Autosports Group Limited (ASG) 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 Autosports Group Limited Financial Year 2026 Full Year Results Analyst and Media Briefing. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Nick Pagent, Chief Executive Officer. Nick, please go ahead.

Thanks, Krista. Thank you, and good morning to everyone who's joined us on the call, and welcome to the investor presentation for the financial results for Autosports Group for the full financial year 2026. As Krista noted, my name is Nick Pagent. I'm the CEO of Autosports Group. And joining me today on the call is Aaron Murray, the CFO of Autosports Group. This morning, we'll commence with a short presentation on Autosports Group covering our FY '26 financial highlights, growth platform and key performance matrices. I will then outline our outlook for the 2027 financial year before taking a look at the market conditions as they stand in what is both a challenging and exciting environment. I will then summarize the 2026 financial results before asking Aaron to go through our financial metrics, including revenue, gross profit growth, margin and cost developments, balance sheet and cash flows. Following that, I'll give you an update on the progress -- on our progress against our consistent, successful and accelerating luxury brand growth strategy. I will focus on how Autosports strategy interacts with the accelerating pace of electric vehicle adoption, how our strategy positions us for growth as new products and new brands compete for our services as the best distribution source for luxury vehicles in Australia. As we move through the presentation lodged this morning with the ASX and also on our own Autosports Group investor site, I will, where possible, note the relevant slide numbers for those who are following the pack. Starting with Slide #3 in the pack. I'm pleased to report that Autosports Group has delivered a strong 2026 financial year results in what has been, as I noted, a challenging macro environment. We delivered record revenues of $3.186 billion, up 12% on last year. Record gross profit was delivered of $590 million, up 15%. Our normalized net profit before tax of $53.5 million was also up 11%, coming in at the higher end of our guidance. Gross margins continue to be solid at 18.5%, up 3% on the prior corresponding period despite increasing intra-brand competition and a challenging macro environment. We confirm a fully franked dividend of $0.03 per share, bringing the full year dividend to $0.08 per share. If I move to Slide #4 to outline for investors the simple, consistent and effective growth platform that sets Autosports Group apart from its competitors. We focus on the luxury and premium tech products, which deliver higher margin and fewer competitors. We ensure that we remain best positioned by securing sites in prime retail locations across Australia and New Zealand, giving us access to customers on a sensible cost base. Our scale in luxury has enabled us to develop a superior customer database in scale and in luxury focus. This database extends also to quality luxury brand trained staff. Our track record of quality in M&A, coupled with the rollout of successful greenfield sites for expansion brands makes us both an attractive and reliable partner for OEMs looking to expand in the market. Quite simply, our platform is geared for high growth, high margin, a dominant luxury brand position, and it continues to be highly scalable. If we move now to Slide #5 to see how our platform worked in the 2026 financial year. The business expanded to 93 sites with excellence driven strongly with 17 of our sites winning OEM Dealer of the Year awards, reinforcing our position as partner of choice for luxury OEMs. Our customer inquiry generated through our nearly 1.3 million database was up 20%. In line with that, our order rate for the year was up 20% New vehicle revenue was up 9% as a mix of those -- of the orders written during the year moved towards electric vehicles as we shall see soon. Our order bank was expanded by 290% as electric orders -- electric vehicle orders came in quickly post the start of the war in Iran. Quite simply, we're in good shape. On a compound growth basis, we are consistent. Our 10-year revenue compound annual growth rate is 10% up. Our vehicle revenue compound annual growth rate 9%, our service and parts compound annual growth rate, 16%. We are well positioned, consistent performers with a clear strategy. If I move to Slide #6 to look at our outlook. Our outlook reflects our positive strategy and the strategy working for us. The onset of the war in Iran provided a catalyst for a sharp acceleration in the adoption of electric vehicles. Accelerating sales is a good thing for a retailer. The move to electric vehicles will support the market in the near to medium term. Our electric vehicle order bank is expected to start unwinding as supply comes into the market from H2 '27 financial year. We expect further intra-brand competition from emerging brands. This raises opportunities for growth and indeed, OEM competition for Autosports premium retail platform. Our track record of success, our scale and prime location focus continues to make us an attractive partner for any OEM. Our revenue growth through the course of FY '27 and beyond will be supported by the full year cycling of our FY '26 acquisitions, particularly in Berwick, Canberra and Adelaide. July remains -- started on track for us with new car order 18% up versus the prior corresponding period. So I wanted to take a little bit of time to have a look at what's happening from a broader new car vehicle perspective. So if I move to Slide #8 to talk about the market. Firstly, the overall market for new vehicles is stable. In the first half of the '26 financial year, the market was 0.9% of 1% down. In the second half of the '26 financial year, it was 0.3% of 1% down. The market has been stable and reliable for the last 20 years. Over the last 10 years, it has stayed between 1.1 and 1.2 new vehicles. Traditionally, the market is impacted by macro factors. These macro factors include population growth, interest rate cycles, property cycle and consumer confidence. If we look at these factors in isolation, we could expect a pullback in new vehicle volumes, but we haven't seen that. The reason we haven't seen that is the emergence of new variables that are important to unpack. Firstly, throughout the course of the last 18 months, we have seen more than 20 new OEMs enter the Australian new car market, predominantly from Chinese origin. These brands have challenged the market and driven competition. Increased competition creates portfolio risk, of course. But in the end, more brands brings more optionality for car dealers. It creates competition for what we provide to the OEMs, a high growth, high market share, low consumer risk distribution model for their products. In providing this model, Autosports Group is well positioned with our national prime location strategy, our site capacity and our track record of delivering excellence. If I move to Slide #9 to see how the move in electric vehicles is impacting the market, particularly in the second half of the year rightly or wrongly, Iran war has proved the catalyst for change. Since March, demand for our EV product has tripled as consumers look actively to change their vehicles. The chart on the top right of this slide shows the market growth. The overall market sits in the bottom line in gray with the doubling of customer deliveries of EVs. Importantly, and often overlooked, the red line shows Autosports Group's EV trend. Luxury buyers are early adopters, and Autosports has a materially higher electric vehicle adoption rate than the market. The black line, which sits at the top is my favorite line. That's the gap between the order right and the deliveries, and that is where at the increased order bank is coming from. Our order bank is up, as I mentioned earlier, 290% over the course of this financial year. This is why we retain a positive outlook in the face of higher interest rates and what appears to be a tighter property market. The transition to electric vehicles is here, and that is good news for retailers that sell them. I will explore some examples on how Autosports Group is looking to take advantage of this increased EV demand in our FY '26 and FY '27 strategic execution later. I turn now to Slide 11 to look at our FY '26 financial results summary before I hand across to Aaron. FY '26 record revenues come in a flat market. And as a consequence, they come predominantly from acquired growth. $76 million in our increased revenue came from the prior year cycling of FY '24 acquisitions. $204 million came from FY '26 acquisitions, $22 million came from expansion brands. OpEx was the same. The core business saw operating expenses well controlled. Acquisitions added just $40 million in expenses. Interest costs continued to rise on rate movements and increased inventory, primarily from acquisitions. Our net profit after tax on a statutory basis was down 18% on PCP, and that was driven by 2 lines. In FY '25, we reversed a prior period impairment, which added $5.7 million to our profit in 2025. And also, we had a $2.3 million movement in additional AASB16 interest costs from new leases on acquired sites. If I move to Slide #12, as we look through the individual profit drivers, quite simply, we're on track. New vehicle revenue growth of 9% was lower than I expected. But as we have shown, this is a timing issue on the delivery of our EV order bank rather than a demand issue. Our order bank is expected to unwind in H2 '27. Service, parts and used vehicles are all on track, growing at more than double digits. Gross margins up 3%, continue to be strong at 18.5%, driven by disciplined trading within our dealership organizations. EBITDA margins took in the new acquisition costs. And in the future, we look to better utilize those new dealerships that we purchased in 2026. Profit before tax was impacted by higher interest costs and depreciation costs that was in line with FY '27. I'd like to hand on to Aaron to go through some further detail on the financial results. Aaron?

Thank you, Nick, and good morning to everybody who's joined us on the call. If we turn to Slide 14, I'll talk you through our historical track record of revenue and gross profit growth. Since FY '16, ASG has grown revenue from $1.2 billion to just under $3.2 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate of 10%. Total gross profit has increased from $177 million to $590 million, representing a combined annual growth rate of 13%. That growth has been driven by a combination of strategic acquisitions, new greenfield locations and organic growth. In FY '26, we delivered $36 million of organic revenue growth with the balance of growth coming from acquisitions and new greenfield locations. Looking ahead, our FY '27 revenue growth will be supported by the full year contribution from the FY '26 acquisitions and the greenfield sites. We also currently have more than 17,000 square meters of additional owned real estate available for use, including the Canberra property due to settle in October this year. We will continue to actively look for opportunities to partner with new greenfield dealerships where the right gross profit margins are available. We continue to have multiple avenues for growth, both within the existing portfolio and through new opportunities. If you turn now to Slide 15, we'll look at our margin performance and our cost discipline. ASG's luxury heavy platform continues to deliver strong and sustainable gross profit margins. This reflects the strength of our market position together with the addition of greenfield locations that provide attractive margin opportunities. From June 2024 through to June 2026, ASG's overall gross margin averaged 22% above the Deloitte dealership benchmarks. We believe this reinforces both structural strength of the business and the quality of our earnings profile. Within that result, our strategic brand portfolio and our focus on operating sites where we have strong market share opportunity have helped vehicle margin improve by 0.5% on PCP. At the same time, our maturing aftersales operations, which deliver a higher gross margin continue to provide further support. The result is that our overall gross profit margin remains resilient. Turning to expenses. We have remained highly disciplined in managing the cost of the business. On a like-for-like basis, both occupancy costs and other expenses were well managed and slightly up on PCP at 1.6% and 5.5%, respectively. Like-for-like employee costs had the largest increase by $14.8 million or 6.7%. Importantly, this increase was largely driven by additional headcount in a number of our new greenfield locations where we have added capacity to meet consumer demand. That additional headcount has supported higher new vehicle orders and has helped build our current order bank. We expect to see the revenue associated with those orders come through in FY '27. Finally, we continue to focus on improving site utilization by adding new greenfield sites across the existing network. This gives us further opportunities to optimize our footprint and drive additional occupancy cost efficiencies. We turn now to Slide 16, we'll have a look at our net margins. Our EBITDA margin has been maintained at 4.2%, which is just below our historical average of 4.5%. Our PBT margin of 1.7% is stable on PCP. And given the 3 interest rate rises during FY '26, we believe this is a solid outcome. During FY '26, PBT was influenced by both improved gross margins and offset by higher finance costs. Total interest expense, including -- excluding AASB16, increased by $8.4 million on PCP with $5.9 million relating to acquired businesses and a further $2.5 million on a like-for-like basis. The like-for-like increase was largely a result of the 3 rate rises mentioned earlier. Looking forward, we see meaningful operating leverage across the business. We expect to continue adding greenfield sites where there is a strong margin opportunity, allowing us to generate additional revenue from our existing footprint. We also expect new vehicle margins to remain stable, while continued growth in aftersales revenue will provide structural margin resilience and support earnings through the cycle. So overall, we see a clear pathway for PBT margins to normalize. If you move to Slide 17, we'll look at our balance sheet. We finished the period with corporate debt of $321 million, supported by property assets with independent valuations of $263.8 million. Our property assets are currently carried on the balance sheet at their written down value of $230 million. Based on the most recent independent valuations conducted in June 2025, there is a further $33.6 million of property equity that is not currently recognized on the balance sheet. This provides additional underlying asset value. The movement in net debt from FY '25 to FY '26 primarily reflects our acquisition activity. This includes the acquisitions of Gulson Canberra, Mercedes-Benz Canberra, Barry Bourke Motors, Solitaire Automotive Group, as well as the property in Southport on the Gold Coast. These investments are consistent with our strategy and aligned with our long-term growth objectives. Importantly, our balance sheet remains well positioned to support future growth. We currently have an undrawn debt facility of $85 million, providing additional capacity to pursue further opportunities. In FY '27, with the full year benefit of the EBITDA contribution from our FY '26 acquisitions, we expect that our net debt to EBITDA will return to below 2x. So overall, we have a balance sheet that is supported by tangible property, available funding capacity and a clear pathway to deleveraging. If you move now to Slide 8, and we'll look at the cash flow for the year. ASG delivered $59.2 million of operating cash flow for the period, representing an 82% cash conversion. While this is a solid outcome, cash conversion was impacted by the timing of our working capital movements. Debtors increased by $72.7 million, while creditors increased by $22.6 million, resulting in a net working capital impact of $50.1 million. These movements are timing related and do not reflect the underlying future cash flow conversion of the business. Our approach to capital management remains disciplined and consistent. We continue to focus on growth, including acquisitions, greenfields and strategic property investments while also committed to shareholder returns. We have declared a fully franked dividend of $0.03 per share, bringing the total FY '26 dividend to $0.08 per share, which sits at the high end of our dividend payout ratio. Looking ahead to FY '27, planned capital expense will be in the range of $27 million to $30 million. This includes improvements to retail and service facilities across the network as well as the settlement of the Melrose Drive Canberra property. These are targeted return-focused investments that support both margin expansion and customer experience. So to conclude, we believe ASG enters FY '27 with multiple growth levers, resilient margins, disciplined cost management and a strong balance sheet. And with that, I'll hand back to Nick.

Thanks, Aaron. If I just take everyone through to Slide #20 now, to start to talk through Autosports strategy execution through the last 12 months. Firstly, I'll start as I normally do with the summary of Autosports Group strategy. Our core strategy should be well known. It's been consistent since we listed in 2016, and it goes to the heart of everything we do. Quite simply, we endeavor to represent the world's great prestige and luxury business brands from prime locations. We look to make sure that we deliver an outstanding customer experience for our customers, driving operational excellence, which continues to make us attractive partners for the world's best OEMs. We look to go and expand our network, and we do that predominantly by improving businesses, taking on acquisitions and taking on greenfield expansion sites with new brands. If we move to Slide #21, we can show how this simple but effective strategy has allowed Autosports Group to consistently outperform the market in terms of revenue growth. As we've said earlier, just on 10% compound annual growth rate since we listed the company in a market that we also saw is virtually flat in new vehicle sales. We've added more than 120% to our revenue since we listed in 2017. Our platform is expanded initially with high-quality acquisitions, improved by greenfield sites, complemented by operating synergies. Since 2017, we've added 16 high-quality acquisitions and 2026, as we shall see in a moment, was no different. If I move to Slide #22 to one of the areas of last year's expansion that I believe puts us in a tremendous position for the rollout of new expansion brands in the next 2 to 3 years. We have improved our platform on our prime location strategy. We've expanded our business into South Australia with the acquisition in Adelaide. We've expanded our business in Victoria through our acquisition at Berwick. We've expanded our business in the ACT with our expansion into Canberra. We've expanded our business in the Gold Coast with the purchase of the Southport site and also the appointment on a greenfield basis of the Mercedes-Benz business in the Gold Coast. Circling back to the opportunities identified in my market update, Autosports Group now has an expanded platform in which to go -- to add further greenfield sites. Over the course of the last 18 months, Autosports has been able to add 15 greenfields franchises. Those franchises have generally been with expansion brands like Zeekr, Geely and as we shall see in a moment, next year with the Omoda & Jaecoo, XPeng and Mercedes-Benz on the Gold Coast. I move to Slide #23 to touch on the high-quality acquisitions that we took on in 2026. The 2 major acquisitions that we took on were the Solitaire Automotive Group in Adelaide and the Barry Bourke business in Berwick. They're meaningful in scale and strategically aligned for us, just on $500 million in additional combined annual revenue. Key OEM relationships are expanded with Audi, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Volkswagen. Growing brand relationships have been able to be added and extended, adding Geely and Zeekr to the Adelaide business and Geely to the business in Berwick. The businesses have both settled last year and are performing at expectations. We have been able in the first 12 months to work on some portfolio management at the Berwick site to create more space for more expansion brands over the '27 financial year. If I turn to Slide 24, we can start to see the type of expansion brands that we're talking about and how they align perfectly with our premium tech and luxury strategy. Over the course of the last 18 months, we've taken on 5 additional Polestar sites. Part of Geely's luxury portfolio, Polestar is a clear fit for Autosports Group. We've taken on 3 Zeekr sites in South Melbourne, in South Yarra, Doncaster and in Adelaide. Zeekr over the last 2 months has moved ahead of Audi in overall sales for the year and is selling just over 2,000 cars a month. And that represents a growth on last year of 1,540%. We've added 3 Geely sites in Leichhardt, in Berwick and again in Hawthorn, showing how the platform grows when you go and expand the sites. Geely is up 666% in FY '26. Commencing with us in the next month, we have 2 Omoda & Jaecoo sites. One in Parramatta and one in Alexandria. Omoda & Jaecoo, which provides the individual model that is the largest selling car in the U.K. is also up 1,616% in FY '26. Being able to take on prime Omoda & Jaecoo sites in Parramatta and Alexandria, which are high-volume, high-demand consumer areas comes from the fact that we have the real estate template to go and expand. We will be adding over the next couple of months, 2 additional sites with the Chinese brand XPen. We'll be taking them on existing premises at Leichhardt and in Castle Hill in Sydney. If I move now to Slide #25, premium tech and luxury is not simply the province of China. The leading technology brands from Europe are also leading the charge to battery electric vehicle adoption. BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, which we have strong and long-standing relationships with, all have outstanding product coming through over the next 12 months. BMW has 9 Neue Klasse models coming through in the next 24 months. These products all come with the new BMW operating system, new battery technology and new chassis development. They include the World Electric Car of the Year, the BMW iX3, which we have sold out of for the entirety of the '27 financial year. Coming in November, we see the new BMW X5 and the new 3 Series coming with the Neue Klasse platforms with huge order bank and huge interest behind those cars. Mercedes-Benz has a similar rollout coming through with 5 EVs coming over the next 24 months, including the CLA, GLC and GLE models, core volume models for the Mercedes-Benz business. Audi, similarly, with 5 new models coming in the next 24 months, including the electric Q4, the RS5, the A6, Q7 and all new Q9 models. So the European luxury brands continue to evolve and improve the product profile for us. It is with those European brands forward order book that we especially see the second half of FY '27 improving. If I move now to Slide #27, just to have a quick look at our strategy and action before I open the call to questions. Over the course of the '26 financial year, we've broadened the revenue opportunity. We've done that through our acquisitions in Canberra, Adelaide, Berwick on strategy, luxury brands, major markets. We've added incremental revenue by adding greenfield sites in Adelaide, the Gold Coast, Melbourne and in Sydney. Again, on strategy, luxury EV products that will improve our operating leverage over the next 12 months. We protected our gross margin through active portfolio management and some brand movement through maintaining our operational excellence through the 17 Dealer of the Year awards that we won, through investing in employees and leveraging our luxury database. We've been tight and disciplined on our expense management. Through the course of next year, we have to continue to tighten our internal combustion engine inventory depth. We have to maintain our revenue per employee disciplines. We have to look to drive synergies through the FY '26 acquisitions and increase the utilization of our own real estate. Capital allocation is designed to go and unlock those 4 parts of our strategy management. We have consistent priorities. We grow via acquisition and greenfields. Productivity-driven facility upgrades are undertaken and we deliver dividends back to you, our shareholders. I'd now like to open up the call for any questions that anybody may have.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from James Wilson with Macquarie.

Just firstly, on the sort of supply constraints into the second half of next year. Are you able to maybe give us sort of some data points that we can point to as to what's giving you confidence that those supply constraints should ease in the second half?

Yes. Well, my biggest supply constraints come in battery electric vehicles and my biggest supply constraints actually come from European battery electric vehicles. Our order bank, which sits behind predominantly with BMW and Mercedes-Benz in that area, those products are due to run through on the FY '27 model year build program, which will start to see those cars arriving with us between November and December. So all those cars are presold, and we'll start to see those Neue Klasse vehicles come through from the -- at the end of this 6-month period rolling through into the second half of FY '27, James.

Great. Okay. And then just one about sort of, I mean, the structural changes to EV demand that you've seen since March since Iran war. Can you just talk us through maybe what's giving you confidence that, that is a structural change as opposed to sort of a brief interruption to normal sort of levels of demand for ignition cars?

James, over the last couple of years, when I've been talking about this particular topic, what I've always said is EVs will start to dominate the marketplace when they become the best price and the best value cars. The thing that's changed over the last 6 months has been that the EVs have begun to come out in the right volumes with the right price and the right specifications. They're now the cheapest cars on the market. They're the ones with the best range, the best performance, and they look great now. So what's happening is the EV is now the best car in the marketplace. That's why I think that it's sustainable on the way through. Secondly, we've been a laggard in the adoption of EV. And when I talked in the -- when I note in the presentation that I think we line up at the level that Europe has got to a couple of years ago, that's where I think is nicely sustainable, and that's about 30%, 35% of the marketplace. And we're caught up rather than it being a shift -- a worldwide shift, it's a bigger shift in Australia because we were a laggard.

Your next question comes from the line of Sarah Mann with MA Moelis Australia.

Can you hear me, okay?

Got you Sarah.

Great. First question is just on demand. I mean, obviously, order has been strong, up 20% in F '26 and July is up 18%. Just curious if you could break that down for us in terms of what it was on a like-for-like basis if you adjust for acquisitions in the period.

It's about 2% to 3% up on an underlying or like-for-like basis, Sarah. And the second piece of color I'll give you is it's really strong in battery electric vehicles and it's weaker in internal combustion engine vehicles. So I don't think that would surprise you at all.

Got it. So is it fair to say, I guess, kind of the skew towards EVs is actually increasing? Because in the chart on Slide 9, it looks like maybe it's kind of stabilized or come down a little bit in May, June, but it's reaccelerating. Is that fair?