Stealth Group Holdings Ltd (SGI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Great morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us for our webinar and update on our strategy and our full year '26 preliminary unaudited results. It's been approximately 3 months now since our last market update. I appreciate the strong level of shareholder interest we've received particularly around the progress of the HBT acquisition. Our view was that it was more valuable to update the market once we had greater certainty around 4 key areas. And that being, firstly, the FY '26 result. Secondly, the integration and progress of the HBT business. Thirdly, through the building blocks supported our pathway towards FY '28 targets we provided guidance to market. And lastly, the growth opportunities are available over the course of the next 3 years. Today, it brings all those elements together. Before I get into the detail, there's 3 key messages that I'd like investors to take away from today's update. The first, as I mentioned, is that FY '26 is to deliver another record year for the company. The second is that HBT has transformed the scale and the capability of the group. And the third message that I'd like to leave is that our FY '28 target remains firmly on track. So let's start firstly with FY '26. After 48 weeks of trading, we expect sales to be at least $165 million EBITDA to be $14.3 million at least, and our NPAT to be $5.8 million. Importantly, EBITDA is expected to increase by bit over 44% and our net profit after tax to increase by more than 87%. This performance has been supported by the productivity improvements across the organization, the operational efficiencies, the procurement initiatives and the successful integration of HBT. The growth in earnings has really come from, I guess, 4 key areas, and that's transferring Stealth subsidiaries who have similar activity to HBT into HBT to improve the efficiency and to leverage obviously, the benefits that comes by having greater scale in that area. Secondly, consolidating the improved supply terms with procurement leverage, apologies. And thirdly, from the volume-led rebates and service-related fees that we have. And fourth, the enhanced productivity efficiency in the streamlined back office systems that we have gained through that integration. The second message that I'd like to give is that HBT has obviously transformed scale. And as per our announcement that we gave out in November of 2025 now there's a number of important aspects that come into that second element. It's more than just an acquisition. It significantly expanded our supplier network, our procurement capability, our category depth and also our national reach. The transaction added approximately 1,165 independent member stores and 490 preferred supplier arrangements. It expanded our network from 32 stores to about 1,200 now nationally that we have available in the hardware, industrial and safety part of our business and increased our suppliers from 800 to 1,300. It also expanded our presence in the hardware, timber building supplies, paint garden, landscape, plumbing, rural and a whole host of other categories that comes along with that, which are new categories to the organization. So the acquisition has Stealth -- established the Stealth company as Australia's leading independent distributor and retailer and also the leading independent alternative now to the major players of Wesfarmers and Metcash operating in the hardware, industrial, safety and consumer products categories. Importantly, the acquisition is -- sorry, the integration and acquisition is progressing well ahead and at fast pace. Systems integration, supplier integration, the member engagement initiatives that we outlined previously have all been completed. Our procurement initiatives, cross-selling programs, a couple of areas that are new in terms of the single trade account that we've established member growth initiatives, our exclusive products that we have rolled out to all stores have created additional opportunities that weren't identified 6 months ago, but are now clearly identified and on track today. This gives us a lot of confidence that these benefits and the transaction will continue to build over time. The third message that I gave is around the FY '28, and we reaffirm that that's obviously well on track. Our target of $500 million at an 8% to 12% EBITDA remains true. And our confidence is supported by several factors. Firstly, we've got strong FY '26 earnings growth and margin expansion. That's been demonstrated by the scale and profitability. Second of all, the HBT integration is progressing strongly, as I mentioned, with multiple initiatives completed and also additional growth opportunity is actively being pursued. Thirdly, we have identified sales opportunities exceeding $400 million across strategic growth pillars providing substantial runway of future growth. Fourthly, the procurement scale of our business, the supplier partnerships that we've been able to consolidate and the operating leverage that, that all brings are expected to continue to improve the earnings as the business grows. Finally, we'll benefit from those procurement initiatives, exclusive brand rollouts and the new marketplace channels that have been recently secured as well as distribution agreements and ongoing, I guess, realization of the integration synergies that are all operating together for the first time as we head into FY '27. So taken together, we believe that these factors are a strong foundation for us achieving the FY '28 target. As a result of that as well, we expect FY '27 to represent a significant change in sales, revenue and EBITDA as we received the first full year of the HBT business and its integration, and we realize the cumulative benefit that these initiatives bring together. Finally, following the successful completion of our capital raising of $19.5 million in December of 2025, we have a strong balance sheet and working capital position required to execute on the growth strategy that I've just outlined. So in summary, I guess, FY '26, if I can reiterate is delivering -- has delivered another record year. HBT has transformed the scale and the capability of the business. We remain firmly on track for our FY '28 target of $500 million at an EBITDA of 8% to 12%. And you can see within the announcement that our growth in our EBITDA margin has continually expanded from 5% to 6.9% of FY '25 into 8.7% of FY '26, and we are well in the range of 8% to 12% as we move forward. Probably lastly, what I'd like to do is just acknowledge the market backdrop or operating environment. So clearly, over the last 4 months, it's been challenging for many businesses. We've seen the ongoing conflict within the Middle East, the inflationary pressures, the fuel cost increases and changing consumer sentiment in that time, and we're not an orphan in that space by any stretch. Despite these conditions, our hardware, safety and industrial part of our businesses has continued to perform strongly in its resilient end markets and broadly in line with the long-term trends that we've supported our growth over the last 12 years, noting that we have grown as a company for 12 consecutive years. Consumer retail, which is products that we sell into the discretionary retail environment being companies like JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks, Cole, 7-Eleven, the telco space in Vodafone, et cetera, has experienced the same pressures has been reported anywhere else in discretionary retail sector. However, our underlying market position remains really strong. We continue to see active -- attractive growth opportunities across our portfolio. We're particularly encouraged by the strength of -- of that being our product and our brand portfolio, where we've recently secured 2 new brand exclusive sales and distribution agreements with global brands, PanzerGlass and also with Tech21. We've also won additional business with major customers that support our growth with FY '27 and beyond. So with all that, we have a strong foundation as we move forward. We operate in strong and resilient markets. We see continued growth that supports the backdrop of where we play and we're confident in executing on our overall plans. So thank you for your ongoing support. We are opportunistic in terms of giving our update. We're confident of where we're heading. And I'll now open up the lines for any questions that we may have. And I'll just pass it on to Jess to look at those, and I can answer those accordingly.

Thanks, Mike. I guess there's a couple of questions came through. Ron has asked, can you provide an update on the cash balance? And also, he asked, can you provide some color on what variables will impact the EBITDA range of 8% to 12%?

Well, there's 2 questions in that. So thank you. Thank you, Ron, for that question. So our reported results will come out -- full year audit reports will come out towards the end of August. In fact, we're targeting about the 19th of August for our results to come out, which is a week earlier than what we've done previously. There's going to be more color, more detail and that will be provided within the business. And we have a range, but obviously, heading to June 30, there's a whole host of factors that relates to that. And if I gave a number that would be hitting today, that could be up or down. But clearly, a number in excess of $30 million would be -- cash in bank would be the outcome we're looking for with a positive operating cash flow position for the FY '26 results, noting that this is a preliminary numbers, and we still have about 13 days of trading left in our business. Second part of that question?

Provide color on what variables might impact the EBITDA margin range of 8% to 12%?

Well, I think we've demonstrated the variables, the impact on that EBITDA range. Again, we'll provide more color in our full year announcement. The purpose of this trading update is to give a position on where we thought we'd be for the 3 factors that I've already outlined. But clearly, in our full year results, there will be more detail that will be provided around all those aspects.

Andrew Johnson has asked, part of the opportunity with the HBT acquisition was the optimizing of supplier terms, about 1% at time of acquisition compared to the target of [ 20%. ] How far along are you in that transition?

Well, I think I've explained in the release that well and truly, I think we're getting into intimate detail here that will be provided in our full year results. But what I can say is my comment is the integration process and the synergies continues at pace. It's been 6 months since we've acquired HBT. There's a significant amount of advancement that's occurred in there. Clearly, that's demonstrated in our improvement in our profitability where we've almost doubled our NPAT performance and all those initiatives continuing in contributing towards that. Our strategic growth pillars have factors that grow intimate areas that probably have 15 or 16 different levers that we're pulling. But sticking back into those 4 key areas of strategic pillars as we would call them, is where the benefits will continue to grow, and they've grown as we're demonstrating by the profitability that's flowing through, that being one of them.

Thanks, Mike. We have a question from Sarah Baker. The preliminary FY '26 results. show EBITDA growth of 44%, significantly ahead of revenue growth. Could management help shareholders understand how much of this improvement represents sustainable structural gains that are expected to continue into FY '27 and FY '28?

We'll give a lot more color over that when we give our FY '26 results in August. We just outlined to you the growth position where our business is heading between now and the FY '28 period. We've demonstrated 4 key growth areas. We've highlighted to you $400 million in new opportunities. We've told you that we have resilient markets that we're operating in. I think all that answers that question in its own right.

Scott Perry, do you think that the current share price is a fair representation of how the company is performing?

Well, I'm the second largest shareholder, so is the share price -- I can't control the share price. Obviously, I believe the company is valued a lot more than what it should be today. There's a whole host of areas that I can control that being the performance that I've just outlined of the organization, I think the rest will follow. One of the areas that we work really hard on to benefit that is -- which was part of the capital raising and our efforts described over the last 12 months is ensuring that we have the right balance of support in the investor community. Firstly, that starts with the institutional base and the funds that are following us. And as it's well reported. Wilson Asset Management is now our largest shareholder, and they've been an important stakeholder in that. Others remain silent for their own purposes but we have a really good institutional fund support that came out of the December '25 capital raise and the earlier one in May of 2025, that was strategic. And despite some of the retail community wanting to participate in that. We held that tight for putting ourselves in a position where we strengthened our investor base. Now our continued growth of that is to do more work as recently if you look at Ord Minnett, who put a research paper out on us and across their investor desk, to increase the retail element of our portfolio. And that in itself, we believe, will provide stronger support in terms of our future share price growth. But going back to my original point, I mean the things that I can control is the performance of the organization and ensuring that our messaging is out in the community. What we say we do, we deliver on, people have confidence between -- from an investor point of view, in us as a company and investing in our company. And then that extends obviously into our suppliers and our customers and also into the employees that we want to be a company of choice and the investor community is really a key part of that.

We have 2 questions from James Casey. Can you briefly explain the difference between the sales figure reported and the revenue figure? And he's also asked how is the centralized invoicing opportunity progressing?

I'll start with the second question. So central invoicing is what we would call our trade member account. Trade member account is a single account whereby suppliers have one main creditor to deal with and the portfolio of our technology platform linked with our portfolio of our individual members provides a value-added solution for the benefit of the individual member and the supplier. An example of that is the member at the moment may have anywhere up to 400 individual accounts that they need to sort of reconcile, pay and administered through a monthly process. As we advance that member can have one, and that is the HBT business. And then HBT will organize payments on behalf of all the 1,200-odd members to the individual supplier. So the supplier benefits from having one main stakeholder to collect their money from rather than potentially up to 1,200. Equally for the number of members that don't have accounts with suppliers, they don't need to go through a credit application process they automatically get access to those suppliers and those products through the HBT trade account, and that gives them absolute access immediately to buy products and get the benefits that the HBT business can bring to them in its preferred supplier program. The second part of sales and revenue, we will disclose that in more detail at our in our FY '26 results in August. The most simplistic aspect of that is clearly, as we go forward, all our coming sales will be recognized equally as revenue, where we have today, there's approximately $25 million worth of rebates that we collect from suppliers and pay that through to individual members. Therefore, it's treated under the accounting standards as an agency recognition rather than a principal recognition. So principal recognition of the accounting standard essentially means revenue. And to date, that's about $25-odd million approximately, in this case, $20 million. So as I said, as we move forward, sales and revenue is recognized the same thing. Our targets to market are being $500 million in sales, we'll continue with that pathway. A significant portion of that will be recognized as revenue as we move forward. Hopefully, I've explained that okay.

Just another from Sarah. Stealth has reaffirmed its FY '28 targets, what do management see as the key execution risks to achieving these targets over the next few years?

At the moment, we've seen no risk. And I think we've outlined pretty clearly what our pathway is and what HBT brings to us. And at the moment, we're extremely confident. That's why we've demonstrated to you the pathway to get to FY '28. And I think that pathway is far better than any other company of our size or probably most companies that are out there that can demonstrate a clear pathway, clear vision, clear outcome that can be measured by investors and also our management team internally in terms of our success to get there. So I guess not being ignorant of the fact that there's obviously risk with those. But we're extremely confident in terms of executing based on a number of activities being really embryonic in its phase of growth. So we are maintaining a confident approach.

And just one last question from Dominic. Do you plan to pay a dividend any time in the future?

Dividend, yes. That is something that we absolutely will do. The actual dividend amount will be greater than it was in FY '25. The Board hasn't settled on that amount that is available in the public domain. But what I can say is we are going to be -- when we want to be a company of choice for investors that includes a payment of dividends. Therefore, there will be a dividend that will be paid this year, and that will be disclosed in the FY '26 release on the 19th of August or thereabouts on that date. Okay. That's all the questions. I appreciate everybody's attendance for today. It's exciting time again for our company. We continue to have multiple opportunities that present ourselves in front of us. We're excited about the future, and we're glad that everybody can be a part of our journey as we move forward in the future. Thank you again.