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The change has been criticised by Hastings and Rye MP Helena Dollimore, but council leader Andy Woolley said the new fund set up by the council “would provide support to households experiencing immediate financial hardship and to help build longer-term financial resilience, rather than providing universal holiday food vouchers to all families eligible for free school meals”.
Council’s across the country have set up similar schemes.
An ESCC spokesperson said £7.3 million will be spent over the next year supporting residents facing financial hardship including debt advice services, community food support, the expansion of holiday clubs with meals, and help for households with essentials like food and utilities.
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A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said the CRF guidance “makes clear councils can use vouchers to support families with children on free school meals during the holidays and we have written to local authorities to confirm this”.
It added: “Authorities have the discretion to design their own schemes, within the CRF guidance, to ensure the poorest children do not go hungry.”
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for nib’s FY ’26 Full Year Results. I’m Ed Close, nib Group CEO and Managing Director, and I’m joined here in Newcastle by our Group Chief Financial Officer, Nick Freeman.
Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge the Awabakal people, the traditional custodians of the land we are joining you from today. I pay my respects to elders past and present. We are pleased to report a solid FY ’26 group result with pleasing strategic progress, positive customer outcomes, a strong capital position and a more balanced contribution across our businesses. Our purpose of your better health and well-being continues to shape our strategy and guide our people to deliver sustainable value for our customers, shareholders and the communities we operate within.
nib is now a simpler, more focused and more efficient business with a clear emphasis on private health insurance and related services, supported by leading digital and AI capability, strong customer advocacy, our high-performing people and a disciplined approach to risk and capital management. This morning, I’ll cover the highlights, segment performance and strategic progress. Nick will then take you through the financial results in more detail before I return to discuss strategy and outlook. So if we head across to Slide 6, our FY ’26 highlights. It was a year of disciplined execution and meaningful strategic progress
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited (BXRBF) Q4 2026 Earnings Call August 23, 2026 8:01 PM EDT
Company Participants
Samantha Miller – Head of Investor Relations & ESG Richard Fennell – CEO, MD & Director Andrew Morgan – Chief Financial Officer
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Conference Call Participants
Annabel Ross – Barrenjoey Markets Pty Limited, Research Division Kelsey Bentley – JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division Sally Hong – Morgan Stanley, Research Division Andrew Lyons – Jefferies LLC, Research Division Ed Henning – CLSA Limited, Research Division John Storey – UBS Investment Bank, Research Division Thomas Strong – Citigroup Inc., Research Division Carlos Cacho – Macquarie Research Brendan Sproules – Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division Brian Johnson – MST Financial Services Pty Limited, Research Division Christian Mazza – Jarden Limited, Research Division
Presentation
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Samantha Miller Head of Investor Relations & ESG
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for Bendigo Bank’s 2026 Full Year Results Briefing. Let me begin today by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands in which we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. I also extend my respects to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are present on the call today.
Following our recent results announcement on the 18th of August, we have slightly adjusted our approach to the results presentation today. Richard will start with a high-level overview of the key performance highlights. He’ll run through the strategic deliverables and an update on the AML/CTF program. Andrew will then step through the audited financial performance and provide an overview of our credit position within the current macro environment. We’ll then move on to Q&A.
I’ll now hand over to Richard.
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Richard Fennell CEO, MD & Director
Thanks, Sam, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking the time to join us today. We recognize our market release on
Navitas Semiconductor Corporation (NVTS): Navitas makes advanced power chips using gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). These chips convert and deliver electricity with less energy lost as heat. The company started out making phone charger chips, but management has shifted its focus to high-power markets like AI data centers, the power grid, and electrification. ¹
NVTS was one of the best performing semiconductor stocks in Q2. Revenue returned to growth, guidance came in above Wall Street estimates, and Baird more than doubled its price target. ² The biggest catalyst came in June, when Nvidia (NVDA) featured Navitas’ power technology atits Computex showcase. ³ In our view, the real constraint on AI is not intelligence, it is electricity, and Navitas’ chips help deliver it.
Bruker Biosciences Corp. (BRKR): Bruker makes high-end scientific instruments that let scientists study life and materials at the molecular level. Its products include mass spectrometry, magnetic resonance, X-ray, and microscopy systems used in life sciences, biopharma, diagnostics, and semiconductor manufacturing. ⁴
Bruker was a detractor last quarter, but that reversed in Q2 after the company introduced new instrument platforms and pointed to growing semiconductor demand. ⁵ Bank of America raised its price target from $49 to $65, ⁶ and by late June the shares were near their 52-week high. ⁷ In our view, Bruker’s instruments are the tools that turn the physical world into data that AI can use, and the market is starting to see it that way too.
Nokia Corporation (NOK): Nokia is one of the last major Western suppliers of telecom and networking equipment. Its business spans mobile networks, IP routing, and, after its acquisition of Infinera, the optical networks that connect data centers. ⁸
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The market began to see Nokia less as an old telecom company and more as critical AI infrastructure. Revenue from AI and cloud customers rose 49% in the first quarter, with roughly €1 billion of orders from those customers. ⁹ AI data centers need to move huge amounts of data, and Nokia provides the networks that carry it. JPMorgan raised its price target from $14 to $21, ¹⁰ and the stock had roughly doubled year-to-date by early July. ¹¹ The AI buildout is bringing new attention to businesses like this.
Top Detractors
Tidewater Inc. (TDW): Tidewater has the largest fleet of offshore support vessels in the industry and is the oldest and most experienced provider of marine support services to the offshore oil and gas sector, operating across more than 60 countries. ¹²
Tidewater was a top contributor last quarter, and in Q2 it gave some of that back for one reason: the price of oil. The U.S.–Iran agreement took the war premium out of oil, and Brentfell from a high of $126 back below $80. ¹³ Offshore stocks trade with oil, so TDW fell from its April highs even though it remained up nicely for the year. ¹⁴ The fundamentals have not changed: vessel supply is tight, the global fleet is old, and oil is still well above where the year began.
Core Natural Resources Inc. (CNR): Core Natural Resources was formed in January 2025 through the merger of Arch Resources and CONSOL Energy. It is one of the world’s leading producers of metallurgical coal used in steelmaking and high-quality thermal coal used in power generation, and it owns marine export terminals on the East Coast. ¹⁵
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CNR declined along with most coal stocks, even though the business performed well: it beat earnings estimates and kept buying back stock. ¹⁶¹⁷ The Department of Energy also selected a CNR subsidiary to build a pilot facility that extracts rare earth elements from coal waste. ¹⁸ Electricity demand is rising for the first time in a decade, driven by AI data centers. In our view, coal stocks are priced as if their end markets are dying, and the demand picture suggests otherwise.
Antero Resources Corporation (AR): Antero is one of the largest natural gas and natural gas liquids producers in the United States. Its operations are in the Appalachian Basin, and its midstream and liquids infrastructure gives it strong access to LNG export markets. ¹⁹
AR declined in Q2 for a simple reason: natural gas prices fell back toward $3 as the war premium came out of the market. ²⁰ The business itself performed well, with record production and growing volumes expected through 2026. ²¹ In our view, natural gas is still priced as if the electricity shortage were not happening: turbines are sold out for years, data center power needs keep growing, and the fuel trades near cyclical lows.
Portfolio Positioning
Q2 delivered much of the same volatility and unpredictability as the first. We saw investors who charged into oil, chemical and fertilizer stocks on the breakout of war ended up surrendering on talks of a ceasefire. Oil roundtripped to $70 as a combination of higher US exports, lower Chinese imports, “dark transits” through the Strait of Hormuz, and a severe drawdown of inventories made it appear as though nothing ever happened. ²² It is unusual to see such opposite extremes of sentiment occur in rapid succession. We continue to find value in the production of basic materials and think the risk of disruption has not been eliminated.
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Some have compared this period to the 1970s, when oil, inflation, and war in the Middle East were often in the news. We think there may be a stronger parallel to the 1870s, when a handful of industries grew to dominate the economy. The steam engine, railroads, telegraph, and electric grid all transformed how work was done and economic activity organized. We believe the United States is heading into a similar period of industrialization, with artificial intelligence increasingly being used to determine what should be built and how.
The development of that infrastructure is the main narrative today, with hyperscalers estimated to spend $700 billion this year alone and trillions more over the next few years. ²³ That amount of capital flowing through a relatively small number of industries has placed acute stress on various points of the supply chain. Focus has shifted outward from the chips themselves to the surrounding infrastructure. Power has become the defining constraint as our ability to produce chips exceeds our ability to actually turn them on. Power semiconductors, the devices that regulate voltage and current, have seen demand inflect sharply higher as new generations of chips require increasingly more power.
Outside the datacenter wall, companies face a shortage of heavy electrical equipment and grid interconnection has become a logjam. Multi-year tie-in times are pushing companies to build their own power, and even that has become subject to delays. Heavy duty gas turbines are sold out for years with manufacturers reluctant to expand capacity after getting burned in past cycles. ²⁴ Customers have started trading performance for speed of access, using less efficient but readily available gas engines instead. Meta (META) is proposing to string together over 800 reciprocating engines for a data center in El Paso ²⁵ and xAI took a similar approach in Memphis, opting to deploy dozens of mobile gas turbines. ²⁶
We think nearly all of these solutions highlight the importance of natural gas. It is the largest source of electricity in the United States, providing roughly 40% of supply. ²⁷ We are blessed with an abundance of it, over 500 Tcf of reserves versus 40 Tcf of annual production. The majority is concentrated in two regions, Texas and Appalachia, and can be produced for less than $4/mcf. But gas is not easy to transport and needs dedicated pipelines or to be converted to a liquid and shipped. Prices are thus dictated by local availability and can vary widely by region. In Europe or Japan, where production is low and they depend on foreign imports, prices can be quite high by global standards. In the US or Canada, where supplies are plentiful, production in one region can often exceed not only local demand, but also the ability to export the surplus, creating pockets of very cheap supply. Prices even went negative in parts of Texas this year as associated gas from increased oil drilling overwhelmed takeaway capacity. ²⁸
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Moving gas from where it is cheap to where it is expensive can be a profitable business, and the companies that build and operate these pipelines have a portfolio of attractive expansion opportunities. But even those take time, and rather than wait for pipes some buyers are simply moving the datacenter. Chevron (CVX) signed an MOU with Microsoft (MSFT) for a multi-gigawatt facility directly in the Permian basin. ²⁹ Meta announced a $10 billion datacenter in Alberta, looking to take advantage of low Canadian gas prices. ³⁰
We like to think of natural gas reserves as crude electricity that’s still in the ground. The spread between what it costs to produce and what it can ultimately be sold for in fully refined form is immense. Mark Zuckerberg recently offered his company’s AI model 75% cheaper than competitors, explicitly calling out their excessive profit margins. ³¹ We believe AI companies will be able to charge much less for their services (and pay much more for power) and still be very profitable. Large, low-cost reserves of this “electricity juice” strike us as strategically valuable, and today’s low prices may prove a temporary phenomenon as inadequate infrastructure gets solved with time and money. Many natural gas producers are trading at valuations that appear reasonable even at current gas prices.
The desperation to access power even leads us to see additional value in much-maligned coal. While its metallurgical uses are the most widely appreciated, we think a shortage of power may force a rethink of the aging and retiring workhorses that still provide nearly 20% of our electricity. Asia continues to build coal-fired generation, unburdened by Western environmental concerns, and we think the reports of thermal coal’s death are greatly exaggerated. This focus on power at all costs also strengthens our enthusiasm for uranium. We have written about the case for nuclear in these letters for the better part of a decade. Those investments are longer duration and more capital intensive than other forms of generation, but from a pure energy density standpoint uranium is hard to beat. Large, low-cost sources of current and potential uranium supply appear well positioned in that environment.
For the last few quarters we have discussed our belief in an impending scientific revolution as AI gets applied to challenges in the physical world. Frontier models are already solving longstanding problems in mathematics and conducting cutting edge research in physics and biology. We highlighted Bruker last year as an out of favor scientific equipment maker well positioned for this transition. Companies with large installed bases of scientific tools should also benefit as AI gets paired with their existing equipment.
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We have seen a reimagining and repurposing of capacity is taking place across a wide variety of industries, especially those involved in manufacturing. Automakers are looking outside of autos to increase their returns on assets. After taking a bath on electric vehicles, Ford (F) decided that its battery facilities could instead be used to serve stationary storage markets for data centers and the grid. Stellantis (STLA), the struggling European automaker, struck a deal with a Chinese manufacturer to utilize excess capacity, and GM is in talks with Lockheed Martin (LMT) about manufacturing parts for weapons systems. Hyundai (HYMTF) owns Boston Dynamics, a leading US robot developer. Humanoid robots are large, complex machines with thousands of precision parts, exactly what an auto plant knows how to manufacture at scale. Legacy technology firms are also getting a second look. Nokia, until recently an unloved telecom play, saw a dramatic revaluation as investors looked past its historical end markets toward its ability to satisfy future optical networking needs. We are finding many interesting opportunities in companies where investors are overly focused on the past.
The big corporate news this quarter was the SpaceX (SPCX) IPO raising $85 billion and hitting a $2 trillion valuation, making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. ³²³³ The burgeoning space economy is one we have touched on in past letters and the large aerospace and defense companies remain an area of interest, especially after their recent weakness. If this really is the dawn of the space age, the handful of companies that have been operating there for decades may be well positioned. More broadly, we see enduring value in physical infrastructure: hard assets with high replacement costs that benefit from grandfathered rights-of-way, difficult permitting requirements, or control of scarce resources. This is a fascinating moment in history where entire industrial supply chains are being repriced.
We continue to see tremendous value in metals and mining companies, some of which sold off during the quarter on fears of higher interest rates. We believe central banks will find it increasingly difficult to address inflation with higher rates, because much of that inflation is not being driven by broad-based economic activity. Demand is coming from a concentrated segment of the economy and the shortages emerging across energy, materials and industrial infrastructure are supply problems meeting this new source of demand. If higher rates don’t affect that demand, inflationary pressure will continue until the necessary investments to increase supply are made.
It is hard not to be amazed at the pace of technological progress we are seeing. At Old West we follow these developments closely. Our AI “interns” are hard at work building models and reviewing company earnings reports and conference calls. Tasks that used to take hours or days can now be done in seconds or minutes, and for hundreds of companies at a time. It may still be a few years before these robotic assistants are bringing us coffee, but automating much of the mechanical work allows us to spend more time on higher value activities.
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We are pleased with our performance in the first half and think we are well positioned for the next few years. We welcome the opportunity to discuss our ideas in more detail with prospective investors. Please reach out if you would like to set up a call.
30 https: //www. cnbc. com/2026/07/08/meta-is-building-its-first-big-data-center-in-canada-amid-ai-push. html
31 Mark Zuckerberg Is Spending Hundreds of Billions on AI. His New Strategy in the Race Against OpenAI Is Surprisingly Simple.
32 SpaceX IPO Officially Raised $85 Billion
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33 https: //www. cnbc. com/2026/06/12/spacex-stock-jumps-2-trillion. html
Disclosures
This commentary is being made available for educational purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose. In addition, the information contained herein does not constitute and should not be construed as an offering of advisory services or an offer to sell or solicitation to buy any securities or related financial instruments in any jurisdiction. References to particular securities are only for the limited purpose of illustrating general market or economic conditions and/or to express the firm’s investment philosophy and process and are not recommendations to buy or sell a security, or an indication of the author’s holdings. Such securities may or may not be in one or more managed accounts from time to time. Certain information contained herein concerning economic trends and performance is based on or derived from Old West and/or information provided by independent third-party sources where referenced.
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Old West Investment Management, LLC (“Old West”) believes that the sources from which such information has been obtained are reliable; however, it cannot guarantee the accuracy of such information and has not independently verified the accuracy or completeness of such information or the assumptions on which such information is based.
This commentary, including the information contained herein, may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or posted in whole or in part, in any form without the prior written consent of Old West.
Old West Investment Management, LLC is an independent investment management firm established in 2008. Old West Investment Management, LLC manages a variety of equity and alternative assets for individual and institutional clients. Additional information regarding the firm’s policies and procedures for calculating and reporting performance returns is available upon request.
Nuclear-powered submarine sustainment operations will sit in the middle of the Henderson precinct, flanked by non-defence operations, under finalised site plans presented by the Prime Minister in Perth today.
SYDNEY — The S&P/ASX 200 climbed 42.8 points, or 0.47%, to 9,101.7 as of 2:58 p.m. AEST Monday, as strength across the mining sector and a standout profit result from fuel retailer Ampol offset weakness in banks and insurers heading into the final week of Australia’s corporate earnings season.
The benchmark opened the session only marginally higher, up just 0.1% to 9,071 points at 10:15 a.m. AEST, according to ABC News’ live market coverage, with miners in the basic materials sector and healthcare stocks leading the early gains while banks and insurers weighed on the index by weighting. By 11 a.m., the ASX 200 had extended its advance to 0.6%, reaching 9,110 points, with the broader All Ordinaries index posting a similar gain as big miners continued to drive the session’s momentum.
Fuel retailer Ampol delivered one of the standout results of the morning, with its integrated business model capitalizing on global product market dislocation to deliver a profit surge well ahead of analyst expectations. According to Market Index’s live coverage, Ampol’s replacement cost operating profit EBITDA rose 152% to $1.637 billion, beating Macquarie’s estimate of $1.603 billion by 2%, while replacement cost operating profit EBIT climbed 245% to $1.392 billion, a 3% beat, driven largely by the company’s Fuels and Infrastructure division, which surged 859% to $1.135 billion as its Lytton refinery swung to a $533.4 million contribution from just $1.1 million the prior year. Ampol’s replacement cost net profit after tax rose 376%, according to the same report.
Regional lender Bendigo and Adelaide Bank also reported results Monday, posting full-year statutory profit of $375 million, in line with analyst estimates. On the bank’s preferred cash earnings metric, which strips out one-off gains and losses, profit rose a modest 3.0% to $530.2 million against estimates of $532 million, while second-half cash earnings of $273.8 million matched forecasts of $274 million almost precisely, according to Market Index. ABC News reported that second-half momentum showed greater strength specifically, with cash earnings up 7% to $274 million for that period.
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Lithium miner Pilbara Minerals delivered one of the day’s more dramatic turnaround stories, reporting a full-year profit of $526 million after posting an almost $200 million loss the previous year. According to ABC News, sales revenue jumped 150% to almost $2 billion, driven in large part by a 120% increase in realized prices over the year. The company kept costs lower and will pay a full-year dividend of 5 cents per share, having skipped a dividend payment entirely the previous year.
Quick-service restaurant operator Guzman y Gomez drew renewed analyst attention Monday following its recent earnings result. According to The Motley Fool Australia, Bell Potter downgraded the stock to a hold rating with an improved price target of $27.30, even as the broker praised the company’s underlying performance. “While we think GYG is a clear leader in the QSR space after displaying strong comp sales growth, margin expansion, and further network growth opportunities, we see near-term cost headwinds and a consumer slow-down as a risk to FY27 guidance and view the current multiple as fairly valued. While we increase our PT ~11%, it is only a modest premium to the share price, so we downgrade to HOLD,” Bell Potter said.
Alcohol retailer Endeavour Group also featured prominently in Monday’s earnings coverage, with management fielding investor questions about the durability of retail momentum and softening trade at its hotels division. According to Market Index, the company addressed its planned $100 million in cost reductions for fiscal 2027, noting that wage growth for the coming year is “quite materially elevated, and therefore the AUD 100 million of cost out will go to largely offset it, but will not drive more than an offset.” Management also cautioned that the strong 4.6% start to retail sales in the new fiscal year had been flattered by heavy promotional activity, saying, “I hadn’t seen a 20% off before, and hopefully we don’t s—,” a comment cut off in the live coverage transcript. The company reported inventory down 11% to $24.1 million and a net cash position of $5.2 million, having repaid all borrowings, while noting fiscal 2027-to-date same-store sales across Australia and New Zealand were up 11.4% over the first seven weeks, even as online sales declined 8% amid reduced promotional activity.
Gold miners were positioned for a strong start to the week, with Capricorn Metals and other gold-exposed names expected to benefit from continued strength in the precious metal, according to The Motley Fool Australia’s preview of Monday’s session. Meanwhile, early trading saw oil prices slip roughly 1%, or about $1 a barrel, across key global benchmarks, while gold prices edged higher.
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Investors are now heading into the final week of the current August reporting season, a stretch ABC News described as likely to prompt analysts to trim some earnings forecasts, even though the season overall has been far from disastrous. Discretionary spending-focused stocks have faced a particularly difficult stretch throughout the reporting period, and this week’s calendar includes further releases from consumer-facing companies including Wesfarmers, Harvey Norman, Qantas and Domino’s Pizza, all of which could produce significant share price swings depending on how their results land relative to expectations. Coles is also scheduled to report this week, according to ABC News’ preview of the coming sessions.
Numerous stocks traded ex-dividend Monday, a technical adjustment that tends to weigh modestly on individual share prices independent of broader market sentiment, according to ABC News’ market notes.
With the ASX 200 continuing to trade well below its all-time high of 9,198.6 points reached in February, but having recovered meaningfully from its closer-to-8,800 level in July, investors are likely to remain focused for the remainder of the week on how the final wave of major consumer, retail and travel-sector earnings reports shapes the index’s trajectory heading into September, as the current reporting season draws to its conclusion.
Nathalie Ahlstrom – MD, CEO & Director Fred Marx – Acting CFO, VP of Corporate FP&A, Strategy and Transformation
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Conference Call Participants
Dan Hurren – MST Financial Services Pty Limited, Research Division Saul Hadassin – Barrenjoey Markets Pty Limited, Research Division David Bailey – Morgan Stanley, Research Division Laura Sutcliffe – Citigroup Inc., Research Division Craig Wong-Pan – RBC Capital Markets, Research Division Andrew Paine – CLSA Limited, Research Division Vanessa Thomson – Jefferies LLC, Research Division David Low – UBS Investment Bank, Research Division Christine Trinh – Macquarie Research
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Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Ansell Limited FY ’26 Full Year Results Briefing. [Operator Instructions] And finally, I would like to advise all participants this call is being recorded. Thank you.
I’d now like to welcome Nathalie Ahlstrom, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, to begin the conference. Nathalie, over to you.
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Nathalie Ahlstrom MD, CEO & Director
Thank you, operator, and welcome, everybody. It’s a privilege to be here today together with Fred and walk you through our fantastic strong year, financial year ’26, equally also then talking about the outlook and then having the Q&A together with you. So we’ll start with looking at the performance and then as I said, coming to the Q&A.
Starting with the purpose. We have a really strong purpose. It’s an emotional purpose. It’s a powerful purpose and this leading the world to a safer future. This is who we are. This is our business. This is what it’s all about. And that’s how we translated it then also to our financial year ’26, and that’s how we are bridging then the strong momentum to financial year ’27.
But let’s start with the highlights of the year. As I said, the highlights is
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