Woolworths Holdings Ltd (WLWHF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to our 2026 interim results presentation. I'll start with a high-level overview of our performance for the period, after which our Group Financial Director, Zaid Manjar, will take you through the detailed financial results for the half. I will then provide an update on how we're tracking against our various strategic priorities and offer some thoughts on the outlook before we open the floor to questions. To put our results into context, I would like to remind you of our starting point, our recent focus areas, and how, as promised, our initiatives are now driving results. Going back just a few years, we were operating with businesses that had historically underinvested in their back-end capabilities, while still navigating the legacy impacts of the David Jones era. As a result, strengthening our foundational infrastructure was our foremost priority, So in recent years, we've undertaken a series of deliberate initiatives to rebuild and modernize the operating backbone of our group, particularly in our apparel businesses. These investments have materially strengthened our core, creating a powerful platform for sustained momentum and value creation. As you may recall, We also have new leaders in our group, notably CEOs in CRG and FBH and a chief customer officer in Woolworths, all of whom already are having an impact and together with the rest of our leadership team are relentlessly focusing on both leveraging past investments and driving future growth. And we are now seeing this translate into improved top-line momentum. We grew group sales by 6% in constant currency. well above inflation, with each of our businesses outperforming their respective markets over the period. While there was some benefit from a marginally improved macro, particularl...