Shawn Burns is Solve the Riddle

  LOV FH25 –a mixed bag (again) Sales up 9% (expecting 10% for FY) PBT up 11% (expect 11% for full year) NPAT + 7% due to tax rate changes and tax loss accounting GOOD Europe and Canada store rollouts were good. GM 82.4% (see below) at a record, LOV explained due to better supplier terms, being careful on promotions, and better pricing. Good result. Inventory looks better after drifting over the last couple of years. Comps 0.1% in 2H but +3.7% in first 7 weeks of 2H. DISAPPOINTING Store rollout was slower than expected, with 47 net versus 60 expected. LOV admitted slower than expected but cadence has lifted in q2. CEO (retiring) predicted more stores will be added in 2025 than 2024, implying over 1000 by year-end, est 1020. So overall, it's a bit slower. The US was a standout disappointment, and LOV forecast that the US should start to pick up in 2H (+2 in fh—low). Store roll-out cadence appears to be picking up, we shall see. Ohio DC (US) opened in August so pa...

  HUB24 FH25—signs of op lev acceleration HUB upped target FUM for FY26 from $115-123B to $123-135B, not a surprise after the fund update a few weeks ago. I'm at an average FUM of $127B for FY26. As can be seen below EBITDA margins are up a lot. 35.1% to 39.8%. The bullish case here would be that HUB is spending all it can on product development and growing sales team etc and is now seeing operational leverage as costs fractionalise with stronger revenues. The bear case is that the strong revenues are due to the bull market pulling forward flows and there was a pause in headcount over the last period that flattered these numbers. Both are true to some extent, but I feel operational leverage is now taking hold as the sheer scale increases. That means that gains will continue but maybe not as large as we have seen in this last result. Class (SMSF admin) also saw operational leverage as it came to life after a stagnant period. However in the scheme of things, Class is much small...

  NOVO NORDISK FY24 Note the scepticism and uncertainty around the latest trial results. Call summary  Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen  --  President and Chief Executive Officer In 2024, we delivered 26% sales growth and 26% operating profit growth. Starting with our focus on purpose and sustainability, we are now serving more than 45 million patients with our diabetes and obesity treatments. This is an increase of almost 4 million patients compared to last year and reflects our continued capacity expansion efforts. In R&D, we had several exciting obesity readouts this quarter, such as CagriSema, semaglutide 7.2 milligrams, and amycretin. These results reinforce our strategic aspiration of developing superior treatment solutions for people living with obesity. For CagriSema, we remain confident in its potent biology and look forward to further exploring its potential and to making it available to patients. Camilla Sylvest  --  Executive Vice P...