Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you can all hear me and see us, although hearing me is probably a bit more important than seeing us. Welcome, welcome to the call. Thanks for making the time to join us today. Just from Altron's side on this call, is myself, I'm Werner Kapp, for those of you that I haven't met, although a number of the participants I have had the privilege of meeting. I'm the Group Chief Executive Officer of Altron. On my right, your left, is Philippe Welthagen, who will be well known to a number of you. She joined Altron, in January, and then, in Cape Town is Carel Snyman, our Group CFO.
As you know, we're entering a close period at the end of this week, we really just wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with a meaningful update on where our business is. You'd have seen two announcements that have been published by us. I think about two weeks ago, on the 12th of February 2026, we issued a trading statement, which is really because of, you know, earnings compared to the prior period, which is, I guess, it is on the positive side. I t's a nice thing to be able to talk about. you know, this morning we issued, which is really some of what we're gonna take you through today and take some questions on. We published a voluntary operational update.
If, if you're okay, I'm gonna just maybe spend five or 10 minutes at a high level, taking you through, particularly as we are now wrapping up, you know, quite a big sort of three-year journey that we've been on as a team, and we're about to enter our next one. I thought it'd be good to maybe just give you guys my impressions of the business. I've been around for three and a half years now, and then, I think obviously jump into some detail and some Q&A. If I kind of take a step back, I joined Altron on the 1st of October, 2022. That's, as I said, about three and a half years ago. .
You know, myself and, you know, the leadership team, and there's a couple of them I see on the call today. I think we're very proud to say that I reckon the business is probably almost unrecognizable from what it was 3.5 years ago. You know, at a number of levels. I think from a pure profitability perspective, you know, we've more than doubled profit. We posted about ZAR 450 million in FY 2023, the last couple of months of my first year here. You know, we'll be north of ZAR 1 billion in this financial year, and importantly for us, because it's something that we really focus on, quality of earnings. You know, that's at significantly higher operating margins.
I think we started at operating margin percentage of about 5%, and we're now in the double digits. Very importantly for us, we believe that all of our businesses are in good shape. I mean, there's always work to be done. You know, any industry, any sector, any specific business, always has all of its challenges. You know, we've got no loss-making businesses in our portfolio. All of our businesses are either profitable, or in the case of ADB, which, you know, as is the case with most of its competitors in the IT services segment, had a really tough H1, but we believe it will be on track. Our profit improvement strategy there has gone well, and we believe it'll be on track to be profitable for the full year.
Very importantly, our balance sheet's ungeared. you know, we have over ZAR 1 billion worth of available debt facilities, we have cash just around or also over ZAR 1 billion, driven by really strong free cash flow generation in the business. One of the big strategic items for us in our business is also annuity revenue, and our annuity revenue has now grown to around 65% of our total earnings. Of course, you know, we look at our platform and our IT services businesses in our platform segment. I mean, you're talking about sort of north of 90% of that business is annuity revenue. Also very important to us is return on invested capital. When we started this journey, our ROIC was actually below our weighted average cost of capital.
Last year, it was at 19%. That's a 12 percentage point improvement. We started at 7 percentage points, and we believe that, you know, that that will continue to increase. Really good to see that, you know, disciplined execution of our strategy, and I'd like to think really disciplined capital allocation, cost control, and revenue growth is delivering real returns in our business. A strategic theme that continues for us is our focus on our platform segment. Our platform segment contributes about 45% of our revenue, and approximately 90% of our EBITDA and our operating profit year to date.
For those of you that have followed the business for a while, you'll recall we really talk about those two separate segments because they are fundamentally different kind of industry drivers and unit economics that drive those businesses. The one, you know, very much the Platform businesses, you know, it's kind of, you know, high volume, recurring revenue on a by and large, fixed cost business. whereas IT Services is more kind of B2B businesses, a lot more people intensive and a lot, you know, lower annuity business and therefore, can sometimes be a lot more cyclical in nature. I think also very important for us is, you know, culture. You know, I'm a big believer in culture.
For us, what's really, really encouraging also over this kind of three-and-a-half-year period is, you know, not just a solid balance sheet, good businesses, high ARR and profit growth, but also at the latest staff engagement survey, which we closed off in October of last year, we had record participation levels. We had the highest employee engagement score in our history. Our key employee attrition ratios are at an all-time low, apologies, and we also retained top employer status, something which we achieved two years ago for the first time in the South African market, and we're really proud that we've retained that. You know, we believe that we are cultivating and continue to develop a high-performance culture.
We have an invigorated team, and I think a very committed, competent leadership team that brings a lot of experience across, you know, different industry sectors. FY 2026 for us and, you know, for us, these calls are always interesting because, you know, as we sit here, we still got four days of trading left to go, so firing on all kind of engines. FY 2026 for us really marks the end of what we call our accelerated growth period, and then we're moving into what we call transformative growth, and we believe that we're very, very well positioned to be able to do that. Since the start of this journey, we've allocated over ZAR 1 billion to growth and development in our Platform businesses.
That's in Netstar, FinTech, and our HealthTech platform businesses. I mean, you can see the returns on those investments are, you know, v ery clear and, you know, we certainly continue to focus and double down on those platform businesses. We remain committed to continue our assessment of our portfolio over time. Again, for those of you that have followed the group for a while, when I came into the business, I think we had about 10 businesses. We now have six. We exited the Nexus business. We believe that wasn't core to what we were doing. We integrated three of our businesses for greater focus into Altron Digital Business. As we now enter into this transformative growth period, you know, our number one capital allocation priority remains our Platform businesses.
If you look at the sort of three-year history of these businesses of double-digit revenue growth, you know, high teen to higher than that, EBITDA and operating profit growth and our margins expanding over time, I think it well justifies the fact that our singular focus in capital allocation are really in those businesses. I mean, during this period, just as an example, if I think of our Netstar business, which has been hugely revitalized, you know, we've moved from about 1.2 million subscribers to now well over 2 million subscribers. Having said all of that, our IT Services businesses are well managed, even though they are not prioritized for capital allocation. I mean there we just manage the working capital of those businesses.
I mean, you can rest assured, I think we've got very, very strong leadership teams, in those businesses. I think that business, that segment is well positioned, should the market turn. What is our focus then, really, as we go from accelerated growth into transformative growth? I mean, really kind of four things. I mean first and foremost, and I always make this point, we continue to manage the businesses that we have as well and as profitably as we can. Accelerated organic growth and capital deployment into the organic growth runway in our high-growth segments, in our platform businesses, always remains our number one focus and opportunity.
We are starting to really, and I think we'll talk a little bit more about that at our results presentation, we're really starting to capitalize on our investments in data and AI. We're starting to see real, both revenue growth and efficiency gains from that in our business. Of course, continue to expand our platform ecosystem. You know, examples of that being our quality platform in HealthTech, the Global Fleet Bureau, how we've expanded our enterprise capabilities in our Netstar business. We are also looking at portfolio transformation over time, really, you know, making sure that we continue to be in the businesses that we think are, you know, we are well positioned in. That's really it from my perspective.
If I look at it over a sort of three and a half year period, been a lot of hard work, but it's been a very rewarding journey so far. We're exceptionally committed. You know, myself personally and other members of my leadership team, we've just spent six months whilst running the business, also looking forward to what are the next three years look like. We really look forward to taking you through that.
I think we're planning a Capital Markets Day in June of this year. Overall, from a results perspective, I'm sure, and you know, we'll go over to questions now, but if you look at the voluntary update that we sent this morning, we continue to see really robust double-digit revenue growth in our P latform segments, about 12%. That's been offset by a decrease in revenue in the IT Services segment. I think it's well documented, particularly in our ADB business that was highly impacted by this, particularly in H1. Operating margins are continuing to improve meaningfully. You know, we're forecasting for that to be north of 12% in FY 2026, and cash generation within the group remains very strong with high cash conversion.
That's something that, I think speaks both to the strength of the portfolio that we're in, and our platform businesses, but I also think, you know, sort of disciplined capital management, and something that we really focus on as a, as a group. With that, I think, I'll turn you over for Q&A.
Thanks, Werner. Participants, please, if you wish to ask a question, please raise your hand.
Alternatively, please type it into the chat, and I will read it out. Okay, I do see, Yeah, okay. I see quite a few questions. Also, you are welcome to keep your camera off or turn it on when you ask your question. The first question, the first raised hand today comes from Sven Thordsen. Sven, please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi, good afternoon. thanks f or the opportunity. Firstly, congratulations on a very robust second half performance. Just two questions from our side. Firstly, given the guidance differential and the growth rates for operating profit and HEPS, can you just provide some color on the tax rate, particularly given that FY 2025 was low? Just the second question: with IT evolving so quickly, how is it that we're seeing SA corporate IT spend consistently delayed? I mean, at some stage, one would think there should be a significant catch-up. Any sense on magnitude and timing? Thanks.
Carel, do you want to go with the tax rate, and then I'll come back to the question on IT spend?
Sven, hi, good afternoon. You might recall we said this year is our last year, where we basically are going to have the benefit of historical assessed losses. If you look at this year's effective tax rate, it should come out round about the same rate as what we had in FY 2025. FY 2027, we would have utilized everything, and that's going through this year. For FY 2027, you can expect that to normalize back to statutory rates.
Okay, great. Thanks.
On the IT Services.
Yeah. It's quite a long answer, but I'll give you the short version of it is, we're not yet seeing a catch up, if that's the question of kind of historical clamping down on expenditure. I think what you're gonna see, and we're seeing it in the market, is also a shift in spending. Now, very, very simplistically, for a guy who unfortunately has been around too long, like me, you know, you're not seeing anymore that people are spending as much money on infrastructure, and complicated application development, as we used to. You know, that's, you know, software is doing a lot of that.
You know, AI and what we call self-code is starting to play quite a big role, you know, where historically you used to be able to, you know, kind of sell complex software development to customers, and then you would attach a managed service to it. I mean, that's not really happening that much anymore. So I don't think you are going to see a catch up. You know, hopefully, you know, we'll see a little bit more spend. I mean, obviously, what we're doing in our digital business in particular, is investing in the go-to markets where there are growth. For example, our data and AI and cloud go to a go-to market, whereas in the more traditional go-to markets like infrastructure and managed services, we're managing them more for more for efficiency.
I hope that makes sense. I don't think there'll be a big. I mean, if there is, I mean, we are very, very well positioned to be able to take care to benefit from that. I think what you're really seeing is this shift in spend to a different type of service, and a lot of that's going directly either to the vendor or to different types of software partners. I mean, the logical question that you will then answer is, well, how are we positioning ourselves to be able to do that?
As I said, for me and our ADB, it's firstly, making sure I think we built a very effective sales force in maintaining and growing market share in the traditional business, and then we are investing heavily in that sort of data and AI space, in the cloud space, in the more modern application space. Of course, I think you would have seen at half year also the investments that we've made in our own AI Factory.
Okay. Thank you, Sven. Anything else? We can always come back to you if you have more questions later.
No, that's fine. Thank you.
Okay, I have Anthony Geard from Investec Securities. He has his hand raised. Anthony, please unmute yourself and ask your questions.
How is it going? Hi, Carel. Hi, Philippe. Can I just direct the focus to the FinTech and HealthTech businesses? It looks like the margins really stepped up in the second half. Can you talk to that a little bit? I think you did give some color, for revenue growth for FinTech, not so much for HealthTech. If you could just add a little bit more color, and in particular on FinTech, just explain, you know, how that core micro-lending service business is growing and how you're getting traction. Thanks so much.
Well, I'll give it a go, and then, Carel, if you want to add some color, just jump in. FinTech, Anthony, is volume. It's execution in the market. Look, we believe we've got a good product. We've built and continue to invest in our distribution channel there. That's just volume. You know, we're kind of still hitting all of our kind of sales numbers in that business on a monthly basis. I think you would have seen it at half year, where we spoke about the growth in both customers and then obviously the debit orders that start to grow.
You know, the great thing about these platform businesses, as you know, is when you start to push volumes through it on a fairly fixed cost base, that's when you start to see really good earnings and margins come through. Altron HealthTech, pretty much the same. I think what's the corporate segment there, much like IT services, 'cause you're kind of selling similar solutions into a similar buying base. That's still under a lot of pressure. I think very pleasingly for us is our core private practice business there. We've really, you know, our churn rates are very low there, and our new customer acquisition rates are as high as I've seen it for the last kind of three and half years.
We're really, really pleased by that, and we're starting to see some really good strides in our data business.
Carel?
Anthony, maybe just one thing to add on HealthTech. You know, the R&D spend that we had in prior years, you know, that's also now in the system, and that hasn't, you know, repeating the current year, so that's also lifted that margin a bit because that development's done. We are now wanting to see the results of the development coming through the numbers.
Great. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that. Well done.
Thanks, Anthony. Next up, with a raised hand, and then I've got another question in the chat. We'll start with Katherine Thompson from Edison Group. Katherine, please, unmute yourself and ask your questions.
Hi. Good afternoon. I just want to focus in on Netstar. It looks like South African business there is continuing to do well. You make a reference to the Australian business and some one-offs. I was also curious just to hear how you're doing with the Global Fleet Bureau and also with the Toyota relationship.
Okay, so three questions in there, right? I think let me just repeat. Australia business, Global Fleet Bureau, Toyota, right.
Correct.
Katherine? Yeah.
Yeah.
The Australian business, that turnaround is progressing fairly well. We've had one setback there in December, which has slowed the business down a little bit, so it's not quite where we want it to be. We were hoping for that business, or we were aiming for that business to be profitable in FY 2026. I think it's gonna come in just shy of that, although Carel can take you through some of the details. Some of that is historical costs, so it's kind of a cleanup of historical stuff. If we look at execution in the market, we're kind of right back to where we started before the industry disruption and the 4G migration. We're up to, I think, about 66,000 subscribers now again, Carel.
I mean, still fairly tough going there, but we're now starting to turn the corner, I think, in that business after, as you know, quite a rough three years and honestly, sometimes rougher than we had anticipated it would, it would be. I think we're slowly starting to turn the corner there. Fleet business is going exceptionally well. It's our highest growth business. In fact, part of the capital that we're allocating now is expanding that Global Fleet Bureau. We've actually run out of capacity there. That business has gone really, really well.
I don't know if I think probably at full year, we'll go into a bit more granular details on those growth rates, but that's gone really, really well for us. Our relationship with Toyota, in fact, I've actually got a meeting with them on Thursday. That remains, it remains a key relationship and a very, very good relationship for us, and we continue to want to, we're actually to expand some of our OEM relationships, but Toyota specifically, that's going well.
Great. I just had another question back on Digital Business. I think in, the last set of results, you talked about the AI Factory that had been set up within, well, originally set up elsewhere, but put into that division. Is there anything you can tell us about progress with that? You know, what kind of thing are customers asking for?
Yeah. I mean, maybe just to reiterate, for us, AI Factory is never. The intention was never necessarily to be a standalone, massive revenue spinner. I mean, if you wanna be a big revenue spinner in the AI space, you've also got to be a big capital expenditure player. What that was always about for us is we think it really differentiates us. To your point, that's why the business is going into Altron Digital Business as a go-to-market. We think it really differentiates us, and progress has been really good. Hopefully, you know, as I said, we're still in a financial year, but I think we'll be able to tell you, we'll be able to announce some of the deals we've done in that business.
Some of it's quite fresh off the, you know... The progress, I suppose the simple answer is it's going really, really well. What it's doing, Katherine, is it actually, it's not just creating opportunities for Altron Digital Business, it's actually creating opportunities for some of our other businesses that consumes the services of the AI Factory. What we're also finding for Altron Digital Business specifically, I mean, there's one customer I can think about, for example, where, of course, we're having other cross-selling opportunities because kind of the AI Factory is a, is a, you know, a real conversation opener for that business. When we start solutioneering around what that can do for us, we're finding, well, that's leading to other opportunities in the other go-to-market segments of ADB.
Great. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Katherine. Anything else, or we can always come back. Carel, did you want to add in anything? You good?
No, I think it's covered. Thanks.
Okay, perfect.
Thank you.
I'm just there's no hands raised at the moment, so let me go to the chat. We have a question from Greg Staffy. "Can you provide a bit more color, where the top line growth is coming from in a highly competitive market? Is the industry growing or are you taking market share? If so, why?" Greg, are you referring to FinTech or the business as a whole? It sounds like FinTech?
I'm not sure.
It will be FinTech.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Is it FinTech specifically?
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, cool. Perfect, because I was gonna start responding by saying, obviously, it depends which.
Y ou know, segment you're in, because they're in different markets. I mean, the majority of that growth is coming from the payments and collection business. Just to remind you, that's the business that provides software services for microlenders. The service that we provide is credit vetting, then the disbursement of that payment to the microlenders customer, and then, most importantly, for the microlender, the collection of that money on a monthly basis. It's an industry, 'cause remember, that's quite an informal segment, right? I mean, it is regulated, or parts of the segment is regulated. In fact, we only deal with the regulated part of the segment, so we only deal with NCR compliant microlenders.
In fact, we offer an NCR compliance as part of our service offering to our customers. I think we give them 60 days, if I recall correctly. We help them with that process. If they're not NCR compliant by 60 days, we actually won't continue to do business with them. The reason why I say that is it's quite difficult, you know, I mean, you would have read a lot of. There's been a big narrative in the press over the last, I guess, six months to 12 months around just the informal economy and the informal segments in general. To get, you know, to tell you, there's no formal market share stats.
What I can tell you is we set goals for ourselves on the amount of customers that we sign up a month in that business, and we have achieved and surpassed those goals consistently now, for, I mean, certainly, you know, this financial year. I hope that answers your question.
Thank you.
Maybe maybe why? 'Cause I think that's always a good question. Why do we think we're growing so fast? Few reasons. I mean, look, in that industry of it's all about, it's all about trust, right? About, you know, I mean, the microlender is, you know, obviously essentially borrowing money or taking money, often kind of from the community or from family members and Stokvel proceeds to disburse, you know, to lend that money and to get a return. The number one thing, the number one thing is trust. I mean, they have to trust our brand, and they have to trust that when they disburse money to their customers, they are going to get it back. I think, the two reasons why we are successful in that market is, firstly, our systems have delivered.
I mean, we've had 100%. I mean, we've got a industry kind of record collection, and rates and uptime rates. Touch wood, you're always nervous about things like that. It's something we work on all the time. The other one is, I think, trust in our distribution channel. Our kind of key account managers, who walk the streets, they visit those customers on a monthly basis, the management does. I think it's those two things. I think it's, you know, over time, we've built a trust in the brand through the quality of the product offering, and I think the quality of the distribution channel and the people who sell and support the service.
Thank you. Our next question in the chat is from Miles Fourie: "With ZAR 1 billion of cash, will Altron be making any material acquisitions in the platform segment or returning cash to shareholders?" I think, yeah, maybe the focus is on, given the cash generation, how will we handle sort of the cash flow and growth and balancing those two?
Hello, Miles. You know, we showed you the way we think about capital allocation, and that has not changed. Maybe just to go through it again. For us, it's a fairly straightforward process. We try and maximize the cash flow out of the operations. We invest, like Werner said in his opening remarks, into the organic growth of the businesses that we have, because these are businesses we own, we understand them, and, you know, we feel that where there's growth, you know, it's probably the best allocation of capital to reinvest in those businesses. You know, we always wanna be in a situation where we have flexibility on the balance sheet in case of any activity from an acquisition perspective.
You know, but for that, we make sure we have a certain liquidity buffer, and we make sure that we have unutilized debt facilities or that's available to us. Finally, once we've covered all of these things, we look at the cash position, and when there's surplus cash, we return it to shareholders. To answer your question, it's not one or the other. We try and be able to execute quickly if there's an opportunity, but if there's not and we have surplus cash, then we'll certainly return it to shareholders.
Okay, thanks, Carel. Our next question in the chat, some of these have already been answered, so I'm just gonna focus on the questions that have not yet been addressed. To what extent was free cash flow in the second half better than in the first half? I think the question there is: What were the drivers of the high free cash flow conversion in 2H?
Maybe just on that follows through from the increased contribution of the platform businesses to the overall results of the group. The cash flow-generating ability of those businesses are significantly higher, and it goes back to the fact that they are, you know, annuity revenue. It's a platform that scales well, and it's light on capital intensity and working capital. When the contribution of those platform businesses continue as a part of the whole, that is the main driver behind free cash flow, then also increasing.
Thank you. I then have in the chat, 2 questions that are both quite similar, so I'll just read it out once. Can you please speak to the revenue outlook for the IT businesses? We would like to understand what level of growth is needed to maintain margins over time.
Yeah. Yeah, cool. I'll take it. I think there are two questions-
I think it speaks to the same. I think it's fundamentally the same question. From an IT Service, maybe again, just a reminder, and I apologize if I repeat myself, but I've learned never to take it for granted that people understand your business, and there could be new people on the call as well. There's three different types of businesses in our IT Services Segment, which is our Altron Document Solutions business for Altron Digital Business and Altron Security. I mean, the reason I say that it's important is 'cause they sort have slightly different projected growth rate. If you look at the IT Services Segment overall, the latest market forecast is for that segment to grow by about 5% over the medium term.
When I say the latest, we did that just before half year, last year, and that was a decline of about 2% from the previous forecast. I mean, for those of you that are following IT and software all over the world, I mean, it's a fairly turbulent sector at this point in time, so it'd be interesting to see what the latest forecasts are. I mean, from a you know, so that's kind of and that's ADB particularly, that plays into that IT Services segment. The reason I mention that is if you look at Document Solutions, I mean, the growth trends in that industry are kind of more, you know, 1% or 2%.
From a revenue growth perspective, we haven't given specific medium-term guidance on revenue growth. We gave a medium-term guidance that we want to achieve an operating margin percentage of north of 7% in the segment. In the segment overall, I think we were about 2% in FY 2024, about 5% in FY 2025. FY 2026, obviously under pressure because of the performance of ADB, but medium term, we're still committed to about a 7% operating margin. I think to achieve that, it's a very good question, actually, in terms of the level of growth that's needed to maintain those growth margins. I think we're gonna have to grow at about that projected market growth or slightly more. I mean, by and large, these are...
The biggest cost in these businesses are people. You know, I think about 60%, if not slightly more, I think, Carel, of the people we employ in Altron are within the IT Services segment. They're highly skilled people, so there's labor cost, input cost pressure. I think to achieve that, those kind of growth margins, we're probably gonna have to grow by, you know, about what the market's growing at or slightly higher.
Yeah. Thank you. We have another question from Miles in the chat, then can I just remind everyone who would like to ask a question, and the question is not in the chat, to please raise your hand. Miles's question is: Given this continued consolidation of the market in FinTech, is this a threat or opportunity to Altron FinTech, and why?
Yeah. Miles, that's a very, very good question. I think they are actually both, and of course, there's a little bit more than just the consolidation that's happening, but I think the consolidation are kind of driven by a number of key industry trends, right? I mean, I think firstly, the, you know, kind of everybody trying to capitalize on the opportunity in the informal economy, trying to understand that better, and maybe to some extent, trying to pop it gets, you know, two or three of the bigger companies in South Africa that seems to have been quite successful, I mean, quite successful there. You know, obviously, there's quite a lot happening in the, you know, changes in the payment ecosystem, in South Africa. There's quite a lot of stuff happening also...
I mean, you would have seen some of the announcements that the president has made around sort of digital transformation, the you know, intent to move towards a national identity in South Africa. If, if you kind of put all those things together, I mean, that, you know, I think a lot of that is what is driving this consolidation. I think they're both, I think they are an opportunity or, and a threat to us. You know, you asked the question, and Carel answered it around capital allocation. I mean, we, you know, we've scanned this landscape quite closely.
For us, particularly in FinTech and in Netstar, to a larger extent, we always ask ourselves the question, you know, if we are going to buy a certain company or a certain capability, I mean, do we believe that is going to give us a better competitive advantage or growth opportunity than deploying our own, you know, our own capital? So far, you know, the answer has been no. I mean, that's why we haven't announced any acquisitions, but that's not to say that it's not possible. Of course, there is a flip side. I mean, we continue to scan for threats. I mean, our focus really in that business has been not to get distracted.
I mean, we think we built quite a strong, firstly, moat in that, in that, you know, sort of informal payments and collections space. I think our annuity revenue is up to about, is it 85% or 86%, I think in that business now. As I touched on earlier, our focus is, right now, we feel that the best investment for the best return we can make, also to stay strategically relevant in that business, is we continue to invest in the quality of that platform and the quality of the distribution system. That is not to say that, you know, that there aren't opportunities. Or three. I hope that answers your question. There is, as you know, there is a lot happening in this space.
Okay, thank you. Sven's hand is raised, and I think we've got about five minutes left, so I will take one last question from Sven, and then, Werner, you can close it off for us. Sven, you can unmute yourself and ask your question. Thank you.
Thanks. Well, you kind of touched on it literally a few seconds ago, Werner, regarding the sustainability of these growth rates that we're seeing in both, you know, the Netstar business and the FinTech business. I mean, clearly, these are very impressive growth rates, but, you know, how sustainable are they, given just investing in the existing platform? Or do you need a bolt-on, you know, in two, three years' time in the form of, you know, an acquisition for either one of those businesses to keep, you know, achieving close to double-digit revenue growth?
Yeah. Sven, it is the million-dollar question, to be honest, and that's kinda what we occupy ourselves with all the time. I think, you know, if you look at purely revenue and earnings, I think we also have to be appreciative of the fact that as you scale up, which we've done, right? Right, as you kinda go from 5% operating margin to sort of 12%, I mean, there's a point at which you can't necessarily expect yourself to. I think our compound OI growth has been about 32%-33%. There's obviously a point at which, you know, you've now got good operating leverage. That doesn't mean you can't get good earnings in the business going forward. It's just all relative to your to your base.
I think the more important nature of your question is: to what extent can we continue to grow revenue and market share without having to do acquisitions? I don't have a simple answer for you other than kind of repeating what I said to Miles. It is something that's on top of mind for us, kinda, you know, all the time, and we're cognizant of the fact that at some point or another, you may have to consolidate the market, or you may have to look elsewhere for growth. It's a kind of a, it's an ongoing, it's an ongoing thing.
Okay, thanks.
I do you have one or two more questions in the chat. I will contact you afterwards to just address those separately. In the interest of time, I think I just need to close off now. Thank you.
Well, yeah, firstly, again, thank you very much. Thank you very much, everybody, for your time. We're delighted to be finishing FY 2026 strong, and I think we're in a really good position going into FY 2027. I think it's the best position the business has been in, if not ever, certainly for a long time. As I said, we have no loss-making businesses, a strong ungeared balance sheet, a platform-led earnings mix, and a very capable, very focused, motivated management team. You know, we've worked really hard, and we don't take it for granted, not for one moment, during the last 3.5 years, to earn kind of the right to continue to invest in accelerated and transformative growth.
Which is really good to see that a lot of the questions is around that, 'cause trust me, that is on top of our mind as a leadership team. Yeah, we're gonna be publishing our results on or around on the 25th of May 2026, you know, sort of really looking forward to seeing all of you again that time and taking you through full details. Then, along with the, you know, our Capital Markets Day that we're planning for June 2026. Thank you for your continued interest and support.
Thank you, everyone. Goodbye.
Thank you.