CAR Group Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Car Group Limited FY26 results. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. William Elliott, CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Car Group's FY26 results presentation. Over the next 30 minutes, I'll provide a summary of our results and strategic progress. Car Group's new CFO, Jeff Trumbull, will take you through our financial highlights, and then we'll finish with a Q&A session where we'll be joined by members of our global leadership team. And joining Jeff and me in the room here today in Melbourne are Craig Fraser, Managing Director of Car Sales Australia, Eduardo Josevic, CEO of our newly established region, the Americas, which I'll talk to shortly, S.B. Kim, the Chief Executive Officer of NCurrent South Korea, and Rachel Scully, our Executive General Manager of Investor Relations. Turning first to slide five, from a financial perspective, the group delivered another excellent year with 12% growth in both pro forma revenue and EBITDA and constant currency. Adjusted net profit after tax increased 11%, which was also in constant currency. Margins were strong at 56%, and EBITDA operating cash conversion was also excellent at 100%. The next chart reflects the consistency of our financial performance. Across the last five years, we've delivered compound double-digit growth in pro forma revenue, pro forma EBITDA, adjusted net profit after tax, and adjusted EPS. And that consistency comes from our strong market positions as well as continued reinvestment in new product development and our brands. And that track record extends well and truly beyond five years. Car Group has an incredible history of delivering growth through multiple economic cycles and this reflects our history of sustained innovation as well as the strength of our business model as well as our M&A strategy of moving into high growth markets. On to our strategy, which remains consistent and it all centres around delivering exceptional experiences for the buyers and sellers who are on our platforms. We are strengthening the core of our business. We're extending it into new products and experiences and we're investing in future growth. And underpinning everything is our relentless focus on operational excellence with AI increasingly becoming the enabler of this. Turning to our operational highlights. The core of our business is consumer engagement, and all of these metrics remain exceptionally strong. We've seen healthy levels of vehicle inventory across our key markets, which provides great choice for our buyers. Our dealer base has grown nicely, which proves that our value proposition is resonating with our customer base, and our audience metrics are also very strong, particularly in the US market. Our diverse portfolio continues to be a key strength of our business. and this year we brought together North America and Latin America into a single America's operating region. Eduardo Josevic is leading this new region with the leaders in each country now reporting into him. And as we grow our role in the ecosystem across Brazil, the US and Chile, bringing these markets under common leadership makes sense. They're in similar time zones and they face common challenges and it also allows us to carry product and technology innovation from Brazil into the non-auto vehicle segments in the U.S., where the market is less digitally mature and the opportunity is massive. Congrats to Eduardo on his new role, which he thoroughly deserves and reflects the incredible growth that he's delivered in Brazil over many years, and I'm sure he'll deliver into the Americas over the coming years. To our outlook statement, and based on the momentum we've seen through FY26, and our performance over the first five weeks of FY27, we expect another year of excellent growth. We are guiding to revenue growth of 11% to 14%, adjusted EBITDA growth of 10% to 13%, and adjusted impact growth of 9% to 12%, and all growth metrics are in constant currency. And we remain confident in both quality of our business as well as the multiple growth opportunities we have in front of us. Turning now to some of the strategic highlights from the year. There are four key areas that underpin our market leadership. First, it's our number one brand and the significant audience advantage that we have in every market. Second, we are deeply embedded in the vehicle ecosystem across dealers, consumers, OEMs and other commercial partners. We've also strengthened that ecosystem through organic product development as well as targeted acquisitions and we're going to keep doing this. Third, those market positions and integrations give us our proprietary data at a significant scale. We're already using this data to create better outcomes for customers, whether that's simplifying payments and financing, helping dealers manage and convert leads through CRM tools and lead nurturing. We're creating safer transactions through verified buyers and sellers, and we're delivering more personalized solutions for customers, including recommendations. And this leads to the fourth advantage. AI is accelerating our ability to turn our data into better products, better tools and customer experiences. And taken together, these strengths are incredibly hard to replicate. They've been built over many, many years and are tied directly to the scale and depth of our marketplaces. In terms of our audience, every month more than 52 million people use our platforms and we hold clear leadership positions in every major market that we operate in. That scale creates real value for our dealers for our OEM partners and for our consumers, and it generates the data that we use to keep making that experience better. Our advantage is built on the depth of our marketplaces and the infrastructure that sits beneath them, which you can see on this slide here. Over many years, we've built deep integrations across CRM, dealer management systems, finance providers, and other platforms the vehicle industry runs on, and our recent acquisitions in Brazil and the US extend that capability, giving dealers better operational tools and market insights and making our ecosystems even harder to replicate. And for dealers, that means sharper decisions on inventory, pricing, and lead conversion. And to consumers, it means more accurate inventory, more relevant recommendations, easier finance solutions, and more confidence in the transaction. And every one of the interactions that people and dealers have on our marketplaces create richer proprietary data across our ecosystem. And that data is what now powers CG Engine, which is our own AI built on data that no competitor can replicate, which I'm going to talk to on the next slide. CG Engine is a key part of our AI strategy. It brings together proprietary marketplace data together with AI models, and it runs on our own infrastructure. That matters because it puts us in control of how we develop and deploy AI across the group rather than depending on any single external model or provider. And it also protects our intellectual property, improves cost efficiency, and it also gives us the flexibility to move quickly between models as technology changes. It also means the products we build are shaped by how buyers, sellers, and dealers behave within our marketplaces. And it uses data and insights that no one else has. We're going to move now to some of the products that we've launched across our business over the last year. The way consumers research and explore is changing, and it's absolutely broadening the role that we play in the journey. We're deepening our role at the top of the funnel in the research and discovery phase, and we're pairing that with our strength at the bottom of the funnel in the transaction. So we are with the buyer across the whole journey. When someone's looking for a vehicle, they'll be able to search however they want across our sites. They can use filters, they can type in plain language, or just have a conversation. The consumers using these experiences, we're already seeing higher conversion rates across the board, which you can see on this slide. Conversion is up 26% on car sales. We've got four times greater lead submission on web motors, and we have 20% higher engagement on in-car. And what that really means is the buyers are finding the right car for them faster. We're also using AI across merchandise and sourcing to help our dealer customers be more successful and help them find the right stock faster, prices better and present every listing at its absolute best. Each one of these tools does one of two things. It grows the dealer's profit or it takes out costs from their business. Smart inquiry qualification is now live across all of our markets. It keeps dealers engaged with buyers through the whole journey, from the first inquiry through to the purchase. And it gives faster answers for buyers to high-quality leads for dealers. And the results are strong. More inquiries converting to sales and the stock is turning over faster. For the next slide, CG Lab is our dedicated AI hub based in Brazil and it's building the next wave of opportunities across the group. The focus is absolutely simple. for CP Labs to solve real customer problems and make transactions easier. And what's in development, including things you see on this slide, which are buyer and seller agents, one-touch listings, and video listings, which we want to see as ubiquitous across our platforms. Over time, these will make a real difference to our customers' experience on our platforms. Turning now to some segment highlights from the year, and on to Australia first. Australia delivered another very impressive result with revenue up 7% and EBITDA up 8%. The growth was broad-based and was across all segments of dealer, private, media and data. And as we've all observed, the shift to alternative drive trains is certainly well and truly underway, as you can see on the chart on this slide, with EV and hybrids gaining real traction in markets. This is playing out well for us in two ways. First, the used car market for EVs and hybrids. is starting to form nicely, and these vehicles are trading through our platforms very similar to internal combustion engine vehicles, as they always have. Second, we're seeing strong media spend from new OM entrants coming to market, and we're building a very sharp go-to-market approach to win them as advertising customers. And that growth in media revenue from new entrants, what you can see on the next slide, which is very impressive growth, And on the right-hand side of the page, C2C Payments continues to scale very well. It's now live across all our verticals and it's processed over $440 million in transactions since launch. C2C Payments gives buyers and sellers a secure way to pay with funds protected until the deal is complete. And because the buyers and sellers verify their identity to use the payments platform, and we show that on their listings, trust goes up across the whole platform. Over the last two years, we've been transforming our dealer software, and that work has come together in a new platform. Autogate is now known as Nextgate. It's a next-generation operating system for dealers built with AI and real-time market insights drawn from live pricing, demand, and inventory data from all across the country. Nextgate brings all our tools into one place, sourcing AI pricing in time to sell insights, conversational decision support, and AI-powered lead management all together in one platform. Dealers that mean smarter buying, faster inventory turnover, and better lead outcomes. Earlier I talked about our ecosystem at the group level, and this is what it looks like on the ground in Australia. You're going to see the same model with each of our markets, although it is nuanced and looks a little different in every one because it's shaped by the intricacies of each local market. For dealers, we're there through sourcing, pricing, inventory, and lead management. And for consumers, we're alongside them from discovery all the way through to payments and ownerships. And every one of those interactions generates proprietary data. And because we sit on both sides of the transaction, each interaction feeds the next, with dealer and consumer data compounding into a better experience for everyone to use that platform. Now on to North America, which delivers another strong result with revenue and EBITDA both up 12% in constant currency, which is a great result. Growth was driven by product improvements in our dealer business, which resulted in yield uplifts, excellent growth in media, also delivered excellent growth in our market-leading data business, SSI, as well as growth in our marine segment. And pleasingly, our continued investment in advertising and marketing, together with a significantly improved user experience, has driven material growth in both audience and leads, particularly in Q4 of FY26. And what this does is position as well as we begin FY27. Our media business has excellent momentum in the US, which is powered by both growing customer base and as an R&D agency business. Marine is also performing very well with leads for dealer and audience engagements. both growing nicely and we're also being very targeted with our advertising investment as we're focused on key markets like Florida, which is the largest US voting market. Both represent strong growth opportunities for us in FY27 and beyond. Same ecosystem that works in Australia, we're building in North America and we're extending our role across more of the vehicle transaction journey. For dealers, we provide them tools to help run their businesses, including CRM, lead management inventory management digital retailing and financing solutions and then for consumers but with them through the whole journey from research and comparison through to a completed and finance transaction which is really difficult in these non-auto verticals now onto Latin America and once again we've delivered outstanding growth in fy26 revenue up 19 and even up 23 in constant currency and that growth is even more impressive given we exited some very low margin manufacturing revenue in our Car 10 business during the second half of the year. Our very strong underlying growth was underpinned by audience expansion, our enhanced media business, premium dealer products and continued yield growth across all parts of our business. While our loyalty product in Santander is scaling incredibly quickly, we've got more than 11,600 dealers participating and it's a very powerful loop. Our deal is financing through Santander and credits, and then those credits are spent on WebMotors, and the deal has become even more engaged with our services. And as you can see on the right-hand side, OEM media revenue is growing very strongly, which is being driven by the rollout of our Australian media strategy and products, and also by the success that we're getting with Chinese OEMs that are advertising for this. Each year, WebMotors is covering more of the buying and selling journey. For dealers, that now extends to sophisticated tools across their whole business, which results in better inventory decisions and more qualified leads. And for consumers, we're making it easier for them to list and transact. What we're building in Brazil is an incredibly powerful ecosystem for dealers, OEMs and consumers. Now onto Asia, which delivered another strong result, with revenue up 15% and EBITDA up 14% in constant currency. Growth was driven by our three flagship products, which are Guaranty, NCAR Home, and Dealer Direct. We continue to evolve and improve all these three products for both dealers and consumers, and that's what's driving the growth in the business. Onto the next slide, adoption of our Guaranty++, Dealer Direct, and NCAR Home products, as mentioned before, all continue to accelerate. and these products are certainly strengthening NCAR's role throughout the transaction journey and they create a significant future runway for growth in this business for many years. Now onto the NCAR ecosystem. NCAR is clearly the number one vehicle marketplace in South Korea and it's evolved from a lifting business into a transaction platform for a continued product evolution. And for dealers, we help them sell faster and with more profit through our trusted inspections And for consumers, we deliver an end-to-end transaction which includes clients and warranties. Now that's the end of the segment section. I'll hand over to Jeff to take you through the financials.

Yes, Will, and good morning, everyone.