Blis returned to profit with 25.4% revenue growth and NZ$0.7m OCF

PBT growth of 137.2% and NPAT growth of 134.2% both sit above Annolyse's historical baseline, where the three-period mean for both metrics was 55.5%. PBT margin of 3.3% is at the upper edge of the supplied historical range (–39.4% to 5.2%, mean –16.1%).

Operating cash inflow rose to NZ$0.744m from NZ$0.006m a year earlier, and after NZ$0.101m of capex the business generated NZ$0.643m of pre-lease free cash flow — equal to 280.8% of NPAT. Despite that, closing cash fell 11.1% to NZ$3.468m, implying a sizeable outflow into investing or financing items (the cash flow statement references short-term deposit purchases).

Total equity rose 15.2% to NZ$11.713m and ROE moved to 2.0% from –6.6%.

Revenue growth of 25.4% — the upper edge of the historical range (10.2%–28.1%, mean 16.5%) — translated into a NZ$0.9m absolute swing in both PBT and NPAT. With debtor days improving to 31.7 from 38.0 and capex at only 1.7% of revenue, the recovery is being delivered without working-capital strain or step-up investment, which means incremental sales are converting cleanly into earnings and cash.

Cash conversion looks high quality but headline cash still fell. OCF jumped roughly 124-fold to NZ$0.744m and FCF/NPAT of 280.8% reflects depreciation/amortisation running ahead of capex on a small earnings base, plus a small operating working-capital build of only NZ$0.1m. The NZ$0.434m fall in cash despite NZ$0.643m of FCF therefore appears to reflect treasury reallocation into short-term deposits rather than economic cash burn — but the briefing materials do not confirm this.

The effective tax rate moved into the normal corporate zone. ETR of 8.0% is above the historical range (0.0%–5.6%, mean 1.9%) versus 0.0% in HY24. The dollar drag is small at NZ$0.02m, but as profitability scales the effective rate will materially constrain NPAT growth relative to PBT growth in future periods.

Seasonality matters here: HY24 represented only 41.4% of FY24 revenue and –103.7% of FY24 NPAT, so the FY24 result was overwhelmingly a second-half outcome (implied H2 FY24 NPAT of NZ$1.316m). Annualising HY25 revenue gives NZ$11.978m, only modestly ahead of FY24's NZ$11.526m, so maintaining the FY24 second-half shape would require H2 FY25 revenue to step up materially from H1.

This matters because the headline 25.4% growth rate measures HY25 against an unusually weak HY24 base, not against the much stronger H2 FY24 run-rate. The release does not provide enough forward-work or order-book context to assess whether that step-up is in hand.

There are no flagged non-recurring items, no discontinued operation, working capital absorbed only NZ$0.1m of the revenue uplift, and debtor days actually contracted — none of the usual signs that a profit recovery was assisted by balance-sheet timing. PBT growth of 137.2% and NPAT growth of 134.2% differ by only 3.0 percentage points, so tax distortion is not material to the read.

Two qualifications temper the durability assessment. First, the absolute scale is small: a NZ$0.249m PBT means modest cost or revenue swings will move the result meaningfully, and PBT margin of 3.3% sits at the top of an historical range that was negative on average. Second, headline cash fell despite positive FCF; if that reflects a move into term deposits the underlying liquidity position is unchanged, but the release excerpts do not explicitly reconcile the movement.

This briefing cannot assess segment-level margin trends, customer concentration, or forward order-book coverage because none were disclosed in the supplied materials.