I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. John Guscic, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Darcy, and thank you for joining us today. I want to start by saying I went to bed on Thursday night as the market was about to open, with a view that we just signed off on a straightforward, non-market-sensitive ASX release to keep the market appropriately informed. I woke up the next morning, having effectively slept through the entire Australian trading day, and imagine my surprise when I looked at the share price. Based on the share price reaction, the market had obviously drawn a much broader and inaccurate conclusion about the content of the release than we could have ever anticipated. It would appear the assumption is we are facing an existential crisis, and thus the reason for this call. Let me be very clear at the outset: nothing has changed in the fundamentals of this business.
While we normally wouldn't comment on current or future performance until our full-year results in May, given this unprecedented situation, I will use this opportunity to cover both later in the call. Before I discuss trading, I want to explain in detail the context of the release regarding the tax audit of our Spanish subsidiary. Firstly, we have been audited before, and we will be audited again in the future. That is a normal part of operating a global business of our scale and complexity. The reason we announced this particular audit to the ASX was not because of a change in our view of the business or the potential impact of this audit, but simply because the initiation of the audit was reported in the Spanish press.
Once that occurred, we made the decision to proactively inform the market rather than respond reactively to investor queries or speculation when they saw the media. We did not view the audit itself as market-sensitive and said so in our release. If we felt it was in any way material to guidance, future performance, or business model in any way, we would have indicated so. Our decision to disclose was about openness, not escalation. Simply put, it was about good governance. Unfortunately, it is now clear that further context was needed. It is important to remember that Web Travel Group is not a startup. We are a significant global travel business with around 2,000 employees located in over 50 countries, servicing over 50,000 travel buyers in over 140 source markets. With that scale comes complexity, and with complexity comes responsibility. We take our governance and compliance obligations extremely seriously.
We have engaged highly experienced global advisors to work alongside us in reviewing, testing, and strengthening our processes. Our operating frameworks are deliberately designed, subject to regular review, and continuously refined as the business evolves. Across all jurisdictions, we conduct our activities with a strong focus on compliance with the applicable regulatory frameworks. Let me reiterate: being subject to regulatory reviews and engagement with tax regulators is not new to us. Across our global group, we have regular engagement with tax regulators, and we should expect this to continue into the future. To put this into perspective, we successfully closed out three tax regulator engagements in the last four months of calendar year 2025 alone. This activity is part of operating at scale. In relation to this specific audit, the audit has just been initiated, and a questionnaire and information request provided.
There is nothing further to say at this time, but we'll continue to comply with our continuous disclosure obligations and update the market on this matter as appropriate. We continue to cooperate fully with the authorities as we do in all jurisdictions. However, I do want to be clear that WebBeds is a large global business, and the taxpayer being audited is our Spanish subsidiary. I will now talk about trading. It's important to understand that our financial guidance remains unchanged as a result of this announcement. As I said at our first half results call in November last year, for our WebBeds business in Euro-functional currency basis, we expect: financial year 2026 TTV margins of at least 6.5%. Financial year 2026 expense growth in the high single digits. Financial year 2026 EBITDA margins of between 44%-47%. Financial year 2026 CapEx in line with financial year 2025.
These all remain unchanged. At a group level and on an Australian dollar reporting basis, we expect: financial year 2026 corporate costs of approximately AUD 24 million; financial year 2026 depreciation and amortization excluding acquisition accounting of approximately AUD 31 million; financial year 2026 net financing costs of approximately AUD 13 million; an underlying effective tax rate of approximately 17%; cash conversion of approximately 100%. These all remain unchanged except net financing costs, which are now expected to be AUD 2 million less due to ongoing cost management initiatives. Critically, our financial year 2026 EBITDA guidance of AUD 147 million-AUD 155 million also remains unchanged, representing growth of 22%-29% on FY 2025. This is despite euro and U.S. dollar headwinds in quarter four.
Furthermore, cash is expected to be circa AUD 450 million, and nothing regarding the Spanish audit has any impact on the group's ability to draw upon our AUD 200 million revolving credit facility that was secured last year to support any future needs. As mentioned at the start of the call, I would also like to provide some insight as to our expectations for the business beyond FY 2026. As we sit here today, our outlook remains strong. Bookings growth, the clearest indicator of continued market share gains, is expected to remain in the double digits in financial year 2027, as is TTV, and we are expecting to maintain our 6.5% TTV revenue margin. The underlying drivers of this growth remain unchanged and include expansion within our existing portfolio, acquisitions of new customers, continued growth in supply and markets, and ongoing improvements in conversion. The business continues to perform well.
Our customers and partners continue to derive significant value from our relationships, and consistent with our historical performance, we expect to continue to grow above the underlying travel market in FY 2027. Our teams around the world remain highly focused and disciplined in their execution. I trust this provides a bit more color as to the state of operations here at Web Travel Group. We'll continue to engage openly, comply fully with our obligations, and update the market where appropriate. Most important, we'll continue to run the business with discipline, integrity, and a long-term view. Happy to take any questions at this time. As mentioned earlier, given the audit is an ongoing regulatory matter, we are unable to answer specific questions relating to the audit or to the Spanish subsidiary in particular. With that, I'll hand across to Darcy for the first of the questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question via the phone, you need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question today comes from Tim Plumbe from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. I'm sure there's a lot of questions, so I'll just leave it to two if that's all right and then jump back in the queue. John, just to the extent that you can, in terms of the audit recognize that you can't talk, but can I just confirm here we are talking about indirect tax on your services revenue for the transaction, not indirect tax on the actual TTV of the room sold?
I'm not going to make any comment, Tim, on the Spanish audit.
Okay. In terms of the guidance, just FY 2027, EBITDA margins 50%, does that still hold as well?
As I said at the start of the call, nothing has changed in the fundamentals of our business. We're in a situation where I'm giving an early insight into FY 2027 trading. To that extent, I have focused on the two most important things that I look at every single day, which are how is our volume going, and that's why we specifically called out bookings. We're continuing to grow at a volume that's in the double digits. That translates to double-digit TTV. Is our margin solid at what I've said previously, which is the 6.5%, which I called out again in November? As an insight into FY 2027 trading, what I can share with the market, nothing's changed fundamentally in our objectives of the business. When we get to our results in May, we'll give a full FY 2027 guidance update, and we'll incorporate all elements of our business.
At this stage, what I want to say is nothing has changed. We are still on track as we were the day before the audit started and as we are today. Booking volumes haven't been impacted over the course of the last three days, and we continue to gain market share. We're happy with our performance and are comfortable with all previous statements that we've made to the market.
Understood. That's helpful. I've got another one, but I'll jump in the queue. Thank you.
Thanks, Tim. Next question, please, Darcy.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrew Hodge from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Morning, John. So just in that context, not around the specific Spanish audit, but more broadly with all of the audits that have been undertaken, including Spain-based audits previously, is there a typical timeframe around collection of data, review of data, conversations back with the company, and then a finding on the review?
It's a very difficult question to answer, Andrew, because every jurisdiction does it differently, and the review is different. So I can't give you a specific answer. Some are relatively quick, and there's been some that extend multi-years. So there's no short, sweet, pithy answer I can give you to that question. Sorry.
No problem. Thank you. Then just in a similar vein, just with respect to the collection of information, is it unusual to have offices attend? Is it normally an electronic request, or is it normally an in-person request to get information?
We've had both over the years. So that, again, is not inconsistent with what we're seeing as practice in different markets.
All right. Just last question from me, just in terms of the audits that have been completed in Spain and also in other jurisdictions, just the conclusion of those, and has there been any instances of problems found?
I think, as I sort of called out in the commentary, anything that's occurred within our business has not been material. And anything that's occurred within our business that was material, we would have called out to the auditors and to the market. And that hasn't happened. So far, they've all been relatively benign. But as I said, I'll make no comment about the current one because that's just commenced. So it's not a reflection on the expected outcome, but rather a reflection of what's happened in the past so far.
Thanks, John.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you. Your next question comes from James Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, there. Thanks for taking my question. My question's around specifically if you can give us more color on the revenue and the profit for Spain for the period of focus. A bit more color there would be greatly appreciated.
As I said in my closing comments, I'm unable to answer any specific questions relating to the audit or to the Spanish subsidiary at this point.
Even more generally, not specific to the audit, just general color. I know your largest competitor does call it 25% of their revenue in Spain within Europe. Is that a reasonable starting point in terms of the exposure we're talking about here?
Look, as a direction, we are substantially underrepresented in Spain compared to our largest competitor that you're referring to. A percentage of their European business is substantially skewed to Spain. Ours isn't. But I'm not going to get into the specifics of how big it is and the likes.
Great. Thank you very much, John.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Wei-Weng Chen from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. A few questions from me. Just a very quick first one. Is the Palma office still operating, and what does it mean to operations?
You are joking, Weiweng. I answered, nothing has changed. The fundamentals of our business and our Palma office operating, that's just perverse. Of course it's operating. Why wouldn't it be?
Okay. All good. Next one. How does this factor into your CFO replacement? I guess the potential risk, as I see it, is Tony Ristevski and a bunch of corporate history relating to the periods in question go out the door. And also, does having to deal with this on day one create potentially a speed hump from a recruitment perspective?
Look, that's a fair question, Weiweng, as opposed to your first one, which I'll repeat was perverse. Clearly, we're in the midst of the recruitment process for Tony's replacement, and they'll have full insight into everything that's going on in our business. So I don't think it changes anything. Maybe we'll end up with a massive upgrade on Tony as a consequence, which we're all looking forward to.
Okay. And then your Spanish account highlighted that you were previously audited in 2024, but it didn't actually speak to a resolution that they kind of just reserved the right to reopen the investigation. Is this, for all intents and purposes, the same investigation as 2024?
From perverse question to interesting question to one I can't answer that I've already reiterated now three times on the call. And so I'll just pause there. If anyone else is going to ask me specifically about the audit and the Spanish subsidiary, don't bother because I'm not going to make any comment. So I'd just like to draw the line of what I can and can't say, and I'm certainly not going to change that for the next person who asks the question. So that's the answer to your question, Weiweng, and to everybody else's.
And then just maybe last one. I guess, I mean, another ASX-listed travel company is eight months into a trading halt after it said it needed to restate three years of accounts in one of their divisions. Obviously, this has turned out to be a bigger issue. I guess, similarly, that company was also speaking to solid underlying trading too. So I guess that's why the market might be a bit twitchy about your announcement. I mean, is there anything you can say to give comfort to investors that you won't need to maybe go into a long-term halt or anything like that to resolve or restate issues?
You're not the first person over the course of this weekend who suggests that there is some corollary between another travel company and our travel company. I can state emphatically that in our business, fundamental trading is consistent with every expectation. Cash collection is consistent with all expectations that I've made. More importantly, when I made this announcement on Thursday or Friday morning Australian time, it was not a material announcement impacting our business. And so I wouldn't have made that on Friday morning Australian time to tell you today that we're in some existential crisis. I'll reread my market assumption from earlier on. Based on the share price reaction, the market has obviously drawn a much broader and inaccurate conclusion about the content of the release than we could have ever anticipated.
It would appear the assumption is we are facing an existential crisis. We are not facing an existential crisis. We are facing an audit in the Spanish subsidiary.
Cool. That's all from me. Thanks.
Weiweng.
Thank you. Your next question comes from John O'Shea from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Look, I think for me, the questions have basically been answered. But I just wanted to perhaps maybe ask about first half, second half skew. I know the results in the first half have already been out. Is there any change in expectations in terms of the first half, second half split that you've previously spoken about?
No. First half and second half have gone bang on to our expectations. So the assumption that we've got is that we're consistent with our full-year guidance, which would suggest that the assumptions we had in the second half have continued to play out as they did in the first half. So there's nothing untoward that's happened with our first and second half skew so far this year.
Thanks very much. The other questions I had have already been answered. Thank you very much, John.
Thank you, John.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Benjamin Joseph Gilbert from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Good morning, John . Just two quick ones. Firstly, just actually just how to think about if there was some hypothetical investigation or something in terms of what you guys define as materiality. Is materiality as you guys assess the likely outcome, or is materiality as how the potential or what the scopes of the investigation could be?
It's both. But to give the short answer, all we've got at the moment is a questionnaire that we've been asked to fill out, as I called out, with regards to that. So I don't know what the scope would be beyond that. We haven't engaged in a conversation with the Spanish regulator at this juncture. So I can't answer the question about where it fits on the materiality scale, but it would be both likely outcome and the quantum of dollars involved.
Thank you. That's helpful. And then just finally, just on the trading, you mentioned, obviously, you've got some adverse currency impacts. But it looks like that the underlying business is probably at least performing a lot, maybe a bit better. Some of the commentary more broadly around travel over the last few months, you look at ARC data, those sorts of things, look like the market's sort of kicked up a bit. Just any high-level comment around how you're seeing travel? Do you feel like the market's strengthened a little bit over the last few months? The data's looking a bit better?
I'll answer it the way that I've tried to answer it when the market goes against us. So I'm at least being consistent. Our story is a story of market share gains. If the market grows at 2% or the market grows at 4%, it's not really the material driver. When you look at our underlying business and you saw our results in the first half, and I'll reference those because they've been audited and published, our underlying booking volume was up 18%. And we thought the market was growing at circa 4% at the time. So if the market goes to 5% or 3%, it's a nice tailwind, but it's not the story. It's not the main game.
The main game in our conversation with investors has always been, are we going to continue to outperform the market, and are we going to continue to grow at more than 2x-3x the market rate? We're still seeing that play out in the first part in the second half of this financial year. As I've already given you an early indicator of what's going on for post-31st of March, that's continuing to play out. To me, our ability to successfully execute on all the fundamentals that we do, which is winning new clients, improving the quality of supply, helping us to get greater levels of conversion, they're the key drivers of our value of our business. The market, if it does grow a little bit and it does have a bit of a tailwind, that's nice to have.
But as I said, when the market doesn't grow as well as we expect, I never use that as an excuse for our underperformance.
That's helpful. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Mitch Sonogan from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, John. Thanks for the info so far. Just a couple of quick ones. You mentioned on the call you've engaged highly experienced global advisors to review and test your business overall. Was that more of a comment just about how you do your normal operations, or have you had to add additional advisors to deal with this Spanish audit? Thanks.
Both are correct. So we've always hired experts in the field to give us advice and guidance around structuring our processes in market. And that's a historical point of view. Now, depending on what happens - and I'll reiterate, we just had the questionnaire delivered to us on Thursday in our Palma office - depending on what comes out of that, if we need additional advisors to deal with that, we will appoint them at the time. But at this point, we haven't made any additional advisors because we have no idea what the scope is and what's actually come out of the initial questionnaire. So from that perspective, I don't know. But historically, we've had very skilled advisors help construct everything about our business.
Yep. Correct. Thank you. And just a quick one on trading. Obviously, you've pretty much said that everything's on track. I'll answer it again. You've even given us some early insights into FY 2027. So is it fair to assume that the activity levels across the regions in terms of bookings at the first half is, by and large, pretty consistent with what you're seeing at the moment? Thank you.
Yeah. The bookings growth is, we're very happy with the bookings growth into FY 2027. As you may recall, we had a phenomenal Q1 for FY 2026, and we're growing very, very nicely on top of those extraordinary growth numbers that we had in the first quarter of FY 2026, which augurs well for the remaining quarters of the year where our growth wasn't as phenomenal as it was in the first quarter. It's still really, really strong, but it wasn't circa 30%, which it was in Q1. So we're very comfortable that we've set ourselves up for a really strong financial year 2027. And Darcy, I think we've got time for one more question, and then I will wrap the call up, please.
Thank you. Your last question comes from John Campbell from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks, John. Just to confirm, so you specified in your release that it's an audit of your Spanish subsidiary, but you've got two Spanish subsidiaries. So are both of those? Well, you did at the end of FY 2025. Both of those included in this audit?
No. Only one's included.
Can you specify which subsidiary it is?
It would have been known as Mundo in the accounts.
Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks, John.
No problem, John. All right. Thank you, everyone, for attending the call. I appreciate it's not a call that I was anticipating making today, but I felt it was one that was necessary under the circumstances with what I saw was a completely unexpected share price reaction to the audit that was initiated the day before. And I'll just reiterate, the only reason we made the ASX announcement is the audit was in the Spanish media. And as a consequence, I just didn't want everyone to think that we were somehow hiding this from you when the people who accessed that information would think there was something untoward happening. And I just wanted to reiterate that that's the reason for us having the call today and clarifying and hopefully giving some insights into what has happened and what we think will happen going forward.
With that, I wish you all the best for the day. Thanks. Bye.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.