Atturra Limited (ATA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Krista, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Atturra Limited Full Year 2026 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to welcome Stephen Kowal, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'm Stephen Kowal, the Chief Executive Officer of Atturra. Also joining me today is Kunal Shah, our Chief Financial Officer, and you'll hear from him later. Today, I'm pleased to be able to talk you through both our business and our FY '26 results. It is important that you read the information in this presentation in conjunction with the accounts we released earlier today to the ASX. Let me quickly touch on the agenda. Today's presentation will begin with a summary of the results. I will then provide a brief business overview, including how our FY '27 priorities have shifted towards organic growth and selected investments intended to drive long-term growth. Kunal will cover the financial performance. I will then cover our strengths and capabilities and the FY '27 outlook. And I'll end by opening it up to those that preregistered for a Q&A session. Let me start with the headline results. In summary, FY '26 did not meet our expectations. However, as set out in our July trading update, Atturra expects to deliver a record revenue, EBIT and underlying EBITDA in FY '27. At the top line, revenue increased 17% on the prior corresponding period to $351.8 million. The increase was primarily acquisition-led with organic revenue broadly flat year-on-year, mainly as a result of reduced government spending. Underlying EBITDA was $30.1 million, down approximately 5% on the prior year, but was in the $30 million to $31 million full year range we set at the half year. The shape of the year matters. Underlying EBITDA in the second half was approximately $22.8 million, up 27% on the prior corresponding period. Operating cash flow also moved from a $13.4 million outflow in the first half to an inflow of approximately $22.5 million in the second half. We now have more than 1,300 staff, including over 350 security clearances. And critically, we achieved 78% predictable revenue, exceeding our target of 75%, a significant increase from the FY '24 when we set that target. Kunal will cover our financials in more detail later. Looking at the results over the 5 years from FY '22 to FY '26, revenue has grown at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 27% and underlying EBITDA at approximately 19%. That reflects both organic and acquired growth. Although as previously stated, the growth in FY '26 was predominantly acquisition related. Our revenue is diversified across energy, resources, public sector, education, financial services, manufacturing and other industries. No single customer represents more than 10% of group revenue in FY '26. It is important to note that our public sector revenue is now concentrated in areas that have been less affected by government spending restrictions. Based on the current mix of work, we expect limited to no significant headwinds in FY '27. Before we jump into the financial details, I wanted to do a quick business overview and cover off our vision and strategy. Our vision remains unchanged to be Australia's leading advisory and IT solutions provider. Our model combines deep industry expertise with technology specialization and strong delivery capability. That combination is important because clients want partners who understand both the technology and the operating context in which it must work. For FY '27, we have an increased focus on earnings per share, operational efficiency, and we're adopting an AI-first approach. And we're investing heavily in areas where we see the strongest growth and differentiation, AI, cyber, cloud and data. As disclosed in our recent trading update, our investment is heavily weighted to the first half of FY '27 and is expected to begin supporting growth and operating leverage in the second half of FY '27 and beyond. Atturra is seeing significant demand for AI and AI adjacent advisory services within our existing clients. In particular, our clients are engaging Atturra around AI in 3 key areas: data and AI governance and security; secondly, data readiness; and third, adoption with a focus on return on investment. Artura expects this demand to grow for the next several years as enterprises grapple with the changing AI landscape. In our previous half year results, we listed several key objectives, and I'm pleased to say we made progress against each of those objectives. It wouldn't be 2026 if we didn't start with AI. AI is both a client opportunity and an internal operating priority. We're developing repeatable services and intellectual property, including AI opportunities for readiness and adoption work, and we may test many of those offerings inside Atturra before taking to the market. Internally, we are applying AI across sales, operations and delivery with the aim of improving productivity and margins rather than simply increasing activity. Secondly, at the start of the year, we highlighted Atturra's goal to grow its traceability and footprint in managed services. This was primarily achieved through the acquisition of Blue Connections, which added significantly to our managed services capability and capacity. We are also developing adjacent services and AI readiness, security and automation. Thirdly, we invested heavily in industry solutions, most importantly, Scholarion, our student information management system, which finished FY '26 with 6 contractor clients, an impressive result given the full system is not in production until September 2026. Our goal is to achieve more than 20 contractor clients by the end of FY '27. We also have several other solutions, which I'll cover off later in this presentation. Our fourth focus area was improved capital management, which you flagged in our FY '25 results presentation and which Kunal will touch on in the finance section. We have deployed approximately $25 million in FY '26 in share buybacks and acquisitions. The final core area called out in FY '25 was increased sales investment and the establish of a strategic sales group. As a result of this investment, Atturra now has a dedicated large deal team as well as increased sales capability in Queensland and New South Wales focused on strategic sales and have increased our specialized sales capabilities across Australia with specific focus on Microsoft AI and ERP capabilities. Next, I want to share the key industry sector trends we are seeing. You can see from this that Atturra's investment and recent acquisitions have been very deliberate, focused on technology sectors in which there is strong and ongoing demand. You can see that the sectors in which Atturra is building capability are supported by structural demand. For example, managed services, AI, ERP modernization, sovereign and regulated cloud, digital infrastructure and education platforms. I will not read out every market forecast on this slide. However, the alignment between our investments and forecast market demand is clear. Atturra already has significant footprint in several of these areas, including managed services, infrastructure, cloud and data. And of course, data is the core requirement for AI. In the case of ERP and student information management systems, they are key areas that we're expanding rapidly. Let's talk financial performance. I will now hand over to Kunal, who will take you through the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Stephen. Hello, everyone. My name is Kunal Shah, and I'm the Chief Financial Officer for Atturra. I will be presenting some more detail around the company's financial results for the 12 months ended 30th June 2026. The first slide highlights the key profit and loss results. It compares our 12-month performance up to 30th June '26 with the 12-month period ended 30th June '25. As Stephen has highlighted, we achieved a 17% growth on revenue of $351.8 million compared to the previous corresponding period. The underlying quality of the business has remained stable with a gross percentage margin of 33% compared to 34% on PCP. We have highlighted underlying EBITDA is an important measure of the company's performance. The underlying EBITDA result of the business has reduced marginally by 5% to $30.1 million. To understand our underlying EBITDA, we exclude nonrecurring expenses. In FY '26, we've added back share-based payments, M&A-related transaction and retention costs, impairment of intangibles, organizational restructuring and acquisition-related integration costs. For the comparable period in FY '25, we had added back share-based payments, M&A-related transaction and retention costs, one-off capital raising costs and acquisition-related integration costs. The 5% decrease in underlying EBITDA was mainly driven by the termination of a fixed term contract, together with continued investment in Scholarion as we build its capability and position the business for future growth. Earnings per share decreased to negative $0.0588. However, EPSA is positive at $0.0366 and is calculated using underlying NPATA. This metric excludes the amortization of intangible assets and other one-off items and is detailed on the next slide. This slide details underlying NPATA or adjusted net profit after tax. This metric provides the underlying profitability of the group, excluding the amortization impact of noncash charges of acquired intangibles and specific nonrecurring items. The underlying NPATA of the business of $13.5 million has decreased on PCP of $19.6 million. The next slide is a summary of the balance sheet. It compares balances at the end of the current 12 months and the balances at 30th June 2025. Our cash balance is $66 million, largely due to acquisition spend and share buybacks. We have net tangible assets of $9.9 million, a decrease of $36.8 million on PCP. We have working capital of $5.3 million, a decrease of $60.5 million from 12 months ago, largely due to the reclassification of borrowings from noncurrent to current due to the end of term of our banking facility, which is in the process of being renewed. Inventory increased materially during the period, mainly as a result of the acquisition of Blue Connections. The acquired business carries a significantly large inventory base as part of its hardware and supply chain operations, which has been incorporated into the group balance sheet. Borrowings have increased to $29.4 million from a PCP of $18.8 million due to the acquisition of Blue Connections. Lease liabilities increased following the acquisition of Blue Connections, reflecting the addition of office and warehouse facilities associated with that business. This cash flow slide is a summary of the sources and the applications of funds. It compares cash flow from the current period to the 12 months ended 30th June 2025. As mentioned previously, our cash position at 30th June 2026 is $66 million. Overall inflows and outflows from the period include operational cash inflow of $9 million. Whilst this is a decrease on PCP, it represents a significant improvement from first half where some one-off nonrecurring items had resulted in an operating cash outflow of more than $13 million. Seasonality and timing factors affect operational cash flow and tend to be slightly volatile and may show large movements from period to period. Cash outflows include $23 million in investment in subsidiaries. This is comprised of subsidiaries acquired in FY '26, $17 million, plus earn-out payments made to previously acquired subsidiaries of $6 million. This compares with the investment in subsidiaries made in FY '25 of $47 million. In the current period, cash inflows include $16 million drawdown of our loan facility to fund acquisitions, $5 million of which was a part of a revolving facility that was paid back during the year. Approximately $8 million of the reduction in cash during the period reflects capital returned to shareholders through our on-market share buyback program, consistent with our disciplined approach to capital management. Now I'll hand back to Stephen, and we'll be pleased to answer any questions in the Q&A session. Thank you.

Thank you, Kunal. I'll now quickly talk about some of our strengths and capabilities. I want to briefly touch on how AI is reshaping priorities and how this plays to Atturra's strengths and how it fits with our overall capability. The Australia and New Zealand opportunity for AI is substantial, but the market is still at a very early stage of scale adoption. The latest ABS data shows only around 12% of Australian businesses used AI in the workplace in 2024, 2025, rising to 35% among the large businesses. That tells us the constraint is not awareness. It's the work required to move our experimentation to secure, repeatable deployment. The Australian government's national AI plan focuses on smart infrastructure, local capability, scaled adoption and trusted use. It also identifies data governance, privacy, human oversight and legal compliance as foundations for deployment. Those priorities map directly to Atturra's capabilities, especially across data and integration, cloud, cybersecurity, applications, managed services and change. Our commercial model, therefore, has 3 parts. We are converting early demand through AI opportunity sprints and readiness adoption services. We are using AI internally to improve delivery productivity and margin, and we are capturing the adjacent services required to make AI work in practice, including data preparation, integration, cloud modernization and secure operating environments. Put simply, our right to win is the ability to operationalize AI end-to-end, identify the use case, prepare the data, build or configure the solution, manage security and governance, drive adoption and support it in production. We are also deliberately reducing single platform risk by working across the hyperscalers and technology partners our clients already have. Next, a key investment area for Atturra is our intelligent platform for schools called Scholarian. Scholarian is designed for schools built natively on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. It offers a single connected platform that supports the entire student and staff life cycle and is one of Atturra's key strategic growth investments for FY '27. Scholarian is a deliberate strategy to develop Atturra-owned intellectual property and generate more predictable reoccurring license and support revenue alongside onboarding and implementation revenue. This initiative builds on Natura's reputation, experience and relationships in the Australian education sector. Also, AI is central to this opportunity because Scholarian connects data and workflows across the school, is well positioned to benefit from Microsoft's continued investment in Copilot and agent capabilities within Dynamics 365 and the broader Microsoft offerings. Using these capabilities, we are successfully reducing repetitive administration, making information easier to find and understand, materially improving school processes and enabling better informed decisions. It's quite exciting that despite not being fully released yet, as of the 30th of June 2026, Scholarian had 6 contracted clients. The platform is already operational with Brisbane Grammar School, which Microsoft recently featured in a global customer case study, providing a strong external proof point as we introduce Scholarion into the broader education market. The actual formal release of Scholarion's full 12 module platform is scheduled to September 2026. However, multiple client onboarding projects are already underway with broader deployment planned for 2027 school year. This marks an important milestone as Scholarion moves from a development focused program to a scalable product business. A clear product road map is in place with further capabilities enhancements and modules planned throughout FY '27 and beyond. To support this transition, Scholarion has operated as a dedicated to business unit since the 1st of July this year, with its own governance, financial ranges and dedicated capabilities in product development, onboarding, deployment, support and sales. Scholarion currently has a pipeline of approximately 40 schools, and we are targeting more than 20 contracted schools by the end of FY '27. The sales cycle for a student information system generally ranges from 6 months to 2 years. However, once implemented, these platforms become integral to school operations with an observed replacement cycle of about 13 years. Scholarion can foster durable client relationships and generate long-term recurring license and support revenue for Atturra. The combination of Atturra-owned intellectual property, Microsoft technology, connected school data and emerging AI capabilities create a strong foundation for sustainable growth. Next, today, I'm going to cover our products in more detail than normal as our IP portfolio is a core element of our value creation strategy in the medium to long term. Following Scholarion, I want to widen the lens and briefly walk through some of the other products on this slide. Yes, Scholarion is our largest strategic product investment, but it sits with a broader portfolio of Atturra-owned and partner-enabled offerings. I want to be clear that these 5 offerings are not all at the same stage or the same scale. The Atturra Cloud platform and our data center capabilities are established platforms. ePlanning and mobile action are repeatable solutions built around markets and technologies that we know deeply and SignalAI is an early-stage product that we are now bringing to market. What connects them is the commercial model. We start with a problem we see repeatedly in our client base. And if we determine the addressable market is large enough, we combine Atturra's domain knowledge and technical capability into a reusable solution and then earn value through a mix of subscription or managed revenue, implementation, integration and ongoing support. That gives us differentiation from a pure services model and over time, the potential for more predictable revenue and growth with minimal increase in our cost base. Let me start on the left, the Atturra Cloud Platform. For those long-term investors, you would be familiar with this or ACP. It is the managed service layer for running a client's core system and workloads across private cloud, Azure or AWS. It can also support data and AI workloads and a growing set of partner platforms, including Boomi, Nuix, EncompaaS and Denodo. The important point is that a client is not simply buying raw infrastructure. They're buying an integrated solution with core Atturra IP that provides an operated outcome, including architecture, migration, security, monitoring, cost control support and where required, disaster recovery. ACP can be deployed as a point solution as part of a hybrid environment, which allows the clients to begin with one workload and expand over time. I'm pleased to say that ACP has now grown to more than 60 clients. Commercially, it is attractive because it generates recurring managed revenue for Atturra and also pulls through implementation integration and ongoing managed services work. Next is our data center capability. Although it is closely related to ACP, it is a distinct client proposition. ACP is the managed platform. The data center provides sovereign infrastructure colocation, private hosting and a connectivity layer underneath it. Atturra operates 5 primary data centers in New Zealand and uses leading Tier 3 and Tier 4 colocation providers across 6 Australian locations. That gives clients a local option for workloads where data residency, security, resilience, predictable costs and access to local engineers matter. It also allows us to connect private infrastructure to Azure, AWS and client networks, so our clients do not choose between private and public clouds. Access our cloud and data center services, we support more than 1,000 clients across Australia and New Zealand. For investors, the value is the durability of these relationships. Once core workloads are secured and connected and managed on our infrastructure, the relationship can extend beyond the network, cyber, backup, disaster recovery and broader managed services. That creates reoccurring revenue and meaningful client stickiness. The third offering I want to cover is Atturra's ePlanning solution, which has been successfully delivered to many New South Wales clients and is a practical example of turning deep local government expertise into repeatable solutions. It connects the New South Wales planning portal with the major ERP property and rating systems used by councils. To date, Atturra has helped New South Wales councils improve the lodgment process between local and state government through 2-way API integration and automated notifications. ePlanning moves development application information between planning portal and council's core system without staff having to rekey any information or manage the process through paperwork or manual handoffs. The client outcome is straightforward after processing, improved data quality, their communications and stronger compliance. Importantly, ePlanning is delivered as a managed service. Atturra maintains the integration as government requirements change and as ERP vendor release schedules change. Atturra is about to release Phase 2 of ePlanning. Atturra is working to extend ePlanning into the application initiation phase. Through our partnership with DocsAi, we are developing an AI-enabled document review and validation capability that can assess submitted documentation more quickly, thoroughly and consistently. The solution will identify missing incomplete or potentially noncompliant information earlier in the process and support an automated return to resolve workflow. Applicants can then be advised of the issues and given the opportunity to correct their documentation before the application progresses further. This will reduce manual review effort, improve application quality and help councils process development applications more efficiently, currently a very hot topic. This is the commercial logic we want from our industry IP. We solve the integration and document processing challenges once, then reuse the product and implementation methodology across councils or multiple clients while supporting it on an ongoing basis. It generates its own revenue while also creating broad opportunities across local government, for example, in ERP, cloud data, AI and automation services. The next I want to touch on is Signal AI. This is a product at an early stage and more of an example of a niche product. Signal AI is our approach to making AI practical inside of Infor M3. Rather than offering a general purpose chatbot or asking a client to fund the large stand-alone AI program, Signal AI uses focused agents aimed at defined operational problems. Those agents can work with M3 data, other enterprise sources, approve public information to author service insights, reduce repetitive work and support decisions across areas such as customer service, procurement, planning, supply chain and manufacturing. The design keeps people in control, an agent can recommend an action or prepare an update, but the user approves execution before the ERP is changed, otherwise known as human in the loop. This makes the entry point lower friction and lower risk. Our client can start with one use case, prove the benefit and then add agents and workflows over time. Version 1 has just launched and already has 2 customers and the intended commercial model is recurring subscription revenue expansion by customer, agent and use case. The opportunity is meaningful because it will be taken first into the global Infor M3 installed base and then if the model proves repeatable into adjacent ERPs and enterprise software markets. I'll highlight this example as it is one of many opportunities we have with our combination of industry and technology specializations. Finally, mobile action. Mobile action brings the same productionization approach to the warehouse and the shop floor. It extends Infor M3 to the point where work actually happens using RF guns, tablets, ruggedized devices and supported terminals to capture and update transactions in real time. The customer benefit is reduced paperwork and manual entry, better inventory and production accuracy, faster onboarding and a more current ERP record. For Atturra, mobile action gives us a repeatable solution to sell into our existing and new M3 client base with implementation, configuration and support revenue around it. It takes decades of M3 experience and manufacturing experience and warehousing experience and turns that experience into a product that can be deployed repeatably. So in closing, when you look across the slide, the portfolio has a deliberate shape. [indiscernible] and the data centers give us scale of recurring infrastructure and managed services relationships. ePlanning and mobile action can the deep industry and ERP expertise in the repeatable solution, Signal AI gives us a focused way to commercialize AI beginning with problems and customers -- with problems that customers have, we understand. We do not need a long list of products. We need a focused portfolio attached to our existing client base and measured against clear commercial gates, paid customers, go-live economics, reoccurring revenue, retention, gross margin, services pull-through and cash payback. Where the evidence is strong, we will scale and invest where it is not, we will refine and stop. That discipline is what gives this portfolio the potential to improve revenue quality, deepen client relationships and support growth without requiring headcount to increase in the same proportion. Atturra's success is enabled by our broad partner ecosystem and recognized capabilities. Atturra is proud of its well-recognized expertise. In recent years, we have received more than 50 awards and recognitions across our partner ecosystem, including award-winning streak spanning 5 consecutive years in 3 countries. Awards are not a financial result, but an independent evidence of the depth of our technical capability and the quality of our relationships, the platforms on which the clients rely. And for those that have more interest, you can go to our website and have a look at all the details behind the awards. Let me close with our outlook for FY '27. Following the integration of several businesses over the past 24 months, our focus is firmly on organic growth and process optimization. Atturra expects to deliver record revenue, EBIT and underlying EBITDA in FY '27. We are not providing specific numerical guidance for FY '27 at this stage, however. As disclosed in July, the earnings profile is expected to be materially weighted to the second half of FY '27. The first half carries significant planned investment, which, in many cases, the benefits will not start to materialize until the second half. Some of the investments are here. Firstly, AI. We disclosed an additional $3 million of AI investment in FY '27 with an expected negative earnings impact of approximately $2 million in the first half of FY '27. In the second half of FY '27, we expect growth generated from this AI investment to offset any incremental expense. The primary return is operating leverage, increased delivery capacity and supporting growth without a proportionate increase in resources. This does not mean we'll get a full payback by the second half of FY '27. It means the investment is expected to stop diluting earnings in the second half and begin supporting a more scalable operating environment. Scholarion is the second major investment area. We expect to invest more than $4 million in FY '27 and after capitalization, record a loss of approximately $2.4 million, mostly in the first half of FY '27. We currently expect Scholarion to reach breakeven in FY '28 and deliver meaningful profit in FY '29. Third, we are continuing to increase our sales and solutioning capability with a focus on AI, cyber, cloud and data and ERP. The objective is to convert capability and pipeline to profitable organic growth. The fourth area is financials, more of a focus area. We're prioritizing EPS and cash conversion. Buybacks remain one option, but they are not automatic. The Board will consider them where it represents value and where liquidity, investment requirements and financial capacity permit. I do want to close out in summary. As disclosed in July, FY '27 is forecast to deliver record revenue, EBIT and underlying EBITDA. However, this is expected to be materially weighted to the second half. Thank you, everyone, for the opportunity to present to you. I'll now hand back to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Josh Kannourakis with Barrenjoey.

Just first question, just in terms of the guidance, and I know you're obviously not giving anything numerical other than the record numbers. But maybe another way to look at it just in terms of, I guess, the organic versus inorganic growth profile. Can you give us any context as to whether you still expect to grow, I guess, organically net of any of the acquisition contributions that will come through in period and annualize? And is there any -- yes, is there any sort of extra context you can just give around that?

Yes, yes. Look, good question. So look, our focus is definitely on organic growth in FY '27. So yes, we expect the record results, and that's excluding any acquisitions that may happen. So yes, the focus this year is really betting everything down, investing in the AI and other activities in the first half and driving organic growth.

Yes. Got it. Just second question, just with regard to some of the segments. Obviously, there were the write-downs in there. But just keen to maybe get a little bit more detail around as you look to the forward pipeline, the work in hand, what you can see from some of the longer-term customers. Have you seen any changes in decision-making or delayed decision-making across any of the particular segments? And yes, just keen to get a little bit more context of how you're sort of seeing the pipeline of work shape up versus previous years.

Yes. So we're seeing -- and I'll comment predominantly outside of public sector. So we're not seeing any great change in decision cycles. The pipeline is pretty solid, probably more solid than we used to in terms of managed services. AI is interesting because it tends to be lots of small deals in pretty quick decision cycles. So we're not seeing any great slowdown. When it comes to public sector, it's been a slow cycle for probably 2 or 3 years, and we're not seeing any change in that at all. So no change from prior years is probably the way to look at it, and that's what we've taken into account when making our forward-looking statements.

Got it. And just final one for me. Just in terms of the investment, thanks for obviously the context there, which you flagged previously. Can you just give us a little bit extra in terms of how we should be looking about those investments? I imagine most of those you mentioned are sort of operating ones, but just in terms of the OpEx versus sort of capitalized components and how we should be thinking about the capitalized investment framework into next year, given you're sort of focused on some more of your proprietary IP products as well?

Yes. So look, good question. In terms of capital investment, so Scholarion, we have explicitly called out the capitalization we're doing around that. But there's probably another $0.5 million in capitalization around other products. The rest of it, we actually expense going through. So we're not -- we've got no major change to our policy of expensing most of our early-stage pre-commercial proof point. We only really capitalize a product once we're really, really confident it's got a kind of a long-term future. So we'll maintain the majority expense profile.

Got it. And so just the year-on-year versus '26 versus '27 sort of capitalized headline, if you got a feel for where that will probably land today?

I'll get back with the exactly -- it will be a slight increase in capitalization, but not much.

Your next question comes from the line of Nick Harris with Morgans.

Yes. So I guess, firstly, it's great to see those margins bounce back in the second half after what was obviously a really tough first half. And I guess I'm just trying to get some guardrails, how to think about the building blocks into FY '27. I appreciate you're not providing specific guidance, but we're obviously comping a really volatile FY '26. So I guess, is the right way to think about the seasonality? Historically, you've booked something like 45% of your full year EBITDA in the first half, and you're calling out obviously some material investments in the first half. So it should be a bigger second half skew than usual this year. Is that the right way to think about it or...

Yes, that's absolutely the right way to think about it. It will be a material difference to the normal 45%, 55%.