Endeavour Group Limited (EDV) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Thank you and good morning everyone. Thanks for joining us today for Endeavor Group's half year 2026 results. I'm joined today by Kate Beattie, our Chief Financial Officer, who was most recently our Interim Chief Executive Officer. I'd like to begin today by acknowledging the Gadigal people as the traditional custodians of the land we're presenting from today and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. I'll start on slide four and speak briefly to the group's half one highlights. In the first half, the group delivered underlying EBIT of $563 million, which is the upper end of the range we provided in our January trading update. In retail, our continued focus on value and price leadership has been embraced by our customers and is delivering both sales growth and market share gains. The market remains highly competitive, and despite a very strong holiday trading period, consumer softness continues to be evident. In hotels, the business continued to perform well, supported by positive trends in food and bar transactions and targeted investment in renewals and new EGMs. Customer responsiveness to our investment in new games and improvements in the gaming experience is fast and links to broader engagement in the venue. This collectively is enabling very strong revenue growth. Moving to slide five, as foreshadowed in our January trading update, the group's underlying earnings were impacted by our decision to invest in lower shelf prices for our customers and also to compete more vigorously against the elevated promotional environment currently at play in retail. Further, in half one, F26, the group incurred a pre-tax net expense of $45 million relating to significant items, and Kate will provide detail on that later in the presentation. During the half,...