IDP Education Limited (IEL) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining the call. I'm joined today by Craig Mackey, who, as you all know, is our Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. As we announced in late March, we've appointed Kate Koch as CFO. We look forward to Kate commencing with us in early October as planned. We're pleased today to be presenting our financial year '24 results. Craig and I will be taking you through these results by referring to the presentation we launched with the exchange this morning. We'll talk in detail to the operational and financial outcomes for FY '24. We'll refresh you on the dynamics in the industry and our strategy to maximize IDP's growth and leadership position. And at the end of the presentation, we will, of course, be happy to take questions as usual. Okay, let's get into it. Turning now to Slide 5 of the investor presentation. We're proud of the results for FY '24, which we believe shows a strong set of numbers and strategic accomplishments in what has been a challenging year from an industry and regulatory perspective. We passed the $1 billion mark for revenue for the first time, which reflects a 6% increase on the prior year. We delivered adjusted EBIT of $239 million, which is a 4% increase on the prior year. This was a solid outcome achieved through a combination of revenue growth and disciplined cost control. Adjusted net profit was down slightly at $154 million given higher interest charges and a higher effective tax rate. From an operational perspective, we again saw exceptional performance in the Student Placement business line with placement volumes up 17%, reflecting strong market share gains. We saw lower IELTS volumes, which were down 18% due primarily to weakness in India, offset partially by continued strong growth in the rest of the world. Our English language teaching continued its long track record of solid growth, with courses up 13%, surpassing 100,000 courses for the first time. And lastly, an expanding portfolio of student placement related services were behind the 21% growth in revenue from other student placement services with the inclusion of P2P services via the TAP acquisition. So the key messages we'd like to leave you with from today's results are. We've delivered another record financial performance for the period, recording over $1 billion of revenue for the first time which highlights the quality of IDP's diversified business model. Our global scale and increasingly unique offering means we're the leading player in large and structurally growing markets. We see strong macro drivers continuing to underpin long-term growth with ongoing strong demand for international study and migration, albeit with some cyclical uncertainty emerging linked to policy settings in key destination markets. We're maintaining a disciplined approach to cost management given the short-term headwinds but are focused on market share and product innovation to ensure we accelerate growth when conditions improve. We have a clear refreshed strategy and a disciplined approach to investment to drive long-term value creation for shareholders. I'd now like to hand you over to Craig, who will take us through the detail of the financials.

Well, thanks, Tennealle. So turning to Slide 7 in the presentation that's been lodged. Clearly, on a profit and loss perspective, the student placement business was a standout performer for the period with revenue from placements up 28% versus last year. There was a reasonably even contribution from each destination within that. And from a revenue perspective, the Australian placements revenue was up 27%, the Canadian placements revenue was up 40%, U.S.A. was up 36%, and the U.K. was up 18%. Of course, we have smaller contributions from New Zealand and Ireland, which you remember we service. Revenue there was up 64% and 100%, respectively. Alongside placements revenue, we also saw strong growth from our student placement related services, which, as Tennealle said, was up 21% for the period. And within that, client engagement with our events around the world was up 34% from a revenue perspective and digital marketing revenue was up 8%. Revenue from English language testing was down 11%, which reflected lower IELTS volumes, partially offset by higher prices across the network. In English language teaching, that, as Tennealle said, had another strong year with nice volume and price growth, particularly in Cambodia, where the combination of two underpinned a 19% increase in revenue in Cambodia. On the cost front, we kept total direct costs flat, as you can see in the result by managing underlying product line costs and also extracting the mix benefit across student placement in IELTS, which combined delivered growth in gross profit of about 8% versus '23 levels. On an overhead cost basis, the number presented on the table includes a number of abnormal or nonrecurring items. And therefore, we have adjusted for these in the reported EBIT and net profit, as we have done in prior periods. The result at an EBIT perspective was $239.4 million, which was up 4% versus last year. Our tax rate was up slightly, just below 30% at 29.3% on a effective basis. And just rounding out the Board declared a final dividend of $0.09 per share for the final period, which is a 70% payout ratio in line with past policies. If we just turn now to Slide 8. So from an operational perspective, placement volumes were up 18%. We had good growth in each destination as part of that. From a volume perspective, Canada was up 31%, USA was up 26%. Australia as the table shows, was up 15% and the U.K. was up 3%. So this obviously reflects a really strong half 1, but a tougher second half as the various policy changes came in effect across each of the key markets. For reference, Page 31 in the pack does provide the split by source and destination for '24 as we've provided in previous periods. From an IELTS perspective, volumes there in the table, you can see we're down 18% and that's in line with the guidance we provided back in June. So as a composition of that, India was down 42% but the rest of the world was up 12% with really nice growth in a range of markets, including Vietnam, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Alongside, some good growth we also saw in the onshore markets like Australia and Canada. To round our volumes, the number of English language courses were up 13%, which was another strong line for that -- strong year for that business line. In terms of pricing, you'll see that it was a highlight for the year. So placement pricing on an average basis were up 10%, and this primarily reflects a nice combination of improving commercial terms and ongoing higher tuition fees. As the quality player in the sector, we're seeing really nice strong demand for our services and clients are leaning on us more to help them navigate the dynamic environment that we're in and the complexity created by these are in policy settings. We're also becoming more sophisticated on how we bundle our services for strategic partners, and that is somewhat reflected in this result. From a testing perspective, you can see that average prices were up 9%. This reflected a 5.5% increase in kind of underlying prices in local currency terms. There was also a mix dynamic, which contributed to the result with lower priced India tests, obviously, a lower percentage contributor for the period. And the pricing also was a little bit above long-term trends, and we would not expect that to be replicated in '25. On that basis, Tennealle, I might hand back to you on Slide 9.

That's great. Slide 9, we take a look at, I guess, the longer track record of performance. And so as Craig has just touched on the FY '24 outcomes, the student placement extends the long track record of above-market growth for this business line. As you can see, over the last 11 years, student placement has delivered an impressive 23% CAGR in revenue. This reflects the positive compounding impact of both strong underlying growth in volume and price. The outlook for average pricing student placement remains favorable. Now as Craig just touched on, while the level of growth we recorded in FY '24, is unlikely to be repeated, we do expect a continuation of tuition fee inflation and improving commercial terms. And just as we look ahead, and Craig touched on it briefly, but I will reinforce, in an environment where supply is potentially constrained, we would expect clients to look to price to manage their economics. So this provides a supportive environment for our fees, which are linked to tuition fees. The next slide is one that we're most proud of. So I'd like to spend a little bit of time on this one. On this slide, you can see the volume growth for our student placement business in FY '24. And these results reflect a very strong outperformance relative to the broader industry. The chart shows growth in IDP student placement volumes relative to the growth in the overall industry volumes as measured by the total student entry bases in each country. For the full year, you can see that the industry declined by an average of 13% compared to the 17% growth that IDP delivered. This outperformance is driven by our relentless focus on quality. This quality positioning is reflected in our operations, underpinned by our direct-to-student business model and our highly trained counselor base. Our scale ensures global consistency in our processes, procedures and systems. And we've built a trusted reputation focused on service and experience. I'll touch on this a little bit further on in the presentation, but this quality focus also extends through to our strategy where we're building an increasingly unique proposition centered on trusted human connection enhanced by technology. Examples of this include our fast lane and peer community offerings, both of which are scaling really well. We shared our visa approval rates with you in February at our interim results, and these continue to be well above industry averages. The detailed information on visa approval rates are provided again for your reference in the appendix to this pack on Slide 32. The message here is that IDP maintains a relentless focus on quality, trust and reputation and we've invested to build an increasingly unique portfolio of products and services delivered at a global scale. As market conditions shift towards an increased focus on quality and conversion, IDP's differentiated and highly trusted business model performs even more strongly, creating unique opportunities for market share gains. Turning now to English language testing volumes on Slide 11. As we signaled at the interim results, the Indian market has experienced a material cyclical slowdown over the last 12 months. Indian IELTS performance primarily reflects the weaker-than-expected market conditions. What we've seen in this market is a confluence of factors across multiple destination markets impacting testing volumes across the entire industry. The India in the testing industry has been materially impacted by regulatory uncertainty and increased visa rejection rates across each of the Commonwealth countries. So if we just step back for a moment and think about it from a test-taker perspective, facing disruption in Canada, uncertainty regarding the U.K. post-study work right regime and higher rejection rates for Australia. What we've seen is prospective test takers have been deferring their international journey until a more certain environment returns. Increased competition has also clearly been a factor due to the opening up of the Canadian market for a limited number of additional tests earlier in the financial year. Now while data on total testing volumes and therefore, market size and share is not available, the chart on the right looks at a directional proxy being international student visa application volumes. Now the chart highlights that during financial year '24, the decline in IELTS volumes was broadly in line with the study broad demand decline. Now a key driver of this overall industry decline was the softness that we've seen for Canada, where overall student flows have been impacted by the negative sentiment flowing from the various changes in that market. I'll pick up on that point and provide a little bit more detail on this a little bit later in the presentation. Our strategic focus during the period has been on brand and marketing leadership, on channel partner engagement and on product enhancements. And just to called out on one of the achievements that we're proud of on product enhancements, in the second half, we activated a range of operational changes that now allow us to deliver faster results for IELTS on computer. IELTS scores from computer tests are now available within two days. In fact, in many countries, including India, we're delivering results within one day. This is an example of the ongoing product enhancements that will improve the test taker experience for the existing IELTS products. In parallel, the partners have a longer-dated product road map, which includes more transformative improvements to the testing experience. I'd now like to hand you back to Craig to take you through some more detail on our cost management approach.

Thanks, Tennealle. So I'll just switch back to close out the financials, turning to Page 12 in the pack. The management team at IDP is highly experienced, and we've got long tenured managers throughout the regions and countries who have full P&L responsibility. That management team across the Board is very experienced managing costs in a disciplined way to ensure that the appropriate balances found to respond to industry conditions while delivering long-term returns to shareholders. The response to the current challenges are evidence of this in the results. We have been managing costs closely since December last year when signs of a slowdown in the sector emerged. This reduction in total overheads in the second half versus the first half, as you can see in the chart on the left. Our approach on overheads has been really twofold. From a nonstaff perspective, we've been trimming discretionary expenditures across a number of areas, including travel, consultancy, IT and marketing, just to reflect the conditions that we're in. And from a staff perspective, you'll remember at June, we informed you of a restructuring program that resulted in the reduction in our total staffing numbers across the network. These activities were designed to size the cost base for '25 that balances our short-term and our long-term objectives. We're, of course, are fundamentally a long-term growth company, and we have a large global footprint. And we have exposure to high-growth emerging markets. We, therefore, need to factor in incremental expenditure to further our strategy and to appropriately reward and retain our highly sought after experienced global staff. So organic accretion in the cost base over time is, therefore, natural and should be expected. The actions we took in '24 will free up space in that operating cost envelope to fund this natural accretion in '25. The net outcome is that overhead costs in '25 are expected to be broadly in line with the half 2 FY '24 run rate on an adjusted basis. We'll, of course, be managing the year and responding to conditions as they emerge, and we'll moderate discretionary expenditure within certain limits if conditions weaken further or increase strategic investment if conditions improve relative to our internal outlook. Turning just to margins on Page 13. You'll see that overall GP margins or gross profit margins were up slightly which is largely a result of mix shift towards SP or student placement. The student placement margins were essentially flat on '24 and '23, 85.3% versus 85.6%. So not much change there, while GP margins were down a couple of percent. That's largely due to lower volumes in India, which achieved a higher overall GP rate than the rest of the network, and we had a higher fee for the fee we paid at Cambridge during the period, which increased above the underlying price increases through the period. On the chart on the right, you'll see the EBIT and net profit margins. They're a little lower than in '23. This obviously reflects the impact of more challenging operating environment, particularly in the second half. But as you can see from the chart, we've managed this business for long-term margin expansion and the experienced team are navigating -- sorry, the [indiscernible] short-term shocks and the cycle that emerges. You would obviously see from the chart that the impact from COVID had on the business, but the sharp rebound in the operating leverage that existed when volumes returned. To close out the financials, we'll just cover the balance sheet on Page 14. The balance sheet remains very strong. Net debt of $150 million which equates to about a half a turn of EBITDA. So plenty of flexibility in the balance sheet to fund our capital requirements. As you know, we have a relatively capital-light business model and our capital allocation philosophy and financial planning prioritizes organic investment. Now that includes a CapEx program that was about $54 million in '24, and we plan to continue that expansionary program to fund the various initiatives that align to our strategy. Aside from organic investment, we remain active in M&A and always monitoring the strategic assets that could accelerate our growth. It's around our capital management, we obviously paid a dividend, which is currently at 70% to 80% of net profit after tax to shareholders. Our business model, as you know, has different working capital requirements across the business lines. So testing has a negative working capital requirement given test takes is pay in advance, while student placement requires working capital, given universities pay after the student commences their studies. The ongoing growth in student placement has resulted in a natural increase in working capital, which is most visible on the balance sheet from the increased contract asset position. And this really reflects the amount of commission income at balance date that is yet to be invoiced due to the timing of the academic cycle. To enhance our flexibility and manage our capital requirements, we did refinance our banking facilities through the year. This allows us to increase the size of the facilities and extended the tenure of 3- and 5-year maturities. So balance sheet is in strong shape. Back to you Tennealle for the next section.

Thanks, Craig. We're now going to spend a little bit of time talking through the industry and the dynamics. Now I understand that there has been some very well-documented views on the cyclical challenges that are being navigated and we'll go into that. But before I do, I wanted to shift gears a little, look through the short-term cyclical elements that we're seeing and take some time to highlight the significant market opportunities. Now the key points here on Slide 16 is that we continue to remain confident in the long-term macro drivers [indiscernible] We believe that current dynamics are shorter term and cyclical in nature. The chart on the left shows the number of international students from our current source countries over time, using a consistent, long-dated time series from UNESCO. You can see on this chart just under 3 million students enrolled in 2021 with a long-range CAGR of around 7% And on the right of the slide from a student placement perspective, our share remains small but growing. Using the latest Visa data, news flows through our destination markets totaled $1.6 million in FY '24. In terms of IDP's position, our overall market share is 6.1%, which is up from 4.7% in FY '23 of the strong market share gains we've spoken about and ranges from 17% for Australia, where we're most mature to 1.3% for the U.S.A., where we see long-term growth opportunities. So just wanted to orient on the long term and the structural drivers of growth that underpin this large addressable market. Moving to Slide 17 and language testing. IELTS remains the leading high-stakes English language test globally. As the most widely accepted test that provides a reliable assessment of language proficiency, IELTS too will benefit from the shift to quality that's occurring. Now the graph on this slide shows total IELTS volume over time and for FY '24. As you can see, total FY '24 volumes were around 4 million tests. Now for those less familiar with the distribution arrangements for IELTS, just a reminder here that both IDP and the British Council distribute the test globally. In FY '24, IDP represented around 40% of global volumes. And on the chart on the right, the call out here is that IELTS performance in total was largely in line with the overall system growth with first half volumes up 12% and second half volumes down 10%. Moving now to Slide 18. We talked at length about the changing regulatory settings in our June ASX release and on the accompanying investor call we conducted at that time. Demonstrating quite clearly the dynamic nature of the regulatory and policy settings in the sector currently, this slide looks to provide a simple summary of the key changes that have occurred since that June announcement and highlight some of the important events, including election cycles, given the political nature of the changes to policy settings. So let's get into this in a little bit more detail, and I'll start with Australia. Now as we're all aware, the high-level details of the proposed caps for the Australian sector were announced on the 27th of August. Now it's been clear for some time that the Australian government has been managing international student volumes within the context of a broader immigration target. This net migration target has been clearly communicated in government policy and budget assumptions. At IDP, we've always viewed the various Visa and regulatory changes simply as levers the government has been pulling to reduce arrivals and increase departures to achieve their overarching net migration targets. At this time, we believe that the proposed cap are just another lever that the government will use to achieve these targets. We're also pleased to see that the caps will be accompanied by a normalization of some of the Visa processing levers that the government has been using in the interim. Now -- and this is really important to note, as with the developments that have occurred in other destination over the past 6 to 12 months, it will take some time for the sector to work through the proposed changes at an institutional level to see evidence of changes to Visa processing and importantly, to assess the impact on student sentiment and demand, and I'll provide a little bit more color on this last point later on. Once these changes flow through in upcoming months, the net impact may well provide greater stability and greater certainty for prospective students and improve the perception of Australia as a study destination. Now as always, IDP's focus will be on working with our students and our clients to see how we can best support them as we have done in other destinations where changes have occurred, such as the U.K. and Canada. If I move now to the U.K., the new labor government has not yet wound back any of the restrictive policies put in place by the previous government, but they have noticeably shifted to a more positive and supportive tone towards the sector and to students more broadly. Now this more positive rhetoric has been greatly welcomed and provides a more certain environment for prospective students. With Canada, students [indiscernible] remains poor. And I will talk to that more on the following slide. Demand for Canada has been impacted by the various changes that have occurred in the market and continues to be impacted by the ongoing uncertainty regarding post-study work rights that are currently under review. And just to round out, the U.S. remains largely unchanged from a regulatory perspective. We are observing some slowness in Visa processing in some key markets, but this appears to be a resourcing issue. So if I bring this all together and take a step back, and share a view of IDP's -- IDP's view of the overall global market for FY '25. Whilst the overall global outlook will continue to take shape as further details emerge, given the recent trends and with all the information currently available we reiterate our view on the overall global market for FY '25. And that view is, assuming no further change in key immigration and Visa policy settings, we expect that international student volumes, as measured by the total number of new students commencing study in our six key destination markets. will decline by 20% to 25% in FY '25 relative to the volumes we saw in FY '24. Incorporated within that outlook is an assumed decline for Australia, which aligns with the recent trends and importantly aligns with the overarching targets within the government's net migration objectives. Now as I stated earlier, it will take time for us to work through the specifics of the proposed caps and other changes but our macro assumptions are still predicated on the overarching policy position, which, at this stage, seems internally consistent with the announcements made today. From an IDP perspective, we do expect to record a decline in volumes in our key business lines in FY '25, but we would expect to continue to outperform the broader market declines that I've just outlined. All right. Shifting gears, I'd like to now bring the voice of the student to this discussion on Slide 19. IDP is uniquely placed in the sector given our direct-to-student model and our unmatched global scale. We work with students throughout their journey from the search and discovery phase right through until enrollment giving us a view of the pipeline 12 to 24 months pre-enrollment. This unique digital and physical platform allows us to capture data and insights that form a key part of our increasingly differentiated and valuable offer to clients and governments. An example of this is the monitoring of early-stage student perceptions and demand using a number of tools and metrics. One survey we conduct semiannually affects student sentiment or perception of each study destination. The last iteration of that survey was in March, which engaged with over 11,000 students from over 100 countries. Now there's a lot of data on this slide and a lot going on. So I'm going to just try and draw out the key highlights. As you can see from the chart on the left of the page, perceptions have been impacted by the various regulatory changes. The most noticeable decline has been experienced in Canada, which has fallen from a leading position in most metrics over the time period shown. Now the chart on the right shows the shifts occurring in relative demand by destination at the very earliest stages of the student journey. What we're looking to do here is show the link between shifts in perception and sentiment and how that translates to behavior changes in terms of preferences at early stages in the funnel. The chart on the right shows the shifts occurring in relative demand by destination at the very early stages of the student journey. The chart shows the share of web traffic on our digital assets that are searching for courses or information relating to each destination. Now in the dark blue line, the share of interest for Canada has been steadily declining with Australia and the U.K. being net beneficiaries. It's also noticeable in the green line to see the pickup in shares for the U.K. post the election and change in government. Now of course, it's early days here and the trend for the U.K. needs to be maintained. But the message that we want to bring here and the chart reinforces this is the pragmatism and willingness of students to choose different destinations based on shifting perceptions of the product offering and the various policy settings. Moving now to Slide 20. We took the opportunity earlier in the year to refresh our global strategy. and to ensure we're well positioned to navigate both the short-term challenges while keeping an eye on the long-term opportunity and our strategic objectives. Our strategy is anchored on our purpose, which is to transform lives through international education. To deliver on our purpose, we're focused on three key pillars: firstly, engaging with more people in more places. And what do we mean by this? IDP spent 50 years building its reputation as the leading global brand for student placement and language testing. We have so much more room to grow, increasing our market share in existing markets and expanding our presence in new geographies is central. The second pillar is the most trusted partner. What do we mean by this? As our global industry increasingly shifts the focus of quality, we will strengthen our leadership position. Our people on the ground are providing world-class support to students and test takers. And lastly, to deliver exceptional outcomes. Our combination of human expertise and leading technology helps us to deliver innovative solutions for students, test takers and clients. Innovation and customer centricity is core to our strategy. I'll now turn to some of the key highlights from FY '24 connected to each of these three strategic pillars. I'll start with our student placement business. Under the first pillar, engaging with more people in more places. From a student placement perspective, our network expansion continued in FY '24 as we opened 15 new offices in key growth markets such as India, Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan. Now we already have the largest client network of any agent, but we have more room to grow. And in FY '24, we added 50 new student placements, including 23 in the U.S. Key U.S. client wins during the year included NYU, State University of New York, Texas State, University of Cincinnati and Miami University. So really strong progress here. Under the second pillar as the most trusted partner. Importantly, we have strengthened our position with clients as their most trusted strategic partner. Our data and insights and expanded product offering is of increasing value as the sector focuses on quality and conversion. And as Craig spoke about earlier, the average price increases in our FY '24 results are evidence of the rising value of our services. And then the third pillar to deliver exceptional outcomes. Now I'll talk to a fast lane in more detail on the following slide, but we're constantly striving to deliver better outcomes, and we're very proud of our NPS, which rose another 7 points in FY '24 to be at all-time highs. Another highlight for the year was the scaling of our Student Essentials product. Now these are an ancillary products and services that students need to commence. And so this would include things like accommodation, insurance, banking and money transfers. IDP works with preferred providers in this area, and we receive a commission for referrals. Now we're in the process of developing, maturing our marketplace model for that business but in the interim, we were able to grow really nicely, so grew by over 90% in the year to $18 million. I'll shift now to our English language testing business and call out some of the key highlights. Under engaging more people in more places, we've been enhancing the functionality of our IELTS by IDP app including a new booking experience, along with a greater range of preparation products. We have 1.2 million downloads of the app in FY '24. This is up 47% on the last year. So again, some great momentum here. We completed a strategic review of the mainland China market. Off the back of that, we are exploring a direct testing model in China. We're at the early stages of this process, but we believe that over time, this will open up additional growth for us as we connect directly with a greater number of test takers and students in China. Under the second pillar, as a most trusted partner, trust is central to IELTS and the rollout of one skill retake is evidence of the large number of organizations that place their trust in this test. IELTS is now officially recognized by over 1,800 organizations. We have almost complete coverage in Australia and New Zealand, and the adoption relap continues in the Northern Hemisphere. And just to round it out to deliver exceptional outcomes. I've already touched on faster results earlier in the presentation. Other outcomes include our enhanced prep offering and ecosystem. Now there's really interesting things in new franchise takers. We partnered with Cambridge to provide test takers in India with free online sample tests in all four skills. This is available through the IELTS via IDP app in India. We also introduced a self-assessment tool for IELTS test takers again available through the app. This tool allows test takers to evaluate their language proficiency and to receive suggestions to improve their English and to prepare for IELTS. This has been really well received. Already, we've had more than 22,000 users complete the self-assessment tool since its launch in May 2024. I'll move to the next slide now and provide a little bit of a deep dive into FastLane. We continue to scale FastLane strongly and proudly hit most of our targets for the year. From a student perspective, we surpassed our offers target with over 32,000 offers, up 83% on last year. So a really strong momentum here. 66,000 students created full academic profiles. Scaling this data asset as part of the FastLane ecosystem is a key program of work for FY '25 as a deeper pool of profiles will underpin and unlock other products and functionality that we're working on. So just as a little snapshot of what those products can be. We are looking at new product features where our clients are able to reach out to preferred students on platform with proactive offers and scholarships. Now products like this are especially interesting and important when you think about an industry dynamic where increasingly IDP's role is to match demand with supply. So we're quite excited about this. From a client inventory perspective, we now have 136 clients, covering over 6,900 courses. We focused on building critical mass in Australia and the U.K., and that's really to ensure we're adding the appropriate breadth or liquidity to the marketplace. We're focusing on priority segments to begin with. Just to give you a sense of where we're at with that. In Australia, we now have about 75% of all universities by number activated on FastLane. The focus will be to continue to build out the course range. And critically, the data asset being built is compounding. We're now at over 100,000 admission rules. A reminder here on these admission rules and why they are such a unique privileged set of data that only IDP has. I remind you that these are previously unstructured entry requirement data that's now sit in a structured way on our platform. Now these typically cover which academic and other criteria is required for each course by each type of applicants. So essentially, what we're doing is capturing and codifying academic equivalency rules to ensure that the grades of a student can be evaluated for each country and often by score or state or province within each country where academic structures differ. Now this allows instant matching to the university's key entry requirements. This unique or privileged data set is one of the data we're capturing that will form the basis of differentiated IDP solutions going forward. In a world of AI, the value of privileged curated and authentic data is amplified and will allow IDP to create differentiated offerings that will deliver exceptional outcomes. So I might finish there and wrap up. And so I would just finish off by saying we achieved a strong result for financial year '24 and what was a challenging year for the industry. Our global scale and increasingly unique offering means we're the leading player in large and structurally growing markets. As Craig touched on, our experienced management team are focused on the levers we can control. We're maintaining a disciplined approach to cost management given the short-term headwinds but are focused on market share and product innovation to ensure we accelerate growth when conditions improve. The company has a very strong balance sheet that has significant flexibility to fund our growth ambitions. We have a clear refresh strategy and a disciplined approach to investment to drive long-term value creation for shareholders. Finally, I'd like to thank IDP's global leadership team and our Board of global teams for their commitment and dedication to being there for our customers and clients when they needed us this most. Thank you all very much for your time today. Craig and I will now take questions. I'll hand you back to the operator to place them into queue.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Josh Kannourakis with Barrenjoey.

Can you hear me okay?

We can. Thanks Josh.

A couple of quick questions. Firstly, just with regard to the outlook statement on the down to 20% to 25%, could you give a little bit more color perhaps around expectations by region and maybe a little bit of further color just around your opportunity for market share gains within each of those?

Yes, certainly. So as we noted, there's a range of changes to policy settings and Visa processing arrangements for the Visa just been announced or are currently being implemented. The impact of a lot of these changes will take a while to quantify. Clearly, lots of moving pieces across each of our key destinations. So when we've had a look at that outlook, we've really taken a careful assessment of the various trends and the dynamics in all countries from both the demand and supply side. And so the way we approached and how we got to that outlook was really an internal bottom-up and top-down modeling and that's where we got to the 20% to 25% decline for the total industry that we referenced in June, and we've referenced again today. To come up with that estimate, as you would expect, we have factored in various levels of decline for each of the destinations. And so underneath that, we would expect each of Australia, the U.K. and Canada to be down around 20% to 30% at a market level. And we expect that our smaller markets of the U.S., New Zealand and Ireland will in aggregate show growth at an industry level next year.

Right. And just with respect to maybe just some -- an extra bit of commentary just around, I guess, your opportunity to share. And I guess, I'm saying that within the context of places like Australia where you have quite a strong market positioning versus maybe some of the other markets where you have more share to either where universities are consolidating panels or greater opportunity to move up the sort of quality -- maybe if there's any other comments on that, that would be super helpful.

Absolutely. And so our confidence in our continued ability to outperform versus the market for student placement is really driven by three factors, Josh. Firstly, it is the client portfolio that we have. So in each of our markets, including Australia, we are over-indexed to higher-quality institutions. These providers always so less cyclicality and through the cycle performance often reflects this. On the other side, source market share. We've touched on a number of times in the presentation. We expect to see a flight to quality in source markets where students and parents will want advice from quality agents that are able to support them to navigate these increasingly complex Visa conditions in each of the destination markets. What we're able to show is the differentiated results that we can achieve for them in terms of Visa acceptance rates because of the quality of our advice and support systems all the way through. And then lastly, product innovation. And so we aren't resting on our laurels, and we've spoken a lot about the unique elements to the models that we're continuing to build out, elements like FastLane and like our P2P community. Clearly, our share is also being driven by our two unique services, our superior lead generation and our higher conversion rates. And so our goal is to be for students, the only place that they would consider coming and I think with those three factors as a backdrop, we continue to be confident in our ability to drive share gains across all markets.

And just a very quick one for Craig. Just you mentioned around the overheads, Craig, around looking at the sort of second half run rate on that adjusted basis into 25%. Can you give us a bit of context around the run rate. Is that the 183, the total in period? Or were there sort of further cost savings towards the end of the half that will sort of cycle into FY '25, the cost base?

Great question, Josh. So the comments I made were clearly anchored to the numbers presented on Slide 12, which the costs presented on an adjusted basis which reflect the underlying operating cost of the business. So the half 2 numbers they are presented are kind of how we look at the run rate on an average basis for the full year for '25. Now as I noted, we have some flexibility in that, and we would adjust as we go. But we have anchored the sort of outlook on that sort of run rate for the current environment.

Your next question comes from Darren Leung with Macquarie.

I just had three quick ones. Just on the Australian 270,000 student cap. So I know it's obviously a bit ambiguous as it stand today. But have there been any sort of discussions with the government that you can kind of provide a bit more detail on in terms of where we should be comparing that against, 2019 or 2023 volumes, just given the uncertainty in the statements that has been released by the government so far.

Yes. Look, Darren, it is a little frustrating that data in the sector is difficult to line up. And you are right that there is no publicly available data sets that allows analysts or the sector to identify a clear baseline for current run rates and levels versus what they have announced. And there are some definitional challenges in the Department of Education and various data sets, which make the comparison more challenging. So we would be reluctant to make a comment on what you're looking for. The information you've seen is what is publicly available, and we wouldn't be making anything further on.

Yes, Darren. And just to build on that, it's all absolutely right. It will take some time to work through the details of what has been announced as a you've touched on, there's more details to come. But then in addition to that, understanding the impact of what flows through in terms of how those caps will be implemented on an institution-by-institution basis. What any corresponding changes to Visa processing rules will happen there, what the implementation looks like? And then really importantly, what all of that means for the impact on student sentiment and student demand. Just to be clear, however, the work that we've done on our internal modeling essentially considers the cap announcement that was made simply as another lever that the government is using in the same way that they've been using rules around visa processing and acceptance rates to really manage the net overseas migration number. So to manage those student arrivals and departures and the Visa flows. And so that's the way we're looking at this announcement and our modeling really moves back to that correlation between the net overseas migration number and the recent trends that we're seeing and that as the underpinning for the outlook we've communicated.

Got it. That makes sense. Second one, maybe just for you, Craig. Just wanted to confirm your comment. Was it overheads in second half '24 is the run rate for FY '25? And if so, I just wanted to confirm, should we expect the usual sort of seasonality in terms of a bit more sort of cost in the first half -- sorry, a bit more cost in second half and a bit less in the first half?

Yes. So I'll repeat what I did state on the call, which did take you through the actions we took in '24 to free up some costs in the envelope to enhance our investment opportunity in '25. The swings and around about some different actions there implies that the net outcome is that overhead costs in '25 are expected to be broadly in line with the half 2 '24 run rate on an adjusted basis. Seasonality, not significant seasonality in the business in '25. Clearly, we'll be watching and managing that over time, but probably a little bit less seasonality than in past periods.

Understand, that makes sense. Just a final one, more of a sort of high level one. Are you able to talk to where you think EBIT margins in the IELTS business are today? And if you can't provide a specific number, maybe where you think that margin will head over the next three to five years in light of your competition comments on this slide.

Yes. Look, I mean, we won't -- at this point, it's not appropriate to provide detailed view of long-term margins. But I think if we look through what's happening in the short term. I think historically, we've spoken about over a 3- to 5-year basis, overall, we'd expect our EBIT margins to continue to expand. We've heard -- you've heard on the call, we see there's lots of opportunity in the student placement business. There's plenty of runway, and we would expect to see IELTS return to the long-term growth trend over time. So margin expansion would be expected when market conditions improve, but I think that's over a 3- to 5-year period.

Your next question comes from Entcho Raykovski with E&P.

So my first question is just a follow-up on market share and the expected market share gains into '25. Do you still expect to see gains in each of IELTS and SA versus that expectation the market declined 20% to 25% in the six destination markets. And if so, if the IELTS, these onshore testing will remain sort of a key driver of those gains?

Yes, certainly. Let me have a go at that one, and I will have a separate conversation on each of our business lines. So if I start with student placement. And so our comments around the focus on market share expansion index much more strongly towards student placement given our market share today is much lower, and so there continues to be significant runway for growth there. Now what we spoke about in the results for the full year, we spoke about the industry volumes in student placement declined by 13% compared to the 17% growth that IDP delivered. Now clearly, our relative performance in FY '24 was exceptional. We're really proud of the resilience of our teams, and I think it really highlights the quality of our counselors and the students we work with. How we -- market share gains will continue into FY '25 for student placement. However, we wouldn't expect this delta to be as significant in FY '25. I just want to be really clear on that. The outperformance that we continue to see, as we've touched on, is driven by our focus on quality that goes through our operations, our direct-to-student model and our highly trained counselor base. So we expect that to continue, albeit not at the same levels that we were able to demonstrate for FY '24. If I then move to how we're thinking about that from an IELTS perspective, an IELTS perspective, what we stated upfront was we expected to record a decline in volumes in our key business lines, but we would expect to continue to outperform the broader market. Now this statement does apply to both student placement and IELTS. Whilst it's fair to say, and this was the new one I was getting to, IELTS is more pegged to system growth given its dominant market share today. However, IELTS does benefit from a very diversified exposure and we'll expect to see that become more evident in the coming year. Now let me talk about that diversified exposure. As you know, IELTS is widely used by students seeking study abroad, but there is also a wide use of other use cases. This includes onshore purposes, such as permanent residency applications, migration, skilled labor, et cetera. And we're also seeing increasing volumes for domestic and interregional purposes in Asia and other parts of the network. And so our view is that these other use cases should provide some offset to the declines in testing it for students looking to study in the main commonwealth countries as we've spoken about.

That's great. And maybe a follow-up on that. Given the recent declines for IELTS in the India market, what percentage of revenues of any very broad terms attributed to that market? And what are you assuming for India IELTS in '25 presumably continues to become a smaller part of the total?

But as we touched on for India, the driver of the broader India market decline has been the weaker-than-expected market conditions. So India has really felt the impact of those confluence of factors that we saw across multiple destination markets. And so it really has been -- and we've spoken about this over the last couple of results, the decline in student sentiment towards Canada underpins by the changes they've seen there and the ongoing uncertainty around post-study work rights. We've seen the impact of dependent Visa rule changes for the U.K. and the increase in Visa rejection rates for Australia. Our view is that India IELTS performance primarily reflects the weaker-than-expected market conditions, and we would expect that to continue to be the case in that it continues to reflect those market conditions until we see changes in the policy settings over time. Craig, you have anything you add at that? Okay.