Clicks Group Ltd S/Adr (CLCGY) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good afternoon and a warm welcome to the webcast of our annual results for the year ended 31 August 2025. I am Bettina Engelbrecht, Chief Executive Officer of the CICS Group. Joining me here today is Gordon Trail, our Chief Financial Officer. We will be taking you through the presentation of our annual results and respond to your questions after the conclusion of our presentation. This slide sets out the outline we will follow. I will start with the review of our financial year. Gordon will follow with an overview of our financial results. I will take you through the trading performances of our business units, first CLICS, then UPD. And I will then close with the outlook for the group. Please submit any questions that you may have via the webcast platform during and after the conclusion of our presentation. Sue Hemp from our investor relations team will read out your questions to which Gordon and I will respond. I will now commence with the review of the year. At the macro environment level, green shoots are sprouting, such as a slight expansion of GDP growth, the easing of domestic inflationary pressures, and lower debt servicing costs. Although confidence levels are below historic averages, the latest consumer confidence index reported a modest easing of pessimism. Despite some challenges, particularly the high unemployment rate and fiscal constraints, we maintained performance momentum because of our focused results orientation, resilient business model, brain strength, and incredibly loyal Club Card customers. In the year, we delivered diluted headline earnings per share growth of 14.1%. This is comfortably within our guidance range and an enviable return on equity of 49.2%. We are reaping the benefit of the foresight of past leaders who launched our loyalty prog...