Steadfast Group Limited (SDF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Steadfast 2026 Half Year Results. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to Robert Kelly.

Thanks very much, and thanks, everybody, for joining us for the half year. And I hope this will be clear and unequivocal from the way we present to you, again, in line of what we started last year in the beginning of last -- about March last year, the CEOs will report on their various cash-generating units. And I'm referring to Page 4 of the deck and actually to point 4, where the FY '24 and '25 EBITDA have been restated in line with the way that we're now reporting the CGU. We're very proud of that slide, but the bullet points on the side at the bottom of the notes will give you a bit of an indication. So if you move to Page 5, this is what we're in business for. I'd like to show you the NPAT, $127 million, puts us up considerably over what we did last year. Our underlying earnings, NPATA, up 6.3% to $161.5 million. NPAT, up 7.3% to $137.5 million and EBITA up $12.6 million to $293.6 million. Our diluted EPS NPAT is $0.124 CPS, up 7.2%. On the right, the things to point out here is basically how we performed on our acquisitions. In the first half, we did $238 million, and they were all EPS accretive leases with 195 acquisitions planned to be completed in the second half. Hannah will give a lot more color to that. So I won't go down and try and spoil thunder. We still maintain a discipline in our acquisitions. And that's an interesting time at the moment because of the rerate that's just occurred over the past week. I don't think anybody knows what a reasonable EBITDA multiple will look like in the future at the moment. So we still are able to to complete in Australia around 10x EBITDA. So -- but watch this space because I can tell you there's a hiccup going on all around the financial services that we're working with around the world. We also continue to capitalize our -- to optimize our capital allocation in a disciplined way, evaluating our portfolios. And we will look at potentially releasing capital. And to explain what that might look like, if we've got an asset now that we bought really well and it's giving a return, which is okay, but we think we could turn that existing hard asset into cash and deploy that cash in another way to get an uplift, then we'll certainly look at how we may realign our capital in our noncore assets. Our expense management, we talked about this and how we started doing it. It's really reaching fruition. And you can see the numbers there. We've been able to slice $7 million off our head office. Interestingly, with the way we're reporting now, head office costs are really clear and unequivocal. And I think Hannah can elaborate on that further. Our subsidiaries also have been very diligent in trying to work with us. It's a little bit like the Titanic when you've got nearly 70 subsidiary companies sometimes to make them change. But I must say they've all taken along what Tim is implementing at the moment. And I think that we've got a saving of about $4 million. I think in the second half, the compounding effect of what we do will start to be realized all the way through. And again, a reaffirmation of our previous FY '26 guidance and scope for improvement over the medium with medium to improve EBITDA. medium for us, we reflect as being 3 years. So if we go to Slide 6, the dividend is up 5.1% to $0.082 and that's up 5.1%, I should say. And the dividend reinvestment plan will come into place. There will be no discount on that. And if I'm to be candid and frank about that, we're probably trading at a very attractive rate for somebody at the moment if they want to take advantage of the DRP. Our ex dividend date will be 2nd of March, the record date will be the 3rd and the 4th of March and payment date will be the 25th of March. So just on the right, you can see the bar charts there reflecting how we driven in this organization from 2013 to make sure the dividends went up in line. sometimes we're criticized particularly from international investors as to why we actually do convert so much of our net profit in dividend, but we said we do it and we continue to do it along the line. On Page -- if you go to Slide 7, the reason we put this in here is probably to explain to you how the premium rates vary. And we've taken a look from 2000 all the way through there. And you can see it looks like mountains and valleys and mountains and valleys and mountains and valleys. And what I'd like to point out to you, if you go to 2012 and 2014, you'll see that when we floated this business, it was on its way down. The premium cycle had been hard, and it was on its way down. And in fact, if you look at the valley at around 2015, you'll see it went down to plus 1% -- so if you then look at the way we climb up and down and up and down and up and down and then realize that if you put a line through our earnings and see how accretive they've been and how compounded we've done, we are able to handle peaks and troughs in the premium cycle. Insurance brokers know how to do that. And I mean, there's some speculation about whether the markets continuing to go soft. It hasn't been our experience at the moment. If you have a look at 2023, it was plus 9.2%. If you have a look at January 2026, and I know we're reporting on the -- up to December, but it's important to reflect on January that we're up 2.7%. So when you saw that the cascade and the catastrophic points of view that we put out, we went from 9.2% plus to 2.7 plus, okay? So you can see there was a 7% differential over a period of time when people said that the industry is in chaos and the pricing was chaotic and going to fall below. But during all these times, we, as others in our sector in Australia have been able to maintain our guidance, maintain what we're putting out and continue running the business. So just before we get on to our CGU CEO, if you go to Page 8, we've done a lot of work on developing the network, okay? And really, the amount of professional development that Steadfast does is outstanding. And we get -- on our webinars sometimes we get 3,000, 3,400 people look at our webinars. We get -- in our in situ meetings that we have around Australia, we get great attendances. And the team of people that runs our professional development explains what's going on in the industry. Our experts are absolutely long-standing industry stores. And that's part of the DNA that allows us to grow the network, and Tim will talk more about that. So we're also looking at the New Zealand market because it's very low at the moment, struggling -- everybody is struggling to get their numbers, but it's a great buying opportunity because it's a very stable market in terms of the consumers wanting to buy over there. So we'll look in that market. We're upgrading some equity that we've got in some of our businesses over at the moment at a good price. And the development of Singapore and into Asia is also on our wavelength and Sam might speak to this. We have a very close eye on India at the moment and the way that business has matured for insurance brokers and other parts of Asia. So we also continue to support our authorized network of authorized reps, and we are the leading network of authorized reps in Australia. We've got, I think, 3,600 authorized reps operate under financial services licenses that we control. So Again, that's a really different way of looking at how insurance broking has developed. So if you think about 3,600 individual businesses that are operating under somebody else's license in days gone by before the advent of AR networks, they may have attempted to get their own licenses. And so the consolidation of distribution to AR is here, it's dynamic, and we're one of the major players in it. Looking at the underwriting agencies, and Mark will reflect upon this. But our focus is on the retention and new business and all the time on pricing adequacy. -- our MGAs in Australia do about $2.5 billion. And that means somebody gives us $2.5 billion of their cash to deploy into the market and to give them a profit on it. So we are very cognizant of that responsibility, and we're very cognizant of maintaining long-term relationships we've been able to do. We do have a diverse portfolio of commercial and retail brands. And we've also been able to step into a couple of areas. And I think with the -- sure purchase, it gave us an opportunity to expand around the market. With the advent of Castle, that has been -- that has reached fruition, and Mark may talk a little more about that as we get there. And also, the fact that we have consolidated and our MGAs certainly -- that's been a really difficult but terrifically powerful job that's done. I'll let Mark talk about that a little bit further when he talks to you. And also new products, new markets, we're about to move, but we will start to write cyber in North America in the next 3 months. So that's just the start of what we may do into the U.S. market. The Novum platform gives us the opportunity to be able to bring MGAs in and get them out in some cases to nearly 9,000 potential agents who plug into that network. So -- and I guess what we've done, and I think with Mark coming into the stewardship of the MGAs is to continue to build the relationships we've got with carriers all around the world at a very high level and on a sophisticated level where when they talk about us distributing their product, they know our track record is one of consistency and profitability for them. So I'll leave that to Mark. On the technology side, I think this is interesting the advent of what we've done with the SCTP, bringing on InsureBot and some new products has absolutely started to streamline quoting processes. I mean and then our investment in Steadfast apps, and I'll let David talk in more detail to that. It has been our movement over the last couple of years into how we use AI contained within the business. And I think the development of our reporting capabilities means that not that we do every day, but we have access to our GWP and our profit lines basically on a daily basis. So we're not looking at trends 6 months in arrears or 3 months in arrears. We're looking at trends of what's happening today, where movements are occurring. So we know -- and I guess the involvement of the IT in our data and analytics makes -- gives us market-leading information. And so when I speak to you about numbers, they're not hypothetical numbers that we put off of Blackboard. They are actually factually -- actual numbers based on tremendous data capabilities that we've got built up really over the last decade. So it's very exciting. And I think that the frightness that came out of AI, it really knocks us for 6 because I mean, what AI is going to do to the processing of internal business where we have to move digital data around and give it to people and where we've had FTEs doing that, now that will be replaced. And David can talk a bit further on that when he does it. It is astounding when you see the way the market reacted that about a small insurer in Spain with a little product that couldn't really do anything like what we do now and the whole market got put into a turmoil. Yes, AI is going to be a disruptor. And yes, there'll be people who will enjoy speaking to somebody that's been made out of digital analytics as opposed to ringing up their local insurance broker and saying, "Hello, Jack, hello, -- can you fix my 18-year-old car that I can't get insured or the house is partly burned down, am I in trouble. So data analytics and the capability of AI are the DNA of growing insurance brokers, not the fear about insurance brokers, but the facilitation of getting rid of and streamlining a whole lot of processes. And then I guess, just on our subsidiary performance, it's a long-going process. It's not something new. We have done what not a lot of people have done, I guess, in our industry is to put finite CEOs and CFOs in charge of main CG cash-generating units to make sure that the accountability sits into certain pillars of income that comes to us and that we -- that they report up to Hannah. So that there is several people working on the constant revenue that we're generating and how we can save and how we can improve. This -- we started implementing this last year. We thought we'd implemented for the FY '27 year. We were encouraged by the market to actually implement it clearly. And just because I'm difficult to deal with, I asked our finance team, could they actually do it for the half year, which meant everybody worked night and day to do it. We did we put out a reaffirmation of what it looked like. And now you have an unequivocal view of what our brokers, our underwriting agencies, our international, our technology and head office costs and how -- and when you want to do a comparison, you don't have to guess you're going to have a look. And we're fully accountable for each one of those sectors at any one time. So I think the work that's been done headed up by Tim and Mark have been outstanding. I'll leave them to talk further about it. So I'll get -- I'll stop talking and put you the key people that make the business hum. So Tim, thanks very much, Tim Anderson.

Thanks, Robert, and good morning, everyone. We might start over on Slide 10, if we can, please. I'm really pleased to report the Australasian broker network continues to grow despite the softer premium cycle. In the first half, our network gross written premium increased 4.4% to $6.4 billion. It's been a very active period for our M&A team who completed 23 step-ups, 9 step-downs and 17 new acquisitions, 16 of which will be bolted into existing equity brokers. At the same time, we have enhanced revenue with growth of our broker network fees and professional service fees in line with budget. We continue to see strong engagement across the network, as mentioned by Robert, now with 414 brokers and over 3,000 authorized representatives, providing diversification for our group across products, industries and geographic regions. It's important to recognize that 86% of our gross written premium is in commercial lines, which is much more resilient to direct online and potential AI offerings to the micro SME and retail markets. Along with our broker network, our technology platforms provide a clear sustainable advantage to our business model. There are now 247 brokers live on Insight with almost 8,000 users. In addition, more than 13,000 individuals use our Steadfast client trading platform, which uses API and automation to gather and present policy information and quotes more efficiently. AI will no doubt further enhance this, particularly with the significant amount of data and reporting we can provide to our network. This is further evidenced by the significant increase in insurebot transactions we are seeing since acquiring the business earlier this year. We continue to see great opportunity between broking and technology. You'll have the opportunity to hear from David Colespy, our Chief Technology Officer, shortly. Over to Slide 11, please. Being good to see the network has achieved solid underlying earnings growth of 13%. Overall, EBITA has grown $21.5 million on the PCP. 11.7% of this growth is a result of our recent M&A activity, including the 17 acquisitions mentioned, providing a good run rate into the second half of this financial year. At the same time, we have increased effective ownership of EBITA from 79% to 83% with a number of step-ups into existing equity businesses. Organic growth continues, albeit more moderately in line with the expectations we communicated at the last investor update. We've implemented a number of cost-saving measures in the first half that will be fully realized in the second half. We have also committed to increasing broker fees by 2.5% in the second half to support our organic growth target. We continue to remain focused on subsidiary performance, including hubving to improve operational efficiency. At the same time, our brokers remain focused on delivering sustainable organic growth and margin improvement with a continued focus on top line renewal retention and new business performance. Slide 12, please. So just briefly about AI. With over 8,000 individual users on our insight broking system and 13,000 individual users on the SCTP, we're extremely well placed to use AI to the broker's advantage. We hold the data to make this possible. Having said that, our brokers are much better than AI making judgments, building relationships, being accountable for service and advice, providing risk management, claims advocacy and general insurance expertise. This will only be enhanced as the surrounding workflows, data capture and placement mechanics are increasingly automated with AI. Our Director of AI and Emerging Technology, Steve Tufton, has recently published a report on AI chat-based insurance apps and the implications for Steadfast. The summary of the strategic recommendations and our approach to AI is provided on this slide. Steadfast to summarize, the path forward is not resistance, but adaptation, embracing AI as a channel, automating what we can, but strengthening the human connection that AI cannot replicate. I will now hand over to Mark Senovich, CEO of Steadfast Underwriting agencies. Over to you, Mark.

Yes. Thanks very much, Tim, and good morning, everyone. Let me just start by saying that at a high level, the strategically important role of underwriting agencies in the Australian market continues. They continue to expand in terms of market footprint and in providing excellent service to clients as well as innovation. There's no question it's been a challenging market for the first quarter of this year. And in particular, in the strata and specialty sectors, Robert has spoken to our actions in this regard, and I'll touch on those in a little more detail later. We're very much focused on our strategy to diversify the portfolio and to improve efficiencies and foster both organic and acquisition growth. And a few key points here. Firstly, Robert has mentioned it, the success of the Castle brand launched as part of Shore. We've launched a number of new products within our MGAs and taken action in Q2 FY '26 to address the moderating market that we observed in the first quarter of last year -- of the financial year. And our ongoing investment into tech, into data and actuarial capability continues, including the addition of native AI solutions in a number of the tech platforms that we're implementing at this point. It also supports us, and Robert touched on this as well in respect of our carrier relationships -- our ability to deliver data is second to none. And on the operational side, you'll see a case study where I've touched on the consolidation of a number of our businesses and the value that, that brings to investors. So the challenging market sees GWP under some pressure. But on a like-for-like basis, we're seeing 3% growth in GWP. I do want to emphasize, this is very important, that the agency revenue footprint, including profit commissions and margin tends to skew to the second half of the year. I can't overemphasize that point, and I'll talk a little more to that in a later -- a little bit later. So we're really anticipating improved outcomes for half 2 and by extension for the full year. And just a quick word on balance sheet activity, and it's modest, but the sale of Blend, Sterling and Steadfast Re allowed us to cycle capital into step-ups on higher-margin businesses. And again, modest but demonstrates our capability in doing that with our assets. Just touching on a few operational highlights and focusing on the revenue side. I mentioned Castle Insurance. And when we purchased Shaw in 2023, we flagged the opportunity to launch an Australia-wide proposition. Since its go-live in October 2025, Castle has exceeded all of our expectations, including that of the Shaw team to the tune of about 52% in first half, and that continues into the first months of the second half. It offers brokers choice -- this is not just about a price proposition, but a choice proposition for our brokers out there, and we've seen brokers block to the Castle offering. Importantly, the Castle team also implemented a new tech stack, and that allows easy API access into third-party trading platforms and of course, provides us with greater analytics and the opportunity to implement AI at a future date.

Mark, the Castle brand grew out of the opportunity we got from QBE to do its renewal book on this broker business. How is the retention looking on that?

Both retention and new growth, actually, new growth -- new business has exceeded the portfolio that we inherited from QBE, Robert.

It's interesting then when you reflect on when a focused distribution network gets hold of a product and has distribution, how quickly that product can grow. And if you get the pricing right and the algorithms agreed between us and QVE, then it opens up an unbelievably cheap way for an insurer to get their capital into the market to a broad range of people. And I think this will be something that maybe the whole market will look at what it is.

I think the market is already looking at it. And I remain confident into the second half, we'll continue to see the growth trajectory of Castle. Also, I just want to comment briefly on some of our other MGAs. In the slides, I've captured a couple of examples for CHU. They've launched -- actually launched 5 new products. I've mentioned a couple there. But CHU read the cycle very well and adjusted their go-to-market strategy. The December and January numbers, albeit that they're smaller months, are showing improved retention and new business growth. And I think that's very important. We anticipate that, that trend will continue. Also, the increased capacity that we have now from QBE and from reinsurers offers an excellent opportunity to grow into an expanding market in Strata, which is new overstation developments in capital cities. So I see some good growth opportunity there. And likewise, some of our other agencies, Meon, Emergence and Coast, all have new product offerings. And we've launched Unity Trade Credit, a new underwriter in the trade credit space, which is actually quite a narrow market.

That's aimed at the smaller end, isn't it? I think trade credit.

That's correct.

And facilitates quotations almost instantaneously is on an automaker basis.

And finally, our acquisition pipeline continues to grow. We had one acquisition in the first half, and we have several other opportunities under discussion. And then just moving to Slide 15. Some of the Financial highlights, revenue is up 2.7% to $240.9 million. EBITDA more or less flat year-on-year -- sorry, Slide 15. Thank you. EBITDA more or less flat year-on-year at $112.7 million. Again, I want to reinforce the book skewed to half 2. Revenue is historically greater as is the recognition of profit commission, which is actually only calculated after the end of the calendar year for many of our binders. I'll touch quickly on fee income. It's increased as a number of our MGAs have sought to restructure their remuneration. It's not as big a mover for us as it is on the broker side. But nonetheless, we've seen fee income increase for underwriting agencies overall. And we've maintained our expense discipline, which will continue into half 2. Equity ownership remains at 88%. I mentioned some step-ups earlier. We've also had a couple of management buy-ins overall. And then on to Slide 16. I mean this commercial agency consolidation case study, really the headline here is that aside from a more effective broker and client interaction, we anticipate this will create an uplift of over $5 million in annualized EBITDA across the group following implementation from the fourth quarter of this year. The announcement on the commercial agency side is imminent. We've already executed this initiative in consumer agencies and the more ambitious project with commercial agencies brings 8 underwriting agencies into one and narrows the number of AFSLs from 5 to 2, just to give an example of the expense management that will come from this.

When do you get that in the second half?

It will come on board through May and into -- then subsequently into...

FY '28.

And I touched on the underwriting platform investment. It allows these businesses to operate on a single modern tech stack with unified underwriting claims policy admin and as well as improved analytics, which, of course, lends itself to the native AI applications that come with these platforms. It's also provided us with -- this consolidation has provided us with a unique opportunity to use our scale and leverage to consolidate our binder purchases in London with significant rationalization of binders, brokers, and this creates significant savings for us and improved commission outcomes. We're also in the process of transferring binders progressively to HWS, bringing revenues back in-house for the International division. And with that, a little headline for Sam, I'll pass over to you.

Nice segue. Thank you, Mark. If I could please move on to Slide 18. And I'll run you through the first half '26 operational highlights, which have been significant in our continuing development of the international expansion. So for ISU Steadfast, it's performing strongly and has exceeded the first half '26 budgeted EBITDA. We've had 22 new members, which is a record amount of numbers attracted to the group in any first half, and we've had 13 net of terminations. We've also piloted the new Advantage membership tier, which we had touched on in our December update, which is basically the ability to attract quality independent agents that were originally too small to qualify for our membership. It is a gap in the U.S. market with networks at the moment, and it's a very large and growing segment of the U.S. insurance landscape, which will be a new opportunity for us to continue to grow our membership numbers and create scale. And really pleasing, ISU Steadfast, we've embarked on our first trapped capital scenario with the first investment in a network member scheduled for completion on March 1, and we also have an intent signed for a second investment. So that's a super exciting development for international expansion to have gone down the trapped capital route. If I move on to HWS Specialty, again, another business performing strongly and exceeded the first half '26 budgeted EBITDA. We've really had significant progress in this first half of diversifying the business into new and expanded specialties to cater to our global network requirements and product lines, and we have done this through some really strategic recruitment. But I would like to emphasize that -- we are building the business, but we are also incredibly conscious of cost containment. And if you just look in CY '25, we had 13 new starters, but we also had 12 levers. And some of those were intentional to bring new exciting talent into the business and to continue to grow that business. So we are conscious of the cost containment component of building out HWS specialty. But we're also really focused on the organic growth of the existing specialties that we have with strong new business wins in marine cargo and also a new specialty area growth in U.S. transportation. And Novum, which was our latest baby in the first half where we acquired in August 2025, and that's had incredibly strong performance in just the 4 months since post completion. In the finished calendar 2025 year, GWP, we had was USD 140 million, which was 60% organic growth over the prior year. We're extremely pleased with that business, that acquisition, and we're excited by the possibilities that lay ahead. And we've had really strong engagement with the ISU Steadfast to focus on increasing that submission flow and the strategic alignment and opportunities that will come by having a distribution network in the U.S. market alongside and MGA in the U.S. market. And I'd like to draw your attention to the right-hand side of the screen, which is just basically a little snapshot of International since acquisition. So 2 years ago since acquisition with ISU Stead Bus Network, we've had 13% net growth in members and 26% growth in profit sharing from carriers. For HWS Specialty in the first year since acquisition, we've had strong organic growth, and we've also had 4 really significant recruits to build the capabilities we always said we needed in the product lines of property, casualty and delegated authority. to really capitalize on the global market opportunity and also the London market opportunity. That has now stabilized our business to really move it forward. And of course, Novum, only 4 months into the acquisition, we've had organic growth beyond acquisition expectations. And we've had 300-plus policy submissions from ISG Steadfast members into that MGA already in that first 4 months. I think this shows that we have a great track record of acquisitions to date. All businesses are performing well and capital has been spent well. If I can move to Slide 19, please, and I'll take you through the financial highlights of the first half. The financials demonstrate continued strength of Steadfast International. We've delivered underlying aggregate EBITDA of $9.5 million, growth of $10.1 million over the prior corresponding period. The strong organic performance is driven mainly by the growth in the ISU Steadfast network and the cost synergies we have realized from consolidating Steadfast London office into HWS Specialty. And acquisition growth has been driven by the acquisitions of HWS Specialty and Novum Underwriting Partners. We've had really strong organic growth since acquisition of HWS with the significant new business wins in marine cargo and U.S. Transportation, which has been represented under the acquisition growth. And the first 4 months of solid contribution from Novum with 60% growth over the prior period and submission flow from ISU also gaining traction. These results reflect the high-quality earnings as well as our disciplined approach to scaling the business. If I could move to Slide 20, please. This slide is all about the strategic opportunity and momentum ahead for the second half '26 and beyond. And we're looking forward with optimism for that period. So if I look at ISU steadfast and I look at our 4 strategic pillars there of network growth, market access, agency perpetuation and technology, we're really looking forward with a lot of excitement and momentum behind those. And even if I go back to network growth, our improved value proposition plus the new membership tier we have with marketing commencing in March this year to drive and attract retention to build on our network numbers. In the market access, not only do we have enhanced strategic carrier relationships, but we now have that ability to drive Novum and HW specialty solutions because we now have those in a position where we can drive that forward and service the network. So I truly believe we are just at the beginning of realizing this opportunity. Agency perpetuation, the ball is rolling now. I just explained, we have the first one signed and an LOI with another, plus we have a pipeline there of other opportunities. This has been a result of 2 years of building relationships and building trust, and we're now realizing that, and that ball will continue to keep rolling, which we're really excited about. And technology, data. Data is key. We have something that we have in the business at the moment with ISU to collect the data network, but it is not sound and to the point that we want to. We have now engaged with a third party only signing up at the end of this month to be able to capitalize on true data insights, which will build momentum in having discussions with carriers, improving consolidation of business that goes through them, creating new programs of work that can go into Nova and into HWS Specialty. So we will be making business decisions on true live data insights, which will be fabulous for our opportunities moving forward. If I move to HWS Specialty, we will continue to leverage the strength of the existing specialty products, but we will also expand on our capabilities and solutions, and we now have the recruits in place to be able to do that. And I'm really excited to also represent that our reputation now in the London market is really growing. So the recruits that we are attracting who want to be part of HWS Specialty are true quality. And I think that speaks volume for what our strategic plans are and opportunities are in that market and our brand. If I move on to Novum Underwriting, we'll continue to scale existing programs and establish new programs. There's a lot we can do in building out wholesale and E&S carrier appointments. But there's also a lot we can do with the Novum online tech system that we have, which is a true advantage in the market. And we will continue to implement a lot of automation into the business and underwriting processes, saving time, allowing us to write -- have more time to write more business. And I think we will continue to grow that agency distribution, especially through the ISU network, but also the external broader market by creating that brand awareness of not only Steadfast ownership, but the Novum brand and the opportunities and the strengths that it has. And if I look finally into even with the scaling of the new programs, we're launching several new programs, including entry into the Canadian market with a sureureready offering, which has just occurred at the beginning of this year. So -- in conclusion, based on the strong momentum in the first half and significant opportunities in the second half, we continue to be excited about the future of Steadfast International. It's an important growth area for the group, and we are well positioned with complementary businesses and geographies to recognize the opportunity. On that point, I'll hand over to our CTO, David Galeski.

Thanks, Sam. Technology is at the core of our business, and we continue to invest and support our networks. Page 22, please. You've heard Tim, Mark and Sam talk about their business units, and we work closely with them in ensuring that we are supporting their business strategy. In the broker area under Tim, we have the market-leading insurtech platforms with SCTP and Insight. Coming from one of the major insurers, I was aware of those platforms, but seen in detail what capability they have and talking to brokers has made me even more impressed. One of the reasons I was excited to join Steadfast was the opportunity to build out the next generation of those platforms with Steadfast apps. I've undertaken similar programs at Fidelity in the U.K. with Funds Network and at Tal Life with ColorBuilder. -- and now with the opportunity to embed AI where appropriate and equally making sure we're more agile as insurers upgrade their platforms. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in coming slides. In parallel, we're continuing to onboard new brokers, new products and new insurers. Last year, we acquired Insurebot, and that was for 2 reasons. Firstly, to provide rapid automation of broker to insurer integration with Insight, but equally for their entrepreneurial approach to act as an incubator for innovation. Last week, I saw a showcase of new capability they've built for a broker in New Zealand, which will go live in the next couple of weeks and will deliver significant efficiencies for them. This is an approach I've used in previous roles, and we're now replicating here in steadfast. In the underwriting area, Mark spoke about the uplift that is underway there, and it's a great example of how we leverage partner products with AI embedded to improve and accelerate our capability. For example, in our claims processing, where our claims staff -- AI agents will guide the claims staff with prompts and execute routine tasks. With our international business, you saw from Samantha's update how Novum fits in. When we looked at it from a technology perspective, we saw a great platform with Novum Online, which in many ways is similar to Insight. One of the capabilities we realized was the automation engine, which Sam talked about there. And when we see opportunities to cross leverage, we'll use that. Lastly, we want to ensure our staff are fully literate on AI. We actively encourage them. We have internal and external training available. And where we've deployed AI, it's not just a set and forget. We track usage. And when it's not as high as we would like, we support staff in leveraging it. How we use it is continuing to evolve as AI continues to evolve as well. Moving on to Page 23 and one platform. We tend to talk about Insurtech has just been about SCTP and Insight, but it's broadened that. In the next couple of months, we'll start deploying Steadfast ID, which serves 2 main purposes. One is around uplifting our security posture and secondly, to start consolidating the entry point for brokers and insurers to a single storefront, which is a real enabler for future capabilities and uplift and showcases the additional services that Steadfast can provide. I spoke about the uplift and replatform we are seeing with our insurer partners and our product configurator engine is a new middleware layer, which will enable easier integration as they upgrade. This will be going live by June and will then allow us to reduce our onboarding time for insurers and new products from over 3 months to less than 1. We have regular meetings, as you would expect with our insurers to make sure we've aligned road maps where it makes sense. You've already seen some examples of our reporting using the data platform. That will only get better as we introduce a conversational AI overlay. So rather than configuring reports, we can just ask the questions. The team have been testing it and trust me, it's pretty impressive. Most companies spend 80% of their time getting data, 20% analyzing. We are flipping that. So the majority of time will be analyzing for insights. Steadfast Intelligence is for internal use for comparison performance perspectives for brokers, operational and analytics reporting and equally for insurers and underwriters to undertake deep dives on their product performance across different segments. In addition, having that rich data is fundamental to creating accurate and reliable AI systems. Steadfast Apps is where we bring much of this together. So let me talk about that on the following page, Page 24. As I said, we have great broker platforms, but it's important not to be complacent. We're constantly in dialogue with our brokers. In fact, many of the Insurtech team come from a broking background. So taking their inputs on where their pain points are, how we can optimize the existing processes, how technology is evolving and opportunities we have with AI, we have been developing Steadfast Apps, our next-generation platform. We really believe in user-led design. So we build working prototypes and test with brokers to make sure that delivers the benefits and improvements they need. We're using AI to augment the broker, not replace them. At our convention next month, the Insurtech team will be showcasing some of the new features that we will be bringing to the platform. And as I said earlier, through the year, we'll continue to add new products and insurers. As well as making the brokers more efficient, one of our aims is to reduce the total cost of software ownership for them by embedding CRM, document management, et cetera, into the platform, which will have the benefit of removing handoffs and optimizing processes and in some cases, negate the need for additional software. We want to widen the jaws with increased revenue as more brokers come on and have a more efficient platform. We're already seeing stronger financial discipline around our cost -- our cloud costs and that will increase next year as we complete the rollout of the new platform. Lastly, we also see AI as a new acquisition channel, and we're now embracing generative engine optimization as much as the traditional SEO. I will now hand over to Hannah, our CFO.

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining today. I'll be guiding you through the group's financial performance for the first half of FY '26 with a focus on our earnings delivery, balance sheet strength and cash flow generation. Please move on to the next slide. For the first half of FY '26, the group has delivered a solid result, especially given the moderating pricing environment. This outcome reflects proactive expense discipline, subsidiary performance improvement initiatives and a solid contribution from acquisitions. Key highlights for the first half include underlying revenue increased 14.6% to circa $1 billion. Underlying EBITDA increased 12.6% to $293.6 million. Underlying NPAT increased 7.3% to $137.5 million with diluted EPS of $0.124. -- and underlying NPATA was $161.5 million, up 6.3% with diluted EPS of $0.146. The reported stat NPAT for the period was $127 million compared to $106.4 million in the prior corresponding period. The seasonal distribution of NPAT in the first half of FY '26 was originally guided to be circa 4% to 45%. However, as Robert has already addressed earlier, the material expense savings are expected to be realized in the second half. Hence, the earnings seasonality is now expected to be broadly in line with last year, close to circa 43% -- can we move on to the next slide, please. This page breaks down the drivers between -- behind the 12.6% growth in underlying EBITDA. Growth was supported by a combination of 2% organic growth, reflecting a moderating pricing environment and 5.7% acquisition growth, excluding the Roe step-up. We have continued to be diligent on acquisitions, including transactions involving increased stakes in existing businesses. As a result, these transactions do not uplift EBITDA directly, rather the benefit flows through to NPAT by reducing noncontrolling interest, which is addressed on the next slide. We have also shown the Roe impact separately. While Roe is consolidated at 100% basis at the EBITDA level for accounting purposes, we have only stepped up soOFa 3% Accordingly, the uplift NPAT from ROTE is modest at this stage from a financial perspective. Can we move on to the next slide, please. This slide highlights the different mix of organic versus acquisition growth between EBITDA and NPAT. As mentioned earlier, organic EBITDA growth was 2%, closely aligning with organic NPAT growth of 2.3% shown. The further uplift in organic NPAT growth to 4.5% is primarily driven by 2 factors. First, savings from amortization expenses as certain acquired businesses reached the end of the accounting useful life of customer relationships, including CHU, UAA and BCP. And second, reduced amortization following business asset impairments recorded in first -- in FY '25. On the acquisition side, EBITDA growth of 5.7%, excluding Roy, broadly aligns with the 7.5% acquisition growth in NPAT. However, higher amortization and borrowing costs means less of this growth flows through to NPAT, explaining why the mix differs from EBITDA. Overall, the group delivered a solid underlying NPAT growth of 7.3% for the first half. Next slide, please. The group continues to maintain a conservative balance sheet, providing capacity to fund future growth while preserving financial flexibility. As of December 2025, total borrowings were circa $1.2 billion with a gearing ratio of 33.4%, comfortably below the Board approved maximum rate of 40%. This gives the group capacity to borrow further $382.2 million while remaining within the gearing limit. During the period, the group also increased its corporate debt facilities to circa $1.3 billion, including accordion and shelf facilities, total potential debt capacity reaches at circa $1.7 billion. This positions us well to fund our acquisition pipeline while maintaining balance sheet discipline. Next slide, please. Finally, conversion of the profit to cash flow. The group has delivered adjusted net cash from operating activities to $164.7 million in first half of FY '26, reflecting continued stable conversion of earnings into cash. You will note that post-tax cash flow from operating activities was lower compared to the first half of FY '25. This was primarily driven by higher financing costs, reflecting interest rate headwinds and increased utilization of the facilities to support our acquisition pipeline. as well as redundancy costs paid during the period. While the redundancy costs are a cash outflow, they are excluded from our underlying earnings. After dividends paid to shareholders and noncontrolling interest, free cash flow was $34.7 million, up from $32.5 million in the prior period. Together with the debt flexibility of $382 million, total available funding of $415 million provides ongoing capacity to fund dividends, support organic investments and pursue disciplined acquisition opportunities. Thank you. And now I'll hand back to Robert to talk through on the FY '26 guidance.

Thanks, Hannah. And I'll refer you to Page 32 in the outlook. Just that on behalf of the Board, we got to -- I want to reconfirm guidance NPATA $365 million to $375 million NPAT $315 million to $325 million; EBITA, $650 million to $665 million and diluted EPS NPAT growth of between 6% and 10%. I think that during this period of time, you saw us realign and restate our FY 2024 and '25. In February, we advised the market of these changes to its segment disclosure and that they would be reflected in FY '26, as I alluded to before, the refinement of the calculation of the group's underlying EBITDA and NPATA. These changes are presentational in nature, and they don't reflect any changes to the underlying performances of the business. They're designed to give you clear and view of how we make our money and spend our money. So the guidance is subject to just a few assumptions. We're achieving 2% to 3% increases in insurance premiums. As I say, January 26 showed 2.7% we reviewed to 1% to 2% under abundance guidance before Christmas. The trend that came through for November, December and January proved that, that conservative 1% to 2% was out and that will definitely do 2% to 3%. At the moment, it's trending more towards 3%, but it's a volatile period of insurance at the moment. So we're still, again, showing 2% to 3%. And also the key risks that exist on Page 50 and 52 of the pack here. The waterfall chart there shows you FY '26 FY '25 26.7 -- and if you look at the 6% to 7% guidance on the right, that's the increase we expect to be. Net acquisitions, we're showing you and net organic, we're showing you there. So it's a pretty solid position to be in at a time when the market was guessing what would occur, we put out a strong guidance, and we're confirming that guidance at this stage. So on Page 33, we're resilient. We're adaptive. Our business model works. We had challenges in FY '26. I think the first half of '26 was a bit of a gestation period. The waterfall in pricing from June to July and August was unpredict predicted. I think we took a little while to react to it. We have reacted to it and those reactions will be presented in the second half. We continue to execute our growth, and we continue to look at underlying strong earnings versus period-to-period. First half, we adapted to market conditions. The expense reductions will come through, and we completed the $240 million in acquisitions. Technology, David has just spoken much more eloquently than what I can do about it. All I can say is that we were ahead of the pack when we introduced hindsight and the client trading platform. And 5 or 6 years ago, we brought Steve Tutton into this organization with the master of AI on a predicted basis that we were going to have to move. in that area very quickly, and we've been looking at that. And David's entree into this business has been sensational with his international experience and the vast amount of major companies that he's worked with. So we -- as I said, we reaffirm our guidance. We'll continue to prioritize our capital. We will look at rearranging our capital. I mean we've been around 13 years. We've been diligent at what we bought. And I won't be frightened to look at assets that we've got and see whether they're worth more money in cash and being applied somewhere else. Don't get fearful that we're going to do something silly. -- everything we do on our capital management is well thought out. And we'll make sure that we keep our discipline on our acquisitions and continue to do the portfolio rationalizations as Tim and Mark have eloquently stated before. And over the term, we see continued margin improvement. So what I'm saying to you, it was a tough first half. We accepted it. We worked on it. We executed on it and the second half was better. So thank you, everyone. I'll hand you back to the...

Thank you, Robert. Our first question today comes from Andrei Stadnik from Morgan Stanley.

I think we've just gone into the afternoon. Can you talk a little bit more about the second half earnings bridge? Like some of the things you outlined should support second half growth, like I think the cost out seasonality, some of the recent acquisitions. Can you help just investors a little bit of the second half earnings bridge?

Okay. I think probably the best way to do that is to start with you, Tim, in terms of the time lag it takes by the time you start doing something and the success you're having in that area.

Yes. So on the top line, firstly, we've started plans to review the fees across the business, and we'll look to implement some changes to those over the second half. But looking more to the operational costs, we had met late last year with our subsidiary principles. There are 63 of those now with some guidance around the need to use natural attrition where possible to improve on employment expense costs. And so they put those into play before Christmas. And so they'll start to wash through into the second half as well. We'll see some real improvement in the employment expense rate there. So I think both of those 2 factors combined will get us to where we need to be.

And I think also we were a little slow off the mark of looking at the fee structure that we had in. And I think people got a bit complacent. And I think the second half will reflect on the fact of the increased fees that you've been able to push through from that point of view. Mark, I mean, I guess you and Steve will turn the underwriting agencies upside down when you said we're going to consolidate these. We're going to move more into HWS wood. We're going to employ some people to do some stuff. We're going to shuffle around. Are you ready to produce a better second half than the first half?

Well, I emphasized that in my opening remarks, and I'll continue to do so. So Andre, thanks for the question. For us, we have a footprint of revenue, which is biased to the second half. That's because of the weighting of renewals into that period. Secondly, we've got the growth initiatives underway. I spoke to Castle. CHU looking at their pricing and product and a number of our other agencies have really taken on board the sudden shift in pricing in the first quarter of the financial year and are reacting to that. I touched on profit commission that has a second half footprint to it, very much biased towards that. And while it is an at-risk component simply because of weather, it does have a longer time duration footprint to it. So we're seeing profit commissions emerge from 5 years earlier. And then as Robert just alluded, the operational changes that are playing through, we'll start to see those emerge in the final couple of months of the year and into FY '27.

You've got the responsibility of the second half. I mean, what's your view in what Andre said?

Yes. So improvements from both broking and underwriting agency segments on the revenue line and in conjunction with the savings that we have mentioned, Andre, $7 million from the head office and $4 million from subsidiaries. that will bridge the gap between where we are today to the guidance.

So we're pretty confident.

Just to double check, did you imply the acquisitions in the first half was skewed towards the end of the first half?

I guess that's true acquisitions, but we did a lot in -- I guess we did a lot in finalizing towards November and December. Yes, to answer that absolutely correctly. And I don't know whether it was because of the fear of the ACCC. -- people will probably think it just happened to be -- I mean, we had all our -- the ACCC agreed all our acquisitions. It was just, I think, a bit of a time constraint of getting through and making sure we got them completed. There's nobody from the M&A department here at the moment. So they were probably lazy and get them done quicker. But yes, it was -- I mean, sometimes people think we do this deliberately, but the ramifications of getting documentation done and getting people agreed and getting -- it's absolutely compound sometimes. And so we struggle to get it all done by Christmas. So I think everybody could go away. But yes, it was weighted towards that. So the impact of that, of course, means you're not getting the revenue uplift because in most cases, December is a benign period anyway. It's not the most exciting period. January is not the most exciting period. So you won't feel that impact on those acquisitions until more or less in the February, March, April, May, June period.

If I can ask just one more question. Just around the gearing target. I think it went up from 30% to 35% a year ago, and it's gone up to 40%. Can you explain a little bit about like the reason and why you're comfortable with that?

Well, we -- in theory, we do have bank covenants requirement up to 40%. So we always have the flexibility. We thought it's a great time to leverage our balance sheet to fund for the acquisition and hence, that was an increase there.

Yes. We always ran at 40%. All our covenants were at 40%, okay? In fact, we could have had covenants at 50% if we wanted to because of the nature of our balance sheet and the perspective and the long-term relationship we've got with the Australian banks. We've seen the growth of this business be strong. So I mean, with the market the way it was, we just reloaded and use more of our capacity.

The next question comes from Julian Braganza from Goldman Sachs.

Just a first question for me in terms of just the acquisition multiples. Just want to understand exactly where you're at, at the moment across the different jurisdictions. If I look at your -- just your annual -- your half year report, I think you flagged about 11.5x EBITDA on acquisitions over the period. But I think, Rob, on the call, you had mentioned 10x. So I just want to understand if it was driven by M and ISU that led to the higher multiple. But yes, just understanding where the multiples are at at the moment and your expectations from here?

Yes. In Australia, we're basically around 10 to 10x, okay? So that's a mixture of what we bought overseas and with Australia bringing it back to about 11.7%. In most cases, we get -- we believe with that we have the ability to bring in savings. And historically, it's proved when we paid a little bit more for it where we think there are savings that we've achieved those savings. And so I think that as long as going to ask me to predict what the multiples will be next week because I have no idea what the international share prices will do. But when you watch $4.5 billion get knocked off the market cap of the biggest insurance broker in the world because of somebody gets frightened about some implication, then I can't tell you what the multiples will be going forward. I can tell you the multiples we'll be paying going forward will reflect our capacity and will reflect our view of getting EPS accretion for doing that acquisition.

Okay. Got it. That's clear. And then maybe just touching on just the broking organic revenue. So it was about 1% this.

It's actually about Julian, it's about...

So 2%, is it -- is that across the group? Or is that...

Growth in -- if we unpack organic growth and take away a couple of things that we threw in there, yes. And we're predicting 2% for the second half.

2% for the second half. So that's driven by the fee increases that you're planning to put through into the second half.

Yes. Julian, it's Tim. Just to provide some more context around that. The core broking business has performed really well so far to budget. I think the biggest variance that we've seen is in the New Zealand market. We've called that out already with some of the underperformance there. And the other one was in the professional lines businesses that's really had some challenges. So if we look at those 2 parts of the business in its -- separate from the core Australian broking business, we're performing much better and closer to the...

Yes. But as we said before, we're still very interested in the New Zealand market. It's a great market. It's just in a bit of free fall at the moment. And it's interesting when you think about it, that professional lines is one of the ones that is taking hits in competition at the moment. So if you've got a professional lines broker, it's D&O premiums fell period-to-period 8.4% alone. So it's very difficult to -- if you're a specialist in that area to not struggle to get organic growth when the whole -- when your product line is being discounted around. But that will come back.

Got it. And just to understand a little bit better the levers here around that organic growth from both commissions and fees. One of your peers is talking to some fairly material upside potential that could come through if they were to sort of maximize these levers. So I just want to understand into the second half and into next year, more holistically, have you had a bit more of a look and a sort of quantification around how meaningful this could be in terms of upside for organic growth on the commissions and revenue?

Yes. I won't put a dollar number on it, but just to give some clarity around that, commission rates remained very stable throughout the first half. We did see a slight improvement to the fee rate, about up 1%. But moving it even at that rate has a significant dollar value increase. And so we're now targeting to increase that further by 2.5%, and that will achieve further organic growth for us.

Okay. Okay. That's clear. And then maybe just margins, last question on margins. So to be very clear expectations for margins here for both broking and agency versus -- just into the second half versus PCP and into '27. I think in agency, for example, you're flagging continued investment there on your platforms, but you've also got cost out coming through. So to be very clear on the margin trajectory into the second half and into FY '27 as well.

Should I take for the margin? Yes. So for broking and agencies both, I think for particular for agencies, we've started including profit share into the segment of agencies, excluding that, both of the margin seems to be quite steady, broadly in line between FY '25 and '26 based on the new segment disclosure. For FY '27, we will be able to give you an update as we speak FY '26 results.

We used to take -- we used to take profit shares in the head office, okay? And in reality, what we've done with the realigning of the revenue, as Hannes just said, if an underwriting agency the profit share goes into the underwriting agencies' income.

Okay. Got it. And just to clarify, the only cost that goes through the FY '27 numbers is that $5 million of savings that was flagged in agency. And that is that the only one and the $7 million and $4 million is obviously in the second half.

Sorry, are you referring to the $7 million head office and $4 million savings from the...

That's right. That's second half, but the $5 million in agency from combining businesses, that's flowing into FY '27?

Yes, Julian, we'll start to see that emerge in the last couple of months, but it won't be a significantly impactful shift. However, in FY '26 -- FY '27 rather, I think we'll start to see the full emergence of that.

If I add on to that, Julian -- sorry, the $7 million from head office and $4 million from subsidiaries, we're expecting circa half of that to fall into FY '27 as a run rate savings.

The next question today comes from Andrew Bunk from Macquarie.

Just a couple from me, please. The first one, you're obviously running a cost-out program at the moment. It would be useful to get some color on what your intention for these sorts of programs are going forward. Is this a one-off? Or is this business as usual?

I think Han, you can handle. I think the restructuring that we've done, okay, is a one-off.

Certainly, I completely agree with Robert. So any restructure that we have done is certainly one-off. When it comes to continuous margin improvement, that's BE for us.

Excellent. The next one, are there any businesses in your group that you would consider to be noncore? The new disclosures have obviously given investors a lot better visibility into how much is going on in the group. Would you consider anything to be noncore?

Well, Sarah Thompson from the AFR considers I accumulate to be noncore and not really germane to our income. So I guess I'll reflect on having on that statement and see whether she's right or not. But in reality, what I'm looking at is businesses that we've got and developed that are making profit. And if we think there are other businesses that we could buy that would make more profit, then we'll -- I was going to say liquidate, but I say with the KPMG liquidation partner and he gets annoyed with -- he calls it restructuring rather than liquidation. So we'd probably look to consider restructuring those businesses by amalgamating them or indeed ultimately maybe sell them and say what we could do with the capital in another area. I think we're pretty clever about knowing where businesses we can invest that give us the best return. So if we're not getting as good a return from a slice of capital we've got somewhere, and we think we can get rid of that, get that -- turn that business into liquid cash and apply that liquid cash elsewhere for a better reception, a better return, then we certainly -- we will endeavor to do that over this next 6-month period. And I guess, always, we'll look at recycling our capital anyway. I mean we look at that all the time. I mean, technically, we look at that before we do an acquisition. I mean we get shown a lot of acquisitions, and we look at it and go, well, if we did put our capital into that, what are we going to get back out of it. And many of them that we don't -- I mean, there's one that we've just rejected, which somebody else will buy, but we just couldn't make it work on the numbers that they put forward and the asking price that they wanted to have. So we're not afraid to turn away and not do that.

Great. And then just a final one from me, please, in relation to international. So maybe for Sam as well as you, Robert. You're going into Canada, you're talking about India, you're investing more in the U.S. There's a lot of stuff going on for you overseas. With how quickly technology is changing globally, let alone in the insurance space, is this the right time to be pursuing so many different offshore opportunities?

Yes, Andrew, pretty easy answer to this. Our focus is the U.S. and the U.K. without a doubt. We are exploring opportunities in India just because it would not be prudent for us to do so as such a huge part of the world and the economy. And we've had interest reach out to us rather than us to them. So we will -- like our ethos of everything we've done in Steadfast, we will keep our eyes and ears open to everything and look at everything before a decision is made, but our clear focus is the U.S. and U.K. market.

The next question comes from Siddharth Parameswaran from JPMorgan.

I just had a question just on your acquisition strategy from here. I think, Robert, you've been quite clear that you will be -- any acquisitions you do have to be EPS accretive. I was just keen, given where your share price is, whether it makes sense more to deploy the capital into your own shares rather than new acquisitions, particularly overseas, where the multiples tend to be higher.

I think, Sid, it's a good question, and it's not something that we don't look at. But in reality, every time we look at it, we think, you know what, we can deploy this money much better than what we can buying our own shares. And I think that's an easy thing for a company to do is to buy shares back if it's in the doldrums a little bit or if it's one, we're not. We're very happy with what we're doing, and we're extremely keen to deploy capital because we think we know how to deploy capital. Our track record would support that. And -- but to answer you, honestly, we do look at that and part of prudent capital management is to actually make that evaluation. And until such time as the pendulum turns, and we don't think we can put capital out at a better rate than buying our shares back, then we won't buy our shares back.

Can I just add one...

You did all the work on it. I'm still on your glory.

Sid, I think share buyback is certainly an option from a capital management perspective. But we, management strongly believe the selective M&A opportunities that we've got and long-term margin improvement initiatives that we have will definitely provide a better long-term value creation for the shareholders. So in the short term, that could be an option, but we want to focus on the long term.

Yes. Okay. That makes sense. Okay. If I could just ask a second question just around AI and just your strategy. It seems very much that you're being a little bit more cautious than your peer in terms of how you think the customer may seek to adopt these tools. I was just keen to get your perspective on whether you've also considered a ChatGPT marketplace? And what do you think this will mean to broking and individualized advice models?

I'll get -- I'll let David answer this. But in reality, in a broker's business, 30% of his business is usually comes under pressure each year. They want to change it. Okay. At that 30%, my experience is -- and I think I'm entering -- I think I've just completed my 57th year. So I speak the authority over many, many cycles is that the true broker client will come back and say, I've got a good deal. Can you match it? -- probably 10% to 15% of the broker clients will take the view, well, you should have given me the best price, and I've been screwed and they move, move out. If AI is going to answer that question, then I think definitely from being disrupted, a percentage of our business could be. But our businesses are advice businesses. Our businesses are where people want to be able to talk to somebody. And I can't see that AI is going to interrupt that. What it may do for us is internally, and David will speak more authority on it, is absolutely allow us to expand our businesses without expanding our FTE cost base. David, I don't know what you...

Yes. I think it was interesting the night before that app was released, I was actually doing my own car insurance and you go through that form. And basically, that app was a front end to the form. At the back end, you still have to have a core platform, and that's why we talk about our moats that you need a highly available, secure and compliant core platform. We've got those integrations, deep insurer integrations with our partners that we talk to on a regular basis with that multiproduct hub with SCTP. Could that be replicated? Yes, it could. But it's those relationships we've got with the insurers. And it may well be that we put a chatbot onto the front end to support our brokers to be able to do that quicker, and that's -- we talked about that innovation hub. That's one of the things that they're looking at. But at the moment, that front end is basically a chatbot compared to a form. We see that evolving over time. but we are adapting to that. And I think we've got, as Robert says, a broker is much more about relationships. We'll support them to make them much more efficient in using AI. And within those sort of core platforms, which we have with insight, we'll embed AI agents to make them much more efficient for the brokers as well. So I think it's about making us and our broker partners much more efficient.

I listened to Mike's call yesterday. I always do in case I can steal some ideas that are better than mine, right? So I'm not fearful to do that. I didn't think that was -- I thought that was logical of things what they were talking about and what they were going to investigate and go forward. I don't think we'd be any more different to them in how we've been investigating and what we want to do...

Yes. Okay. Great. And just one final question. I think you flagged a couple of hundred million dollars of acquisitions in the second half. I was just keen to understand just the new ACCC regime, whether any of them have actually already been lodged under that and just what the -- has anything been approved so far? Maybe you could just give us some idea how that's going.

I guess I can answer that. We did 20 transactions with the ACCC step-ups and acquisitions, and they approved every one of them. In fact, the time lines went down to dramatically. They went from sort of 6 weeks initially down to basically 2 weeks and 3 weeks to get them done. Anything that we've got signed term sheets on at the moment have been through the ACCC regime. We've found them to be cooperative. We found them to understand the sector we're in now. We found them to want to see Australian businesses grow by acquisition. And we know the dim they put down about merging or acquiring businesses, and it's pretty simple. If you're going to restrict access to the consumer for a product or a service or you're going to increase the cost of that product or service by doing the merger or the acquisition, you'll be in trouble with us. And luckily, I think they understand our plans. They understand the way we go about doing it, the independence we give our assets to operate. And as I say, we've done 20 transactions with them in the last 12 months successfully.

The next question is a text question from Jason Palmer. Jason asks, -- in the past few months, since the MCAP has materially reduced, has activity of interested parties perhaps looking to take control of Steadfast increased? How many inquiries have you received? Have any nonbinding offers come in? And what price?

Okay. No price, no nonbinding offers, -- nobody is knocked on the door, and we're not in discussions with anybody to sell. However, if somebody came at 750 or $780, I'd certainly return their Farm.

The next question comes from Richard Amland from CLSA.

I've just got a clarification question regarding the covenants. I'm referring specifically to the total leverage covenant, net debt not to exceed 2.5x EBITA. Can you confirm if that EBITA number is in reference to consolidated entities or if that's after taking in the share from associates? And I've got -- I've got a net debt figure for the end of the half of about $1.4 billion. So I'm just trying to confirm that you're reasonably close to that covenant and what the implications are for that.

It. Yes, it's calculated based on the underlying EBITDA, and we monitor that covenants every single month. I can guarantee it's nowhere close to 2.

If I'm looking at -- and please correct me if I'm wrong, I've got trailing 12-month EBITDA of around $600 million. 2.9...

Did you buy sorry, did you buy a chance include a premium funding? Premium funding is ring-fenced from the bank covenants requirement.

Okay. I might take it offline if you guys are very comfortable, that's fine. I can see clarification...

Thank you. The next question is a text question from Jake Ward. Jake asks, with the derating of the share price towards multiples similar to businesses you are acquiring, how do you intend to, a, meaningfully drive EPS growth; and b, fund further acquisitions without increased dilution or hearing changes?

We have a -- I guess, we have a position that we don't buy non-EPS accretive businesses. And with the rerating, I guess, of the whole -- let's -- I'll just take the brokers, not the insurers because they also got rerated, then that puts a different perspective across everybody who wants to buy in the market. And at the moment, we are not in a position where there's anything that we've got in our sites that would not be EPS accretive right at the very moment.

Thank you. The next question is a text question again from Daniel Wood. Daniel asks, so is it Steadfast's view that, generally speaking, the soft or softening market has turned? If so, when and some of the why, if you can? What indicates that apart from your historic base premium cycle chart?

The only thing we can say is that we chart carefully the main product -- all our product lines. And if you look at our product lines that were in the red over the first half, D&O was in the red, ISR was in the red, okay? Blood stock was in the red. Construction was in the red, cyber was in the red. Travel was in the red, Accident and health was in the red, Aviation was in the red and life risks were in the red. All of those are a very small percentage of the -- for instance, -- if you look at our -- the other side of the chart, the liability, management liability, professional risk, Bizpac, strata, contractors, plant machinery, rural, farm, motor, commercial, statutory risk, business financial, machinery breakdown, marine, marine cargo, information technology and business property and home and contents, landlords, motor private, motor commercial and Strata residential and Parametrics were all positively period-to-period. They all went up. So when we manage our portfolio, and we see what happened that we moved from plus 3.7% in June of '25 -- and you see it dropped to 2.4% in July and then going to 2.1% in August and then flatten in September to 2 and stay flat in October to around 2%. And then in November, you see it go to 2.1%. And then in December, you see it go up to 2.4 and then you see it in January go to 2.7%, then if you look historically over trends, then you'd have to say that there's potentially that the market has bottomed and now is starting to go back to what is realistic in other words, I would call inflationary increases. So maybe I would expect to see the 3% be set over the next few months and maybe even potentially go past it if the trend continues. And then if we settle into a cycle where the total GWP that we handle is inflationary baked every year, it's between 3% and 4%, then that would be a static way of doing business that would be very accretive to our bottom line. So yes, Danny, I think there's a potential to say that the cycle is not going to drop because we're not seeing any fresh other than what's coming out of London and in some lines that we're being impeded. So yes, I think statistically, the potential is there that the cycle has bottomed and will flip back into a more rational way of pricing, which means it will cover inflation.

There are no further questions.

Okay. Thank you, everybody. I'm not going to do a summary of what we said because I think everybody here has given you a really fair and clear understanding. I hope you like the new way we report where the CGUs are responsible, gives you the ability that they do like-for-like. And I welcome any one-on-ones we're having and look forward to meeting you there with the team. And have a good day, everybody, and thank you for participating.