PBT up 85.1% but Operating EBIT only +5% on flat revenue

Revenue rose 0.5% to $179.6m on a 3% lift in global case sales, while Operating EBITDA grew 6.4% to $65.6m. Below the EBITDA line, reported operating profit jumped 55.9% to $41.2m, profit before tax rose 85.1% to $32.2m, and NPAT rose 82.4% to $22.8m. Management's own "Operating EBIT" measure was up only 5%.

Operating cash flow fell 17.5% to $62.3m even as EBITDA rose, taking OCF/EBITDA conversion to 95.0% from 122.6%. Capex stepped down 71.9% to $10.5m (5.9% of revenue versus 20.9%), so free cash flow pre-lease lifted to $51.8m from $38.2m.

Net debt fell to $307.0m from $345.6m, taking net debt to EBITDA to 4.7x from 5.6x. The interim dividend rose 7.4% to 5.79 cps.

Cases +3%, revenue +0.5% and Operating EBITDA +6.4% point to modest operating progress, yet PBT grew 85.1% and reported operating profit 55.9%. The release itself frames "Operating EBIT" growth at only 5%. Most of the lift therefore sits in non-trading lines (depreciation, fair-value or FX movements) rather than in margin expansion on wine sold. For someone trying to read run-rate earnings power, the +6.4% EBITDA print is a much cleaner anchor than the +82.4% NPAT print.

Cash conversion deteriorated even as accounting earnings rose. OCF fell $13.2m despite EBITDA rising $4.0m, and OCF/EBITDA dropped 27.6 percentage points to 95.0%. Inventory days rose 5 to 145, partly offset by receivable days falling 10 to 61. This matters because higher reported profit was not matched by stronger cash from trading.

Geographic mix is rotating. USA revenue fell to $79.8m from $90.1m (share down 3.3pp to 21.0%) while Europe rose to $62.5m from $48.8m (share up 3.3pp to 16.5%). The USA decline in the largest export market is the more pressing read.

The supplied second-half shape shows HY25 represented just 31.5% of FY25 revenue, so the business is structurally H2-weighted on revenue. However, FY25 H2 NPAT was implicitly negative (around -$8.1m), meaning the prior full-year NPAT of $4.3m sat well below HY25's $12.5m. HY26 NPAT of $22.8m therefore cannot be straight-lined to a full-year outcome — the outcome depends heavily on how H2 trading and below-EBIT items land. The release commentary excerpts referencing "Outlook" are not detailed in the supplied material, so forward shape remains an open input.

Both reflect underlying business progress.

The less durable elements are larger. The gap between Operating EBITDA +6.4% and reported operating profit +55.9% means most of the PBT and NPAT growth comes from non-EBITDA lines that may not repeat. The free-cash-flow improvement to $51.8m is overwhelmingly a capex effect — capex fell $26.9m, while OCF actually went backwards by $13.2m. That is normalisation of a capital-investment cycle, not stronger cash generation from trading. Inventory days rose against an essentially flat revenue base, which is consistent with stock build rather than sell-through acceleration.

Net of these effects, the read is a single-digit operating improvement amplified into a high-double-digit headline earnings print. ROE rose to 3.9% from 2.3%, but remains low relative to the 4.7x leverage carried.

This briefing cannot assess underlying volume, price and mix dynamics by geography, nor the composition of the below-EBIT items that drove most of the PBT and NPAT growth.