Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Hays Quarterly Results Update for the three months ending March 31, 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the Q&A session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star one one on your telephone keypad. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw a question, please press star one again. Alternatively, you can submit questions via the webcast. I would now like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, Kean Marden, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Nadia. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us at our new, slightly later 9:00 A.M. analyst and investor call on what we appreciate is an unexpectedly busy morning. I'm Kean Marden, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined here today by James Hilton, Chief Financial Officer, to present Hays Q3/2025 results. Before we begin, please be aware that this call is being recorded and the replay is accessible using the number and code provided in the release. Please be aware that our discussions may contain forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as assumptions on future events. There are risk factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such statements.
Hays disclaims any intention or obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements that have been made during this call, regardless of whether these statements are affected by new information, future events, or otherwise. I'll now hand you over to Mr. James.
Thank you, Kean. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I'll present the key points and regional details of today's trading update before taking questions. As usual, all net fee growth percentages are on a like-for-like basis versus the prior year, unless stated otherwise. Group net fees decreased by 9%, with temp and contracting down 6% and perm down 14%. The group's March growth rate was minus 7% on a working-day-adjusted basis. Perm exited at minus 13%, while temp and contracting was more resilient and exited at minus 3% on a working-day-adjusted basis. Despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties, we currently expect FY 2025 operating profit will be in line with consensus. I would highlight the following key items from the results.
In our temp and contracting business, net fees decreased by 6%, with activity levels and volumes rebuilding through the quarter in line with normal trends, except for temp in Germany, which remained subdued. Group temp and contracting volumes decreased by 7% year-on-year, including Germany down 10%, ANZ down 12%, U.K. and Ireland down 10%, and Rest of the W orld up 6%. Perm net fees decreased by 14%, driven by volumes down 19%. This was partially offset by an increase in our group average perm fee of 5%. Perm job flow and activity levels have returned to pre-Christmas levels in the U.K. and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and in North America, but remained subdued in EMEA, particularly in France and in Germany. We continue to see slow conversion of perm activity to placements in the majority of our markets globally.
Our large enterprise clients had another strong quarter with net fee growth of 10%, driven by headcount investment in existing clients, higher fill rates, and geographic expansion. In addition, we have significantly improved our win rate over the last two years, securing 31 new client wins during the quarter and renewing existing contracts with Mitie and Kia. Despite soft markets, our business line prioritization and resource allocation actions drove a 5% year-on-year improvement in average consultant net fee productivity. Once again, our momentum has been sector leading over this period, and on a seasonally adjusted basis, productivity has increased now for six consecutive quarters. Consultant headcount reduced by 5% in the quarter and is now down 13% versus prior year.
Our initiatives to deliver structural savings of circa GBP 30 million per annum by the end of FY2027 continue to progress well, and consequently, our current cost base on a periodic and constant currency basis has improved to circa GBP 76 million from circa GBP 77 million in Q2. We have removed duplicated costs, delayed management, outsourced selective opportunities, further standardized and globalized processes, and expanded our shared service centers. Our non-consultant headcount exited the quarter down 17% year-on-year. The group's net debt position was circa GBP 30 million, which reflected normal seasonal outflows and timing of month-end payments, and a circa GBP 5 million cash exceptional impact. DSOs were maintained at 37 days in line with H1. We expect to return to a modest net cash position in Q4, which is seasonally strong for cash flow. I will comment on the performance of each division in more detail.
Our largest market of Germany saw fees down 9% year-on-year. Temp and contracting fees decreased by 6% year-on-year. Contracting volumes remained solid overall, with fewer finishers offsetting lower starter numbers. However, temp, where we have a greater exposure to the automotive sector, was again more challenging. Temp and contracting margin and mix was at 4% versus prior year, and as I mentioned earlier, volumes declined by 10%. Average hours worked remained sequentially stable, and due to easier comparable, the year-on-year headwind is likely to be modest in Q4. In perm, conditions remain challenging, and fees decreased by 21%. At the specialism level, technology and engineering, our two largest specialisms were down 8% and 19% respectively. Accounting and finance was more resilient, up 2%, while construction and property performed strongly and was up 34% as we saw strong growth in our infrastructure and energy businesses.
Consultant headcount decreased by 4% in the quarter and by 13% year-on-year. Driven by our ongoing resource allocation and back-office efficiency initiatives, consultant net fee productivity increased by 5% year-on-year in Q3, and non-consultant headcount reduced further. In U.K. and Ireland, fees decreased by 13%. Following a good return to work, temp and contracting net fees were down 11% year-on-year, and perm down 16% remained challenging. Fees in the private sector declined by 10%, while fees in the public sector were tougher and down 19% year-on-year. At the specialism level, accountancy and finance and technology decreased by 17% and 19% respectively. Construction and property decreased by 7% but delivered a modest sequential improvement through the quarter. Enterprise performed well and was up 8%, driven by volume growth in existing contracts and new wins. In Ireland, our fees decreased by 24%.
Consultant headcount decreased by 11% in the quarter and by 20% year-on-year. We are not satisfied with our H1 performance and have taken action over the last six months to improve consultant net fee productivity, which increased by 8% year-on-year in Q3, and we have made good progress with our operational efficiency initiatives. As a result, we expect an improved profit performance from the U.K. and Ireland in the second half. As a reminder, our new U.K. and Ireland CEO joins in June 2025. In ANZ, fees decreased by 11% year-on-year. While market conditions remained challenging, activity levels were stable through the quarter. Following a good return to work, temp and contracting fees decreased by 6%. However, conversion of perm activity remained challenging, and net fees were down 20%. The private sector decreased by 9%, with the public sector again tougher, down 14%.
At the specialism level, construction and property decreased 17%, while accountancy and finance and technology decreased by 19% and 8% respectively. ANZ consultant headcount was down 4% in the quarter and down 16% year-on-year. Driven by our focus on resource allocation, consultant net fee productivity increased by 6% year-on-year. In our Rest of World division, comprising 28 countries, fees decreased by 7%. Temp and contracting fees decreased by 2% and perm by 10%. In EMEA ex-Germany, net fees declined by 10%. France, our largest rest-of-the-world country, was down 19%, and action is underway to address productivity and costs. Southern Europe was stronger, with Spain and Portugal up 10% and 14% respectively. In the Americas, net fees grew by 2%, with growth in Canada and the U.S. up 1% and 5% respectively.
LatAm down 6% remained challenging but stable, and we have recently announced our intention to close our operations in Chile, Colombia, Rio de Janeiro, and Campinas, and focus on our two high-potential markets by expanding our existing offices in São Paulo and Mexico City. Asia net fees decreased by 6%, with mixed but overall stable activity through the quarter. Mainland China increased by 9%, and the year-on-year decline in Hong Kong moderated to -15%. Japan was more challenging and was down 23%. For rest of the world as a whole, consultant headcount decreased by 3% in the quarter and by 9% year-on-year. As you may recall from the Q2 IMS on our half-year results, we have several initiatives underway to build a structurally more profitable and resilient business, underpinned by our culture and talented colleagues worldwide.
Before moving to current trading, I wanted to take a few moments to update you. Despite challenging markets, we are delivering on our strategy and have made good progress during the quarter. Consultant fee productivity increased by 5% year-on-year, and we were pleased to deliver 10% net fee growth with large enterprise clients, and our structural cost-saving initiatives are progressing well. Within temp and contracting, year-on-year net fee growth was positive in five of our eight focus countries in Q3, and at the group level, we exited the quarter with fees at -3%. Driving real growth in consultant productivity through business line prioritization, optimized resource allocation, and scaling our eight focus countries will establish a broader base, and together with programs to structurally improve our cost base, will enable the group to return to and then exceed our previous peak profits of GBP 250 million.
Moving on to current trading and guidance, and I'd like to highlight the following. We expect near-term market conditions to remain challenging, with greater resilience in temp and contracting. Perm markets remain difficult, notably in Germany and EMEA, due to longer time to hire. Although we have limited forward visibility, we believe this is likely to persist into FY 2026. We have maintained good levels of productivity through Q3, believe our group consultant headcount capacity is appropriate for current market conditions, and therefore expect it to remain broadly stable in Q4. We will continue to deliver further efficiencies, which will structurally reduce our cost base, and focus on business line prioritization and optimal resource allocation to drive consultant productivity and position Hays strongly for when markets recover. Easter falls entirely in Q4, while in FY 2024 it was split evenly between Q3 and Q4.
We expect this to have a circa 1% negative impact on year-on-year net fee growth in Q4 2025. Overall, while it is difficult to predict timing, we know our markets will recover, and when they do, we will be firmly focused on delivering a high drop-through of fee growth for profit growth. At the half-year results, we noted that due to the ongoing nature of our restructuring and transformation programs, we expected to incur further exceptional costs in H2 2025. Following recent action to address productivity, performance, and costs in several countries, together with ongoing actions in several back-office areas, we currently expect a circa GBP 15-20 million exceptional P&L charge in H2. I'll now hand you back to the administrator, and we are happy to take your questions.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your cell phone keypad and wait for a name to be announced. To withdraw a question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile a Q&A list. This will take a few moments. We are going to take the first question. The question comes from the line of Simon Fitzgerald from Jefferies. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, good morning. Two questions, please. First of all, on the outlook, I mean, to which extent have the recent macro developments impacted your outlook expectations? When you look beyond the next quarter, basically, is there any change in the way you think about the shape of the business for the coming quarters and any potential recovery? Secondly, on the U.K., you have reduced headcount by 11% in Q3. Could you give us details on the actions you have taken? With the new CEO coming in for the country, could you discuss any changes to be implemented in terms of strategy and execution? Thank you.
Thanks, Simon. I'll kick off with the question on outlook, and clearly, we're in a fairly uncertain world right now, and I think we've been clear on that. We have confirmed our current expectation for FY 2025 is that we'll be in line with consensus. Clearly, the recovery is taking longer, and we've put in the statement today that we expect tougher market conditions will persist for some time and into the FY 2026 year. Now, it's very difficult, as you're well aware, that I don't have a crystal ball and can't really predict how these things will play out over the coming months or the coming quarters, but it is our expectation that the recovery will take longer given the uncertainties that are out there, and we felt it appropriate, therefore, to inform the market that we expect these tougher market conditions to persist into FY 2026.
I mean, I can't really say that much more than that, really, at this stage, given everything where we are. Second question on U.K. and Ireland headcount, I mean, I think it's fair to say that we've taken some decisive corrective action in the U.K. and Ireland. We weren't happy or accepting of where our first half performance was. Overall, productivity wasn't good enough, and it wasn't acceptable being in a loss-making position, and I think we've made a pretty decisive response. We've taken out underperforming consultants where we felt that these couldn't be moved or effectively redeployed elsewhere in the business. We've also made significant changes to management structures and layers and to a number of back-office areas, which are clearly more structural in nature. If I stand back from this, the impact has been material. What do I mean by that?
If I compare March to where we were in September, we've turned the U.K. and Ireland business from being loss-making position in September to making more than GBP 1 million profit in March. This isn't the market suddenly improving, as we're all aware, but instead, we've taken GBP 1.3 million a period out of the cost base whilst holding the top line and driving material productivity improvement. I think that's a pretty good performance, and the U.K. and Ireland leadership team should take enormous credit for delivering this, and they are a superb team delivering in a tough market. I think it's important that they've made these steps and laid the foundation for when Tom joins us in June. I'm not here to say what the strategy of the U.K. and Ireland business is going to be going forward.
I think it's important that Tom arrives in June and takes his time to understand the business and then decide how he wants to take it forward. What I would say is that we've taken decisive action to improve the performance of the business, and I'm very, very pleased with how we've done that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The question comes from the line of Andy Grobler from BNP Paribas Exane. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning. Three from me, if I may. Firstly, just kind of following up on the previous question, it's obviously been a volatile few weeks. Have you seen change in behavior from your clients and/or candidates in the last few weeks by region, please? Secondly, enterprise is still very strong. Given that growth, can we assume the agency business is down kind of mid-double digits? For that enterprise business, what's driving that strength? Is it the market, or do you think it is Hays-specific actions? Lastly, just on productivity, up 5% in the quarter, which is great. Do you expect that to moderate through the back end of this fiscal year and into fiscal 2026? Thanks very much.
Thanks, Andy. I'll pick each one up, starting with what have we seen in recent weeks. I think it's fair to say that March was performed in line with our expectations. If I look overall at March as a month, we were about GBP 2 million lower than where we were in September. For me, March and September are pretty comparable months, same number of working days, both important perm periods for us. We're about GBP 2 million lower, and all of that with EMEA and Germany perm. Outside of those two parts of the business, we've seen a pretty stable trend over the last six months. I think that's a confirmation that our return to work in temp and contracting outsiders, as we spoke about in Germany, in temp, which is largely autos-related, has been in line with our expectations and in line with previous years.
That's been helpful. Actually, perm elsewhere outside of EMEA and Germany has been pretty stable as well. I'd highlight the U.K. and Ireland. As I said before, March performance was pretty much in line with September, and similarly with Australia and New Zealand as well. I think, and North America. I think overall, Andy, we're pretty satisfied with where we landed in March. I guess perhaps your question was perhaps more interested in, have we seen anything in very recent times around the announcements on tariffs, etc.? I mean, look, you'll have seen clearly that I haven't mentioned tariffs in either the statement or in the script.
Quite frankly, I've got one week's worth of data from last week, and having done ops reviews with all of our businesses globally in the last two days, all of those reviews were very consistent that it's just too early to predict what impact this may have on our business. We know that anything that impacts client and candidate confidence may well impact our business in time, but at this stage, we simply don't know. You know me well enough to know that if and when we do see something, we'll be clear and we'll share this with you. I mean, in the meantime, we're just resolutely focused on delivering on our strategy, and I think we've made good progress on that.
I think that leads on to your next two questions, Andy, actually, which is, first of all, enterprise, where we were at 10% in the quarter. Again, we were at 10% in the first half, and it's good to continue that growth into this quarter. What's driving that? Put simply, the majority of our business in enterprise is in MSP, and in those MSPs, we've been resolutely focused on improving our own fill rates on those clients. I think we've made good progress on taking market share within those fill rates. We've had a number of good client wins, as you will see in the announcement, and some good retentions as well, which are important for us. I think all of those together mean that we're taking share in that market and we're performing strongly.
I'm very pleased with how we're performing in that area, and that's a strategically important area for us. The last part was around productivity. Again, we're pleased to be up 5% in the quarter. In my mind, delivering real growth in productivity, i.e., productivity growth in excess of inflation, is an important part of how, over the long term, we'll rebuild the profitability sustainably of the business. It's really good to continue that six quarters in a row that we've built and improved our productivity now, which is important. Again, it's difficult for me to forecast how that will change or whether we'll sustain that. I mean, it's our ambition over the long term to sustain real productivity growth. Now, will it be impacted short term by factors?
Yes, it could do, but we'll also respond to those market factors, as we have been doing the last 18 months, by redeploying consultants, by challenging the business on operational rigor, and making sure that we've got the right people on the right desk, ultimately, and they're performing at the level we need. If they're not doing that, we'll make corrections. I think for where we are today, Andy, we're happy with where our consultant headcount is. We think it will be broadly stable over the next quarter, but under the covers, we'll be busy redeploying and moving people around on the ground, and that's what we're resolutely focused on doing. It's difficult for me to say whether the short term we'll see a productivity impact of any market disturbance, but over the long term, it's our ambition to drive real productivity improvement.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Andy.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The question comes from the line of Karl Green from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yeah, thanks very much. Good morning. A couple of linked questions on the U.K. following on from the prior questions, and then a separate one. Just in terms of the GBP 1.3 million per period cost, sorry, per period cost, sorry, the GBP 1 million plus profit that you were delivering in March. Just to double-check, that includes the central cost allocation, or is that just the trading business in the U.K.? Also, again, just running down into the U.K. and Ireland headcount, you've indicated the consultant headcount reduction in the quarter. What was the aggregate U.K. and Ireland headcount movement in the quarter? The last question, sort of thinking a year or two out, just in terms of that ambition to drive high drop-through, I appreciate you can't, in a month of Sundays, determine what the shape of the fee recovery is going to look like.
Could you just help us get some sort of sense, say, if you got 5%-10% fee improvement across the group, what the drop-through would look like, or say 15%-20% in a more optimistic scenario? Just to try and scale what the range of drop-throughs might look like, please.
Thanks, Karl. Thank you for the first question on U.K. and Ireland. Yes, it's helpful for me just to put that into context. The profit that we delivered in March is before our group central cost allocation, but still, that is a turnaround from being in a loss-making position to GBP 1 million of profit in the last couple of periods, which is important, but it is before our group central recharge. Going to your question on the aggregate U.K. headcount reduction, sort of what does that actually mean over the last three months? We reduced our consultant base by 163 consultants, which was 11%. Overall, our employee headcount was down by 232 employees. That was about an extra 70 or so headcount in non-fee-earning areas, so about roughly 2/3, 1/3 split there.
We did exit a number of offices over the last six months. As I say, we have been focused on a number of areas of cost as well. I think it is a combination of all of those things that have led to that improvement. Question on the long-term drop-through, wow, geez, that feels like an interesting question. Probably not a question I was expecting on this call, Karl, but an important one because I think we are resolutely focused on driving productivity growth over the long term. What that means is, I think it is safe to say that when we do see an inflection and we return to a positive top line, we will expect to see a good proportion of that drop-through to the bottom line.
It's difficult to say for every pound of extra fees, will we see 50p of profit or 60p of profit? I kind of need to see what the shape of that recovery is, really, to be able to make that call. I certainly would expect, certainly in the early stages of the recovery, to see a pretty high drop-through. I think really, why is that? First of all, we're focused on driving productivity growth in excess of cost growth, and that's important. Secondly, we should see the impact of our efficiency programs come through as well, which will drive the bottom line. Certainly, in the early stages of the recovery, I would expect to see a very high drop-through of fees into profit.
Clearly, as the recovery takes shape and sustains, you clearly would get back into investment, and that drop-through would come back down to a more moderate level. I would expect it to be in the sort of 50% plus range.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thanks, K arl.
Thank you. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of R émi Grenu from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Morning, gentlemen. Just one remaining on my side. On the German temp business, I mean, it has been an issue over the last two quarters, and you were still flagging that rebuilding at slower pace. Can you help us quantify and understand the drag there and whether you are seeing any signs of further deterioration there or positive inflection a little bit on the phasing through the quarter, please?
Yeah, thanks, Rémi. Yeah, we've been talking about temp weakness in Germany, and it's also related, actually, outside of the autos in temp. We're seeing things pretty stable and solid as we are in the contracting business. In the temp auto sector, we're down about 50% year on year in number of new starters, which is this time last year, we would have put in about 100 temps in a period, about half of those in autos. Clearly, that 50 temp starters that we would normally expect is at volumes now down in the 20s, and that's been fairly consistent over the last quarter. Well down on where we would expect to be. I mean, I would highlight that typically, we're putting in 350 to 400 starters a week in Germany across our contracting and temp business.
When you look at the impact of autos, yes, it's material to the temp business, but actually, to the business overall, it's relatively small versus the 350-400 starters that we put in a month in Germany. Yeah, I mean, eventually, it does become a relatively small proportion of the business. I guess going on to your question of if we've seen any material shift in that, not really. I think we've been driving weakness there for 12 months. I wouldn't say there's been any significant deviation in that in the last three months or so.
Okay. Understood. Thanks.
Thanks, Rémi.
Thank you. Dear participant, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. We are going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Steve Woolf from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, guys. Just one from me on France. You flagged it here as an area obviously still waiting to be restructured to some degree. Is that really just a question of headcount on the consultant side and how long it takes to get removed headcount in France, or is it more something more fundamental in terms of areas that you're operating in which might not have as high a conversion ratio prospects in the longer term? Really, it's all headcount versus reshuffle in terms of sectors, if possible.
Yeah, thanks, Steve. No, you're right to highlight France was a little bit behind where we wanted it to be, to be fair. I think it's a challenging market, don't get me wrong, and I think you've seen that across the sector. I think it's safe to say there's been some Hays-specific factors that have contributed to that result. We're still 80% perm, and only 20% in contracting, for example, and that isn't a high enough proportion, and it's something that we need to increase. Also, if you look at the mix of our perm business, we're still heavily weighted to the more junior end of the market in France versus the senior end of the market. Again, that's clearly where we've seen more weakness globally in perm recruitment over the last 18-24 months.
I think all those are factors of how we want to reposition that business. We have made some changes in leadership in France in the last three months, really to accelerate our focus on driving more non-perm into the business and also to move further up the food chain into higher, more senior end of market in perm. I think those are important strategic initiatives that we want to get on and execute. I think it is a bit of a combination, Steve. In France, I think it is a tough market, and I think it is, across Europe, probably the most challenging market we've got. Still, we're not happy with the speed of travel in our business, and we're making steps to take steps to address that.
Presumably, a decent chunk of that exceptional charge for the second half relates to France. Is that fair?
You're not wrong. It's an expensive place to make changes. We're all aware of that. That's the regime and the world that we're in in France. Yes, there are some significant changes going through right now in France, and it comes with a relatively hefty price tag, unfortunately. No, look, it's an important business for us. It's one of our focus countries. It's a business that pre-downturn, we were making GBP 15 million a year in profit, and we will get back to that level of profitability with a business which is more structurally aligned to where we want to take the group. It's important that we take these steps now. It's not easy, and there's a lot going on in France right now. The team there are doing a really good job.
No, it's important that we make these changes because France really is a really important market.
Perfect. That's great. Thanks, James.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Rory McKenzie from UBS. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Rory, two questions, please. Firstly, in terms of contractor, can you talk about the current impact you're seeing from hours per contractor and wages or fee rates and anything that reveals about client kind of budgets or behavior? Then secondly, on the profit outlook you've confirmed, it suggests that absolute adjusted EBIT will be a bit higher in H2 than H1, which I think is normal seasonality, which is good to see. Should we think about the underlying EBIT basis therefore being broadly stable from here, or do you have more visibility on further cost reductions to annualize in that profit run rate, again, kind of ignoring top line cycle that we don't know about just yet? Thank you.
Okay, I'll pick the first one up, Rory, on temp and contracting. Are we seeing any movement on hours or fee rates? Actually, it's been pretty stable, to be fair, over the last six months. If we cast our mind back 12 months ago, we were seeing an impact in Germany specifically of reduced hours in our contracting and temp business there as clients were pulling back on their budgets, and we were seeing that reduction really less over time and a little bit less spend from clients. I think we've been in a pretty steady world, actually, over the last few months, both in terms of the hours worked per contractor or temp and also in the fee rates that we're getting.
If you look, for example, in this quarter in Germany, our temp and contracting business was down 6%, and that was off the back of 10% reduction in volumes, and therefore, the impact of margin mix and hours was plus 4% year on year. Within that, hours was pretty stable, and we're continuing to see modest improvement in our pricing and margin as well. I'd say that's a pretty stable environment that we're in right now and therefore not indicative of any real change in client behaviour. Second question on EBIT, yeah, you're right. If we pull your consensus, it's just a fraction under GBP 57 million, which would mean that we'd have about GBP 32 million of profit in H2. That's kind of a combination of two things.
We've clearly had a deceleration of the top line through H1, and if we continue through a stable second half, that would be a slight drop in overall top line. On the counterbalance of that, we've got the annualisation of cost savings that have come through the year, which would mean that our second half profits are slightly better than the first half. It's difficult for me to predict much into the future. As you know, Rory, FY 2026, but I think we'll exit the year with a cost base around, well, we're at GBP 76 million now. I'd expect to be a tad lower than that by the time we get to the end of the financial year as we've still got some things in flight which will come through. It's all about kind of where does it go from here?
Do we start seeing a change in the top line? Who knows? It's just too difficult to predict, I think, at the moment. I think our base case and central case is that we'll expect to see challenging markets persist into FY 2026. I'm not sitting here today forecasting the top line recovery, but we'll continue to drive the business as hard as we can, and we'll continue to run an efficient business as much as we can and focus on the costs.
Yeah, that's very fair. Thank you.
Thanks, Rory.
Thank you. As we have no further questions for today, I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, James Hilton, for any closing remarks.
Thanks, Nadia. That is all for the questions for today. Thank you again for joining the call. I will look forward to speaking to you next with our Q4 results on the 11th of July. Should anyone have any follow-up questions, Kean, Rob, and myself will be available for the rest of the day to take any calls. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a nice day.