Sonic Healthcare Ltd

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Sonic Healthcare Financial Year ended 30th June 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. And I'd like to hand the conference over to Dr. Colin Goldschmidt, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, Amber, and good morning and good day to everyone on the call. Colin Goldschmidt is my name, CEO of Sonic Healthcare, and I'm joined today by my colleagues Chris Wilkes, CFO of Sonic, and Paul Alexander, Deputy CFO of Sonic Healthcare. We're pleased to present our full year results today. And if I could direct you, we'll start the presentation with our headline numbers, which I'm hoping is slide three. I understand last time we were a bit out of sequence with the page numbers. But the headline slide shows a table of our headline results. And just a note on the table itself, the FY2025 numbers are obviously the actual statutory numbers. And we've asterisked the FY2024 comparative numbers to flag that they have been restated to exclude the $32 million gain on the sale of our West Division in the USA. So revenue came in at 9.645 billion, which was up 8% on the prior year. EBITDA came in at 1.725 billion, up 8%. Net profit was 514 million, up 7%. Cash generation came in just shy of 1.3 billion. And earnings per share for the year came in at 106.7 cents. And then moving from statutory to constant currency numbers, we achieved our guidance for the year with EBITDA of $1.702 million on a constant currency basis. And then adjusted for non-recurring items, our EBITDA was $1.730 billion. That's on a constant currency basis. I draw your attention to the box at the bottom. We have a slide in the appendix, I think it's the first slide in the appendix, one of two, which gives detail on the non-recurring items. Organic revenue growth for the year was 5% and our normalised EBITDA margin expanded by 40 basis points for the year. And here again I refer you to the appendix for that margin analysis detail. On the subject of margins, we continue to be sharply focused on delivering ongoing margin expansion and of course we'll achieve this through our ongoing strong organic revenue growth and our cost efficiency programs. And just a point to note is that our margin expansion has been achieved despite some of our acquisitions and contracts having lower margins than SONIC's prevailing margins at the time of acquisition. So a good example of this is the Hudson West Essex NHS contract in the UK and our recent acquisitions in Switzerland. And in each case, the margins will lift in time as our synergies kick in, but initially they are actually margin diluted. So there's a balance that we're up against in driving our margin growth, which we are confident to achieve going forward. Our cash generation from operations was strong, and that was mainly due to higher tax payments in the prior year. And then looking to the FY2026 year, we expect strong earnings growth driven by organic growth, our Swiss and German synergies coming through in particular, the LADA acquisition in Germany, and a range of initiatives in the USA. And I guess it's important for us to say that our FY2026 EBITDA earnings guidance equates to EPS growth of up to 19%. using current exchange rates. If we go to the next slide, which is our guidance, and we're guiding for the FY2026 year to 1.87 to 1.95 billion on a constant currency basis, which equates to a 1.94 to 2.02 billion dollar EBITDA using current exchange rates. You'll see that the range there is now 80 million, which is a bit wider than our previous 50 million EBITDA range. And I will say here that this is not an indication of lack of confidence in our budgets, but rather a reflection of increased company size. And it's still about a 4% range out of that total EBITDA number. We've expanded it slightly mainly to cater for synergies coming through from Switzerland and Germany and especially the LADA acquisition. And if appropriate, we'll have an opportunity to reassess the guidance at the half-year mark and possibly tighten up the range at that time if it makes sense. So the guidance that we provided reflects up to 13% EBITDA growth on FY 2025, and that equates to about 16% growth using current exchange rates. And then talking about depreciation interest and tax, depreciation expense as a percentage of revenue is expected to be in line with FY 2025, Interest expense, we expect to increase by 15% to 20% on a constant currency basis, reflecting the acquisitions in the FY26 year, and that includes both LADA and Cairo. And our effective tax rate, we expect to be around 27%. And then the key guidance considerations. The guidance includes completed acquisitions only, and that's obviously including LADA and chirodiagnostics. It excludes the potential PAMA fee cut, which could come in January 2026, although having been delayed now for, I think, five or six years, we expect it to be deferred again, if not cancelled. and no other regulatory changes are assumed, and we assume current interest rates will prevail. The next slide is on dividends, and the Board of SONIC has ratified a final dividend of 63 cents per share, which is on a par with the final dividend last year, and total dividends for the year will be $1.07 per share, which is up 1% on the prior year. The final dividend will be franked to 35%, record date 4 September, payment date 18 September 2025. And regarding that final bullet point, we continue to stand behind our progressive dividend strategy into the future, and although the current dividend payout ratio is still relatively high, we expect the payment ratio to start coming down in line with our predicted strong earnings growth from here on. The next slide, which is six, is on capital management and this slide provides information on our capital management and it really highlights our strong balance sheet position. Our headroom stands at approximately $1.4 billion before the final dividend payment. And our debt cover ratios is approximately 2.1 times at the 30th of June mark. And it moves up to approximate our pre-pandemic average of about 2.4 with the LADA and Cairo Diagnostics acquisitions. And I'll just make the comment that this does not preclude future acquisitions going forward. I guess with no further acquisitions, the ratio will obviously move downwards as our earnings grow, but with synergistic, suitable acquisitions, it's possible that the ratio might spike above that 2.4 times line temporarily, as has occurred before, and I guess you can see that in the history of this chart, where we have spiked above that line temporarily associated with acquisitions. The next slide is our traditional pie chart showing our revenue split. And although the whole pie has grown, obviously with our revenue, it's just interesting to note a few points. We currently have nine segments in this pie. And we're now probably going to have to add a tenth, which is Poland, because we have a business operating in Poland now coming with the LADA acquisition, roughly $50 million Australian dollars in revenue. And given that New Zealand gets its own segment, we probably need to cater for a new country, which is Poland. Not sure how we'll sort this out, whether we just add a segment or combine a couple of segments. We'll I'll have to work that out in the future. But looking at the existing pie and looking at our six largest divisions, we have three divisions now which are in the range of around $2 billion in revenue. That's USA, Australia and Germany. And we have three divisions which are in the ballpark of about a billion Australian dollars in revenue. That's Switzerland, UK and radiology. But with the LADA acquisition, Germany has essentially broken away from the PAC and next time round, this pie chart will show Germany as our clear number one division in terms of revenues. And, you know, just to nail that, Larder alone is going to add revenue somewhere between $650 and $700 million Australian dollars per annum to Germany's revenue. That excludes any other acquisitions or organic growth. Okay, moving on to our country slides, firstly the USA. So our statutory growth in the USA was negative 2% and that was impacted by the sale of the West Division in the second half of FY2024. Organic growth came in at minus 1% on a constant currency basis. Our organic growth has been affected by the loss of a payer contract in Alabama and also the disruption caused by the change healthcare cyber attack which we can talk about in question time if there's interest. We point out that our organic growth is stronger in clinical pathology than in anatomical pathology. And pleasingly, when we look at July's results, which are through, we're seeing a return to positive organic growth sitting at about 2.5%. We're very focused at the moment on strategies to drive revenue growth. and these include the recent gain of a new payer contract. This is a new contract for us in New Jersey with Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, and we're actually nearing completion with another payer contract, which is going to add potential revenue growth to our division as well. The other initiatives to drive revenue include things like restructuring our US sales force where we've combined our CP and AP, that's clinical pathology and anatomical pathology sales reps. We're driving digital dermatopathology sales using our pathology watch platform. We're extending the good growth of sales of our exclusive thyroid cancer test, ThyroSeq, We're pursuing hospital laboratory deals, and we're planning to take the chirodiagnostic test panels national, and I'll say a bit more about that just in a minute. And so, you know, there's a huge focus at the moment on lifting top-line growth in the U.S., From an operations point of view, the rollout of our digital pathology and particularly our pathology watch platform continues according to plan. The enhanced revenue collection system, that's the Zyphon platform rollout, is going to plan and we expect the majority of the benefits as flagged previously will flow through in FY2026. We've also rationalized our lab in the Midwest, which we have deemed to be subscale, and we've transferred just about all the testing from that lab to our Sunrise Medical Laboratories in New York, to their facility. Just a few words about the Cairo Diagnostics Acquisition. It settled only a few days ago, and this is a successful northeast-based lab It's located just north of Manhattan and it's actually near our CBL path laboratory. And it's a lab that's focused on esoteric and genetic tests for mainly blood cancers but also other cancers. Annual revenues of this business are approximately 35 million Australian and it's a business with relatively high margins. And as I mentioned, our strategy is not only to grow this business regionally in the northeast, but using Sonic's infrastructure to extend the service nationally. So just to explain this a bit further, ChiroDiagnostics is a specialist hemato-oncology lab, or they call it HemOnc in the jargon in the medical space. And it's a lab that provides essential high-end genetic and other testing for patients mainly who have leukemias and lymphomas. We're certainly excited about this partnership, not only because it adds a high-quality genetics lab to Sonic's stable, but also because we believe that there's a real opportunity to expand these services nationally. using our existing infrastructure, and by that I mean our collection centres, our couriers, our sales reps, and importantly, our pathologists. And the fact that we are strong in anatomical pathology throughout the US and deal with oncologists in that space will help us with that national rollout. Moving on to the next slide, which is Australian Pathology. This is a division that's performing very strongly. Organic revenue came in at 6%. Our earnings were enhanced in the year, not only by strong revenue growth, but also by tight cost management and a particular focus on our FTEs in the post-pandemic years. That tight control has continued. We're particularly proud to show strong organic growth in our genetic and other specialized testing. And I'll give a special shout out here to the success achieved by our sonic genetics team. Sonic genetics is a combination of DHM in Sydney and Sullivan-Nicolaides pathology in Brisbane. And in my opinion, Sonic Genetics is now the preeminent genetics testing institute in the whole of Australia, and I'm confident that it's going to serve Sonic very well long into the future, given the shift that's occurring in the medical lab space towards higher-valued tests, especially in the genetics space. So more generally, we're increasing the use of private billing for selected tests, and this includes tests which are not covered by the Medicare schedule, as well as tests which are covered in the Medicare schedule. Our labour costs remain tightly managed, even despite the fact that we're experiencing fairly strong volume growth. We were absolutely delighted to be selected to provide lab services for both North Shore Private Hospital in Sydney from July 2025 and Hollywood Private Hospital in Perth which will start in February 2026. These are both Ramsey Healthcare Hospitals and are both large. North Shore Private Hospital I believe has more than 300 beds and Hollywood Private I believe has more than 900 beds and is the largest private hospital in Australia. We're actually honoured to take over these contracts and our two involved labs, DHM in Sydney for North Shore Private and Clinipath in Perth for Hollywood are both equipped and already in Sydney but will do in Perth deliver outstanding lab services and add value to these fine RAMSI institutions where great service is provided to both patients and doctors. Also, in terms of contract wins, there was a lengthy government tender process for the National Bowel Cancer Screening Contract and we were very pleased to have won that again. This will be a long-term contract once again and after providing this outstanding service for so many years. We're very pleased to continue that service for the whole population of Australia. I think most of you know that annual indexation is going to be applied to around a third of the pathology Medicare schedule. The initial indexation of 2.4% commenced on 1 July of this year. And as we move forward, we continue to target the rationalisation of collection centres, and we have closed about 50 of these collection centres over the past year, and that strategy is showing great success, and we plan to continue with it going forward. Onto the next slide, Germany. another division that's performing really strongly. Statutory growth 10% in revenue, organic growth 4% on a constant currency basis. Our organic growth in the second half of FY 2025 was impacted by the change to the minimum KV quota for statutory insurance fees, that's the EBM schedule, which was effective 1 January 2025. that had an impact of approximately 1% annually across all our revenue. The specific EBM fee changes, which is different to the quota changes, which was also effective 1 January 2025, was net neutral for Sonic as we've flagged previously and as we expected it to be. At operations level, our German businesses continue to perform very strongly. We've had a number of successful laboratory mergers where we go three into one or two into one in both Hamburg and Munich, and these will provide synergy benefits and capacity for future growth. The LADA laboratory group acquisition settled on 1 July 2025, and there are already multiple integration and synergy work streams in train. The total revenue for this business exceeds $650 million. If you use today's exchange rates, it's a bit more than that. And we guide you again to the appendix, and this is a slide that we've put in there that we have previously presented at the half-year results release. In addition to LIDAR, there were two small synergistic acquisitions. They settled in October 24 and January 25. They've now been fully integrated. Total annual revenue of about 15 million Australian. The next slide on Switzerland. A lot's happening in Switzerland, as I think you all know. Statutory growth 21%, organic growth 4% on a constant currency basis. At operational level, we've now completed the rebranding of all four of the previously separate Swiss entities into one national integrated business that we're calling Sonic Swiss. We have a strong management team comprised of senior executives of all four of those entities. And just as a reminder, those entities were our original acquisition in Switzerland, Medica, based in Zurich, and then MediSupport, and then MediSyn, and finally the RISH Group. Our massive operational plan, which is concentrated on synergy capture from these acquisitions, is proceeding to plan, and it's really great to see the significant synergies that have begun coming through and which will peak in this current financial year, 2026, and FY2027. And, you know, amongst these synergies, we've integrated IT functions into one system, and that's pretty well complete, and that's going to allow for standardisation across the country, internal referrals, and other efficiencies which will flow. As far as physical lab mergers go, we've completed initial lab integrations in Geneva in clinical pathology and in Lausanne and Zurich in anatomical pathology. And there will be other lab and department mergers to follow in calendar 2026. So, you know, we're very pleased with the progress. This is a massive operation being led by an outstanding team. And really, it's wonderful, I'll just repeat again, to see synergies coming through which will be in the 2026 numbers. The next slide, UK. Revenue, 19% growth on a statutory basis. Organic growth, 14% on a constant currency basis. At operational level, the Hertfordshire and West Essex NHS contract commenced 1 March of this year. We're in the process of fitting out a hub lab in Watford, just north of London, not only to service the Hearts and West Essex contract, but also to create capacity for growth for our general business. And the building works in this fit-out are on track to complete by June of next year. Since 1 March this year, we've successfully commissioned two new stat labs in the Harts and West Essex group. And as part of the contract, we've taken on around 600 NHS staff. And just as a sidebar to that point, just a number, it's worth remembering that number if you're going to be looking at our total labour cost as a percentage of revenue for the whole company. So we've taken on 600 additional staff as part of that HWE contract. Your slide says we're currently documenting a new contract with Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, but a newsflash is that overnight this has now settled and signed. So it is a small contract, but an indication of yet another NHS outsource contract one by our team in the UK. This is a London-based small orthopaedic hospital. And then moving outside of the NHS, we've secured a new contract to provide pathology services for one of the largest private specialist outpatient healthcare centres in the UK, and services for that will begin in October of this year. And then looking ahead, we're Obviously continuing to bid for new private and NHS contracts and I can say that the future growth prospects for our UK division look really bright. Next slide is Belgium, revenue growth 3% statutory, organic growth 2% at constant currency. Our FY 2025 growth was impacted by the fee cut which came in on 1 January 2024, but on the flip side our organic growth has been augmented by a 3% indexation of the national fee schedule which came in 1 January 2025, and the operations in Belgium are stable. Next slide is our radiology division, which continues to perform strongly. Revenue growth 10%, organic EBITDA growth 12%. At operations, our growth is particularly strong in the higher value modalities, and those include CT, MRI, and PET-CT. That trend appears to be continuing and will go on for many years to come. Unlike pathology, annual Medicare fee indexation applies to the whole fee schedule, the Medicare fee schedule, and a 2.4% increase was applied from 1 July 2025. We've opened seven Greenfield sites in the year in review, and we have another four planned for FY2026. The recently introduced change in Medicare MRI licensing regulations from July 2025 has been beneficial for us and is driving revenue growth, and the change has meant an additional 23 of our MRI scanners have now become fully funded. We are active participants in the National Lung Cancer Screening Program, which commenced July 2025, and we're already seeing strong growth from the early phases of this excellent program. And we continue to make prudent investments in AI and other systems to optimize our workflows and efficiencies going forward. Next slide, Sonic Clinical Services, revenue growth was 2% and at operational levels, I should probably say that as a general statement, the primary care market conditions are improving somewhat as a result of the recent increase in Medicare funding. In addition, we are seeing strong performance from our occupational health division, that's Sonic Health Plus, including the Australian Defence Force pre-recruitment contract, which is now going pretty well. And as a result of these, we're expecting improved performance in FY2026, driven by the fee changes and our internal cost management initiatives. During the year, we acquired the business of National Skin Cancer Clinics, which settled in April 2025. And just a little bit about this business, it has annual revenues of around 25 million Australian. And it gives us the opportunity for synergy capture from integration of NSCC into our existing skin cancer clinics, which are called ASCC, Australian Skin Cancer Clinics, And when you combine these two, NSCC and ASCC, Sonic is now Australia's leading provider of skin cancer clinics. The next slide on sustainability is a summary only of our sustainability progress and our external ratings as well. And I guess it's also to let you know that Sonic is making excellent progress in our ESG and sustainability endeavours and that full details of these will be published in the FY 2025 Sustainability Report which is due for release in November. And the final slide which summarises our positioning for the future. I have to say the company is well positioned for the future with significant competitive advantages. We have market leading brands and positions in our major countries. We are fortunate to have stable and experienced managers and doctors leading the organisation. Our balance sheet remains strong as we've demonstrated with the investment grade metrics. And we have our deeply embedded medical leadership culture, which provides unique market differentiation. And finally, for the year ahead, and as mentioned in this presentation, we are expecting strong EPS growth in FY2026. And I'm now going to hand you back to our operator to take your questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and write your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. We will now take a first question from the line of Lynn Harrison from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hylian, your line is open. Please ask your question. All right. As I'm not getting a response, we'll move to the next question. Our next question comes from Craig Wompan from RBC. Please ask your question, Craig.

Hi. Good morning. Just wanted to touch on Australian pathology. If you look at the second half numbers, it looks like growth slowed a bit. I just wanted to see if that was kind of within your expectations or if there's anything that you could see explaining that change in growth in the second half.

Hi Craig, it's Paul here. One of the factors involved in that is actually the cyclone situation in Queensland. Not so much the cyclone itself but the fact that the Queensland Government effectively encouraged businesses to close down for several days and so that actually impacted revenue not only in pathology but also radiology and in our sonic clinical services business. So that was one unexpected impact in that period. There was a bit of a difference in working days between the first half and the second half as well, which sort of exacerbates what you're seeing as a slowdown there. So overall, I wouldn't say that growth necessarily slowed.

No. All indications, Craig, are that there's a number of cycling effects in this as well. You know, we offer selected tests which we cycle through, and that's had a minor effect as well. But I think if you just take what Paul has said, I think we're going to be back to at least market growth from this year onwards.

Okay, thanks. And then just to clarify, just moving to the US, the 2.5% organic revenue growth that you've seen in July, did that include the New Jersey contract win or is that kind of contract not started yet?

No, it hasn't started yet, so that's without it.

Okay, thanks. And then just my last question on radiology, the changes in MRI, you talked about sort of, you know, seeing some benefits there and lung cancer screening. Just wanted to see if you could talk about your expectations for growth in FY26 for revenue. Like, with those things, should you drive or be able to achieve a higher revenue growth than the 10% you achieved in FY25?

I mean, we haven't provided that information yet. that granular information, but I would assume it's not going to make a big difference. I mean, we're showing very strong organic revenue growth, and we expect that to continue. That's probably all we can say at this point. Craig? Okay.

No worries. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Andrew Goodsole from MST Marquis. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much for taking my question. You mentioned you're going to start additional private billing. Just wondering if you've got any thoughts on the magnitude of that and whether there's been pushback at a regulatory level.

So, you know, Andrew, this is a sensitive and potentially competitive issue and we don't want to speak too much about it, but In general, where appropriate, we feel that it is the right thing to do. I don't want to be specific about which particular tests, and we don't have a national strategy here. Each lab is applying private billing where they deem it appropriate for their particular market. But as we see it going forward, I think it's something that probably will increase slowly by all players in the market, even though I can't speak on anyone else's behalf, but it just is one of those things. There are so many tests now that are not included in the schedule at the high end of our testing menus, plus there are some tests which we provide which we believe are under-immunorated and where private billing is accepted by patients.

Great, thank you. And then just moving to Germany, the regulatory sitting there, the KB quota at 85, you expect that will sort of annualise or, you know, I guess how locked in stone is that level or will it revert back up? Give us one.

The change that occurred from 1 January was that the minimum quota that could be applied moved down from 89 to 85. Now, each KV, and there's a bunch of them, they're basically state-based, runs their own numbers every single quarter to work out what level of quota they will apply. So just because the minimum quota comes down doesn't mean that every KV will reduce their quota level. But it is fair to say that the ones that were paying at the minimum of 89 in general have now moved down to the 85 level. But our average level across Germany is more in the order of, call it 87, 88, somewhere around there, whereas before it was above 90. So that's where it sits. It can change over time. As I said, they reassess it every quarter based on their budgets and their spend.

Okay. Yeah, we heard that not everyone had gone down. Is the risk that more go down? And historically, has anyone actually ever gone up?

Yes, they've definitely gone up. Certainly, you know, the best example of that was in the early days of COVID where our routine volumes, you know, went down by sort of 30% to 50%. And as a result of that, the quota level moved to 100% for virtually all the KVs for a period or two.

So, Andrew, it depends to a large extent on that particular KV's budget and the demand for testing in that particular period. And so it moves up and down depending on demand.

But there's no reason to think that all KVs would move to the minimum level, just as not all KVs paid at the minimum level when it was 89%. Okay.

That's terrific. Thank you. I'll get back to you.

Thank you. We will now take our next question from Leanne Harrison from Bank of America. Please ask your question, Leanne.

Hi. Good morning, all. Can you hear me okay now?

Yes.

Okay, thank you. I might start with the United States. You mentioned, you know, growth was a bit challenging in the second half. You lost a major contract there. Can you just give us a bit of explanation as to why you think you might have lost that major contract or the reasons for it?

Yeah. So the one we lost was in Alabama, and Alabama is an unusual state. It's not a typical state where a payer is... providing service to the majority of the lives in that state. And so they have negotiated out a cheaper deal, basically, with one of our competitors and gone to an exclusive arrangement with that provider. So this is something that doesn't happen very often because most of the other states do not have this sort of an almost... monopoly situation as far as payers go. So that's the reason we lost that contract and there's no other reason is that that particular payer gets a better deal out of one of our competitors.

And then you also mentioned you won a new contract, one in New Jersey, you've got more in the pipeline. Is it safe to say that that New Jersey one is probably not as big as the one you've lost in Alabama?

No, I think it could be bigger. New Jersey is actually more populous. And the other new one that I did mention, we're not at liberty yet to talk about where it is or what it is, but maybe we can talk about it at another date when it crystallises, and it is going to crystallise.

I think, Colin, the New Jersey one covers about 9 million lives, whereas the Alabama one was 3 million lives. Yep, yep.

A bit of an island scale. However, it will take us time to win the referrers to get access to that. So it's not like we've got the contract and the revenue comes instantly. It will build over the next few years.

Okay. Can I ask about anatomical testing now? You mentioned in the United States clinical is stronger and anatomical is still a little bit weak. Is that because of industry-wide issues or is it due to any particular challenges that Sonic's facing in that market?

Yeah, look, we have had some issues in our particular division where we've had pathologists retire and work going elsewhere. I wouldn't put this down to an industry issue, to be honest. Anatomical pathology is one of those sectors where the testing has to be done. It's obligatory. So there is a market. So we've had one or two situations which have affected our revenue growth in the AP division, which of course we're working on right now. We're combining some of our AP labs. Remember when we did the Aurora deal, we bought over 20 separate AP practices, some of which were pretty small and did depend on local pathologists providing the service. And so that and a few other issues have resulted in us losing some revenue in that subdivision of our business in the US. We're very much focused on it right now and we're hoping very much to turn it around because I think there's a lot of benefit for us going forward. to grow that particular market. So as an example, in skin pathology, which is AP, we're rolling out our Pathology Watch digital pathology system with AI to win new business in skin pathology. And that's just one example of a big operation that's taking place to turn the growth around in the AP division.

It's probably worth noting as well that... A couple of those factors that we've called out there, like the Alabama contract loss and the changed healthcare cyber disruption, have affected our anatomic pathology operations more than our clinical. Both have affected both, but in both cases it's been more of an impact on anatomic pathology. So we had quite a more significant anatomic pathology presence in Alabama than on the clinical side. And likewise, with Change Healthcare, Change Healthcare were actually doing the billing for the majority of our anatomic pathology practice or practices. And so the disruption there has been more significant than on the clinical side, although there's some on the clinical side as well.

Okay. And just one last question, the Enhanced Revenue Collection Programme. Does the estimate for 20 to 25 million benefit for 26 still stand? And can you give us an indication on what the phasing in first half, second half might be?

Yeah, look, it does still stand. It's taken probably a little longer to integrate those systems and all the staffing changes that go with that, but I think it would be a bit of a weighting to the second half. I don't know, my guess is maybe one-third... two-thirds, something like that, as it ramps up, particularly in our largest practice, which is CPL practice in Austin, Texas. So that went live a bunch of months ago. And so that's where we're expecting and hoping that we'll get the biggest bang for our buck just because of the scale of the practice.

Okay, great. Thank you very much. I'll leave it there.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Lowe from JP Morgan. Please go ahead, David.

Thanks very much. Sorry, can I just start with the comment just made about anatomic path in the US and the issues with Aurora? I didn't quite follow what you're saying, probably just me, but if I could get you just to explain that a bit more, please.

What I mentioned was that we, you know, unlike buying one big lab, anatomical pathology involved multiple small labs as part of the Aurora acquisition. And this is not a general comment about the whole division, but in selected cases, if a pathologist or two retire in a small AP lab, you run the risk of losing some business to somewhere else, to a hospital or another provider. That's the only point I was making, David.

Do you think Aurora was a good acquisition?

Yes, you know, because we're still very focused on driving the anatomical pathology space in the US in its own right for the surgical pathology that comes from it. Now with our skin pathology tool, the pathology watch tool, and thirdly, I think there's going to be a big integration between cancer testing and genetics, which I think will become more apparent in the years ahead.

Thank you. Just on the private billing in Australia, and when we're thinking about how it plays out this year, do you think we should assume a volume impact? Usually when you put prices up or put private billing in place, you see some volume impact. Just wondering whether you've seen that or whether you think we should expect that this year?

Not at all. So the way we do this is very, very carefully and we basically sort of sound out individual markets before we take the step. I can tell you that the private billing that we have introduced thus far is very successful and there is no loss of volume. So I don't think it's not an issue.

All right, and then last question from me, a bit more delicate, but one I get regularly from investors. Colin, can I get you to talk about succession planning? I mean, what are your plans for staying with the business, timeframes? It's not a topic that we talk about much, and I know it's not necessarily one that you want to talk about, but can I get you to talk to where you see yourself in the business in the next five years?

Okay, so David, obviously this is possibly market sensitive, can't really talk about it. But just to say that, yes, at some point I'm going to retire, obviously, so is everyone, but mine is closer than most others. And that we have in Sonic Healthcare spent a lot of time, not just at the CEO position level, but at every senior position in the company, working on strategies for succession. So when the time comes, I think we're going to be very well equipped to find a replacement for me and anyone else at senior level, hopefully internally, because that's the exercise that we tend to do at the very senior levels. And we have lots of up-and-coming leaders throughout the organisation who would be well equipped to place me in probably replace me for the better.

Perfect. Thank you very much for that.

Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Sasha Crane from Evans and Partners. Please go ahead, Sasha.

Good morning. Can everyone hear me okay? Yep. Okay, great. Just a couple of questions on the US to start with. I'm just wondering if the 2.5% July growth rate is sort of indicative of where you think organic revenue growth is going to be in FY26, because when you look at... And that's before the New Jersey contract, of course, because when you look at the growth rate in the second half, it looks like it might have been as weak as minus 4%, and we're probably still going to cycle some of those impacts. I'm just wondering how indicative you think July is for the go-forward.

Yeah, look, it's hard to tell on one month, obviously, but it is a bit of a green shoot. There's a whole lot of initiatives that Colin alluded to when he was running through the presentation, so probably a bit early to tell. We think that's probably more indicative of where the market is. I know Quest and LabCorp sometimes quote some bigger numbers than that, but some of that, we believe, has to do with the way they disclose some of their hospital deals, some of which they buy and some of which they take over contracts. It's probably deemed to be organic. So I guess we're hoping that we can get to something like that 2.5%. Time will tell. And you're right, there is a little bit of a cycling, particularly of the Alabama contract loss. We call it a contract. It's actually a, I guess technically it is a contract. It's an insurance contract that just gives you access to to those lives to provide service. You've still got to win the business, but when you don't have a contract, then you can't provide the service. So that will have a bit of a cycling effect.

Is there any way you can provide some quantification of what that contract represents of revenue?

It's not huge, but it affects growth, obviously, because it's at the margin, but... I think we would consider that commercially sensitive. Yeah, it's probably commercially sensitive, so it's something we haven't disclosed formally, so probably shouldn't be disclosing it here.

Okay. And then just on PAMA, your presentation cites that you think it's going to be delayed again. I think there's been some press reports about a change in methodology and maybe the risk of it actually proceeding this time has increased. I'm just wondering if you can comment on that.

Yeah, look, from what I read, I'm not getting that sense, although people have pointed out once again that the data that is being used is erroneous. They polled less than 1% of the labs in the US to get to what they call a market value, and that's why there was all the protesting about it and why it's been delayed so many times. So, yes, there is an outside possibility that they start the whole process all over again and actually poll a majority of the labs. So remember, if you only poll a few hospital labs, you're going to get a much higher so-called market average than you would if you poll the independent lab providers as well. Everyone knows average fees are lower with independents, but I think the majority, the prevailing feeling is that this is going to be brought before the Senate or the Congress, I think in the September sitting again, very shortly, next month, with hopes that it will either be delayed again and there are moves to talk about actually extinguishing it. So I think those two are more likely than than recasting all the numbers, which will be a big process. It's effectively a new bill that's being put in place. It'll be a new bill, which I don't know what its name is. I don't think it's been named yet. They've normally got a little acronym name. It's not that SALSA bill because that's gone. So I just think that what we're hearing from the industry association who have got the ear very close in D.C., is that it'll either be postponed or even extinguished.

Okay, then two more quick questions if I can. Just when you're talking about getting back to market growth in Australia, I guess the first part of that question is, do you think you've lost share in that second half? And then secondly, what do you sort of think market growth is? It looks to us when we look at the Medicare data that some of the yield benefits that have been helping pathology over the last 18 months may have reduced a bit. I'm just wondering what you actually think market growth is going forward, roughly.

Yeah, it's very hard to say, you know, if it's sitting at around 6% or 5%. We have generally, over many years, been at or better than market, even looking at the Medicare data and comparing them to our business, which is not quite apples to apples. Look, I... There's this issue of the collection centres which needs to be raised in the context of this discussion. There is a player in the market who is growing collection centres enormously. That's the number four player and our strategy is actually counter to that where we are closing what we deem to be unprofitable collection centres in favour of opening up standalone, bigger collection centres. And so there might be a bit of switch of revenue in this, but not a profit. You know, so if the number four player is gaining revenue, one has to ask, so what's happening to the profit here? And so we're very happy if that is the reason for a small drop in our revenue growth... there's not an issue there because we know that our drop in collection centres and potentially a small amount of revenue is actually enhancing our bottom line.

Can I ask how much better those standalone centres are relative to one that's linked to a GP practice? And are you still getting the volumes when there's an associated centre with those GP practices?

Okay, so again, this is... bordering into competitive information, but the answer is yes. The standalone centres are very popular and they are very well patronised, including by competitor patients, patients who had a request form for a competitor practice. And they're often preferred by patients because there's usually better parking, there can be open... on weekends for example, and so the strategy that we're rolling out slowly is working and working very successfully. And you know, it also is dealing with this issue of extremely high rents. Remember also that if we exit a collection centre in a medical centre, it's not axiomatic that you lose 100% of that revenue. That's not what happens. So some of that revenue, it is a minority, but a significant minority is actually retained in the standalone centre, despite the fact that it's referred from that medical centre where somebody else might have taken your place, providing a collection centre.

Okay, thank you. And one final question. On your guidance, you've given EBITDA guidance, which is helpful. You don't provide sales guidance. There's a lot of moving parts on the margin at the moment. with the acquisitions in particular. I'm just wondering, based on your guidance and the budgeting on what that is based, should we be expecting margins to be up or down in FY26?

So obviously that depends where you think we're going to – oh, sorry, one of the factors is where you think we will end in our range. So we can't really be too specific about that. The LADR acquisition, as disclosed in our announcements, is lower margin than SONIC's overall group margin, so it will be dilutive in FY26. We probably can't say too much more about that, sorry, on that topic, given we haven't been explicit in the guidance.

The takeaway from those comments suggests that maybe at the top of the range its margins are up and the bottom of the range maybe they're down. Is that fair? It's probably a reasonable assumption in some ways. Okay, I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Steve Wynn from Jordan. Please go ahead, Steve. Steve, your line is open. Please unmute and ask your question, please.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can now.

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I just wanted to ask, you gave us sort of July trading update for the US. I wonder if you could do something similar to other big geographies, Australia and Germany, and just in particular on Australia, can you... Can you... Give us an update as to how you're seeing the impact of the funding cuts for B12 and urine tests.

So Steve, we obviously can't give details because we haven't released that information. We specifically released the number in the US because we see it as a turnaround in revenue growth. I guess all we can say is that we are tracking to budget after July for the whole group. And in terms of Australia and your question about the B12, we are dealing with that, as I've mentioned, on a practice-by-practice basis in different states. It's a combination of strategies, including some private billing. And you can actually get that information by... looking at the websites of our labs in each state.

Okay. So when you talk about the increasing use of private billing, is that related to the strategy for how you're going to deal with the impact of those funding changes?

No. Partially, yes, but not universally. partially and different in different states. So when I speak about private billing, it doesn't only apply to B12. It applies to a whole range of tests that we offer and as I mentioned, it includes tests that are not on the schedule which we must private bill but it also includes other tests that are on the schedule where we believe it appropriate to bill privately.

Okay. I mean, obviously, Mark Butler has a different stance on that. Could you give us some understanding as why you think it's appropriate that that would allow you to charge private billing?

Well, just as a general statement, if Medicare does not pay for a test that a patient wants, or needs, I don't think we should be expected to provide that service free of charge. That's the general principle.

Right. Yep. Okay. And then the other thing I just wanted to see if I could tease out is your comment about the EPS outlook for 2016. Is it possible to get what that would look like without the acquisitions and contract wins just so we can get a better understanding as to what you're anticipating your underlying business is going to do?

Again, we haven't released that information, Steve, so I don't think we can go into that level of detail. The main acquisition is obviously LADR. We've given a fair bit of information around its earnings, etc. Yeah, I'm not sure that we can help you.

Cairo is pretty small, and again, we've disclosed something about that, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to work it out, I wouldn't have thought.

Okay. And then just last one for me, on the collection centre closes, what sort of – I don't know how we sort of put that into perspective in terms of the cost savings for your business – maybe through rent and labour. Can you give us any sort of parameters that we could sort of contemplate to put that into some context for your Australian business?

It's extremely difficult. We've said that we've closed 50 in the year, but we've opened some stand-alones. It's a net number, that. The rents are going to be different in the co-located versus stand-alone. I don't think I can give you any help there, Steve, or don't think we can.

Can you go? Yeah, they all vary in size and how many staff they might have. Too hard a question.

Okay, no problem. Great, thank you.

As a reminder, before we take our next question, please press star 11 if you wish to ask a question. We'll now take our next question from David Sandin from Jefferies. Please ask your question, David.

Thank you very much and good morning, team. A couple from me. Can you give us an update on your views on overall wage inflation growth for the business that you expect in the near to medium term? And I guess whether your reimbursement and volume continues to cover that.

Yes, David, I think that's a good question. So just to give the background, in the post-pandemic years, we went through three years of roughly 5% wage growth compounded, something that hasn't happened, I think, in Sonic's history, certainly for 20 years, which was extremely painful. in terms of the financials and particularly the margins. Inflation has now dropped dramatically and the pressure is right off in terms of salary pressure. And so I think we're very much back to what we would call steady state business where we are growing revenue in excess of labour costs going up and So we have now the capacity again to deliver margin expansion, given that labour is our biggest single cost. It's just a very, very different scenario now from what it was, say, two or three years ago.

Understood. Thank you. Second question. Germany, you've talked about EVM changes. I'm wondering if you're thinking about or there's any indication that of potential GOA change in 2026?

I think our general feeling, and it's probably the feeling of the market, is that the GOA is still, if anything, is still some years away. So certainly no thoughts of having any effect in 2026 or 2027 in our minds anyway.

Thank you. And finally from me, slight increase in tax rate, can you talk to us what's driving that please?

Yes, so we operate in seven different jurisdictions as you know David and so the relative profitability of one of those jurisdictions versus another, high tax rate versus low tax rate is hard to predict. and we don't always get that exactly right. But, you know, it's not a massive difference that we've seen. It's a little, you know, we've reported 27 and a half, I think, versus the guidance of up to 27, so a little bit higher, as you say. But there's no one specific factor to call out. It really is just the combination of earnings of different businesses with different tax rates applicable.

Mr, thank you very much.

Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Davin Delight-Naven from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, Davin.

Thanks. Morning, team. Just a question on, I guess, your earnings guidance into FY26, trying to segregate that between LADA and your underlying business. I heard the comments that LADA total annual revenue is more than $650 million Aussie. But do you give us a sense of what that looks like on a Euro basis, only because FX rates are moving around a fair bit and we just want to compare it to the point of disclosure, which I think was €370 million?

So we did announce the Euro number, as you say, the €370 million, which was at a calendar year December 24. We haven't provided anything to the market since then, but as you would expect, that business is growing.

It's growing at similar rates we would imagine to – you could imagine to our business in Germany, so you could extrapolate where that looks for 26, I think.

Okay, great. Thank you. Next question is on your Swiss acquisitions. I understand the commentary that synergies are largely tracking to your expectations. But again, to sort of help us put that into some numbers to work out the different moving parts into 26, could you give us a sense of what type of EBITDA margins the combined businesses are doing now? Those are the two big acquisitions which you did. Comparing it, I guess, to the base where it was either flat loss making?

Yeah. So we have guided previously to a 20% EBITDA margin. It's just a matter of when that's going to be achieved. And I think my comments that they're largely going to be flowing through in this year, FY26, and also some in FY27. And we are still very confident that we will get to that margin.

Okay. Thanks, Colin. And just one last one from me. And this is sort of bigger picture. I mean, into 26, your EPS... guide is for double digits. I know that's been assisted by FX, but even if you took FX out, it's still a pretty healthy clip of growth. If we think about how you think about the business, I guess, on a three-year view, what sort of type of growth do you expect the business to generate? Historically, that's not the type of growth which Sonic is typically accustomed to. Just curious on your thoughts on what kind of growth you would like to manage to, I guess, in the three of you?

Yeah, look, this is guidance for the next year, which obviously we've got budgets up our sleeve, so it's a bit hard to be disclosing something we haven't disclosed. But, you know, this year we're obviously benefiting, or this coming year we're obviously planning on benefiting from some of the synergies that come from those acquisitions. They won't always repeat themselves going forward. So look, we used to have a history if we were growing our revenue organically at a decent level, which is how it's been for the recent years that we can grow our bottom line at at least that rate or hopefully a bit better. So I really can't say anything more than that really, otherwise we're giving guidance for years beyond 26.

Okay, thanks. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Bailey from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question, David.

Thanks. Just some quick ones from me. You've given 19% EPS at the top end. I'm getting about 8% at the bottom end. Just want to confirm if that's ballpark and correct. And then secondly, just the expected impact of currency at the end of that level. You've given about $70 million at the EBITDA level. How that might wash through for fiscal 26 towards the MPAT level would be great or EPS as well.

That would be good. We haven't put out those numbers though so I don't know that we can really confirm that.

Well I mean you've given the top end. I can kind of work backwards towards that like I'm just wondering if $1.15 or 8% is in the range of below and equally any contributions from currency as you can see at the moment in terms of NPAT for 26.

I guess some of those below the EBITDA line won't change too much the likes of interest and it might be worth me pointing out that just on interest we have made an acquisition of a new building site in Melbourne just at the start of this year. So the interest on that is over about $100 million, and there's a build happening down in Melbourne. So we have part of the reason the interest is up, as well as the M&A, there's the interest on that building. So we've effectively got... interest on the building as well as the rent on the existing building. So for about 18 months, we'll have a little bit of a double up there that will disappear once we move into that new facility in Dockland.

But I don't think we can really – I don't know, Paul, have you – So just on the FX bit, so obviously we use natural hedging, so our jet is mainly in – currencies other than AUD and so by the time you get the net profit, the effect is less. As you said, it's about a 70 million difference at EBITDA. It would be less than half of that at net profit line.

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Saul Hudson from Baron Joey. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Can you hear me all right? Yep. All right. Maybe for Chris or Paul, just following up from David's question before and just to clarify, Chris, maybe what you said. On the interest expense and the growth, based on where rates are now, are you saying it won't have a significant impact on that 15% to 20% constant currency growth? I'm trying to get a sense of where actual interest expense is going to land if we looked at Current rates?

We're talking about current exchange rates? Yes. Current interest rates?

No, current exchange rates. If FX remains where it is, and noting your European debt, whether the 15% to 20% growth in interest expense still stands using current rates, or as in current FX, not interest rates, Or will the interest costs grow by 25% because of the Euro and Sysfrank moves versus the Aussie?

I think that is the safe assumption, that there is a bigger impact there because for the same reason that the opposite effect of the natural hedge.

Yeah, because we've got this natural hedge in place where we have borrowings in the relevant currencies to create that natural hedge.

Yeah, no, I just wanted to confirm that that was correct. Thanks, that's all I had.

Thank you. Okay, thanks.

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions, and with that, we conclude our conference call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

Thank you very much.