The A2 Milk Company Limited

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today.

My name is David Bortolussi. I'm the Managing Director and CEO of the A2 Milk Company. Today I'm joined on the call by our CFO, Dave Muscat, and our business unit leaders, Li Xiao, Yohan Senaratne, Jaron McVicar and Kevin Bush. The seminar will present the results and outlook and there will be time at the end for questions. During the presentation we will focus on continuing operations excluding MBM which we divested in the first half. and occasionally referred to underlying results which excludes both MDM and A2 Pocono. We've excluded A2 Pocono from the underlying results given that the site is currently underutilised and incurring manufacturing losses and transformation costs which are short term in nature. Starting on slide 4, we delivered FY26 results in line with or slightly ahead of our updated April guidance with double digit revenue growth. Input Milk Formula, or IMF, grew 5% in a flat China market, supported by strong English label growth, with China label sales significantly impacted by temporary supply chain disruption in the fourth quarter. Supply chain disruption had a material impact on China IMF product availability, performance and supply chain costs, which impacted our second half group sales and earnings. As you would expect, we have a comprehensive recovery plan in place and we commence execution, which I'll come back to later in the presentation. Other nutritionals grew significantly by 42% through innovation in kids, seniors, UHC and supplements. In liquid milk, growth was well above market at 22% in Australia and the US. Our commitment to innovation has resulted in the launch of a series of new products over recent years, which are making meaningful contributions to our growth. These new products accounted for more than 50% of our sales growth in FY26, with further launches planned in the first half of 27. We also advanced our supply chain transformation through the divestment of MVM and the acquisition of A2 Coconut with the transformation program on track or ahead of plan. Finally, following regulatory approval of our two new charter label registrations, we declared a $300 million special dividend and today announced an increase in our full-year ordinary dividends with improved payout ratio. In combination, we've declared a total of $453 million of ordinary and special dividends in FY26. 32 hour financial summary on slide 5. Revenue was up 12.4% to $1.95 billion. Report of EBITDA was down 2.5% to $284 million, which was impacted by supply chain disruption and A2 Pocono losses. On an underlying basis, excluding A2 Pocono, EBITDA was up 5.4% and underlying EBITDA margin was 15.6%. The earnings suspected underlying net profit up to tax and underlying EPS were up approximately 7%. Slide 6 shows that our growth was broad-based across all of our geographic markets and product categories. China and other Asia grew 11%, AMZ 10%, and the US over 28%. For a product category, IMF was up around 5%, liquid milk up 22% and other nutritionals up 42%, excluding A2 Pocono sales. Moving to slide 7, the China IMF market was relatively flat, with premiumisation offsetting a low single digit volume decline. The China label IMF market stabilised and English label growth slowed significantly in the second half due to the impacts of industry recalls. Pleasingly the A2 type protein and ultra premium segments continue to grow ahead of the category which plays to our strengths. Slide A addresses the supply chain disruption experience in the fourth quarter. As outlined in our market announcements in April and July, product availability was materially impacted by a number of factors including strong demand in the preceding quarter, freight challenges, a production backlog at Sinle, extended product release timeframes and additional customs and testing requirements. These factors have been resolved and availability has significantly improved. However, the in-market product development issues necessitated a large proportion of our existing users to switch to alternative brands, which as you can see, significantly impacted our China Label market share during the fourth quarter. The rate of recovery will depend on our ability to regain past users, new user recruitment momentum, and the performance of our new China Label IronNet products. Slide 9 sets out our recovery plan, built around rebuilding trust, driving past the new user recruitment, supporting our distributor and retailer ecosystem and launching new products. To see positive early progress against our plan, a new traceability tool has been very well received by consumers, brand sentiment is recovering and user recruitment conversion rates are back to or above historical levels. The first wave of marketing behind our China IMF recovery is focused on reassuring consumers that A2 products are of the highest quality. This includes a market-leading traceability tool with batch-by-batch testing, an endorsement campaign from China State Media , with a leading food safety expert, and independent validation by a leading quality assurance influencer . Together these initiatives are rebuilding confidence in quality and supply and driving positive sentiment. The next slide measures how our social media and PR activity is helping rebuild confidence in the A2 brand. Brand sentiment has recovered quickly towards prior levels, with the ratio of positive to negative sentiment improving significantly in July. Search interest in the A2 Brand, A2 GHU and A2 Platinum on the major e-commerce platforms has been recovering each week, reaching around 80% of December to January peak levels by the end of July. From mid-August, our new user education and recruitment program will ramp up, followed by a broader A2 Grand Superiority campaign in October. And for our outlook statement on slide 12, we expect revenue on EBITDA to grow in FY27, supported by innovation and new markets, continued momentum in other nutritionals and liquid milk, and improved profitability at A2 Pocono. IMS sales are expected to be impacted by the flow-on effects of supply chain disruption in the fourth quarter, with a gradual recovery over the course of the year, supported by an increase in marketing investment, particularly in the first half. As a result, group revenue and EBITDA are expected to be materially weighted to the second half. Overall, we currently expect mid- and single-digit revenue growth in FY27, with first-half revenue broadly in line with last year. The EBITDA margin is expected to be approximately 15% with the first half materially down on PCP before improving in the second half. Our full outlook statement including key risks is set out in our results commentary released today. Slide 13 outlines our strategy which is unchanged and enduring. We remain focused on capturing the full potential in China IMF, ramping up product innovation, entering new markets and transforming our supply chain. all underpinned by our brand strength and science and innovation capability. As slide 14 shows, we continue to track well against our medium-term financial and non-financial goals and remain on track to deliver the majority of our targets despite the temporary supply chain disruptions during the fourth quarter. Turning to the next slide, we've just fell short of achieving our medium-term revenue ambition of $2 billion this year, but will do so in FY27. Our market and category growth drivers remain on track except for Chanterelle IMF which has been impacted by supply chain disruption and is a key focus in working progress currently. Moving to the next page and beyond our FY27 goals, we have significant growth opportunities to capture in our core business, adjacent categories and new markets over the years ahead. We've been addressing these opportunities over time and thought it would be helpful to lay out the markets and categories we are focused on. The estimated size of these markets of retail, the addressable component, our current share and how our portfolio through innovation and new markets has evolved from FY21 to where we expect to be by the end of FY27. Interestingly our portfolio of products and markets has expanded from 8 in FY21 to a planned 36 by the end of this year which is an indication of the focus on innovation and market expansion. In summary, we have a low share of a large TAM with plenty of growth opportunities to pursue over the long term. Over recent years we have focused on expanding our product portfolio supported by investment in innovation and product development capability, A2 Procono and building a network of strategic manufacturing partners. Slide 17 highlights the many new innovations coming to market in FY27 and beyond. In the first half of 27 we'll launch two new China Label products that will expand our China Label portfolio from 1 to 3, significant updates to A2 Platinum and A2 Genesis, alongside continued expansion in other nutritionals which Xiao and Yohan will cover later. Moving to slide 18 which speaks to the science that underpins our A2 brand proposition and innovation. We have continued to invest in research for more than 25 years building scientific evidence around milk that is A1 protein free. A highlight this year was our US Growth Monitoring Study, a key clinical requirement for the FDA infant formula approval process. The study showed that infants consuming formula made with A2 milk demonstrated appropriate growth and had a comparable safety profile to infants consuming conventional formula which is the primary purpose of the study. However, secondary analysis of the data showed a 6% greater length and weight gain versus conventional infant formula. These findings were presented at the American Society for Nutrition Annual Meeting in July and attracted significant interest. Slides 19 and 20 cover our supply chain transformation. During the year we completed the acquisition of A2 Pocono, a world-class nutritional facility and the divestment of MBM. This acquisition has more than doubled our Pocono team, delivered the first stage of our multi-year capital investment program on time and on budget, and secured registration amendments for the two new China-labeled products. The site is on track for an EBITDA breakeven result in FY27 as we in-source A2 Platinum and capture vertical margin benefits. As for slide 20, all of our key milestones with respect to English local transition, China-level registrations and facility upgrades for FY26 are all complete, with our FY27 metrics on track, with the production of financials in line with plans. Finally, on slide 21, we continue to make good progress on sustainability, including commencing work to convert the A2 Pocono Gapside boiler to an electrode boiler to progress towards our scope 1 and 2 net zero target by 2030.

We also established real on-farm data collection approaches to increase the accuracy of our Scope 3 emissions reporting and awarded 27 new projects through our Farm Sustainability Fund.

I'll now hand over to Dave to take us through the financials in more detail.

Thanks David and good morning everyone. Starting on slide 23 with our group P&L. Net sales revenue was up 12.4% to $1.972 billion with growth across all product categories and segments. Gross margin was 47.7%, down 3.4 percentage points, reflecting A2 Pocono losses, which were in line with expectations, a lower share of China-laden sales, one-time costs related to the previously mentioned supply chain disruption, and higher COGS due to higher milk and other ingredients prices, particularly in the second half. Distribution costs were marginally higher as a percentage of net sales revenue, at 3.5%, due to higher freight rates, primarily related to the liquid milk businesses. Marketing investment of $325 million was higher in support of the China growth strategy, innovation and user recruitment. SG&A was also higher this year, mainly reflecting investment in capabilities to support China growth and supply chain transformation, including planned A2 Pocono operating and transformation costs. However, if you exclude FX losses caused by the New Zealand dollar devaluation, SG&A's percentage of sales was lower than last year. Reported EBITDA was $284.4 million, with margin in line with our previous guidance. On an underlying basis, excluding A2 Pocono losses and transformation costs, EBITDA increased to $307.6 million, reflecting growth in the underlying business. Our effective tax rate improved to 30%, supported by improved profitability in New Zealand and partial utilisation of our group tax losses. NPAC from continuing operations was $208 million or $235.8 million on an underlying basis. We also declared a final dividend of 9.5 cents per share, representing a payout ratio of around 74%. The dividend will be fully framed and unimputed and will be paid on the 2nd of October. Slides 24 and 25 set out our segment and product performance. On slide 24, China and other Asia revenue grew by 11.2%. with segment revenue and EBITDA impacted by A2 Pocono losses and the fourth quarter supply chain disruption. ANZ and USA both achieved double digit revenue growth with USA EBITDA improving materially. Slide 25 shows revenue growth across all product categories and group level with liquid milk and other nutritionals growth partially offsetting final level IMF decline. Moving on to slide 26. Operating cash flow was $133.1 million with cash conversion of 68% in line with our updated guidance. This reflects the planned inventory bills associated with the A2 Pocono ramp-up and normalisation of China Label IMF inventory, plus some timing impacts related to the fourth quarter supply chain disruption. Investing cash flows included net supply chain Transaction outflows of around $165 million associated with the A2 Pocono acquisition and MVM divestment with other investing activities including a reduction in our term deposits and capex additions relating to our A2 Pocono capital upgrades. Our closing cash balance at the end of the period was $784.5 million down $276.7 million reflecting the previously mentioned supply chain transactions A2 Pocono Capital Investment Program and dividends paid throughout the period. Turning to slide 27, our balance sheet remains strong with cash and term deposits of $784.5 million and no external debt. Inventory, as previously mentioned, increased and intangibles rose with the goodwill from the A2 Pocono acquisition. Balance Sheet gives us capacity to support our growth strategy while balancing risk and maintaining flexibility for future investment. That concludes the financial overview. I'll now hand over to Xiao to take you through the performance of our China-level business.

Thank you Dave. Starting on slide 29, a China-labeled MS revenue declined 14% to $544 million for the year. This was very much a story of two halves, with revenue up 6.5% in the first half and down 33% in the second half as a result of the fourth quarter supply chain disruption. As previously mentioned, the contributing factors are now resolved. CMS availability has improved significantly. While it is too early to be conclusive, we are encouraged by some of the early data rates. This brand sentiment significantly improved since June and the conversion rate of new user recruitment activities is back to historical level. However, to be clear, the recovery is expected to be gradual in FY27. Turning to the next slide and looking at market share, on the MAT basis, China level share increased to March before declining to 5.2% by year end. However, on a quarterly basis, MBS and Dow both declined, significantly impacted by the fourth quarter supply chain disruption. Icebox Labels has now significantly improved. We are focusing on our China MF recovery and redeeming past users and accelerating new user recruitment. Moving to slide 31, which previews our two new China Label products that are due to launch in the first half of FY27, both of which will be manufactured at A2 Pocono. The first, A2 Zhi Chu Qi Ren, targets the ultra-premium segment and the share gains in low-tier cities. The second, A2 Zhi Chu Zhi Chun, is a bio-certificate organic product that is expected to build our brand in high-tier cities. Both products have innovative packaging, including scoop-in lids, and provide consumers with confidence in the safety and quality of their purchase. They are our recent launched traceability APP. Together, these new MF products expand our China-level range and support our growth strategy in the China MF market. Our retailers, distributors, and brand ambassadors are excited to welcome our new A2 MF babies to the market very soon. I will now hand over to Yohan to take us through the English label and other nutrition notes.

Thanks Xiao, and good morning everyone. Starting on slide 32, our English-label IMF revenue grew 23% to $788 million, driven by our strong growth in our CDEC and O2O channels, with a growing contribution from A2 Genesis, which now represents 6% of the total English-label sales, and rapid expansion in new markets, particularly Vietnam. Third quarter A2 Platinum sales were strong following industry recalls. However, off-date momentum slowed in the fourth quarter, indirectly impacted by the USA label IMF recall announced in May 2026, net of some modest switching benefits from China label. In ANZ, our English label IMF sales declined due to lowered DIGO channel sales, while A2 Dental Gold continues to drive growth in Australian retail channels. Moving to slide 33, we're looking at market share. From a market perspective, English label now represents 20% of the total China IMF market. However, market growth slowed significantly in the second half following industry recalls. A2MC was the leading share gainer on CVEC, driven by A2 Platinum and A2 Genesis performance. A2 Genesis has now achieved a 1.8% share on CVEC, and other early stage products. More recently, following the USA Label IMF recall, off-tape momentum has been indirectly impacted. However, we are focused on rebuilding momentum in the first half. Slide 34 previews updates to our A2 Platinum and A2 Genesis formulations. A2 Platinum will receive its first major update and others. A2 Genifus will be upgraded with additional HMOs and a change to the probiotics to strengthen its super premium positioning. Both of these products will be manufactured at our A2 Pocono facility with the insourcing of A2 Plastin and significantly increasing production volumes and bringing vertical margin capture benefits to the group. Continuing to the next slide, our new market strategy continues to advance with Vietnam starting to scale. Distribution has expanded to more than 3,500 stores and English-label sales grew strongly during the year. We are also continuing to assess and progress further opportunities across Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Turning now to other nutritionals on slide 36, Sales grew nearly 60% to $216 million, led by our kids' and seniors' fortified milk powders. Our kids' range continues to grow strongly, with the product also responding as a substitute for Stage 3 and Stage 4 China-labeled IMF users during the fourth quarter's supply chain disruption. Our seniors' and adult ranges hold leading category positions, and our new fight-support Kids UHT has resonated well with consumers since launch. and we saw strong growth in emerging markets for our macromilk products. Turning to slide 37 and taking a look at some of our individual products more closely. As previously mentioned, our channel-level kids' milk powder is growing rapidly, with half-on-half sales up around 80% and retaining the number one ranking amongst international brands in MBS stores. We continue to build brand awareness and user recruitment for our broader kids portfolio through our Optinauts 2.0 campaign, including a customized episode featuring the A2 brand, character integration on pack, and a full suite of co-branded gift boxes across the A2 kids portfolio. Looking ahead, we will continue to innovate our kids milk tartar range with new functional formulations to address areas of strong consumer interest. Continuing on to the next slide, we entered a new category through the launch of our China Label Pediatric Supplements range during the second half. The range is focused on immunity, gut health, brain and eye health, and anti-allergy. Early consumer response has been encouraging, supported by professional endorsement, and we see significant potential to expand the platform over time, including expanding into English Label. Now turning now to slide 39 which previews our English Label Pediatric Supplements range due to launch in the first half of FY27. Our English Label Supplements range is manufactured in Australia to TGA standards and will be available for sale in Australia, New Zealand and China CVEC. We'll be first to market with Australian Maine Liquid Calcium Sachets, one of the largest and fastest growing categories. and we intend to launch the range into Vietnam subject to achieving registration. And with that, I'll now hand over to Jaron to take you through ANZ.

Thank you Yohan and good morning everyone. For those I haven't met, I'm Jaron McVicar. While I've been with A2 for some time, this is my first results presentation since stepping into the ANZ leadership role in April and it is my pleasure to take you through the ANZ results today. Turning to slide 40. Our Australian liquid milk business delivered another strong year, with net sales revenue up 17% to $245 million, driven by growth in both our A2 Milk core and A2 Milk lactose-free ranges. We outperformed the category, growing overall share to 11.7%, and lactose-free reached a record share of 22.6%. We were also proud to be the first national lactose free brand with the launch of A2 Milk lactose free in Coles WA. We delivered premium brand exposure across our priority markets through our exclusive Australian Open partnership as the first dairy milk partner of the Australian Open in its 120 year history. With our bespoke co-branded frappes becoming viral sensations on social media, driving exceptional visibility and brand engagement, including through mass sampling. Moving to slide 41. Slide 41 highlights the lactose free opportunity which has been a major driver of category growth. A2 Milk lactose free is the only product in the Australian market that is both A1 protein free and lactose free. Lactose free's retail sales value has grown over 6% in the last year and is approaching 10% of the total dairy milk categories. The A2 Milk Company continues to gain share in this fast-growing category and is the number two brand in the segment. This gives us confidence in the broader opportunity for A1 protein-free and lactose-free milk, including in markets such as the USA. On that note, I'll hand over to Kevin to take you through the USA results.

Thanks Jaron. Turning now to slide 42. The USA had an excellent year. with net sales revenue up 29% to $179 million and importantly achieved EBITDA break-even in the second half for the first time. Growth was underpinned by double-digit gains across our core and grass-fed ranges, increased household penetration and distribution and A2 Milk is now a top 10 US liquid milk brand and is the fastest growing. From an IMF perspective, we managed a small voluntary recall of discontinued USA label IMF batches as announced in May this year. This recall was isolated to the USA market and is completed and closed with immaterial impacts on USA financials. A long-term FDA approval for IMF continues to progress with a final factory inspection completed recently. Moving to slide 43, We continue to strengthen the brand in the USA with awareness and net promoter score both improving and a new food service partnership with State and Shake. Looking ahead and building on the strong momentum we have seen in lactose-free in Australia, we see an opportunity to bring the same differentiated proposition to the USA. In the first half of FY27, we will launch a 2% lactose-free product with selected retail partners. In addition, we are also considering opportunities to enter the high-growth protein segments of the market with products currently under development. I will now hand back to David.

Thanks, Phil. That concludes today's presentation. I'll now hand back to the operator for the Q&A.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. And if you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Peter Marks from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if we can break down the EBITDA margin guidance a bit further. Is there anything in there that we should be thinking about gross margins and what are you thinking in terms of marketing and then the other cost line as well? I think that would be really helpful. Thanks.

Yeah, no problem. I'll ask Dave to give you some colour on that. Yeah, sure.

Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of noise in the FY26 results, so probably the best way to think about it is to start with the FY25 EBITDA margin, the 16.6%, which doesn't have any coconut in it, which is, I suppose, in line with the break-even result we're expecting in FY27, so it's probably the best cleanest starting point. So you're getting it at 16.6, we're guiding in FY27 to approximately 15%, and many more. So one is mix. So if you think about the fact that we've called IMF to be broadly flat for next year and strong growth in the other nutritionals and liquid milk, there's quite a reasonable amount of mix dilution coming through. It'll improve through the year, but on average through the year there'll be mixed dilution. And also there are some COGS pressures coming through, through milk, through lactose, and a little bit through whey as well. They'll be the two sort of headwinds. Against that, we'll have probably some FX tailwinds and recycling, a little bit of air freight, but most of that 1.6 call it gross margin. Marketing will be up in terms of reinvestment rate, but it's probably more of a phasing story in terms of the first half being up by quite a lot, and probably from a full-year perspective, it'll probably normalise, but it'll be up as, you know, probably more slightly than gross margin. Sorry, or COG, sorry. and then we'll get a little bit of leverage on SG&A. So that's probably the way to think about the shape of the EBITDA for next year. And then probably I may as well cut it off now because I'm sure I'll get the question later is around the phasing for next year. And we've talked about, obviously mentioned before, the 15% approximate EBITDA percentage for next year. with second half waiting. Probably the two call-outs. If I'm thinking about the average, where you get to from an average for the full year, our marketing will probably be around probably two percentage points in the investment rate higher than you get for the average for the full year. And our gross margin is probably going to be a percent worse than where you get to from a full year perspective. So hopefully those building blocks give you enough to be able to sort of

That's very helpful. Thanks. Can I follow up with the COGS pressures and everything that's going on with the business at the moment? How are you thinking about pricing? Do you think you can offset some of those with price increases or is there just too much going on? Or do the new products and the formulation refreshes and the packaging refreshes actually allow you to take a bit of price? I'm interested in how you think about that.

We are taking price effectively in some of the categories in markets but overall it's not necessarily mitigating margins. So for example in our China label product we've increased price a little bit but a lot of that's going back to the trade to support margins and activation in our Platinum product as we transition. in effect pricing will be similar but there will be slightly smaller pack size so price per kilogram if you like will go up a little bit and then in milk we've taken a bit of price as well but it's reflecting the increases in time gate milk prices as well so we are taking price but it's not necessarily being accretive to margin overall.

Very helpful, thanks.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Sam Teager from City. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. Thank you. What would your China label market share in July for the month across all stages, and when do you think you'll get it all... Sorry, by the time of the AGM, do you think you'll get back to where you were pre the supply shortages?

Sam, we're not guiding the China label share data for... and a number of others. We're not providing guidance specifically again for The AGM, we expect a gradual recovery over the course of the year. Probably get back to roughly the same run rate by the end of the year as it was sort of pre the supply chain disruption. If that helps you. So progressively from where we are now back to sort of 100% of that run rate and then from a reported sales point of view that would then mean that it wouldn't be until the first half of FY28 that we'd be at the same level of total sales that we were pre-crisis.

Makes sense. That's helpful. and then which of the...

It could be better and worse than that, but that's just sort of our expectations, what we're fighting for at the moment.

Okay, no, that's great. Thanks. And which of the user reacquisition initiatives that you have in place now in China have you found to be most impactful and are you planning any tweaks to them going forward?

Yeah, Xiao, do you want to talk about a path that you use for reactivation or recruitment initiatives we have at the moment?

So we have a pretty good track record to recruit new users, like what happened in the past year, first quarter, and then we quickly turned around the new user recruitment in the second quarter. So the most effective activation makes for new user recruitment start with what we call the model class, targeting as a pregnant woman. We are executing thousands of activations per year as the number one party. Then the second line, if you look at it, we have several thousands of people, promotion girls, ambassadors in the store. They are also the key driver to get the new user in the MBS store. And certainly, we also have other activations like, I mean, also partially contribute to the new user recruitment, I mean, across all the early stage and late stage. Plus, I mean, last but not least, we have a medical marketing team who are targeting at I mean, a special channel, I mean, like a maternity center, all the hospitals, I mean, all the registration user requirements.

Right. I think you and other markets picked up the rules, so I think I'll keep with the trust benefits of returning to the brand and also enhance loyalty programs. So overall at the moment our user recruitment conversion rates and activities we've got in place at the moment are at or above historic levels in terms of the conversion of the activity. Not necessarily in aggregate, but the conversion rates are really encouraging at the moment.

Excellent. And last question. What are the biggest learnings from the supply chain challenges? And I appreciate that quite a number of the factors were outside your control, but what tweaks might we make to the operating model going forward to avoid this happening again? Thank you.

Sandy, you're right. I mean, a lot of this was outside our control in terms of the industry factors that led to recalls, new standards, testing methodologies and all that, both in the New Zealand side as well as the China side. but the underlying thing that we need to address is having more consistent levels of inventory throughout the supply chain at the right stages of the supply chain and we've struggled with that mainly due to some challenges we've had with Synlo's supply over time. However, having said that, Synlo has recovered well in recent months and we have no real concerns about supply going forward but we must work together with Synlo to ensure that we have more consistent supply going forward. and indeed from our Pocono facility going forward as our English label product and our new China label products hopefully become more material over time and we need to do the same ourselves. So we're not saying we're perfect but we've got to ensure that we have more consistency in our production and inventory management throughout the system. Correct.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Tom Karras from Baron Joey. Please go ahead.

Yeah, morning guys. Just to follow on from Pete's question though just on marketing.

So you're saying it'll be a lot higher in the first half at two percentage points. Can you maybe just give us some colour on how much of that relates to the Pocono products and just how should we think about, I guess, the marketing spend in relation to that launch that you're doing this half?

Tom, the support for new products coming to market, not only the China-level products, It's appropriate but relatively modest compared to the total investment that we have in brand and user acquisition overall for both the Gertrude China Label product and A2 Platinum. I mean obviously A2 Platinum is a combination of both. We're phasing out A2 Platinum and bringing in a new upgrade. I mean we have a baseline level of investment in Always On Digital and everything else. and a significant investment in early stage new user recruitment. And then we cycle in and out of new innovation coming to market, of which we have a fair amount coming to market in the next quarter, which we wanted to highlight to our investors. So there's an appropriate amount, but don't think that it is by any means the sort of majority of our investment on the new products and ignoring the base business.

And can maybe just talk through the incrementality of the Pocono products and how we should think about maybe market share when we're talking about

share in 12 months time where should we be in share then maybe versus now if the plan is going to play out?

So back a year ago we sort of mapped out in connection with the acquisition what we expected the new China Label products to contribute in sales and also gave some earnings sort of margin perspective as well but it was over $100 million of Incremental sales over the next few years, close to our average China segment EBITDA margins. Where we are at the moment is our thinking is that with the launch, which is slightly ahead of plan, like being able to launch these products in October, having just commenced the manufacturing and that, which is which is great to be in market earlier. We're hoping that they might contribute. If you look at the phasing there, I think there's a phasing chart in the earlier presentation 12 months ago. I think hopefully they'll make a stronger contribution earlier. I won't be specific about it. One of the reasons I say that, Tom, is that through the supply chain disruption that we've experienced in our recovery program, we've deliberately constrained the distribution or the way to distribution of our Gertrude product. So we're at about two-thirds of what we were pre-supply chain disruption, which actually opens up a bit more sort of available distribution for one of those products which will play a more discreet or incremental role. So to put that all together, I think earlier launch, perhaps a little bit more white space in distribution. I think we are hopeful that we'll get a greater contribution earlier, but we won't provide any specific guidance on that at the moment. Okay, great. Thanks, David.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Craig Wilford from MST Marquis. Please go ahead.

Morning team. Just firstly, just want to clarify what your guidance infers about the second half and if that's an indication of more normal margins, if I've interpreted you correctly. and so on. So I think it's more like a commentary ride. It's more like a 12% EBITDA margin in the first half and I guess by inference closer to 18% in the second half of 27%. Is that second half relatively clean? Is that a guide of how margins look once all the supply chain noise settles down?

Craig, yeah, I won't comment on the percentages you called out but what I will say is just be wary of the marketing because we're basically saying that the first half will be reasonably up in terms of percentage points. So it implies the second half will be probably down relative to the normal run rate. So there's probably a little bit to come back on that margin from a marketing perspective. But I think the second half should be a better indication of what we'll see in the future.

Directionally.

Directionally, right. Yeah.

With the English label performance in FY26, is there any way to tease out underlying performance versus some of the customers that might have shifted to that channel, the CVAC channel, because of the shortages?

From China label, Craig, going across to English label, is that what you're saying?

I think it was 19.1%. Yeah. Is that organic or switch?

But just in terms of... Yohan might want to add to this, but just in terms of the switching, we did mention in our update to the market there was some switching from Gertrude to Platinum, and there was some, but I think perhaps... that's been amplified by the market. So I think there's been probably an expectation that's greater than what it was. So in essence it was relatively small, the switching from China label to platinum. Most of the users unfortunately have gone to other brands which some have retained with us and our job is to get them back. I don't know if that helps.

I guess the natural following is it's quite a good result on English label because it was fairly static over the last 18 months at 19.1 and it's up to 19.5 so what would you attribute that to?

Yeah, so the market share growth is, I guess, two factors. One is, of course, continued investment in A2 Platinum and particularly new user recruitment. So we've seen, particularly over the last 12 months, improvement in our Stage 1, Stage 2 share. and the second thing is the introduction of Genesis as well so that adds a greater addressable market for us because it gives us exposure to the faster growing HMO segment within English Label and we've been able to capture on a MIT basis in CVEC now a 1.8% share. So those two together then you will get over an 18 month period contributed to the EL share gains.

Right, thanks Sarah.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Richard Barwick from CLSA. Please go ahead.

Good morning all. David, just to talk specifically about winning back some of the lost China label share, how much can you target or can you identify those A2 customers that have switched away? and I was also curious to sort of think through, is there a point when it's too late to get them to switch back? And then the other sort of dimension to that question is, does the transition from stage one to two and two to three, does that present opportunities to win those customers back? I'd just like to sort of talk through those points if you could, please.

Yeah, sure, Richard. So in terms of targeting those users that may have lapsed, So we can do that in certain areas, but it's not, by no means do we have a comprehensive CRM tool that tracks everything across all channels. And just because of the nature of the China market, there's consumers buying online through different platforms and things, it's hard to keep that, or hard to capture a lot of that information. So we say for example offline in the national key accounts and some of the regional key accounts we have our promotional ambassadors in store who keep quite close contact with our consumers that regularly purchase from those stores and through WeChat channels and everything else. So we have good line of sight over that. Through our loyalty program overall there's a portion of consumers that do and so on. So we have some line of sight over our users that we can target and retarget. Your second part of that was, is it too late? For some of our... Yeah, so just in terms of the timing, so for early stage users, if they have switched to another brand, most mothers with a young infant would be generally not inclined to switch back unless they've had problems with the new product that they are using. Some will. Some may wait to the next stage of transition, which is the second part of your question, which is, and so on. When you transition from one to two to three, that provides another opportunity to regain those consumers. Of course, as those consumers did change to other brands, the competition couldn't help but offer them attractive deals on full case or one or two cases, which means that some of them have significant pantry inventory to consume as well before they would come in place switching back to us. So that's why there's several of the reasons why it's going to take some time for those consumers to come back to us. And we're also refocused on ramping up the momentum of our new user recruitment. And then for later stage users, I'll just highlight that stage three users The infant or toddler is obviously more robust and consumers have got greater flexibility in modifying feeding patterns or potentially using alternative nutrition or other products and then switching back is much more convenient for the consumer. On stage 4 in particular, whilst we were out of stock in stage 4 for a long period of time due to sunlight supply, we did have our kids' nutrition and the Kids Advance product that we refer to, which has been incredibly successful and also supported some of those consumers or users that were using Stage 3 and 4 products as a substitute product. So it is complicated. We don't have a full line of sight of everything at the moment. The plan that Chair and the team have put in place is being executed well and there's some encouraging signs, but it's too early to be quite definitive. We'll give updates to the market as we go. Next at the AGM and again at the half-year or in-between if we need to.

And just timing-wise though, David, to win these back, you're presumably the sooner the better, and so therefore the AGM update, that will give you the best insight? I mean, that seems like it's unlikely to be a second-half way to winning Chinese label customers back. That's going to be a first-half story?

We're hoping that there will be a significant proportion that will come back and some have already come back because we're largely out of stock Richard and so a great proportion had left and so to even be at 40% off take at the moment or thereabouts, that's already a significant retain in the brand and that's improving every week. We'll see where we're at at the AGM. We'll certainly provide an update then. If it's materially different up or down, we'll obviously let the market know if that's critical. But overall at the moment, we're expecting, as I said earlier, like if we're around 40% now, to be back to 100% or thereabouts run rate by the end of the financial year, so progressive recovery throughout the year. So we're going to be very careful about how we're going about this. The number one priority for us is to ensure that we maintain our really strong brand health that we have for the A2 brand and the last thing we want to do is to rush into this and not reserve that, the distribution and the great sort of trade support that we have in the market as well as looking after our consumers. and that's why we have constrained our distribution at the moment and we're progressively going to expand that over time and we're not discounting product and pushing it into consumers or expanding our distribution rapidly which could run the risk of ending up with a lot of slow moving inventory in the trade and create freshness issues and pricing and impact the whole ecosystem which is really important to the A2 business model. So, in essence, we're going about this in a really measured, careful way, mindful of what our consumers need and the health of the A2 brand for the interest of the long term. Yep.

Okay. That all makes sense. Thanks, David.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Adrian Olben from Jarden. Please go ahead.

Oh, good morning, Sam. Just, David, just keen to understand, like, when you talk about constraining products, If you like, the distribution for Zeto in particular. Is that, like when you provided your sort of July update and your sort of thereabouts at target inventories, is that against the constrained construct? I'm just trying to sort of reconcile where we might have been forecasting to where you're sort of at now within your view on the distribution in terms of releasing it slowly as you got confidence.

Yeah, that's correct, Adrian. So it's against a constrained distribution that we're at target. And obviously, we factor in a certain number of weeks cover, and obviously that's a forward-looking month cover or week cover measure that we have, and obviously the offtake was uncertain at that point. But generally, you're correct that we were referring to us being at roughly a target imagery on a constrained basis for the offline channels. Obviously, that's not relevant for online.

Okay, and then as you sort of, I think as you talked about sort of 40% off take to 100, would you expect that that distribution would go back to where it is? Like I know you talked about possibly seeding some of the constrained people with the new products initially, but is that a reasonable assumption as well?

Yeah, I think that we'll head back towards in the order of sort of $25,000 to $30,000 that we had previously. I can't be specific on exactly when that's going to happen, but I think we'll head towards that by the end of the year. So if you sort of factor in that, there will be a little bit of trade inventory level expansion as we move from weighted distribution of around two-thirds now to closer to 100% over time, if that's where you're coming from. Yep, okay, no, that's fine.

Just in terms of, like, the English label seemed to slow quite a bit in the second half, as you sort of talked about the market commentary, and... and I guess your market share dipped a little bit in that fourth quarter relative to the Kantar stuff, if you sort of index every look at the smart car. Can you sort of talk a little bit more about what's happening right now relative to that exit rate?

Yeah, I might hand over to Yohan, but we did definitely see a declining offtake following the US recall announcement. So, I mean, again, that product is a different product. There's no physical issue with the product. It was just the... Yeah, so as David said, if you look at the second half, the third quarter was growing strongly.

It was a continuation of the trend in the first half. I guess the biggest challenge was in May and June when the US-labeled recall came out. There was an indirect impact. And, yes, you can see in the fourth quarter, probably SmartPath is the best indicator of the impact, where you can see it's effectively 10% down for May and June. What we expect is, of course, that to rebuild in the first half. But you can see it on the data on slide 33, you know,

Okay, and so the expectation is that that bed would be sorted over the first half, is what you're sort of saying. You're already saying progress, so that's coming? Yeah, correct. Just a final question from me. In terms of the whole, obviously the whole serolide and testing was a big priority for the company over what took out of the period since you reported the February result. Can you just sort of update us on Like where you're at with that? Is it sort of back to normal now against the new testing regimes that are required? Or are there any outstandings required on that work program?

Adrian, I think the testing methodologies and levels have been... and many others. and so on. We have gone through testing of all of our product. We've made adjustments to our supply chain. There is no concern around the safety of our product in relation to So they're right, I can't, as an infant company you can't promise there's never going to be any quality or safety issues. But we have really solid certificates of analysis from suppliers. We do testing on Telluride. throughout the supply chain as part of our release processes. We make those test results available to our consumers. I mentioned earlier in the call about the batch-by-batch testing results. You can see nil detect on all of our products, every batch. So it's a very thorough process that we have in place now, so no concerns whatsoever. And most of the industry has adapted rapidly as well, but we've been very transparent about that.

OK, thank you. That's great.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Marcus Curley from UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning team. I just wondered if we could revert back to the high level of the guidance. Is it right in assuming that in terms of the infant formula guide that you're talking about growth in English label and a decline in China label at a high level?

We haven't been explicit about that Marcus, but I mean certainly in the first half that would be the case. Over the full year it's probably, you know, it remains to be seen, it's probably closer than you may expect. We'll just have to wait and see how that plays out. We haven't provided any specific guidance for that. But yeah, certainly in the first half it's English label where I perform China label on a reported sales basis, yeah.

Okay, like I suppose then just on English Label, so are you anticipating growth in English Label for the year?

Yeah, I mean at this stage we would expect that English, if anything English Label is likely to be ahead of China Label, but it depends, like it depends on how the new products perform and It's early in the year, but yes, that would be our expectation at the moment. But the difference between the two, like you're expecting English Label to way outperform China Label, given what's happened to China Label, that's not necessarily going to be the case. It's probably a bit more nuanced than that.

Yes, I suppose when you think about English Label, I appreciate the comments around your market share in the fourth quarter. You don't necessarily see that in the second half revenue performance and so you've obviously got Vietnam going well, you've got new products coming, well you're getting back in the stock on new products. It's just sort of trying to gauge what I'm missing in terms of the English label performance potentially in the next 12 months.

Well in the second, maybe not in the next 12 months, but when you're looking at, there's a little bit of movement in trade inventory as well that you might want to factor in as well in the second half because we finished the year, we finished the December half slightly low in English label trade inventory and then at the end of the year slightly higher because of the late fourth quarter drop off in offtake. So that explains a little bit of the higher, if you're trying to understand the high, the relativity of the reported sales growth versus the market share numbers, that explains a little bit of that.

Right, okay, so that drops off.

You've got underlying growth, you've got emerging markets and then you've got a little bit of trade inventory level movement as well.

Okay, thank you. And then it looks like the two new China Label products are both in the ultra premium category. Is that different to what you were initially thinking and maybe you can just give us a little bit more colour in terms of maybe the price points of those two products and how you plan to roll them out from a store perspective?

So, both of the products are positioned as ultra-premium products, because, I mean, the heritage is both perceived by the consumer and the retailer as an ultra-premium product, and we also represent an ultra-premium segment. So for the digestion, it's going to be the, I mean, like a lower tier CT extension because, I mean, this, I mean, patent MLCT and plus OPO plus full nutrition benefits really, I mean, appeal to the lower tier mom who wants basically everything. And also, I mean, you can, if you can see from the market, even in the lower tier CT, there are still like 40% above and many more. This product is going to the lower tier cities with ultra-premium conditioning, digestion, food nutrition benefits, and plus a higher trade margin, which is also very effective in the lower tier cities. Because typically in the lower tier cities, we rely more on the rehearers' recommendations. Then the A2 Patron, which is A2 Organic, are serving as, I mean, ultra-premium products. Typically, organic is a very unique segment in China market, only appealing to certain consumers in the higher tier cities. So this product has to be a higher price and also represent the best. A2 Milk Company Limited, A2 Milk Company Limited, A2 Milk Company Limited, A2 Milk Company Limited, A2 Milk Company Limited, A2 Milk Company Limited,

So you're right Marcus, a year ago as we were developing our plans we thought this would either play in the super premium or ultra premium space and we have led towards the ultra premium as we've done more work on our go to market strategy taking into account our distributor and trade feedback on it as well. So we think this is the right positioning and the full nutrition formulation that the Tuberon product has we think supports that as well. If it doesn't hold that price point, we can always find that back a little bit, but it's very difficult, as you know, to take a product out after you've lodged for a certain price point.

So both products price at a premium to the existing product?

The organic product will be at a premium to Jet Shoe, but we're not being specific about the Chiron product pricing relative to Jet Shoe at this stage. It'll be close. I'm not saying it's going to be above or below, but it'll be close in the ultra premium segment.

Thank you. The next question comes from Phil Kimber from E&P Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, I just had a question on the market growth you expect. I think you've given the total China infant formula market grew at 0.7 but that was over the whole year and at the half it grew 3.6 for just the first 25 or 26 weeks so it looks like it's gone backwards about 3% now and China label and My English label looks like maybe flat and China labelled down. What's your expectation for the market to grow or decline in FY27? And when you look at the various stages, I mean, should we anticipate that that momentum, you know, increases as it declines faster? Or am I sort of missing something in that?

No, it's always hard to figure about the Chinese market, but we think, at the moment our thinking is that the number of newborns will probably be up this, supported by the marriage rate which increased last year. So you've got the impact of the dragon year still working its way through the system in the later stages, and then you've got birth rate, obviously declined a lot last year, but will probably be up marginally this year. So overall we would expect the market to be down low single digits, only down slightly next year, low single digits. Probably early stage reasonably robust, sort of flat to marginally up, and later stage to be down because of the tail end of the dragon year working its way through the system, if that makes sense.

Yeah, and when you say, are you talking fiscal 27 there or calendar 27?

Yeah, FY27, yeah. But the birth newborn numbers, I'm referring to calendar year because that's the basis which they're reporting.

Yeah. And then my second question, just around Sinle, and, you know, you mentioned having to work with them to improve supply. In terms of, you know, I mean, there's been rumours on Sinle I think there's every six months there seems to be rumours about us doing something in relation to Synlo but look I won't comment on speculation.

All I'll tell you is that we've had a long and a strong relationship with Bright and Sinlay, despite some of the supply challenges that we've had. We work day-to-day really closely with Sinlay. The Gertrude China Lab registration is very strategically important to us. We intend to partner with them in the long term. The only other thing I'd say is that the acquisition of Pocono and the hundreds of millions of dollars that we've invested in that and the upgrade is probably indicative of our supply chain strategy. So I've got nothing more to say on that, Phil.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Stephen Ridgewell from Craig's Investment Partners. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. David, first question for me is just on the new China Label products. I just wanted you to please give us a broad implication as to the revenue contribution. I'll go back to the comments I made earlier in the call

Last year, when we announced our acquisition, we said that the two labels would contribute incremental over $100 million of sales and there's a chart in there which shows the expected ramp up of that. For the reasons I said before, I'd expect that to be greater earlier than what that chart would indicate. We definitely, I mean, the chart would indicate we probably expect $10 million or less this year, which is not quite right. So it'll be more than that, but it's certainly not going to be the majority. So it'll be a reasonable number, but we're not providing specific guidance on that. In terms of the contribution, probably dilutive in the second quarter when they're launched, but accretive in the second half.

Cool, thank you. And then just going back to the The Broad Rush recovery plan for China Label sales, I guess at a high level, just given we're seeing social media sentiment improve, the data provided, search rates are improving, and stock is broadly available for China Label, I guess at a high level, why are we not seeing a stronger pickup in sales already? I mean, I think the down 60% does seem pretty steep. There's quite a big mountain to climb to get back to 100% of pre-crisis levels. I mean, when you look at the recovery plan, you know, in the detail you'll be looking at it, you sort of assume a large number of those customers have gone for good and that you're really relying on over-indexing market share gains for new mothers to get back to that pre-crisis level of sales. And if that's the case, I'm just wondering if you're able to share more data points with us to perhaps provide comfort on that recovery plan. Thank you.

I think being out of stock for most of the fourth quarter, as I said, has had a pretty significant impact on our user base, particularly early stage. So now at about 40% offtake run rate, we've lost the majority of our early stage customers through forced product switching to other brands. and we'll probably maintain the majority of our later stage users. As I said before, it's challenging to get those early stage users back quickly but there will be opportunities as they consume the pantry stock that they have and as they change stage, going forward into stage 2 and stage 3, there'll be other opportunities to acquire them. Overall, I guess by definition, given what we're saying, we are assuming that we will over-index in terms of our new user acquisition going forward. And in terms of data point, the best thing I can offer you is that the conversion rates on the activity we have in place at the moment by the different channels and mechanisms that we go about are either at or above where we were pre-supply chain disruption. and we're investing more in marketing this year in absolute terms if you run the math on it like it's a significant increase in marketing weighted to the to the first half as well and we have full support of our retailers as well and distributors so for example some of and these types of things, it's one of the most critical things in the trade is to hang on to the shelf space that you have and overall we've got the same if not greater shelf space despite being without product for a considerable period of time. Some of our retailers have actually given us an extra buy as well which is incredible support. So anyway, Xiao and the team are doing a terrific job in China to, one, to manage the fourth quarter but now in executing our recovery program and so far so good. But it's early days. Cool, thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Julia Disturk from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Just wanted to come back to your comments around the outlook for the English label category into FY27, given that You noted in the release around kind of competitor recall impacts in the second half. Given they seem to be normalizing now, could you just speak to maybe in more detail your outlook for the next kind of 12 months on both the competition side and therefore prospects for customer acquisition as well?

Yeah, so I think, obviously, if we look at the English label market overall, and you look at the first half, it was growing strongly. Obviously, the second half was impacted by the competitive recalls around, so although English label now makes up 20% of the total China IMF market, obviously, the second half has been impacted by all of that. So, of course, The major brands within the EL segment have had challenges in this space. For ourselves, of course, May, June, we had our own challenges. What we observe from competitors is that it does take a few months for that to rebuild, and so we would expect the same from ourselves. and many, many more. So we've got a lot of potential in the market. The underlying demand for the product coming from overseas is still there, notwithstanding the challenges that the sector's had with those recalls. And we would expect that Horizon and Genesys, Platinum and Genesys, will support our growth

Got it. And then just on the reformulation of the Genesis product, I think you mentioned earlier that it was to kind of reinforce the premium positioning of the product, maybe not in those specific words. But could you just speak to kind of why the upgrade of that product now and what you're seeing in the market that might potentially be a catalyst for improving that kind of premium positioning?

Yeah. So if we look at platinum, the price... We haven't really upgraded the formulation meaningfully since 2022. And of course, consumer expectations along ingredient profiles such as HMO have changed in that period. So what we want to do is make sure that we improve the formulation product, plus also improve the usability of the product. So a good example of that is the new platinum product has the scoop in the lid. But historically, we have had the scoop in the powder, which we know is... and many others. So we've improved both the formulation and the usability for keeping in line with consumer expectations. And then also on the gentlest product, we've upgraded the formulation to have six HMOs. We know consumers are looking for a variety of HMOs within their formulation. And of course, once we launched, we had three HMOs and we've upgraded to six HMOs plus upgraded the probiotic itself to a human resident bacteria. So that also improves the positioning of the product. So both of the upgrades for the English label products are to keep in line with the consumer expectations.

Thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from Will Twist from Forces Bar. Please go ahead.

Morning guys, if you look at the initial recovery campaign that's underway, a lot of it is quite heavily focused on product quality and testing. Is that actually in response to anything you're seeing from consumers in terms of being concerned about the quality of the product and not just the product availability over the fourth quarter?

Well, no, not specifically for our product, but there has been a lot of concern amongst Chinese consumers in the infant and toddler category, given what's happened in the market in the first quarter of this year, and also in other categories like nappies or diapers have had issues as well. and there's been another recent sort of infant formula but another brand I won't comment on specifically but another concern recently as well. So I think generally Chinese consumers, mothers are very conscious about the importance of quality in our category and they're very sensitive to it so we're just doubling down on that and making sure they've got 100% confidence. and the other part of the confidence is not the quality, it's the supply, which is the main issue that we had, which is we didn't have product in market. So we're giving them confidence around the availability of product and the distribution of retail and being back in on the national tier accounts in some accounts with additional shelf space is really positive and we'll be refreshing our point of sale and everything going forward. There's a lot of work around that, just providing consumers with trust on quality and supply, which is the most important thing in our category.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then if we think about supply chain costs, we know there were some additional costs kind of embedded in the cost base for FY26. Can you just talk to or provide some more color around how much cost is in there relative to a normal baseline and then what the outlook is for some of those items into FY27?

Hi Will, it's Dave. When we're not really getting into the ins and outs of the second half, supply chain costs, gross margin, there's significant additional costs. There's some mitigating factors and some going the other way. I think the best way to think about it, like I said before, is start with your FY, start with the clean year, which is FY25 and build it from there. I sort of gave you the building blocks a little bit earlier.

Thank you. No further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to David Bortolussi for closing remarks.

Thanks everyone for joining the call. Before I finish I'd like to thank our A2 team for their incredible effort and impact during the year. It's been a challenging end to the year and I think our team, particularly our China team and supply chain team have done a wonderful job mitigating that impact and are now focused on our recovery plan going forward and all the other growth opportunities we have in the business. So thank you to our team and to our investors and analysts. We look forward to catching up with you shortly over the next week or two. Thanks for joining the call. Cheers.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.