Steadfast Group Limited (SDF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

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

Thanks very much, David, and welcome, everybody, to the call. I'll get straight into it. If you go to Page 4, it's just basically our graphs that demonstrate our performance over -- since 2014. I'd just ask you to read the graph from left to right, not from right to left, okay? We're proud of those graphs, and I won't bore you by going through them from top to bottom. So if you go to Page 5, I think this is the brief page of where we're actually at and where we look like from that point of view. It just proves our resilience and how through funny periods of time in -- where the premium cycle goes up and down, we can adapt our business model to provide results. The NPAT -- statutory NPAT at $269.1 million. Underlying NPAT up 8.2% to $319.5 million. Underlying diluted EPS NPAT, up 7.7% to $0.288. And the underlying diluted EPS, NPATA is up 6.7% to $0.33. Underlying NPATA of 7.1% of $366.3 million and underlying EBITDA stat at $669.8 million. If you then go to Page 6, which is probably the most interesting part, but refers to the bid and the Scheme Implementation Deed. So as you are aware, we at Steadfast has entered into with Amwins and Dragoneer and KKR to acquire all of the issued shares in Steadfast pursuant to a Scheme of arrangement for cash consideration of $6 per share, less any amount of any Permitted Dividends paid per Steadfast share. Steadfast is also committed to pay dividends to Steadfast shareholders comprising an ordinary final dividend in respect to FY '26 and a special dividend prior to the Scheme implementation, of an aggregate amount of $0.20 per share. The Scheme consideration represents 51.9% premium to the Steadfast undistributed closing share price of $3.95 on the 9th of June 2026. The Steadfast Board has unanimously recommended that the Steadfast shareholders vote in favor of the Scheme. In the absence of a superior proposal and subject to the independent expert concluding and continuing to conclude in the independent expert's report that the Scheme is in the best interest of Steadfast shareholders. The implementation of the Scheme is subject to various customary conditions, including the approval of Steadfast shareholders and regulatory approvals from a range of people from the Foreign Investment Review Board, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Subject to Steadfast shareholders approving the Scheme and other conditions being satisfied or if applicable waived, Steadfast is currently targeting the implementation of the Scheme to be in December 2026. Steadfast shareholders do not need to do anything or take any action at this present time. So turning to Page 7. This gives us an indication of the premium rate cycle, and it diagrammatically shows you the way the industry has gone from actually Q3 to Q4 of FY '26. As you can see, it's been a downhill slide. And over the past 2 years, that slide has gained more momentum. In particularly, we saw a softening at the FY '26 close in June, which was the slowest period-to-period amount that we have seen over the prior 2 years. If you go to Page 8, this is the final dividend that we will pay. The FY '26 -- total FY '26 dividend will be $0.2095 fully franked, up from $0.195 for '25 or in other words, 7.4% up from last year. The final '26 dividend of $0.1275 shares fully franked will be up from $0.117 or 9%. The Dividend Reinvestment Plan will not apply for FY '26, but because of the uncertainty of the Scheme -- the Scheme places over the top of that. And there are the ex-dive dates and the dividend dates. On the right, the graphs demonstrate to you clearly the growth of the shares from start in 2014 -- financial year 2014. Going to Page 10. This is the analysis of the Steadfast broking Australasian Network. We've had sustained growth and with further broker acquisitions have increased our bottom line. The financial highlight for '26 is pretty simple. The broking network grew 6.2% to $13.2 billion, and our professional services fees grew up 2.5% to $78.2 million. In other words, GWP up organic growth up for the broker network, 2.4%, organic growth up for the AR network of 3.7% and new brokers up 0.1% or giving us a total uplift of 6.2% in our GWP. The graphs are really interesting. If you have a look at the graphs on the left and you go back to '21. During the period from '21 through to '26, we have actually had initially PSC, not be included in our GWP and all of these figures are normalized in the current year for those leaving and also the Envest leaving. So if you look at what our turnover was back in those days, there was 2 fairly substantial groups within our group that no longer are in. So our growth is incredibly powerful considering that they've got out of it. The operational highlights, we completed 3 equity holdings, 31 step-ups, 10 step-downs and 31 bolt-ons. So we now have equity interest in 62 of the businesses in their network, which is over 50% of the GWP that the network sells. In terms of insurTech, and David Gillespie, our CTO, will give you a further update a little bit later. Our broker network has a great group of platforms in insurTech that makes it -- gives them a great sustainable advantage. They are now 268 brokers live on our INSIGHT broking program with over 8,000 users, and we have 12,500 users participating in the client trading platform across Australia and New Zealand. So I turn you now to Page 11. The solid underlying earnings growth of 13.2% on the Australian insurance broking network is highlighted, I guess, by the net revenue going up by 1.4% at the time when the whole market is down. But pleasingly that our EBITDA was up by 13.2%. Organic growth was -- of EBITDA was 2.7% and organic growth due to the softness of the market was 1.4% on the brokers. But overall, what that means is that we have an EBITDA growth of 10.5% and acquisitions growth of 18.9%. FY 2026 shows that we have 83% of the EBITDA in Steadfast comes from our equity brokers as opposed to 80% the year before. The charts -- the waterfall charts across here show what we did last year and what we did this year, our organic growth, our acquisition growth. And then it points out Rothbury, which is one of the major players in the New Zealand market and a step-up that we made in that business. So including the solid EBITDA growth of 13.2% is a result of a really tremendous, I guess, diligence in our step-ups and bolt-ons that we've been able to do. And I guess, our focus is to maintain a sustainable margin improvement, both through the execution of the brokers hubbing strategy, which has worked extremely well. We continue to do that, and we've done that in the underwriting agencies as well. And also our ability to enhance operational efficiency and the disciplined uplift that brokers have achieved during a soft market in their fee structure, which started last year, and I think has been continued on. And I think brokers are seeing the fulfillment of that coming in this current 12 months. And enhanced subsidiary oversight on our behalf and governance through a dedicated data analytics program has enabled us to be proactive in monitoring our renewal retention, our new business performance and of course, that allows a sustainable earnings performance to take place. So if I then take you over to Page 13, this is the underwriting agencies and it's interesting to be able to say to you that, we rose 2.3% in GWP at a time when the market is the softest that I've seen, I think, in probably 30 years. So it shows the sustainability of our underwriting agencies is incredibly robust. And if you look at the pie chart there, you can see the growth over there. So GWP rose to $2.5 billion from $2.4 billion plus we had a couple of -- we had this one sell down. So we took some GWP out of it. Total organic growth was 2.3%. That highlights being the launch of Castle by Sure Insurance, which gives us a national home product. And then the increase of some new products for CHU and Mecon, Emergence & Coast, and the launch of Unity Trade Credit from our trade credit broker. Successful completion also of consolidation process with the 4 consumer agencies combining to create one agency under Prevail, 9 individual small to medium Commercial Agencies merging into one brand under Miramar. This gives us a great solid pathway for this consolidation to reduce cost in operating and also puts efficiency into some of the AI that we're putting through our businesses. We're supporting growth of the -- by supporting this growth with mid-sale agencies by our acquisition and product differentiation, we grow. Investment in automation continues. Dave will talk further about that Dave will speak, and resulting efficiencies through the Underwriting Agency IT platform, which we are working on and continually moving. You'll see a lot of the work we're doing on the underwriting platforms and the agencies have to go to your P&L. They can't be capitalized, but very effective in increasing the efficiency of those businesses. And of course, we maintain strong carrier relationships and long-term relationships. We focus on refining all of what we do, including our footprint in London and the Steadfast underwriting agencies, consortium and tender binding arrangements, which we put into place last year in London, increased revenue for us in our commission structure. If you go to Page 14, this is the underwriting agencies, again, showing an EBITDA increase of 5.2% and net revenue increase of 5%. That's pretty pleasing to be able to keep those 2 in line because sometimes that's not easy to do and organic growth of 4.6% on income and 5.3% on EBITA. You'll see the impact of the disposal. We sold Sterling off of which impacted that 0.1%. I guess underlying EBITA of $260 million is plus 0.2%. You can see from the bar charts there how we've lifted from over the 2 years. You've got the organic and the very little acquisition growth there. And so most of it is in organic. We have maintained our underwriting discipline. All of our binders are strong and well renewed. Our retention rate is what we target. And we've been able to, as you can see, maintain GWP and increase it during a very difficult time. Revenue growth exceeds GWP growth, which is always exciting. That's probably highlighted by the fact that we've been able to combine agencies and increase efficiency with some smart software that we've been using. And additionally, investment in underwriting agencies and claims systems, which we continue to roll out in FY '27, ably by Susan Donaldson, who is setting up our claims. Pardon me, I'll just get a drink. Okay. Also, our actuarial -- actual equity ownership in FY '26 is 88%. So we own a very large majority of our underwriting agencies. Now I'll take a breather and refer you to Page 16 and hand you over to Sam Hollman, CEO of International.

Thank you, Robert. FY '26 saw the core pillars of Steadfast International in place with focus moving to scaling our operation, further developing our product capabilities and diversifying our earnings base, both geographically and qualitatively. I'd like to share with you some of the FY '26 operational highlights for a number of our international businesses. The first being ISU Steadfast, which is our broker network in the U.S. It exceeded FY '26 budgeted EBITA. We achieved a record number of new members with 38 new members, 21 net of terminations, and we also introduced 2 new membership tiers in this financial year, which provides a new opportunity for us to grow membership and create scale. We also enhanced strategic carrier relationships, achieving profit share growth of 15%, and we launched and drove participation in Novum and HWS Specialty Solutions, which are our businesses within our international family. We completed also the first 2 trapped capital equity investments in members. These members are held at the Steadfast level and replicate what we've done in Australasia. The technology has been implemented to drive business forward with data insights, and we look forward to being able to see what that can bring. HWS, I'll move on to. They're our specialist wholesale broker in London. They also exceeded FY '26 budgeted EBITA. FY '26 saw significant progress diversifying the business into new and expanded specialties through strategic recruitment. This was to cater to our global network requirements. This has established a strong foundation for future growth and profitability. And we also experienced strong new business wins in marine, and we also focused on organic growth of our existing specialty products. If I move to Novum, who we only acquired in August 2025, they are our specialist MGA in the U.S. Since then, we've acquired an additional 4.25% of Novum in May 2026 on the original deal terms. They have had very strong financial performance in the 10 months post completion, with 60% plus organic growth in GWP and revenue in FY '26. We've scaled existing programs and established new programs. And as a result of that, we've expanded our capacity relationships. We've encouraged engagement with ISU Steadfast with a focus on attracting flow and building strategic alignment, and that was really only done in April this year at ISU Steadfast Annual Conference. And in that time, there's been 1,000-plus policy submissions from ISU Steadfast members into Novum. We've also seen the recruitment of new talent to support the rapid growth of that organization. And we've also expanded their technology platform, Novum Online with capabilities and solutions, which is implementing a lot of automation into the business and underwriting processes. And I'd just like to call you out to the right-hand side of this slide with the gray boxes. This is a little bit of a brag sheet that the international team and Steadfast are very proud of. And it's just how those 3 businesses are performing since we acquired them all. And if I can only call out one metric of each, which is all to do with financial, ISU Steadfast since acquisition, 96% organic growth in EBITDA. HWS 1.5 years in, 34% organic growth in revenue; and Novum 10 months in, 60% organic growth in GWP and revenue. It shows we have a great track record of acquisitions to date. All businesses are performing well and capital has been spent well. Can I please turn the page to the next one? I will move on to the financial highlights. The financials demonstrate continued strength of Steadfast International. We delivered underlying EBITDA of $29.8 million, growth of $23.9 million over the prior corresponding period. Strong organic performance was driven mainly by growth in ISU Steadfast profit sharing and network membership fees and also growth in HWS Specialty after the first 12 months post acquisition. Acquisition growth has also been driven by the organic growth of HWS Specialty, with new business wins in Marine division, an exceptional first 10 months contribution from Novum at 60% year-on-year in GWP and revenue and also 2 minority investments in ISU Steadfast network agencies in the second half of FY '26. These results reflect the high-quality earnings as well as our disciplined approach to scaling the businesses. Thank you, and I'll now hand over to David Gillespie, our CTO of Technologies.

Thanks, Sam. Today, I'm going to focus on the insurTech parts of Steadfast Technologies, but I do want to call out all of the technology team for the work they're doing to improve how we operate across all of the Steadfast Group. That includes the consolidation launch for the Miramar and Prevail agencies as well as the new underwriting platforms, the office moves and new workplace technology we've implemented to improve productivity and the significant uplift we've undertaken within the cyber area where, for example, we've deployed new AI tools to both protect our perimeter and our applications even when that comes from third or fourth-party software. AI continues to be a key theme, and we have a very targeted approach to how we deploy. We've not taken a scattered approach, but I'm equally excited about how it's transforming how we operate in the Steadfast network and I will touch on some of its uses in the organization. As I mentioned at the last results call, we have had our AI policy and governance forum in place since the end of last year. At the start of the year, we talked about one platform and the program of deliveries we had in the road map to modernize our platform and improve the broker experience and capability. And I'm really pleased to report the team have delivered what we committed to. Sometimes the initiatives, which in themselves don't seem that important or critical but are crucial building blocks and the first 2 deliveries fall into that category. Steadfast ID significantly uplifted our security posture with multifactor authentication, which provides better protection and will enable us and our brokers to better manage identities, but it also simplified how our brokers and partners across our various applications access across our various applications. That went live in April with no issues, and that in itself is a testament to the rigorous approach we take at Steadfast to releasing quality capability, including significant change management activities across a large number of users. Similarly, with our product insurer configurator engine, SPICE, it enables us to more quickly extend our product offerings, including in the future for single lines of business, but it has also future-proofed us as our insurance and agency partners move on to modern platforms. We work extensively to develop joint road maps with all the major insurers. And as they move on to new platforms with more modern API integrations, we are ready to integrate with them. This includes an AI mapping agent to further speed that process up. And as Robert mentioned recently, we are currently in testing with Allianz on implementing their farm product for pilot in November with full rollout early next year. With Steadfast Intelligence, we already have, I believe, the leading data platform in the market, which is used to provide insights for Steadfast, our brokers and our insurance partners. We have now deployed a Cortex, a conversational AI capability, built out an underlying semantic layer and deployed 2 targeted AI agents, one for broker analysis and one for insurer analysis. These are enabling our analysts to get data insights 5 to 10x faster than previously and has identified opportunities for improvement across the broker network that we had not considered previously. We flipped the historical paradigm of it taking 80% to 90% of time to get the data and only 10% to 20% analyzing for insights to now spending 80% to 90% looking for insights. In addition, the data team have created a federated multi-tenanted data platform called Guardian One that can provide agencies and brokers access to their data within a powerful analytics platform without the need for them to invest in a separate platform. The first broker group is going live this Monday. And lastly, but most definitely not least, is Steadfast Apps, which is replacing our industry-leading INSIGHT platform. That went live on Monday for 7 pilot brokerages across Australia and New Zealand with full release to all other brokers on the 7th of September. And let me explain a little bit more about that on Page 20. With Steadfast Apps, we are bringing together the capability of multiple applications into one powerful application and hence, eliminating the fragmentation of applications, processes and data and improving efficiency whilst also saving brokers license fees in having multiple applications. And as you can see, it is optimized for mobile. Moving to Page 21. We have a conveyor belt of new broker functionality in the pipeline, which will be delivered in quarterly releases, so we can manage the change impact for our brokers. What you see here is just a subset of the improvements we will be making. Each release follows a human or broker center design process and over 30 brokers have been engaged through the design, prototype, build and test phases to make sure we deliver the functionality that meets their needs. In this release, all brokers who currently use INSIGHT will transition seamlessly to Steadfast apps with no data migration required. And this activation has been designed as a stepping stone to the changes that are planned to come. Each user will have a dashboard of widget showing information that is pertinent to them. So for example, open tasks, policies due for renewal, open claims, et cetera. Strangely enough, one of the biggest requests has been for both light and dark mode, which we have accommodated, as you can see. The AI-powered schedule formatter was one of the top requests from brokers and is a great example of how we are using Insurebot who we acquired last year as an incubator for new functionality. They have had brokers using this functionality almost 5,000 times since June. So that in itself gives us great insights as we integrate into Steadfast Apps with this release. In the next release before the end of the year, we will enable brokers with a unified client relationship management system, document management and automation capabilities that simplifies day-to-day servicing and improves data quality. You can see in the bottom right, those designs have been completed, and we are now in prototype testing with users before development starts. Then next year, we'll enable our Risk coach to ensure full insurance coverage for clients, streamlined quote to-invoice experience, uplifting SCTP, driving reduced handoffs, rekeying and time taking to move from quote to bind, all designed to make our brokers more efficient. It's been great to see Steadfast Apps come to life. But from my perspective, it has been equally pleasing to see how we are powering those changes. We have implemented an AI development framework to enable us to build more faster and with fewer resources than we planned. That framework enables Agentic agents, for example, for project management, design analysis and in the last month, one to fix defects and testing. So it picks up the defect ticket, recreates the defect, fixes it and sends it on for approval for retest. On our underlying platform, we've again been using AI to optimize it. We are treating this similar to the upgrades that happened with Formula 1 cars. Our first package has given us a 40% improvement in performance, and we have 2 more scheduled in the next 4 weeks. That will not only make the website more performance, but means we use less processing power so we can reduce the cost of the platform as well. As I said, it's been an exciting year with much more to come. I'll now hand over to Hannah for the detailed financials.

Thank you, David. Can we turn on to the next slide? So I'm pleased to report that Steadfast delivered a solid underlying earnings growth in FY '26. Revenue increased 15.3% to $2.1 billion, while underlying EBITA increased 13.8% to $669.8 million. Underlying NPAT increased 8.2% to $319.5 million, translating to diluted earnings per share of $0.288, up 7.7%. Underlying NPATA was $366.3 million, an increase of 7.1%. The result reflects a combination of organic growth and contributions from acquisitions. Our underlying agencies continue to deliver strong organic growth, supported by disciplined underwriting, active retention, targeted new business and effective expense management. In Broking, acquisitions made a strong contribution and helped offset comparably moderate organic GWP growth. Across the group, we also maintained a strong focus on cost discipline and operational efficiency. Stat NPAT was $269.1 million compared with $334.9 million in prior year. The year-on-year comparison was impacted by a material accounting gain recognized in FY '25 in relation to the Rothbury step-up acquisition. Turning to the next slide. This slide sets out the key drivers of the 13.8% increase in underlying EBITA. Organic growth contributed $29.5 million, representing 5% growth over the prior year. Acquisitions completed during the period contributed a further $25.7 million, while increased ownership interest in existing businesses, excluding Rothbury contributed $1.8 million. The increase in Steadfast ownership interest in Rothbury contributed approximately $24 million to underlying EBITA. This reflects the accounting treatment where 100% of Rothbury's EBITA is consolidated into the group's results with the proportion attributable to NCR recognized below the EBITA line, consistent with the group's half year disclosures. As a result, EBITA included 100% of Rothbury's earnings, while NPAT reflects Steadfast's effective ownership interest circa 68%. Taken together, these movements increased underlying EBITA by $81 million to $669.8 million. Turning now to the next slide. Moving from EBITA to NPAT. Underlying NPAT increased by $24 million, representing 8.2% on prior year to $319.5 million. Organic growth contributed approximately $16.8 million, while acquisitions contributed $18.7 million. Increased ownership interest added a further $2.1 million, primarily reflecting businesses that transitioned from associate to subsidiaries during the year. These benefits were partly offset by approximately $13.6 million of additional financing and amortization expense associated with acquisition activities. This explains the difference between 13.8% growth in EBITA and 8.2% growth in NPAT for the year. From a capital allocation perspective, we assess acquisitions based on their contribution after financing costs, amortization expense and NCI, not simply on the headline EBITA. On that basis, acquisitions delivered a positive net NPAT contribution, while organic earnings remained an important driver for shareholder returns. Turning to the statutory balance sheet. Steadfast finished the year with a sound balance sheet and appropriate liquidity. At 30 June, the group held $470 million of cash. Total current assets were $3.1 billion compared to the current liabilities of $2.1 billion and net assets were $2.6 billion. Total gearing was 36% with $138.8 million of undrawn committed bank facilities. The group's corporate debt facilities were $1.37 billion with maturities well diversified between May 2028 and June 2032. Subsequent to year-end, we entered into additional $100 million of pilot facilities, increasing our committed facilities to $1.47 billion and providing $240 million of funding flexibility. Turning to the next slide. Finally, the group continued to demonstrate stable cash conversion. Post-tax operating cash flow, excluding movements in trust accounts and premium funding increased to $408.6 million, up from $373.7 million last year. This exceeded underlying NPATA of $366.3 million, highlighting the group's ability to consistently convert earnings into cash. After dividends to shareholders, net of DRP and distributions to NCI, free cash flow increased to $166.6 million compared to $124.9 million in FY '25. This further strengthened the group's funding flexibility and capacity to support future growth. Overall, the group's stable cash generation continues to support shareholder returns while providing capacity to fund ongoing working capital requirements. Before concluding, I would like to acknowledge the significant contribution of our subsidiaries, associates, joint ventures and network brokers. Their hard work, commitment and focus on delivering for clients have instrumental in achieving our group's solid FY '26 results. Thank you. Now, I'll hand back to Robert to discuss our FY '26 '27 outlook. Thank you.

Thanks, Hannah. It's great. So Page 29 is an interesting page because this page is our business as usual, okay? And I guess it would alter dramatically if the Scheme completes. But it's important that you leave this meeting today understanding that we are running the business as if the business is going to continue in perpetuity for the rest of its life. And obviously, if the Scheme completes, then the whole dynamics of the business will alter. But we'll continue to execute on our growth strategy for both organic and acquisition growth. I guess, we'll drive the subsidiary performance metrics that we've been putting in place to improve earnings quality, drive margin expansion. We'll recognize the operational efficiencies that we can get through various targeted revenue initiatives and also the strategic hubbing and not to downplay what David spoke about in terms of our agentic use of software in Steadfast Apps and the applications that, that will do in terms of reducing time to do things that will be advancing over the next 12 months or 18 months. We'll maintain our capital discipline because it's crucial, and we've done -- we have done that since August 2013, pursue value-accretive acquisitions and generate substantial shareholder returns. We've managed to average out a much higher return to our shareholders than was anticipated when we floated the business, and we'll continue to do that. We -- Sam's team have done an incredible job in the U.S. We'll continue the U.S. expansion in the way we have at the moment with expanding trapped capital over there very selectively, small steps at a time and making sure that we build and build that network the same way as we've built Australia and New Zealand and other places. We'll leverage the technology, as I alluded to, and we'll enhance our operating efficiencies to drive margin across the whole group, and we'll deliver innovative AI-enabled solutions. I mean the AI revolution started in Steadfast 6 years ago. It makes me actually laugh, when I consider where people jumped up and say this has happened. We've been working on it for 6 years and implementing insurTech pipelines for AI. Steadfast accelerated that and will be -- and the brokers that are using it, as David put out are absolutely a standard by its efficiency that it creates. We'll foster the values led by a culture of leadership, where all people are engaged, empowered, supported to do their best. Steadfast is an organization that believes people support one another and work alongside one another, not have the top of one another dictating down. We want talent to come and grow through the organization and never be held back. And also, I guess, finally, Steadfast performance through risk management and compliance and governance, we'll continue to keep doing it and continue to go forward with this business. So Page 30 is interesting. There's our guidance for '27 NPATA, $382 million to $392 million. Underlying NPAT, $333 million to $343 million and then underlying EBITA, $700 million to $715 million. And then you can see between 4% and 8% for diluted EPS and diluted NPAT growth. We will need to get to probably 2% to 3% increase in pricing. We're very confident of doing that. We think we're in the bottom of the barrel at this particular time. And that slide we showed you before shows how you can go downhill and how you can go uphill with that and probably refer you to the key risks in our 2026 Annual Report, Page 74 and 77. And so that will conclude mine, David. I'll hand back to you at this particular time.

[Operator Instructions] And our first caller today comes from Andrew Buncombe from Macquarie.

Congratulations on the results. Just one from me, please. In terms of the proposed takeover where the dividends have been capped at $0.20 per share. Based off the annual report that we've seen today, it does appear that there's quite a bit of franking credits or franking balance left. Can you just walk us through why that's not being returned to, I suppose, listed shareholders, particularly in the context of the recent CGT changes?

Andrew, the franking credits, we'll use -- Hannah, we'll use, what, $225 million of them, I think. The dividend payment.

Andrew, management considers it's prudent to retain sufficient working capital to support ongoing operations and corporate activities. So accordingly, the pro forma special dividend has been calibrated to cover roughly 4 to 6 months period, while we're still maintaining a meaningful return to the shareholders, but we ultimately have a healthy working capital position for the group.

And also, we've got to be cognizant of the fact that you can't borrow money. So we make sure that our capital is used correctly and the amount of capital that we can put into this allows us to keep running the business and not ever put ourselves at any risk of having anybody look at us that we may be borrowing to pay the dividend.

Congratulations again on everything that you and the team have built over the years.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is a text question from Rod Carrett from Steadfast NSG Group. Rod asks, when will the special dividend be announced and paid?

I guess, the special dividend will come into play.