Good morning, everybody. I'm Simon Bennett, the Chair of Accordant Group, and on behalf of the board, our CEO, Jason, and the whole Accordant team, welcome to the FY 2026 annual shareholders meeting. I'm told that the notice of meeting has been sent to all shareholders, and we have the required quorum. I now declare the meeting open. I firstly apologize to those of you who would like to have a sandwich and some morning tea, but we decided in the new age that we're in the interests of cost, that we'd go online only this year. The order of today's meeting is as follows. We note the financial statements. We get a report from the CEO and an update. We've got a couple of resolutions. One, Simon Hull for re-election, and we make a resolution to set the auditor's fees.
Very short update on the employee share scheme and then general business. In terms of the Q&A process, none of you will be putting your hands up in the air, so feel free to ask your questions until your heart's content during the meeting. They'll all be collated and when we get to the end, we'll answer them all in one hit. If now likely then we get masses of questions and some are the same, then we might amalgamate the questions. If you get anything too tricky that is too difficult for us, then we may defer to email or contact you direct. If you have any issues with the questions or anything else, then the virtual annual meeting online portal guide can help you or give them a ring, 1-800-200-220.
Although you can't see anybody else yet, we do here have our directors, Richard Stone and Simon Hull, there we go, and Jason Cherrington in the office there. Simon's going to talk to you a bit later on as he is seeking re-election, and we're not planning for Richard to speak unless you have a pertinent question. If someone could dig one of those out, it'd be good to see him in his finery. Look, as you're aware, FY 2026 was a challenging year and not lots of brownie points, and then we did narrow the loss from the previous year, which was good. But you really should know that the team did extremely well to grind out that result in what has been a particularly difficult trading environment. I think internally, we've had a strong response to the economic and the market conditions.
The business has been streamlined, and we've obviously taken out cost as you would expect us to. In terms of the two sectors we operate in, white-collar was probably tougher than the blue-collar, and in fact, in blue-collar, we did deliver some growth. Importantly, as you'll all know, particularly if you participated, we embarked on a capital raise during the latter part of the year. This resulted in a NZD 5 million raise. That was super important. That was the foundation for which we were able to renegotiate with the banks and have got a really good banking package in place until April 2028. Which in fact, despite the challenging times we're in and the challenging trading, is the longest, or the furthest out we've ever had secure banking, which is pretty good.
We have got the headroom, we have got the time, and now we just need to better our trading and grow the earnings again. We obviously gave some guidance as part of the capital raise. We are pleased after four months, and it is early days to have surpassed that guidance, as you probably have expected us to do. You will also note today that we have got a leaner board here. I think it is indicative of the way that we think of the business, and the business on the inside is lean also. But lean and focused, I would say. I would say that confidence is returning to business, and we really feel like we are positioned better to start to give our shareholders, our loyal shareholders, some good returns again. That is a pretty brief, but Jason will give you a much more fulsome update shortly.
To the business at hand. Firstly, I note the financial statements for the year end March 31 . As stated in the annual report, the directors declared no dividend, again, as you would expect. On that note, I will pass over to Jason, our CEO.
Great. Thanks, Simon. Good morning, everyone. I recall, I think last year, Simon talked around powder day out on the slopes. I think I am pleased to say today it certainly feels like we are bringing maybe slightly different weather and potentially a bit of sunshine as well. Hopefully you will enjoy the next, what will probably be around 10 minutes. As I, whilst recognizing we did go through a raise process in May of this year, and we covered a good amount of detail regarding our performance in FY 2026. Obviously, we gave an estimate, as Simon said, on where we thought the financial year would land from an EBITDA perspective. I will condense today's report by briefly summarizing last year's performance, and then close with an update on FY 2027 now that we are four months in. FY 2026 saw trading stabilize after two years of decline.
That is NZD 165 million of revenue, broadly in line with the prior year. I am sure you will recall that at the half year stage, we were reporting being 8% behind on revenue year-on-year, and so an improved second half of the year, and probably more importantly, some momentum to build upon going into FY 2027. Improved underlying business unit performance did see a return to positive EBITDA for the group. Marginally better than we anticipated during the capital raise, whilst generating operating cash flow back at a of NZD +1.6 million. That was an improvement on the prior year of NZD -684,000. Net loss after tax did improve to NZD 2.1 million from a NZD 2.9 million loss in the prior year, but still a loss. I think what was most encouraging was how the second half of the year felt.
Confidence was slowly starting to pick up, and that's despite global tensions in the Middle East, broader economic constraints, and hiring appetite still being uneven. As you'll recall, during the raise process in May of this year, we estimated NZD 1.3 million of earnings for FY 2026, and as you can see, the achievement was a slightly better outcome. The capital raise process completed with a minimum of NZD 5 million, which was the target, or the minimum target, and proceeds have been applied to reduce debts, improve balance sheet stability, reduce interest costs through better banking terms, as Simon's mentioned, and then support the business as we execute on our strategic priorities over the next three years. That's all without being forced into making short-term decisions that compromise longer term capability and obviously success. That's an important step.
I'd like to personally thank everybody that I spoke to who contributed towards the raise, recognizing the significant contribution from our majority shareholder, and all of those that participated. I also recognize we need to win the confidence ongoing of all shareholders. Positive operating cash flow of NZD 1.6 million reflects disciplined operational management and cost optimization that we undertook. We're starting to see the benefits of that now as we move into this year, as we've moved into this year. It's a business that's been reshaped to operate more efficiently in what is now the new norm. Turning to the performance of our sectors, as you know, we have white-collar and blue-collar, and we primarily report on those sectors.
Taking the latter first, blue-collar revenue increased by 6.2% to NZD 77.3 million, and segment profit for blue-collar rose by almost NZD 600,000 -NZD 2.1 million. That performance was underpinned by a continuation of these business development activities that we've had in targeted sectors, predominantly civil and infrastructure related works, but also logistics growth, and we have seen market share gains that have helped the second half of AWF improve significantly. Conversely, white-collar did decline by 5% to NZD 87.9 million, and that reflects continued caution in the professional hiring markets. But once again, we did see executive search revenues grow quite consistently through the year and margins. In fact, the biggest gain year- on- year that we've seen in the executive market space for some time. That once again is a combination of strong execution, but also winning market share.
Most notably, the segment as a whole, returns were positive profit contribution after a loss in FY 2025. That's once again highlighting action taken to manage costs, retaining the core capability so that we can still deliver, and then reposition ourselves the demand as that's started to come through. Across all of this, diversification still remains one of Accordant's key strengths. Markets rarely recover evenly across all sectors or regions or role types. But our portfolio does give us the ability to pursue opportunity, I guess, where it appears, rather than just relying on one part of the market to recover and help the overall business. FY 2026 signaled Accordant has moved from decline to stabilization, and what usually follows stabilization is recovery and growth. The way I think about that is get well, get fit, get winning and get running.
If FY 2024 and 2025 was starting to get, well, get fit certainly is the mode that we have now entered into. We are firmly in FY 2027 now. Just before I go into giving a specific update on the business for FY 2027, I think it is just worthwhile spending a few moments on some market-related statistics that you may not hear of in this kind of format. Because our sector really is sensitive to shifts in employer confidence. I think it is important that we recognize that. As you will be aware, I am sure New Zealand's economic or economy overall showed signs of recovery in the March 2026 quarter. That is GDP up 0.8% on the prior quarter, and that follows a 0.5% increase in the December quarter. Annual GDP overall was at 0.8% for the year ending March 2026.
I know all eyes will be on the GDP release on the September 17th , but they are interesting indicators. However, conversely, if you look at the labor market generally, it has remained softer than the broader GDP number might have suggested. Unemployment rates actually increased to 5.6% in the June 2026 quarter. That is 171,000 people currently unemployed. If you build in the underutilization rates, that went up to 13.8%, and that represents 440,000 people who were either unemployed, underemployed or otherwise wanting to do more work. That is the highest it has been since 2015. If we look at filled jobs, well, filled jobs in June 2026 were up 0.6% compared to June 2025, and that is with 2.35 million actual jobs filled across the economy. Public administration, safety, healthcare, social assistance, financial and insurance services all recorded annual increases. We know business sentiment also improved strongly.
If we look at ANZ Business Outlook Survey for July 2026, that showed business confidence lifted to 56.1. Expected own activity rose to 49.3, and employment intentions improved to 18.1. Finally, if you look at job advertisements, they show that the recovery is also uneven. SEEK reported the job ads fell 0.8% in July, the third consecutive month of decline, whilst applications per job ad rose, indicating that candidates are now looking and competing, but for fewer advertised opportunities. All of that said, the picture is not uniformly positive. But if we look at the consumer confidence, which has been subdued. The Westpac McDermott Miller Consumer Confidence Index, which is generally the index that we look at for, once again, recognizing where consumer confidence sits at any moment in time.
That fell to 80.4 in the June quarter, and that is the lowest level it has been since 2023, reflecting pressure on households, ongoing uncertainty, and clearly uncertainty as far as house pricing is concerned. When we take all of that in the whole, I guess I read that as confidence has been improving. GDP growth has been seen. Some sectors are moving quite considerably. Some regions we know are moving more than others. But hiring generally is still lagging. Consumer confidence remains cautious and global and domestic uncertainty does continue to influence some decision-making. Of course, we have an election year this year as well. Maybe not your typical election cycle, because certainly the noise internationally feels somewhat louder. For Accordant, what does that mean? It means we do remain optimistic, but measured still as we go delivering on our commitments.
We are not planning the business based on any one assumption or straight line recovery. We are taking the year quarter by quarter, as we should. We are maximizing the demands as we see them that exist in each quarter, in each sector, as we should, whilst building long-term capacity where we can see some structural opportunity. The business we are discussing as of today is already operating in a different context to that of the last financial year. I am pleased to say that the first quarter of the current financial year has been stronger than the last, and it is encouraging. Performance is up year-on-year, and the momentum we saw in the final quarter of FY 2026 has carried into the early part of FY 2027. It is one quarter. We remain realistic. We are not getting ahead of ourselves.
As I say, we do have an election to navigate, and we will see how that plays out over the coming months. We are not calling complete recovery, clearly, but we are calling it active. We are calling the recovery uneven and still developing. I personally feel business leaders that I talk to and peers are pretty much over it. They recognize that this is a new norm. No one is talking about going back to a certain point in time. People just want to push on, and get some stuff delivered. I think that is encouraging for us and certainly for the business and the markets that we operate in. Our key areas of focus do not change. They are still infrastructure, logistics, healthcare. They are executive search.
They are specialist technology, cybersecurity, still transformation as some of those projects come back online, and of course, the broader AI-enabled workforce changes that have been talked about. I think AI is particularly relevant. Once again, if you look at SEEK's July employment data that we were reading just a few days ago, that shows job ads referencing AI skills are now up almost 95%, with AI-related skills now appearing in almost 4% of all New Zealand job ads. I talked a little bit about AI last year. I said we have not drunk the Kool-Aid within our business, but we are making moves, in how we internally consider AI and the opportunity as we do ads in the market. Our view is that AI will change roles, and productivity expectations will change as well.
I think the opportunity for New Zealand is not just substitution, it is augmentation. It is helping people and organizations become more capable, more responsive, and more productive without losing that key human element at the most relevant time. I think that point is really, really key. For recruitment and a workforce solutions business, that is both a challenge and an opportunity. We continue to be on the front foot, and I will share more progress as we use AI as an integrated enabler for our business, and the moves that we have made over the coming year. Commercially, we are not interested in chasing volume or business generally at any price. In a market that is easy to get access into, easy entry into certain areas of our market, and where maybe some competitors are prepared to erode margins unsustainably.
It's no surprise if you look over the last few years, there have been more blue-collar businesses that have folded than in the last 20. But we continue to back the quality of our service, our health and safety standards, which still remain extremely high, our candidate care, and the strength of our client relationships. All of those things are super important to us. We will not win business at any price. Do not feel that is the markets or the areas of the market we want to operate in. We will keep leaning into our diversified platform, so our brands do give exposure from temporary labor and logistic roles, right the way through to professional contracting and technology, senior leadership, board appointments.
I mean, that breadth is valuable in any market, but particularly when recovery is inconsistent, and we will continue to invest in future capability. So keep strengthening our business development capability because we see it pays back. Keep growing sectors with enduring demand and use technology once again to help our people increase that all-important customer-facing time, which is critical. Finally, we need to continue to rebuild trust, certainly with our shareholder community, through performance. The capital raise has provided greater balance sheet stability, but that obligation is now to convert that trust into improved earnings, as we've started to see this year, better returns, and of course, a stronger business for shareholders. As I stand here today, I feel pretty good about where the business is now, the fact we're in a better place than it was 12 months ago and certainly two years ago.
I also feel pretty good about the amazing group of people that I lead across New Zealand, within our business. People that impact so many lives positively, regionally and nationally. A lot of those people will be on the call today. You should all be very proud of the work that you do and the energy that you deploy, that has enabled Accordant to power through what has been the last couple of years of challenge, certainly the last 12 months of some uncertainty, and you've taken all of that in your stride, so thank you. For our clients, candidates, contractors, and temporary workers, of course, we know the job market has been challenging, for many. We thank them for allowing us to represent and support you in those challenges.
I feel on balance, we've all had to take our punches well over the last few years. But it's not really now the time to dwell on that. It's rather push on, keep the momentum going, and stay focused on a return to consistent profitability. So personally, I'd like to thank you for your time, your patience, and of course, your most welcomed support. With that, I'll hand back to Simon.
Hey, thanks, Jason. Look, excellent. Thank you. I think that was a really decent overview. I reiterate, I touched on it in my brief blurb at the start, but it's pretty tough being in businesses when things aren't going so well. It's not just tough being in a business that's in a listed market even more so. In some ways, being on the board's the easy gig. Mind you, in saying that, I see the odd listed board at the moment in the news. Wouldn't be much fun being one of those directors. Yeah, look, I think that for the team, just to take the medicine and carry on, but work hard for us and find a future is super important.
Just for context, Jason mentioned this unevenness of the recovery, and there's a reasonably large piece of work that we've picked up in blue-collar in a sector like mining where we haven't had lots and lots of workers before. That's the type of thing where the market trusts us. We've got good systems. We know how to find people. We know how to manage people, and we can take advantage of it. Whereas there are obviously other sectors that aren't as positive. Anyway, that's a small insight. We move now to agenda four, resolutions. Look, these are ordinary resolutions, and so they just need a simple majority of those who are entitled to vote, obviously. Voting will be conducted by way of a poll. Results of the vote will be announced via NZX.
If you have already voted, then you need to do nothing. As we're online, obviously, otherwise you wouldn't be hearing from me. You can cast your vote using the voting card when you registered. You just need to click Get Voting Card, and you'll be asked to enter your shareholder or proxy number to validate. Then you just mark the way you wish to vote, for, against, or abstain. Once you've made your selection, click Submit Vote on the bottom of the card to lodge your vote. Again, refer to the portal if you have any trouble. So director appointment, as I've mentioned, ordinary resolution and just need a majority. Now we move to the reappointment of Simon Hull, who will have a few words for you.
Good morning. I'd like to start by thanking the two recently retired directors, Nick Simcock and Bella Takiari-Brame, as well for their work and their contributions to the group. I thank them both personally, and on behalf of all shareholders for those contributions. I guess that my, excuse me, my offering myself for re-elections feels a little perfunctory, having been on the board of this company for 30 + years, and there isn't too much new to say. But I can say that I'm as determined as I've ever been to get this group back to the successes we enjoyed through most of our past. As Jason has indicated, I'm pleased to see that the changes and hard work of the last year and more have had the desired effect and are moving the dial positively.
Like all shareholders, I look forward to seeing us able to resume a dividend stream in the future. Lastly, I would like to thank our many teams for the professionalism and the integrity that they bring to all our candidate interactions, and in fact, most importantly, for all they do to keep them safe out there in their work every day. That is it from me. I would like to offer myself for re-election.
Okay. Thanks, Simon. Luckily, at the moment, you are sitting with 99.02% in favor of this resolution. I think you are going to be reelected, but we will post that shortly. The next resolution, auditors fees, would be nice to see our auditors pitch like our directors have to for business in front of our shareholders, but they do not. We would like to resolve to authorize the directors to fix the auditors fees and expenses. Of the proxy votes received, only 99.07 in favor of this today. Again, please vote for, against, or abstain to that. Might just slow my speaking down a moment for those of you that need to get those votes through. Now we move to agenda item five, the share incentive scheme. This is a pretty dry part of the presentation because there is no change to that scheme.
Obviously, when we are doing a diluted raise, and where the share price is, those share schemes do not work so well. Obviously, we would rather try to grow the earnings and grow the share price, and then people become more relevant. We are going to have a look at that scheme as well this year. Now we move to agenda item six, questions and general business. We welcome some questions from the virtual floor, if anybody has them. I think Shereen, who you cannot see, is going to ask those questions.
We have got one question so far. It is a question that has come from the New Zealand Shareholders' Association. Will you post the address and presentations on NZX?
Well, that's an easy one. The answer to that is yes. The video is normally a day or so later, but the presentation will be on the website pronto.
There's no other questions at this point.
Just shows we should have put some sandwiches on. Okay. Well, thanks everybody that's attended online. Again, reiterate thanks to the team. Look, we are fighting for you, our shareholders, and this time next year, I hope to deliver a much better result for you. Thanks very much.