CVS Group plc (CVSG) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Welcome to this presentation of CVS Group's full year financial results for the year ended 30th of June, 2024. I am Richard Fairman, CEO, and I'm joined by Robin Alfonso, CFA, and Paul Higgs, Chief Veterinary Officer. As set out on slide four, we have continued to make progress against our five-year strategic plan, despite some challenges faced in the past financial year, with a major cyber incident at the end of March, our resulting decision to migrate the majority of our practices to a new practice management system, and the CMA launching a market investigation in May. Revenue increased by 9.9% to 647.3 million, driven by underlying like-for-like organic growth of 4.1% and acquisitions made in the year, notably in Australia. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 4.7% to 127.3 million, with EBITDA margin of 19.7%. Whilst this remains within our stated ambition, it was adversely impacted in the year by the cyber incident, inflationary pressures on wages and utilities alongside our continued investment in people. In accordance with our strategy, we invested 43.1 million in capital expenditure to improve our facilities and equipment and our technology. This investment includes the migration of 375 of our companion animal sites to a new cloud-based practice management system and related technology in support. We successfully entered the Australian market in July 2023 and acquired 22 practices in the financial year, with a further five practices acquired in the UK following submission of briefing papers to the CMA. Combined consideration for these 27 acquisitions was £95.2 million. We achieved an operating cash conversion of 70.5% in line with our stated ambition, and we finished the year with leverage of 1.54 times, well below our stated maximum of two times. As previously annou...