's a point of difference. We run a license, licensee model, whereby it allows the operator independent to make more margin and more profit, as well as us to be able to support them, to put the right products and the right business model, be able to suit the operation, location, as well as, end customers that they're looking to serve. It doesn't become cookie cutter, one size fits all. It's tailored accordingly to those markets. Our range has significantly expanded, so it's deep across both product quantity as well as category range.
You can see that this is quite a comprehensive portfolio or product that is not only available through the 1,300 odd suppliers that we pull that through, but it also helps us diversify the supply chain. When we talk about resilient markets, which I'll get to in a minute, when you have an everyday product, you run low risk in those product having a life date. We also have the ability to be able to sell our products across multiple platforms, which puts volume and low inventory holding within our warehouse. We're able to do a just-in-time model mixed with distribution of product that sits within stores, and we're able to work that across multiple channels.
Some of the brands that we obviously provide, just to give you a bit of an idea of the brands that we sell, these are recognized that, everyday requirements, both, in the environment that I spoke about, against not only our own stores, but also what you would see at competitors, excluding our own exclusive range, as well as our own private label range. Within our consumer division, we're brand specific. We take brands to market where it's not a broad range approach, it's a dedicated approach based on exclusive arrangements, our own private label range. We do have non-exclusive arrangements with globally recognized brands, and that will expand. We also do white label products, meaning that we manufacture and distribute for other companies.
7-Eleven being one, the NRG product is the private label brand that is a Coles brand within Coles supermarket range, and that's held in about 800 different store locations. The business today is very much geared around mobile accessories and or products to mobile accessories such as power, audio, screen protection. The RIVO product in our own label range brings a safety feature to that, but it's in our consumer channel, therefore, it sits within our consumer operation. Bringing all this together, you can see from a scale point of view, we're now well located in a number of different geographies. Western Australia has been our heritage, as well as Queensland, which we've expanded to, and South Australia. New South Wales and Victoria are new regions for us. Therefore, from a wholesale perspective, there's significant growth.
From a retail perspective, we're looking to help independent operator win more market share. That will allow more volume to go through our group. Our network, as I mentioned earlier, is Australia's largest. It is a significant runway of opportunity to be able to access online, in-store, as well as bring in loyalty programs, have sales reps, account managers, that can touch just about any market with a significant range of products that we have available. If I talk a minute about resilient structural demand drivers. These are macro fundamentals that we see, not only our products, which is in a non-discretionary environment. Most of our products that we sell in industrial and safety are non-discretionary items. There's also, these are favorable sectors, which are supported by our sales numbers. I'll show that on the next slide.
This is where we see investment, both in resources, because of the price of obviously commodities, the investment in construction, the investment in infrastructure, as well as trade. That supports not only the repairs and maintenance aspect in the home living environment, the residential building, population growth, and also obviously, housing, repair, and renovation. We touch a number of different areas. Our biggest contributor is in the resources and construction infrastructure area, as well as the home, building and renovation environment. We see a multi-year opportunity here. All these are buoyant. We've been operating in the Heatleys business now for 37 years, featuring and supporting those customers.
The HBT business has been operating since 1997, featured in the same environment, and continued to grow at a CAGR of about 8% in all that time. Also, our H Hardware brand, which is new, clearly is geared to be able to support those industries as well. In terms of our products and how that fits through, you can see that there's customer end markets, as well as total product mix. On the left and the right, all the products that we sell, clearly, that supports the resilience of not only non-discretionary items that we sell, but the markets in which we operate in. Now that we've given you an overview of the platform and the scale and everything that's available to us, the coming slides are really about what's next in terms of our execution.
We've continued to show this bridge of sales growth, but this has been updated from February post the HBT acquisition, what they can do. Really falls into what I would see as five key buckets. Organic growth is what we have here today. Market share growth is what we see in the future that we can penetrate. The monetization of the HBT platform and what that gives, particularly rerouting a significant or at least half of the sales, that is what we would call an AUD 800 million of purchases or AUD 1.3 billion at retail level, and the optimization of that.
The networking category is our own private label brands, our exclusive brands, CAT, Harden, and the other products within the mobile accessories range that will be pushed out, as well as RIVO, and there'll be other new brands that will be joined to that. Tool hire service, loyalty and subscriptions, as well as the online channels I mentioned earlier, supported by the H Hardware brand, growing. Clearly, from an adjacency point of view, we're looking to attract more members from our group. So 1,200 today, or just under, I should say.
We're looking to significantly grow the membership base, and that will be other groups that consolidate or other members that will continue to individually grow with us or join us, as well as other groups that will see now the buying leverage that we have will add value from a wholesale point of view. We're always pursuing, considering other M&A activities, which we will, if it's value accretive, and doesn't distract us from what our clear pathway is in a very structured environment, we will look at those opportunities. Ultimately, this is the bridge that will take us from AUD 145 last year into AUD 500 two years. Oops. Trading and outlook, if I can just give you a bit of an overview how we see it. We've entered the second half of 2026 with good momentum.
As I said earlier, reinforcing that we expect that second half will exceed the first half of 2026. Our FY 2026 results will surpass the FY 2025 results. It will be another record year for the company and another record period. We only received 2 months of contribution from HBT in the first 6 months. We'll receive the full 6 months, contribution from HBT. The synergies and the activities that I've just shown in the previous slide for growth are well underway. We've done a hard integration. We've transferred a number of suppliers across already. That harmonization process has occurred. In addition to that, we've now closed our previous buying groups. All that sits under the HBT platform. We've set up our structure on how we go to market, therefore, we will win more market share.
The integration, the balance sheet that we have available, that Matthew took us through earlier, really supports that growth. We've got significant optimization, both from a procurement activity and a supplier activity, moving forward. Market conditions, we'd be remiss to not include this around the cost of living, cost of business pressures, the higher inflation costs are obviously there, and clearly, the geopolitical environment, which continues to develop every sort of what used to be months, now is days. However, demand for our products across our core sectors, as we've said, is resilient. It supports the products that we sell in a non-discretionary environment, and categories and channels that we're in is very diversified. We've got low leverage, and we're well positioned to execute.
Our guidance for FY 2028 is unchanged, with an AUD 500 million target, with an 8%-12% EBITDA range, with a 5%-8% NPAT range. Our capital expenditure is capital light. As we mentioned, it's about 1.5% of sales, and our wholesale distribution business, which you would have seen, is clearly a significant part of what we do moving forward, will represent about 35%-40% of sales. I have a pathway that's well defined. Our initiatives are well underway. Integration programs are well and truly active.
You can see on the right-hand side there that, from our FY 2024, sorry, FY 202 5 result, the runway is clear. The growth drivers of those are listed on the right-hand side, from organic growth to market share, to the HBT platform, network and category, new products and services, as well as our adjacencies. This is not something that we're looking to plan to build. These are activities that are underway, that are about to materialize. Lastly, before we go to question time, why the Stealth Global Holdings ? I think we've outlined the transformational change to our business. It was not only industry-defining, the acquisition of HBT, but it's company-defining in all the things that we've mentioned. We are now the industry-leading alternative in a large and highly fragmented market, with opportunity to take share.
We have a very strong and powerful customer value proposition, differentiated capabilities, as well as competitive advantages that position us really to take, not only market share, I've mentioned, but we've got a large distribution ecosystem that has scale and volume and capacity to continue to grow. Our category mix and our revenue mix in the non-discretionary exposure to resilient end markets. We're clear on our 2028 plan. We're on track with our plan. We aim to deliver. We've got significant sales and earnings profile, and the company has a very strong culture, and it's very focused on creating long-term shareholder value. With all that said, we're well-positioned, we're an attractive investment, we've got a great growth runway. We've delivered exceptional results in the last six months, strategically, operationally, and also financially.
It's an exciting journey of where we're heading forward. Probably the most exciting part in the history of our company, which has now been a bit over 10 years. Therefore, the next two, three years is looking to really cement ourselves as the number two company within that hardware, industrial, and also safety environment. We'll just pause for five minutes, or not five minutes, a couple of minutes. I'll refer to our moderator, Jess, and if there's any questions that have come through now, we'll aim to answer those. Any questions need to come through, obviously, need to come through from an unknown source. There are some anonymous ones, I believe, that are flowing through. We're not going to answer those unless we actually know who we're answering it for.
But clearly, if there's any questions that comes up, we're available to take those with notice and follow that up post this presentation. With that said, we'll just pause for a few minutes, and we'll come back online in a moment. Okay. Yep. All right, we're, apologies about that. We're just looking at the questions that have come through. If I can just work through these, and I'll answer it accordingly. The one, free cash flow, we are a business that will continue to be, or promote and push, free cash flow for our, not only for the existing operation, but obviously with future outlook.
Obviously, as the scale increases with the improvement that comes through from the HBT business, 'cause it's capital light, our investment in the last couple of years has been very heavily geared, what we call geared into the to that environment. Therefore, we expect generating free cash flow to be strong in the future. There's a question also about conflict, potential conflict and perceived conflicts of wholesale customers if Stealth continues to play in retail and e-commerce channels. No, absolutely not. Our business model is to combine company operations with independent operators as well as retail resellers.
Our objective is to not only be strong in wholesale, but it's also to make the independent operators successful, and more successful to deliver more capability, deliver more margin, and provide them with a product and customer offer to win more sales and win more customers. The value proposition of the member, we're very high, heavily focused on. Which leads to a question that is further down around our fee structures at HBT . Our objective is to improve not only the fee structure, not only the rebates and the long-term incentives that provides benefit to the company, but also the independent operator. Our success and their success comes from us to be able to buy better and be able to provide stronger commercial terms.
We cannot win with them or without them, collectively, we will both benefit from whatever terms are renegotiated through volume supplier harmonization or growth within our business. Our objective is to provide more financial value downstream to the member, to allow them to be able to be stronger from a cash flow perspective, and also stronger from a profit perspective. We're looking to build a legacy that can be handed on to generation and generation. We can only do that through profitability for them. Strong economics that sit behind that, as well as our own organization, where we have a responsibility to shareholders. I hope that that sort of clears that up. We've also been asked around when will we provide guidance for FY 2026.
We've never given guidance, what I have clearly made out to restate is that FY 2026 will outperform FY 2025. We have a FY 2028 target. There'll be a number of activities that I've already shown within that growth bridge, that will take shape within the next 4 months, now to June 30. Some of those will drop early, some of those may surpass June 30, therefore, we're on a 2-year journey. FY 2028 is what our target is. FY 2028 has been consistent in our messaging for a period of time now, and that is what we're focused. If you can see, if I take you back to the number of opportunities that sit there, all those obviously will take a period for that to come together, and our timeline is FY 2028. Sure.
There is one, how are the members reacting to the acquisition? Very positive. Most importantly, one of the things that we've learnt after 10 acquisitions is people are the important part and stability is an important part, clear messaging, and also making sure that the management teams stay in place. Part of the HBT acquisition, the former CEO, is in the business, staying in the business. Two of the former directors, one of those, the chair, is on the advisory board. All the people who are in place remain. We haven't lost one person. We don't plan to lose one person. We're going to employ more people within that business.
Their objective is unchanged, and their job is to make sure that they provide the very best terms for the members, and the very best opportunity for suppliers to be able to push volume through their network. These commercial activities are going on in a very structured way and dealt with the team that supports not only existing operators, but also provides value across the board. One question that's been asked around tool hire. We've answered this before in previous presentations, but our tool hire business has a return of 85%-95% margin. It has a 13-week payback period, so it's a very, very profitable part of the business, and we see significant upside within that. Clearly, the average cost of an item will be less than AUD 5,000.
Or sorry, the maximum cost of a capital item will be AUD 5,000. The average cost of the item will be about AUD 700. AUD 700, a low-cost item, therefore, its payback period is pretty quick. Outside that, there are obviously, there's a couple of questions there where it really goes into the detail, which is not in the breakup, but what I do encourage you to do is look at the release. Some of those questions will be answered there. I think read the pack, which was only put up just prior to this presentation. A lot of the information will be answered accordingly. I think our business, in terms of where we're sitting and what we're doing by absorbing that, we're confident in where we're heading.
We're confident in the investment process that we have sitting behind it. Delivery in the next 4 months is really about ensuring that we continue with the full integration of HBT, maximizing all the growth opportunities that sit in front of us, converting very quickly a number of those opportunities. Out of the AUD 800 million in purchases are available to us. All that structurally will leverage quite quickly our earnings profile, and we expect to outperform as simple as that. We're ambitious, but we're very structured in our process. We're consistent with our messaging, and our targets are unchanged.
With that said, if there's any other questions that come through, please email through to investors and we'll look at taking care of answering those in the best case that we can, obviously, providing that information to all shareholders accordingly. We appreciate your time. There's a lot to undertake or to take in on a half-year basis. Clearly, because of the size, scale, magnitude of the HBT acquisition, it's taken longer. Otherwise, we would have been an 11-slide vanilla half-year presentation that most other companies are doing. We're excited about what we can do. We wanted to demonstrate a pathway of how we were gonna get there, to bring confidence that we have internally to the external stakeholder. Now it's all about the delivery. Thank you for your time, and we really appreciate it. Thank you.