UK Stocks

Last Updated: 13 September 2026

Babcock International Group plc (LSE: BAB) is a defence and nuclear engineering-services group. It does not primarily sell equipment; it maintains, refits, upgrades and operates other people's equipment and infrastructure, from nuclear submarines at Devonport and HMNB Clyde to military flying training in France and the UK. Defence and nuclear together account for roughly 80% of revenue. FY2026, the year to 31 March 2026 reported on 22 June 2026, produced statutory revenue of £5,177.7m, up 8% organically, and underlying operating profit of £293.3m — a figure held down by a £140.0m charge on the Type 31 frigate programme. Excluding that charge, underlying operating profit was £433.3m, up 19%, at an 8.2% margin that beat the company's own 8.0% target. Underlying free cash flow rose 71% to £261.8m, net debt fell to £329.0m, and the dividend was raised 15% to 7.5p. This report sets out the reported figures, the programme pipeline, and what the numbers currently imply — without analyst opinions or price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker / exchange	BAB.L — London Stock Exchange (ISIN GB0009697037)
Sector	Aerospace & Defence, specifically defence and nuclear engineering services
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
CEO / Leadership	Harry Holt (Chief Executive since 31 July 2026, previously CEO of the Nuclear sector and Deputy CEO from 1 April 2026); David Mellors (Chief Financial Officer). David Lockwood OBE, CEO from September 2020, stepped down on 31 July 2026 and remains with the company until retirement at the end of January 2027
Employees	Approximately 29,000, split roughly Nuclear 11,100, Marine 7,500, Land 6,000 and Aviation 2,600. FY2026 intake included 500 apprentices and more than 260 graduates, the largest UK intake to date
Revenue (FY2026, statutory)	£5,177.7m for the year ended 31 March 2026, up 7.2% as reported and 8% organically at constant currency. Excluding the Type 31 revenue reversal of £95.5m, revenue was £5,273.2m
Underlying operating profit (FY2026)	£293.3m at a 5.7% margin; £433.3m at an 8.2% margin excluding the £140.0m Type 31 charge, against a company target of 8.0%
Net income (FY2026)	£211.2m attributable to owners of the parent; basic statutory EPS 42.1p, underlying EPS 39.6p
Contract backlog	£9.8bn at 31 March 2026, down from £10.4bn a year earlier, excluding roughly £2.8bn of framework orders. Approximately 70% of FY2027 revenue was already under contract at 1 April 2026
Dividend	7.5p for FY2026, up 15%, comprising a 2.5p interim and a 5.0p final payable 25 September 2026
Fiscal year end	31 March

2. The Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Nuclear is doing the heavy lifting: the Nuclear sector generated £2,070.4m of FY2026 revenue, 40.0% of the Group, with underlying operating profit up 23% to £197.1m at a 9.5% margin and 14% revenue growth at constant currency. It is already operating above the Group's medium-term margin target.
• The margin target was beaten on the underlying business: excluding the Type 31 charge, the FY2026 underlying operating margin was 8.2% against a stated 8.0% target, up 70 basis points, with underlying operating profit up 19% to £433.3m. The medium-term target of at least 9% therefore requires continuation rather than transformation.
• The balance sheet has been rebuilt: net debt excluding leases was just £22.7m at 31 March 2026 on covenant-basis leverage of 0.2x against a 3.5x covenant maximum, with £739.9m of cash and roughly £1.4bn of total facilities. Underlying free cash flow rose 71% to £261.8m, funding a 15% dividend increase and two consecutive £200m buybacks.
• Revenue visibility is unusually high for the valuation: approximately 70% of FY2027 revenue was already contracted at 1 April 2026, on top of a £9.8bn backlog and £2.8bn of framework orders excluded from it. The company describes UK civil nuclear alone as a £25–30bn addressable opportunity to 2050.

Bear Case

• Type 31 has now been written down twice: the £140.0m FY2026 charge, covering the entire remaining cost to complete after higher-than-expected rework on ship one, follows a £90m charge on the same programme disclosed in FY2024. Two write-downs on one fixed-price contract in three years is a pattern, not an accident.
• The largest support contract is running on a bridge: the £3.5bn Future Maritime Support Programme expired on 31 March 2026 and has been operating under a six-month bridging agreement since 1 April 2026. The replacement, known as Gateway, was only at Letter of Intent stage with a target of finalisation by October 2026 — weeks away.
• Backlog is shrinking: contract backlog fell from £10.4bn to £9.8bn over FY2026, with Marine down £220m, Nuclear down £191m and Land down £379m. Only Aviation grew. Revenue cover is being consumed faster than it is being replaced.
• Single-customer concentration is structural, not cyclical: defence and nuclear are roughly 80% of Group revenue and Nuclear alone is 86% UK defence. Babcock's own principal risk disclosure describes markets "characterised by a relatively small number of major customers, which are owned or controlled by local or national governments". Management has explicitly flagged the delayed publication of the UK Defence Investment Plan as a source of uncertainty.
• International wins remain frameworks rather than firm orders: Babcock was not selected for Sweden's Luleå Class programme in late May 2026, and the Indonesia Maritime Partnership Programme, Denmark, Poland and the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project all remain frameworks, memoranda or teaming agreements. The export thesis is not yet in the order book.

3. Revenue Segments

Babcock reports through four sectors. The percentages below are of FY2026 statutory revenue of £5,177.7m for the year ended 31 March 2026.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Nuclear	40.0% (£2,070.4m)	Submarine deep maintenance and refits at Devonport, base operations at HMNB Clyde, submarine defuelling and dismantling, AWE plant work, and civil nuclear at Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C. Underlying operating profit £197.1m, up 23%, at a 9.5% margin; 86% UK defence, 14% UK civil; approximately 11,100 employees
Marine	30.7% (£1,591.5m)	Type 31 frigate construction at Rosyth, Royal Navy surface fleet support, missile compartments for the Columbia and Dreadnought programmes, Skynet satellite operations and LGE cryogenic systems. Reported an underlying operating loss of £29.8m after the £140.0m Type 31 charge; excluding it, profit of £110.2m, up 14%, at a 6.5% margin. Revenue split 48% UK defence, 29% international defence, 23% civil
Land	20.9% (£1,084.4m)	British Army vehicle support under the £1bn DSG contract, Jackal 3 and light utility vehicle production, mission systems, and civil businesses in rail and South Africa. Underlying operating profit £95.3m, up 11%, at an 8.8% margin. Revenue fell 3% at constant currency as civil businesses shrank
Aviation	8.3% (£431.4m)	Military flying training including the 17-year French Mentor 2 contract and the RAF Light Aircraft Flying Task, emergency services aviation in Canada and Australia, and Ukrainian pilot training. Underlying operating profit £30.7m, up 54%, at a 7.1% margin; the fastest-growing sector at 34% constant-currency revenue growth

4. Business Model & Moat

How it makes money. Babcock earns fees for keeping complex, safety-critical assets available and serviceable over multi-decade contracts, rather than for selling hardware. Most revenue arrives through long-term support agreements with the UK Ministry of Defence and government-owned nuclear bodies, with pricing set as a mix of cost-plus, target-cost and firm-price arrangements. The consequence is visible in the numbers: approximately 70% of FY2027 revenue was already contracted at 1 April 2026, and the £9.8bn backlog represents close to two years of revenue before any new award.

Why the position is defensible. The moat is licence, infrastructure and clearance rather than intellectual property. Babcock is the sole provider of deep maintenance for UK nuclear submarines at Devonport, operates HMNB Clyde, and is one of only two UK naval shipbuilders. Replicating that requires nuclear-licensed docks, a security-cleared workforce and decades of regulatory history — which is why the reopening of 15 Dock at Devonport, restoring twin-stream submarine maintenance, is a strategic event rather than a maintenance milestone.

Where the model breaks. The same contract structure that provides visibility transfers execution risk onto Babcock wherever pricing is firm. The Type 31 programme is the clearest illustration: a fixed-price frigate build that absorbed a £90m charge in FY2024 and a further £140.0m in FY2026, the latter covering the entire remaining cost to complete after rework during the outfitting of ship one. Services revenue carries steadier margins; new-build construction is where the accounting surprises originate.

What it does with the cash. Underlying free cash flow of £261.8m in FY2026, up 71%, funded £34.7m of dividends and £155.3m of share buybacks, with net debt including leases cut to £329.0m. Management's medium-term framework is mid-single-digit organic revenue growth, an underlying operating margin of at least 9%, and average underlying operating cash conversion of at least 80% — FY2026 delivered 84% excluding the Type 31 charge.

5. Financial Health

All figures are taken from Babcock's audited results statements and Annual Reports. Babcock's fiscal year ends 31 March, so FY2026 is the year ended 31 March 2026. Statutory and underlying revenue are identical in every year shown; Babcock's adjusting items affect profit, not the revenue line.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022	£4,101.8m	+3.3%	32.5p	30.7p	Nil	£847.7m
FY2023	£4,438.6m	+8.2%	(6.9)p	17.7p	Nil	£768.4m
FY2024	£4,390.1m	−1.1%	32.9p	30.8p	5.0p	£747.1m
FY2025	£4,831.3m	+10.0%	49.1p	50.3p	6.5p	£750.7m
FY2026	£5,177.7m	+7.2%	42.1p	39.6p	7.5p	£474.9m

Adjusted EPS is Babcock's "underlying basic earnings per share", which excludes amortisation of acquired intangibles, acquisition and divestment items and fair-value movements on derivatives. The FY2023 statutory loss of 6.9p per share reflects impairments and disposal losses in that year. Dividends were suspended through FY2021 to FY2023 and reinstated in FY2024. Long-term debt is the non-current bank and other borrowings line and excludes lease liabilities, which were a further £254.2m non-current at 31 March 2026; the FY2026 fall reflects the £300m bond maturing 5 October 2026 reclassifying into current borrowings rather than repayment.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 FY2026 (to 30 Sep 2025)	£2,538.6m	28.5p	33.7p
H2 FY2026 (derived, to 31 Mar 2026) †	£2,639.1m	11.1p	8.4p
H1 FY2025 (to 30 Sep 2024)	£2,408.9m	23.5p	25.7p
FY2026 (full year to 31 Mar 2026)	£5,177.7m	39.6p	42.1p

† Babcock reports half-yearly and does not publish quarterly accounts. The H2 FY2026 line is derived by subtracting reported H1 FY2026 figures from reported FY2026 totals; it is not a separately published statement. The weak derived second half is almost entirely the £140.0m Type 31 charge, which was announced on 13 May 2026 and booked at the year end. Note also that the interim statutory EPS exceeded underlying EPS in H1 FY2026 because fair-value derivative movements were a credit in that period.

Balance sheet and cash flow at 31 March 2026, from the FY2026 results statement. Non-current bank and other borrowings were £474.9m and current borrowings £316.0m, with total lease liabilities of £307.3m, against cash and cash equivalents of £739.9m. Company-reported net debt was £329.0m including leases and £22.7m excluding them, on covenant-basis leverage of 0.2x against a 3.5x covenant. Total equity was £629.3m. In FY2026, net cash flows from operating activities were £402.4m, purchases of property, plant and equipment and intangibles totalled £160.3m, and depreciation, amortisation and impairment added back in the cash flow statement totalled £145.6m — comprising £67.5m on property, plant and equipment, £50.4m on right-of-use assets and £27.7m on intangibles. The covenant calculation uses a narrower £85.2m. The net retirement benefit position was a £34.0m deficit, worse than the £8.4m deficit a year earlier, with roughly £25m a year of deficit contributions modelled.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	2.11% of issued share capital, position date 9 September 2026, per the Financial Conduct Authority's aggregated net short positions file. The trend has hovered between 1.80% and 2.73% since July 2026. Do not use US aggregator figures for this line — those describe the OTC depositary receipt, not the London ordinary shares

The single most important judgement in this table is whether to value Babcock on reported FY2026 earnings or on earnings excluding the Type 31 charge. The gap is wide — 22.9x against 16.0x — and the charge was stated to cover the entire remaining cost to complete on that programme, meaning it should not recur on Type 31. It is also the second such charge on the same contract in three years. Both figures are shown so the reader can decide. Scheduled macro releases that may move UK defence names are listed on the ChartsView Economic Calendar.

7. What Are They Building

Naval shipbuilding and exports. Five Type 31 Inspiration Class frigates are in build at Rosyth, with ships one and two floated off, the keel laid for ship three and steel cut for ship four. The programme is typically under 4% of Group revenue but has absorbed £230m of charges across FY2024 and FY2026. The export derivative, Arrowhead 140, underpins the up-to-£4bn Indonesia Maritime Partnership Programme framework signed in November 2025 plus a Letter of Intent for two further licences, a strategic cooperation agreement with Poland's PGZ, and an ongoing Danish evaluation. The smaller Arrowhead 120 was not selected for Sweden's Luleå Class in late May 2026.

Submarines and the deterrent. Rosyth delivered a record 12 missile tube assemblies in FY2026 for the US Columbia Class and UK Dreadnought programmes, and has been designated by the Ministry of Defence to host a Contingent Dock Facility for Dreadnought from the early 2030s. At Devonport, 15 Dock reopened to restore twin-stream submarine maintenance, 9 Dock is complete with HMS Victorious docked down for deep maintenance, and the Submarine Refit Complex is progressing. A three-year £114m programme awarded in June 2025 covers the defuelling of four submarines, the first Trafalgar Class defuel in over two decades, while dismantling of Swiftsure was 40% complete at March 2026 with 90% of material reused or recycled.

AUKUS and international nuclear. H&B Defence, the joint venture with HII, won its first contract under Australia's Submarine Supplier Qualification pilot, and Babcock specialists have deployed to Australia for Astute Class maintenance ahead of Submarine Rotational Force–West from 2027. An expanded HII partnership brought an initial engineering contract on the US Virginia Class, with Rosyth now authorised to manufacture complex submarine assemblies. In Canada, Babcock has a teaming agreement with Hanwha Ocean for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project.

Civil nuclear. Cavendish headcount on the Hinkley Point C mechanical, electrical and HVAC alliance has grown from roughly 550 to 900. Sizewell C is now fully funded under a Regulated Asset Base model with Babcock in the alliance. Through Litmus Nuclear, a joint venture with Amentum, Babcock is Owner's Engineer to Great British Energy–Nuclear's small modular reactor programme on a 14-year contract worth up to roughly £300m, with the first unit at Wylfa. The company frames UK civil nuclear as a £25–30bn addressable opportunity to 2050.

Land and aviation. The £1bn five-year DSG strategic support partnership with the British Army has mobilised and ramped up; Jackal 3 deliveries complete in FY2027; 270 light utility vehicles developed with Toyota are being delivered, with a first tranche exported to Albania; and a teaming agreement with Patria targets a 6x6 armoured personnel carrier for the UK. In Aviation, the 17-year French Mentor 2 military flying training contract is the single largest growth driver, alongside a four-year RAF Light Aircraft Flying Task extension, a £70m UK military flying training infrastructure contract, fast-jet lead-in training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, and an eight-year A$230m Australian Border Force helicopter contract.

8. Competitive Landscape

Babcock's competitive set differs by sector: BAE Systems in naval shipbuilding and submarine work, QinetiQ and Serco in government technical services, and Thales and Fincantieri internationally. No published 2026 market-share dataset exists for UK naval sustainment, so the table compares scale and one verifiable operating metric each. Market capitalisations were re-checked on 11 September 2026.

Peer	Key 2025 metric
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.L)	Supplies the nuclear reactors for the submarines Babcock maintains and is a partner rather than a direct rival; carries 25 times Babcock's market value and has been the reference point for how far a UK defence-adjacent industrial can re-rate
BAE Systems (BA.L)	The UK's other naval shipbuilder and Babcock's closest structural comparator. BAE's Maritime segment generated £6,579m of FY2025 revenue at a 6.6% return, against Babcock's whole-group £5,177.7m at an underlying 8.2% excluding the Type 31 charge
Thales (HO.PA)	Competes internationally in naval systems, training and simulation, and secure communications, and is a supplier into several of the platforms Babcock supports
Fincantieri (FCT.MI)	The closest continental comparator by size and business mix — a naval shipbuilder competing for the same export frigate and submarine-support opportunities Babcock is chasing in Indonesia, Denmark and Poland
QinetiQ Group (QQ.L)	Guides to 3–5% revenue growth, 8–10% EPS growth and above 90% cash conversion for FY2027, against Babcock's mid-single-digit growth, at-least-9% margin and at-least-80% cash conversion targets — a direct read on relative UK defence-services quality
Serco Group (SRP.L)	Competes for UK and international government outsourced services contracts, including defence support, though with far less nuclear and shipbuilding exposure

UK defence names can be discussed on the ChartsView Forum.

9. Leadership & Insider Activity

Harry Holt became Chief Executive and a director with effect from 31 July 2026, having been Deputy CEO from 1 April 2026 and, before that, CEO of the Nuclear sector — the business that grew revenue 54% between FY2023 and FY2025 at roughly 9% margins. His appointment was announced on 23 January 2026 alongside the retirement of David Lockwood OBE, CEO since September 2020, who stepped down as a director on 31 July 2026 and remains with the company until the end of January 2027. David Mellors continues as Chief Financial Officer. Sector leadership comprises Nicholas Hine as Chief Growth Officer and CEO Marine, Neal Misell at Nuclear, Louise Atkinson at Land and Mission Systems, and Pierre Basquin at Aviation.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Rosemary Parratt (PCA of Jack Borrett)	03 Sep 2026	Sell	24,329	Person closely associated, open market
David Mellors (CFO)	03 Aug 2026	Vest of 52,623, then sell	24,804 sold, 27,819 retained	PSP vest, sale to cover tax
Neal Misell (CEO Nuclear)	03 Aug 2026	Vest of 74,126, then sell	34,936 sold, 39,190 retained	PSP vest, sale to cover tax
Louise Atkinson (CEO Land & Mission Systems)	05 Aug 2026	Vest of 33,943, then full sale	33,943	PSP vest, full disposal
Harry Holt (then Deputy CEO)	07 Jul 2026	Award, no cash consideration	214,728 PSP plus 14,255 DSBP	Performance Share Plan and Deferred Share Bonus Plan
Nicholas Hine (Chief Growth Officer, CEO Marine)	07 Jul 2026	Award, no cash consideration	133,609 PSP plus 9,868 DSBP	Performance Share Plan and Deferred Share Bonus Plan
David Mellors (CFO)	16 Jan 2026	Buy	69, 67 and 254 across three days	Dividend reinvestment plan

Read carefully, 2026 shows no discretionary open-market purchases by directors beyond small dividend reinvestments. Every disposal is a mechanical vesting transaction, mostly to cover tax, and several executives retained roughly half the vested shares. The company itself has been a consistent buyer, completing a first £200m buyback in April 2026 and repurchasing 3,187,233 shares for £33,197,441 between 1 July and 10 September 2026 under a second £200m programme. BlackRock disclosed a threshold crossing on 9 September 2026.

10. Key Risks

• Fixed-price contract execution (Operational): the £140.0m Type 31 charge in FY2026 followed a £90m charge on the same programme in FY2024. Babcock states the latest charge covers the entire remaining cost to complete, but two write-downs on one contract in three years establishes that firm-price new-build work is where estimation error concentrates.
• FMSP and Gateway re-let (Contractual): the £3.5bn Future Maritime Support Programme, Babcock's largest support contract, expired on 31 March 2026 and has run on a six-month bridging agreement since. The multi-year replacement was only at Letter of Intent stage with an October 2026 target, so the bridge expires within weeks of this report.
• Single-customer concentration (Structural): defence and nuclear are roughly 80% of Group revenue, and the Nuclear sector alone, at 40% of the Group, is 86% UK defence. Babcock's own principal risk disclosure acknowledges reliance on a small number of government-owned or government-controlled customers.
• Defence budget timing and political slippage (Macro): management explicitly cited the delayed publication of the UK Defence Investment Plan as evidence that governments are balancing defence priorities against fiscal constraints.
• Backlog decline (Commercial): contract backlog fell from £10.4bn to £9.8bn over FY2026, with Marine, Nuclear and Land all down and only Aviation growing. Order replacement is currently running behind order consumption.
• Near-term refinancing (Financial): £316.0m of borrowings sit in current liabilities because of the £300m bond maturing 5 October 2026, with a €550m bond hedged at £493m following on 13 September 2027. This is well covered by £739.9m of cash and roughly £1.4bn of facilities, but it is a live refinancing calendar rather than a theoretical one.
• Specialist skills availability (Operational): Babcock's own principal risk disclosure notes that many required competencies are "deeply specialist and in scarce supply" in its operating territories. That constraint is being tested simultaneously by ramp-ups at Hinkley Point C, Devonport, Rosyth and the French Mentor 2 mobilisation.
• Pension deficit drift (Financial): the net retirement benefit position deteriorated to a £34.0m deficit at 31 March 2026 from £8.4m a year earlier, with roughly £25m a year of deficit contributions in excess of the income statement charge modelled in the going-concern base case.

11. Recent Developments

The twelve months to September 2026 combined a leadership handover, a large contract charge and a sharp de-rating with materially improved underlying profitability. Items are listed most recent first.

• 11 Sep 2026 — Buyback progress and a BlackRock threshold crossing. Babcock reported repurchasing 125,074 shares on 10 September at a volume-weighted average of £9.7010, bringing the second £200m programme to 3,187,233 shares for £33,197,441 since 1 July 2026. BlackRock separately disclosed a holdings threshold crossing dated 9 September 2026.
• 03 Jul 2026 — Harry Holt confirmed as CEO. The board confirmed Holt as director and Chief Executive with effect from 31 July 2026, with David Lockwood stepping down as director and CEO the same day while remaining with the company until retirement at the end of January 2027.
• 22 Jun 2026 — FY2026 results. Revenue of £5,177.7m, up 8% organically; statutory operating profit £305.1m; underlying operating profit £293.3m, or £433.3m and up 19% excluding the Type 31 charge, at an 8.2% margin against an 8.0% target; underlying free cash flow up 71% to £261.8m; net debt down to £329.0m; backlog £9.8bn; full-year dividend up 15% to 7.5p. The statement also disclosed that Arrowhead 120 had not been selected for Sweden's Luleå Class programme in late May 2026.
• 13 May 2026 — Type 31 charge of £140m flagged, second buyback announced. The post-close trading update disclosed a £140m charge on the Type 31 programme including roughly £100m of revenue reversal, driven by higher-than-expected rework during the outfitting of ship one, and simultaneously announced a new £200m share buyback.
• 01 Apr 2026 — FMSP bridging agreement signed. Following expiry of the five-year £3.5bn Future Maritime Support Programme on 31 March 2026, Babcock agreed a six-month bridge with the Ministry of Defence, which issued a Letter of Intent to finalise the multi-year replacement contract by October 2026.
• 23 Jan 2026 — Q3 trading update and CEO succession. Babcock confirmed the 8% FY2026 margin target, announced selection as prime industrial partner for Indonesia's up-to-£4bn Maritime Partnership Programme with agreement for two further Arrowhead 140 licences, and disclosed an expanded HII partnership extending to the US Virginia Class programme. Separately the board announced David Lockwood's retirement and named Harry Holt as successor.
• 21 Nov 2025 — H1 FY2026 results. Revenue of £2,538.6m, underlying operating profit up 19% to £201.1m, underlying margin up 90 basis points to 7.9%, underlying EPS up 21% to 28.5p, and the interim dividend raised 25% to 2.5p.
• 04 Sep 2025 — Marine investor event at Rosyth. Babcock hosted investors at the Type 31 build facility to set out advanced manufacturing capability and the Arrowhead 140 export strategy.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 16 Sep 2026 — Annual General Meeting and trading update at 10:30am, the first commentary on trading since 1 April 2026 and the vote on the 5.0p final dividend
• 25 Sep 2026 — payment date for the FY2026 final dividend of 5.0p; the ex-dividend date of 13 August 2026 has already passed
• 05 Oct 2026 — £300m bond matures, the near-term refinancing event sitting behind the £316.0m of current borrowings
• Expected Oct 2026 — target date for finalising the Gateway replacement for the Future Maritime Support Programme, per the Ministry of Defence Letter of Intent
• Expected Nov 2026 — H1 FY2027 half-year results for the six months to 30 September 2026, based on the 21 November 2025 and 13 November 2024 precedents. No date has been published
• Expected Jan 2027 — Q3 FY2027 trading update, based on the 23 January 2026 precedent, and the formal retirement of David Lockwood from the company
• 31 Mar 2027 — expected completion of the second £200m share buyback programme, and the FY2027 fiscal year end
• Expected Jun 2027 — FY2027 full-year results, based on the 22 June 2026 and 25 June 2025 precedents
• 13 Sep 2027 — €550m bond matures, hedged at £493m

Babcock's published financial calendar currently lists only the September 2026 AGM, so every date beyond that is derived from prior-year reporting patterns and is marked as expected rather than confirmed. The nearest catalyst by some distance is the AGM trading update, which falls three days after the date of this report.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 12 September 2026

Aviva plc is the United Kingdom's largest insurer and, since completing the £3.7bn acquisition of Direct Line Insurance Group on 1 July 2025, by some distance its largest personal lines underwriter. The group runs four earnings engines: general insurance underwriting in the UK, Ireland and Canada; life protection and health; a fast-growing Wealth and Retirement platform; and Aviva Investors. Management is midway through a deliberate shift towards capital-light earnings, hit its 2026 group targets a year early, and reset the bar in November 2025 to an 11% operating EPS compound growth rate and a return on equity above 20% by 2028. The tension in the story is that the reported IFRS numbers and the operating numbers are moving in opposite directions, and the solvency ratio has fallen 30 percentage points in a year. This report sets out what the filings say, without opinions on whether the shares are cheap.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker / exchange	AV. (AV.L), London Stock Exchange. ADR: AVVIY
Sector	Diversified insurance — general insurance, life and protection, wealth and asset management
Headquarters	80 Fenchurch Street, London EC3M 4AE, United Kingdom. Registered in England and Wales, number 2468686
Founded	Heritage traced to 1696 and the Hand in Hand Fire Office; the group describes itself as more than 325 years old
CEO / Leadership	Dame Amanda Blanc, Group Chief Executive Officer since July 2020, re-elected at the 6 May 2026 AGM with 99.36% support. Group CFO Charlotte Jones. Chair George Culmer. Group CIO Chris Cochrane, appointed 24 February 2026
Employees	39,359 at 31 December 2025 (2024: 29,091), the increase driven by the Direct Line acquisition
Revenue (FY2025)	Insurance revenue £25,437m, up 22.6% on FY2024's £20,747m. Adding investment return of £32,932m gives total revenue of £58,369m (see Section 5 for the IFRS 17 basis)
Group adjusted operating profit (FY2025)	£2,203m, up 25%
Profit after tax (FY2025)	£1,054m total, of which £924m attributable to equity holders of Aviva plc
Shares in issue	3,001,450,683 following completion of the £350m buyback on 8 July 2026; no treasury shares
Customers	25.3 million across the UK, Ireland and Canada at 30 June 2026, of which 21.8 million in the UK
Solvency II shareholder cover ratio	176% at 30 June 2026 (FY2025: 180%), with a surplus of £6.8bn
Dividend	FY2025 total 39.3p per share; 2026 interim 14.0p declared, payable 15 October 2026
Fiscal year end	31 December

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Operating earnings are compounding and the targets were hit early: FY2025 group adjusted operating profit was £2,203m, up 25%, with operating EPS of 56.0p, up 17%. H1 2026 added £1,326m, up 24%, with operating EPS of 31.8p. Aviva met its 2026 group targets a year early and reset to an 11% operating EPS compound growth rate through 2028.
• Return on equity is already through the 2028 target: IFRS return on equity was 20.3% at the half year against a target of above 20% by 2028, and 17.5% at FY2025, achieved on a much larger equity base after Direct Line.
• The capital-light mix shift is measurable, not rhetorical: 68% of FY2025 operating profit came from capital-light businesses against 53% in 2022, heading for above 75% by 2028. Wealth assets under management reached £261bn at the half year, up 25%, with net flows up 32% to £7.6bn and Wealth operating profit of £175m in FY2025 against a £280m ambition for 2027.
• Direct Line is running ahead of the original plan: the cost synergy ambition was raised from at least £125m to £225m, with £100m already at run rate by mid-2026 and about £130m guided by the year end. Capital synergies of more than £0.5bn are worth over 10 percentage points of solvency. Group general insurance premiums rose 29% to £8,093m in the half while the undiscounted combined operating ratio improved to 93.3%.

Bear Case

• The reported IFRS numbers are going the wrong way: H1 2026 IFRS profit after tax fell 49% to £418m and basic EPS fell 44% to 12.2p while operating profit rose 24%, driven by negative investment variances and £213m of integration and restructuring costs, up 53%. FY2025 basic EPS of 26.9p against operating EPS of 56.0p is a 2.1x gap.
• Solvency has fallen 30 points in a year and the recovery depends on a regulator: the shareholder cover ratio was 176% at 30 June 2026 against 206% a year earlier and 180% at the year end, touching 171% at the first quarter. Debt leverage rose to 30.8%. The guided high-180s year-end exit requires PRA approval of Direct Line's inclusion in Aviva's internal model to release more than £350m of capital synergies worth over 7 points.
• Reported combined ratios are flattered by weather and reserve releases: Canadian weather in the first half ran 0.7 points below the long-term average against 3.2 points adverse a year earlier, so the 93.0% Canada combined ratio carries effectively no catastrophe load, and the UK and Ireland 93.4% includes 4.1 points of favourable prior-year development. Meanwhile C$439m of Ontario and Quebec storm losses, roughly C$360m of Niagara flooding and a British Columbia wildfire evacuation of more than 20,000 people all landed in the second half, outside those numbers.
• The annuity engine is stalling into a more crowded market: bulk purchase annuity volumes fell 44% to £1.1bn in the first half, down 52% in the first quarter, Retirement new business value halved to £47m on increased competition, and the new business matching adjustment compressed from 144 to 132 basis points. Retirement was the only major Insurance, Wealth and Retirement line to shrink in FY2025, at £711m, down 5%.
• Motor exposure doubled at an awkward point in the cycle: UK personal lines premiums grew 59% in the first quarter via Direct Line just as the ABI reported a record £3.2bn of quarterly motor claims, up 7% year on year with average payouts of £4,900, while the Confused.com and WTW index shows average comprehensive premiums at £719, down 5% year on year. UK commercial gross written premiums are already down 4% to £1,927m, with management expecting the softer rating environment to persist.

3. Revenue Segments

Aviva's reportable segments under Note 3 of the 2025 accounts are UK and Ireland General Insurance, Canada General Insurance, Insurance, Wealth and Retirement, Aviva Investors, International investments, and Other Group activities. Because the group is an insurer, operating profit contribution is the more meaningful split; insurance revenue by segment is shown alongside it.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
UK & Ireland General Insurance	43.6% of insurance revenue (£11,095m); 48.9% of FY2025 business-unit operating profit (£1,077m)	Motor, home and commercial underwriting across the UK and Ireland, now including the acquired Direct Line, Churchill and Green Flag brands. Gross written premiums £9,787m, up 27%, at a 94.1% combined operating ratio.
Insurance, Wealth & Retirement	38.9% of insurance revenue (£9,885m); 48.9% of business-unit operating profit (£1,078m)	UK life. Protection and Health operating profit £204m (+53%), Wealth £175m (+36%), Retirement including annuities and equity release £711m (−5%), Heritage £173m (−27%), Ireland £22m.
Canada General Insurance	17.2% of insurance revenue (£4,372m); 18.5% of business-unit operating profit (£408m)	Personal and commercial lines in Canada, where Aviva is one of only two truly national players. Gross written premiums £4,358m.
Aviva Investors	Fee-based, not insurance revenue (£123m of fee and commission income); 2.1% of business-unit operating profit (£47m)	The group asset manager, running money for Aviva's own balance sheet, the Wealth platform and third parties. Roughly 65% of Workplace net flows are directed into Aviva Investors funds.
International investments	0.4% of insurance revenue (£104m); 2.7% of business-unit operating profit (£60m)	The India and China life joint ventures. Aviva agreed on 9 July 2026 to buy the remaining 26% of its Indian life venture, taking it to 100%.
Other Group activities	Negative (−£19m of insurance revenue); −21.2% of the operating profit bridge (−£467m)	Corporate centre costs of £185m plus group debt costs and other interest of £282m, deducted from business-unit profit to reach the £2,203m group total.

Total insurance revenue was £25,437m in FY2025 against £20,747m in FY2024, with fee and commission income of a further £1,467m. Direct Line contributed £3,071m of insurance revenue and £174m of group operating profit from just six months of ownership.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. There are four distinct engines. General insurance underwriting earns a margin on premiums, measured by the combined operating ratio; group gross written premiums were £14,145m in FY2025 and the undiscounted combined ratio was 93.3% at the 2026 half year. Life and protection earns through premiums and the gradual release of the contractual service margin, which stood at £7,700m at 30 June 2026. Fee income of £1,467m comes from Wealth platform and Workplace assets plus Aviva Investors management fees. Finally, investment return is earned on both policyholder and shareholder assets, principally the annuity book.

The capital-light pivot. This is the central strategic idea. Capital-light businesses, defined as general insurance plus Wealth plus Protection and Health plus Aviva Investors, generated 68% of FY2025 group adjusted operating profit against a 2022 baseline of 53%, with a stated target of more than 75% by 2028. The economic argument is that fee and underwriting earnings consume far less regulatory capital than annuity writing, so the same profit supports a larger distribution.

Scale and distribution. Aviva served 25.3 million customers across the UK, Ireland and Canada at the half year, 21.8 million of them in the UK, having added more than 250,000 in twelve months. 7.2 million hold more than one product and roughly 46% of new policies are sold to existing customers, which is the cross-sell engine that justified the Direct Line purchase. Distribution runs through direct channels, brokers, price comparison websites, workplace and corporate pensions, the IFA platform, partnerships such as Nationwide home, and Lloyd's through the rebranded Aviva Syndicates. Total group assets under management were £479bn at 30 June 2026, with Wealth alone at £261bn. The group paid £31.9bn of claims and benefits in 2025.

What actually protects the returns. For an insurer the moat is a combination of underwriting data, distribution breadth and regulatory capital efficiency rather than a network effect. Aviva's advantage is scale in a consolidating UK market, a single customer view across the largest UK book, and a partial internal model approved by the PRA. The corresponding vulnerability is that none of this prevents a soft pricing cycle, and the Solvency II ratio responds directly to interest rates.

5. Financial Health

A basis warning is essential before reading the table. Aviva adopted IFRS 17 and IFRS 9 from 1 January 2023 with a transition date of 1 January 2022. Only FY2022 was restated; FY2021 was never restated. Under IFRS 17 Aviva's income statement contains no total revenue or total income subtotal at all. The revenue column below is therefore constructed as insurance revenue plus investment return, both taken directly from the consolidated income statement, and the FY2021 figure is the old IFRS 4 income subtotal for continuing operations. The 2021 to 2023 top line is a broken series and should not be read as a trend.

Fiscal Year	Total revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	33,184†	n/m	7.7p	32.5p	22.05p	£7,344m
FY2022	(20,780)‡	n/m	(34.7)p	35.7p	31.00p	£6,755m
FY2023	40,877	n/m	37.7p	40.3p	33.40p	£6,374m
FY2024	40,629	−0.6%	23.6p	48.0p	35.70p	£5,612m
FY2025	58,369	+43.7%	26.9p	56.0p	39.30p	£5,588m

† FY2021 is the IFRS 4 income subtotal for continuing operations and is not comparable with the years that follow. ‡ FY2022 is the IFRS 17 restated basis, and is negative because net investment expense of £(37,669)m during the 2022 bond sell-off exceeded insurance revenue of £16,889m; it was largely offset below the line by a £22,342m release in insurance liabilities. Do not use it in any ratio. FY2025 basic EPS of 26.9p is depressed by a one-off £203m of special dividends paid on the cancellation of the Aviva plc and General Accident preference shares. The Long-term debt column is total external borrowings at the year end, being core structural borrowings plus operational borrowings; Aviva presents these as a single balance sheet line, with subordinated debt inside core structural borrowings and Restricted Tier 1 notes classified in equity rather than borrowings. Lease liabilities of £450m at FY2025 are reported separately. Insurance revenue itself, the cleanest volume measure, ran £16,889m, £18,497m, £20,747m and £25,437m across FY2022 to FY2025.

Measure	FY2021	FY2022	FY2023	FY2024	FY2025
Group adjusted operating profit (£m)	2,300	1,350	1,467	1,767	2,203
IFRS profit after tax (£m)	2,036	(1,139)	1,106	705	1,054
Gross written premiums, General Insurance (£m)	8,807	9,749	10,888	12,204	14,145
Solvency II shareholder cover ratio	244%	212%	207%	203%	180%
Cash remittances (£m)	n/d	n/d	n/d	1,992	2,077

Cash flow and balance sheet, FY2025. Net cash from operating activities was negative £(2,563)m against positive £8,445m in FY2024. For an insurer this line is dominated by policyholder investment flows and is not a proxy for cash generation; Aviva's own measures are cash remittances of £2,077m and Solvency II operating capital generation of £2,452m. Purchases of property and equipment were £93m and purchases of intangibles £98m, giving combined capital expenditure of £191m. Aviva publishes no single combined depreciation and amortisation line; the components are £78m of depreciation of property and equipment, £160m of amortisation of acquired value of in-force business and intangibles, and £55m of amortisation of AVIF on non-participating investment contracts, giving a derived total of £293m. Total assets were £395,304m, equity attributable to shareholders £9,694m, cash and cash equivalents £18,289m and total borrowings £5,588m. IFRS shareholders' equity per share was 317p and Solvency II net asset value per share 363p, falling to 352p at the 2026 half year.

Quarter / Half	Insurance revenue (£m)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 2026 (6m to 30 Jun 2026)	13,475	31.8p	12.2p
H2 2025 (6m to 31 Dec 2025)§	14,446	27.0p§	5.2p§
H1 2025 (6m to 30 Jun 2025)	10,991	29.0p	21.7p
Full year 2025 (year to 31 Dec 2025)	25,437	56.0p	26.9p

§ Aviva reports half-yearly with quarterly trading updates, and does not publish a standalone second-half statement; the H2 2025 line is derived by subtracting the reported first half from the reported full year. The earnings per share derivation is approximate because 378 million shares were issued on 1 July 2025 to fund Direct Line, materially changing the weighted average share count mid-year. This table is stated on an insurance revenue basis; the annual table above adds investment return, which Aviva does not split on the same basis at the half year. Other H1 2026 headlines were operating profit £1,326m, IFRS profit after tax £418m, IFRS return on equity 20.3%, cash remittances £1,498m, contractual service margin £7,700m and shareholders' equity £8,910m.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	0.69% of issued share capital at 26 June 2026, the FCA aggregate net short position. Aviva has no significant strategic blockholder, so the free float figure is effectively the same. Recent readings ranged from 0.98% to 1.49% over July and early August 2026.

A note on data quality: the UK short-selling disclosure regime changed on 13 July 2026. Individual position holders are no longer named, the notification threshold fell to 0.2%, and the FCA now publishes only an anonymised aggregate net short position per issuer on a T+2 basis. Several retail data providers are serving stale share counts and market capitalisations for this line, and at least one large provider's trailing P/E is calculated on a different earnings base again.

7. What Are They Building

The Direct Line integration. This is the dominant project. The acquisition completed on 1 July 2025 for accounting consideration of £4,033m, generating £1,836m of goodwill and £1,069m of recognised intangibles. The cost synergy target was upgraded on 13 November 2025 from at least £125m to £225m of annual run-rate savings by 2028, against about £350m of costs to achieve. £100m of run-rate savings had been delivered by the 2026 half year with about £130m guided by the year end. Capital synergies of more than £0.5bn, worth over 10 points of solvency, are partly realised, with more than £350m remaining and dependent on PRA approval to bring Direct Line onto Aviva's internal model. All Direct Line employees have transferred, £4.9bn of assets have moved to Aviva Investors, and on 3 September 2026 Direct Line home insurance launched on price comparison websites for the first time in its history.

Wealth and Retirement. Wealth is the designated growth engine, with net flows up 32% to £7.6bn and assets under management up 25% to £261bn at the half year, boosted by initial Mercer Master Trust transfers with further scheme flows expected by the end of 2026. Management describes the £280m Wealth operating profit ambition for 2027 as firmly on track from £175m in FY2025. A dedicated "In Focus: Wealth" investor session is scheduled for 16 October 2026. In Retirement, the group is explicitly trading volume for margin, writing bulk purchase annuity business only above a low-teens internal rate of return hurdle; 2026 deals disclosed so far include Essentra at £104m, Iveco at £100m, Aston Martin Lagonda at £180m and Elementis at £300m.

Artificial intelligence. Aviva frames AI as a second-horizon opportunity built on 25 million customers, proprietary claims data and a single customer view. Concrete deployments include halving medical underwriting review time in Protection, agentic AI automating quality assurance in Wealth, a voice-enabled AI claims agent under construction, and an AI virtual assistant for customer support due later in 2026. On 24 March 2026 Aviva became the first UK insurer to launch an insurance app on ChatGPT.

Global Corporate and Specialty. The Lloyd's build-out has accelerated: Probitas 1492 was rebranded Aviva Syndicates on 18 June 2026, an onshore US commercial lines operation was announced on 25 March 2026, Aviva Private Clients launched at Lloyd's in February, a renewable energy consortium with AXIS followed in July, Aviva Premier for larger mid-market commercial clients launched on 1 September 2026 and an MGA hybrid fronting proposition on 7 September 2026. Health insurance in-force premiums rose 5% to £1.1bn, though sales fell to £51m from £76m and full-year Health operating profit guidance was cut to about £90m.

8. Competitive Landscape

Aviva competes on three fronts that rarely overlap: UK and Canadian general insurance against Admiral, RSA, Axa and the Canadian nationals; UK life, wealth and bulk annuities against Legal & General, Phoenix, Just Group and Rothesay; and, at group level, for capital against the far larger continental European composites.

Peer	Key 2025/2026 metric
Prudential (PRU.L)	H1 2026 adjusted operating profit US$1,812m, up 9% on a constant currency basis, with new business profit of US$1,384m, up 8%
Legal & General (LGEN.L)	H1 2026 core operating profit £918m, up 7%; IFRS profit before tax £1,997m including a US disposal gain; Solvency II coverage 201%
Admiral Group (ADM.L)	H1 2026 profit before tax £429.2m, down 18% from £521.0m, at a group combined ratio of 78.5%
Allianz SE (ALV.DE)	Six months to June 2026 operating profit €9,390m, up 8.6% and a record; core net income €6,385m, up 15.5%; Solvency II ratio 225%
AXA SA (CS.PA)	H1 2026 underlying earnings €4.5bn, up 4% and up 9% excluding AXA IM; underlying EPS €2.19, up 8%; Solvency II ratio 218%
Zurich Insurance (ZURN.SW)	H1 2026 business operating profit US$4.8bn, up 13% and an all-time high; property and casualty BOP US$2.8bn, up 16%, at a 92.7% combined ratio

On the numbers above, Aviva's 176% Solvency II shareholder cover sits below the European composites' 218% to 225% ratios, though the measures are not directly comparable across regimes. Its 93.3% group undiscounted combined ratio is competitive with Zurich's 92.7% but nowhere near Admiral's 78.5%, which reflects Admiral's very different, motor-concentrated and reinsurance-heavy model.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Dame Amanda Blanc has been Group Chief Executive since July 2020 and was re-elected at the 6 May 2026 AGM with 99.36% support. Charlotte Jones is Group Chief Financial Officer and George Culmer is Chair. All thirteen incumbent directors were re-elected at the 2026 AGM with no board departures or appointments put to the meeting; the only executive change in the period was the appointment of Chris Cochrane as Group Chief Information Officer on 24 February 2026.

Aviva is a prolific discloser, with roughly forty Director and PDMR shareholding notifications across 2025 and 2026 to date. The pattern is consistent across both years: every material disposal is a mechanical tax-cover sale on the annual March vesting, and the only discretionary transactions are purchases.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Amanda Blanc (Group CEO)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	560,817	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 1,193,228 shares under LTIP 2023 and deferred bonus awards
Charlotte Jones (Group CFO)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	222,480	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 473,363 shares
Douglas Brown (CEO, Insurance Wealth & Retirement)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	418,572	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 418,571 shares
Jason Storah (CEO, UK & Ireland General Insurance)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	190,655	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 301,066 shares
Mark Versey (CEO, Aviva Investors)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	74,740	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 125,195 shares
Amanda Blanc (Group CEO)	15 May 2026	Buy	6,858	Open market
Kenneth Blanc (person closely associated)	15 May 2026	Buy	10,258	Open market
Amanda Blanc (Group CEO)	14 May 2026	Grant	1,204,610	Annual Bonus Plan deferral 195,866 plus LTIP 1,008,744
Charlotte Jones (Group CFO)	14 May 2026	Grant	488,632	Annual Bonus Plan deferral 89,427 plus LTIP 399,205
Cheryl Agius (NED)	09 Oct 2025	Buy	7,284	Open market
Amanda Blanc (Group CEO)	04 Sep 2025	Buy	6,594	Open market
Ian Clark (NED)	10 Jul 2025	Buy	8,100	Open market
Jason Storah (CEO, UK & Ireland GI)	13 Apr 2026	Sell	285	The only discretionary disposal recorded in 2026
Multiple executives and NEDs	18 Aug 2026	Buy	362 (combined)	Routine monthly all-employee share plan and NED share purchase scheme acquisitions

Blanc bought Aviva stock on the open market in both 2025 and 2026, alongside NED purchases by Ian Clark and Cheryl Agius. The March 2026 sales, which look large in isolation, are entirely tax-cover disposals on a vesting event, with the net shares in Blanc's and Jones's cases subject to a further two-year holding period. No September 2026 notification had been filed as at 12 September; the monthly share plan cycle falls around the middle of the month.

10. Key Risks

• UK motor pricing cycle and claims inflation: average comprehensive premiums were £719 in the second quarter of 2026, down 5% year on year, while the ABI reported a record £3.2bn of motor claims paid in the quarter, up 7%, with average payouts up to £4,900. Aviva's UK book has roughly doubled through Direct Line into exactly this backdrop, and UK commercial gross written premiums are already down 4% to £1,927m with management expecting the soft rating environment to persist.
• Direct Line integration execution: only £100m of the £225m run-rate cost synergy ambition had been delivered by mid-2026, with about £130m guided by the year end. Integration and restructuring costs of £213m in the half were up 53% year on year and are excluded from operating profit. The 11 March 2026 PRA Final Notice on historical Direct Line solvency miscalculation, fully provided for in the acquisition balance sheet, is evidence of acquired control weaknesses.
• Regulatory approval risk on the capital synergies: more than £350m of capital synergies worth over 7 points of the cover ratio depend on PRA approval to bring Direct Line into Aviva's internal model by the end of 2026. Standard formula treatment currently yields only about £250m of diversification benefit. The guided high-180s year-end solvency exit rests on this single approval.
• Weather and catastrophe exposure, particularly in Canada: two consecutive benign halves have flattered reported combined ratios, and heavy second-half Canadian activity sits outside the half-year numbers. C$439m of insured damage from the Ontario and Quebec storms of 30 June to 3 July, roughly C$360m from Niagara flooding in late July and early August, and a British Columbia wildfire evacuation of more than 20,000 people all fall into the second half. The decade-average Canadian insured catastrophe loss now exceeds C$3.7bn a year against C$1.4bn in the prior decade.
• Bulk annuity competition and longevity: volumes fell 44% to £1.1bn in the first half against a £4.6bn full year in 2025, Retirement new business value halved to £47m, and the new business matching adjustment compressed from 144 to 132 basis points. Eleven insurers are now active in the UK market and three UK competitors were recapitalised by international capital during 2025. A 2% fall in annuity mortality would cost £0.1bn of own funds and 2 points of cover.
• Interest rate sensitivity of the solvency ratio: the shareholder cover ratio fell from 206% to 176% in twelve months and debt leverage rose to 30.8%. Disclosed half-year sensitivities show a 100 basis point fall in rates costing £(0.4)bn and 9 points of cover, a 10% rise in expenses costing 7 points, and a 5% deterioration in gross loss ratios costing 5 points.
• Credit spread and illiquid asset concentration: of £126.1bn of fixed maturity securities at the half year, 3.7% sit below investment grade and 7.5% are unrated, while £30.2bn of loans are entirely unrated. UK non-securitised commercial mortgages of £5,876m, of which £5,494m backs annuity liabilities, saw average loan-to-value rise from 37.5% to 42.3% in six months. A 20% fall in commercial property values would cost £(0.4)bn and 5 points of cover, and a downgrade on 20% of the annuity portfolio £(0.2)bn and 3 points.
• Solvency UK reform and the matching adjustment: the matching adjustment is the economics of the annuity book and remains a live regulatory dependency, with the risk margin, the fundamental spread and regulatory reporting all in scope for further change. Aviva's own audit committee notes that the industry-wide matching adjustment attestation is made to a weaker assurance standard than applies to IFRS statements.
• Sector conduct overhang: the FCA motor finance redress scheme, covering roughly 12.1 million agreements with an average payout of about £830, was partially suspended pending Upper Tribunal hearings listed for December 2026 or February 2027. Aviva is not a motor finance lender and discloses no exposure, but it owns a premium finance entity and the FCA's separate premium finance market study, closed favourably in February 2026 with no price cap, remains subject to ongoing supervisory attention.

11. Recent Developments

• 03 Feb 2026 — FCA closes its premium finance market study. The final report of MS24/2 imposed no price cap and no ban on with-interest models, noting premium finance rates had fallen 4.1 percentage points since 2022, saving consumers roughly £157m a year.
• 05 Mar 2026 — FY2025 results and a £350m buyback. Operating profit £2,203m (+25%), operating EPS 56.0p (+17%), IFRS profit after tax £1,054m (+50%), basic EPS 26.9p, return on equity 17.5%, cash remittances £2,077m, Solvency II cover 180% with a £7.1bn surplus, and a final dividend of 26.2p taking the FY2025 total to 39.3p. Aviva confirmed it had achieved its 2026 group targets a year early, and launched a £350m buyback the same morning.
• 11 Mar 2026 — Response to a PRA Final Notice on Direct Line. The notice concerned historical miscalculation of Direct Line's solvency position, disclosed by Direct Line in August 2024 before the acquisition. Aviva said the penalty was discounted by the maximum amount for exemplary cooperation and was fully provided for in the acquisition balance sheet.
• 24 Mar 2026 — Aviva launches an insurance app on ChatGPT, the first UK insurer on that surface.
• 25 Mar 2026 — US commercial lines expansion announced. Aviva set out plans to open an onshore US commercial lines operation, alongside a £104m buy-in with the Essentra Pension Plan.
• 06 May 2026 — 2026 AGM passes all 29 resolutions. The Directors' Remuneration Report passed with 96.89% and the Remuneration Policy with 94.52%. The largest protest was on climate-related financial disclosures, with 91.64% in favour and 222.5 million votes withheld. All thirteen incumbent directors were re-elected.
• 14 May 2026 — Q1 2026 trading update. General insurance premiums £3.4bn (+19%), UK personal lines +59% to £1,529m, UK commercial −8%, group undiscounted combined ratio 94.1%, Wealth net flows £3.3bn (+49%), bulk annuity volumes £619m (−52%), and Solvency II shareholder cover down to 171%. Guidance was reaffirmed.
• 26 May 2026 — New €575m Tier 2 issue. Aviva priced €575m of 4.750% Tier 2 notes callable in May 2037, completing a refinancing that also included a May tender offer and subsequent redemptions through June.
• 17 Jun 2026 — FCA approval to deliver targeted support, placing Aviva among the first firms authorised under the new advice-guidance regime. The following day Probitas 1492 was rebranded Aviva Syndicates.
• 08 Jul 2026 — £350m buyback completed.
• 09 Jul 2026 — Agreement to take Aviva India to 100%. Aviva agreed with Dabur Invest Corp to buy the remaining 26% of its Indian life joint venture following India's foreign direct investment liberalisation, with financial impacts described as not material and completion still pending.
• 03 Aug 2026 — £300m Elementis buy-in completed, the largest disclosed Aviva bulk annuity transaction of the period, following £180m with the Aston Martin Lagonda scheme on 29 July.
• 14 Aug 2026 — H1 2026 results. Operating profit £1,326m (+24%), operating EPS 31.8p (+10%), IFRS profit after tax £418m (−49%), basic EPS 12.2p (−44%), return on equity 20.3%, cash remittances £1,498m (+47%), an interim dividend of 14.0p (+7%), Solvency II cover 176% and general insurance premiums £8,093m (+29%) at a 93.3% undiscounted combined ratio. No new buyback was announced.
• 03 Sep 2026 — Direct Line home insurance launches on price comparison websites for the first time, a direct consequence of the acquisition and a test of the distribution thesis behind it. The shares went ex the 14.0p interim dividend the same day.
• 07 Sep 2026 — MGA hybrid fronting proposition launched for the global specialty market through Global Corporate and Specialty, six days after the launch of Aviva Premier for larger commercial customers.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 15 Oct 2026 — 2026 interim dividend of 14.0p per share paid (ex-dividend 3 September, record date 4 September 2026); ADR payment 21 October 2026
• 16 Oct 2026 — "In Focus: Wealth" investor deep-dive, the first detailed disclosure on progress towards the £280m Wealth operating profit ambition
• 13 Nov 2026 — Q3 2026 trading update, marked provisional on the company calendar
• Expected Dec 2026 — PRA decision on including Direct Line in Aviva's internal model, on which more than £350m of capital synergies and over 7 points of solvency cover depend
• Expected Dec 2026 — Upper Tribunal hearings on the FCA motor finance redress challenges, listed for 14 to 18 December 2026 or 16 to 26 February 2027
• 26 Feb 2027 — FY2026 full year results, marked provisional on the company calendar; the 2026 final dividend would be declared here
• Expected Mar 2027 — 2026 final dividend ex-dividend date, on the pattern of 26 March in 2026; nothing has been published
• Expected May 2027 — 2027 Annual General Meeting and 2026 final dividend payment; the 2026 meeting was held on 6 May and the prior final was paid on 14 May

Aviva's own footnote states that any date marked provisional may be subject to change, and that all dividend dates are provisional until declared by the board. For the macro releases that move insurance rate expectations, see the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and discuss this research with other members in the ChartsView Forum.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 12 September 2026

Autotrader Group plc runs the United Kingdom's dominant automotive marketplace. Retailers pay a monthly subscription per forecourt to advertise stock, and consumers arrive overwhelmingly by typing the brand name rather than following a search result. That combination has historically produced a 70% segment operating margin and pricing power that compounded revenue at a mid-teens rate. The FY2026 year ended 31 March 2026 is the year that changed the conversation: revenue grew 4%, the retailer base shrank, a customer revolt over the Deal Builder rollout forced management to halve the size of its annual price increase, and the shares fell roughly a third. Management's response has been to lever the balance sheet and buy back roughly an eighth of the company. This report sets out what the filings actually say, without opinions on whether the shares are cheap.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker / exchange	AUTO (AUTO.L), London Stock Exchange
Legal name	Autotrader Group plc — renamed from Auto Trader Group plc by RNS on 14 January 2026; ticker and ISIN (GB00BVYVFW23) unchanged
Sector	Online classifieds — digital automotive marketplace
Headquarters	No.3 Circle Square, Hawkshaw Street, Manchester M1 7BL, United Kingdom (new head office operational January 2026)
Founded / listed	Founded 1977 as Thames Valley Trader; renamed Auto Trader 1988; final print edition June 2013; IPO on the LSE 24 March 2015
CEO / Leadership	Nathan Coe, Chief Executive Officer since March 2020. CFO Jamie Warner (since March 2020). Chair Matt Davies. The COO role is vacant following Catherine Faiers' departure on 27 February 2026
Employees	1,239 at 31 March 2026 (31 March 2025: 1,290)
Revenue (FY2026, year to 31 Mar 2026)	£624.3m, up 4% on FY2025's £601.1m
Operating profit (FY2026)	£392.7m, a 63% group operating margin
Profit after tax (FY2026)	£293.9m (FY2025: £282.6m)
Shares in issue	781,463,195 at 28 August 2026, of which 3,867,184 held in treasury
Dividend	FY2026 total 11.6p per share (3.8p interim, 7.8p final), up 9%
Fiscal year end	31 March

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• The audience moat widened, not narrowed: Autotrader users spent 11x more time on the platform than on the nearest competitor in FY2026, up from 10x, 22x more than the next largest individual brand, and 6x more than all main competitors combined. 67% of the audience visited no competing site at all, and over 80% of traffic arrives direct rather than through search.
• The rating has compressed hard against a franchise that still earns 63% margins: at 489.40p the shares trade on roughly 14.3x trailing GAAP earnings and about 6.1x FY2026 revenue, against a 70% operating margin in the core Autotrader segment and £418.0m of cash generated from operations.
• The AI products are already deployed at scale: 86% of retailers have used a Co-Driver tool and 66% used one in the last 30 days; 1.9 million vehicle descriptions have been generated, cutting average listing time from 28 minutes to 5. Buying Signals passed 1 million high-intent leads within six months of its January 2026 launch, and data-service API calls rose from 91 million to 155 million a month.

Bear Case

• Growth has decelerated for four consecutive years: revenue growth ran +15.6% in FY2023, +14% in FY2024, +5% in FY2025 and +4% in FY2026, with second-half growth of only 3% and April 2026 revenue flat year on year.
• The customer base is shrinking and pricing confidence has gone: average retailer forecourts fell 0.5% to 13,942 and were 1.7% lower in the second half, with guidance for a further 1% to 2% decline across FY2027. The 2026 price event was cut to about 5.5% from about 8% the previous year after retailer pushback.
• Short interest is at the top of the UK market and rising: the FCA aggregate net short position in Autotrader was 6.01% of issued capital at 9 September 2026, up from 5.57% three sessions earlier, placing it near the top of the entire 418-company UK dataset.
• The balance sheet was levered to fund the buyback: net cash of £15.3m at March 2025 became net bank debt of £146.8m at March 2026, total equity fell from £569.4m to £407.1m, and leverage is guided to approximately 1.0x during FY2027.
• Autorama's goodwill headroom has almost gone: the CGU's recoverable amount exceeded its £118.1m carrying value by just £16.8m at 31 March 2026, on an assumption of 44% compound car-delivery growth. The company's own disclosure states that a fall to 40% growth would eliminate the headroom entirely, and a combined downside would require a £30.3m impairment.

3. Revenue Segments

Autotrader reported two operating segments in FY2026, Autotrader and Autorama, with Autorama's acquired-intangible amortisation held in unallocated group central costs. From FY2027 the company will report Autorama within a single group segment, because more than half of leasing transactions were originated on the Autotrader platform in the second half of FY2026.

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Retailer	80.3% (£501.1m, +4%)	Monthly forecourt subscriptions paid by car dealers to advertise stock, plus package tiers and add-on products. The core engine of the business.
Home Trader	2.7% (£16.7m, +4%)	Smaller, non-forecourt trade sellers operating from home.
Other trade	2.2% (£13.5m, +4%)	Residual trade advertising and data services revenue.
Consumer Services	6.2% (£38.8m, −8%)	Private seller listings (£23.6m, −11%) and Motoring Services such as insurance and finance partner referrals (£15.2m, −4%).
Manufacturer & Agency	2.4% (£15.2m, +14%)	Display and brand advertising sold to vehicle manufacturers and their agencies.
Autorama — vehicle and accessory sales	4.7% (£29.6m, +13%)	Gross vehicle and accessory sales through the Vanarama leasing business.
Autorama — commission and ancillary	1.5% (£9.4m, −8%)	Leasing commission and ancillary income. Revenue per unit delivered fell from £1,627 to £1,167.

Segment operating profit in FY2026 was £408.0m for Autotrader (a 70% margin, FY2025: £394.0m) against an Autorama operating loss of £2.0m (FY2025: loss of £4.3m), with £13.3m of group central costs. Group operating profit was £392.7m. Autorama delivered 8,056 vehicles in FY2026 against 6,268 the prior year, and deliveries originating on the Autotrader platform more than tripled to 3,804.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Retailers pay a monthly subscription for each forecourt they operate. Management decomposes revenue growth into three levers: price (the annual uplift applied at the April renewal), stock (the number of vehicles each retailer advertises) and product (the package tier and paid add-ons). In FY2026 average revenue per retailer per month rose £141 to £2,995, made up of +£117 from price, +£72 from product and −£48 from stock. Average forecourts fell to 13,942. FY2027 guidance is for a price lever of +£85 to +£95, a product lever of +£65 to +£75, a stock drag of −£30 to −£40, and forecourts 1% to 2% lower.

Where the moat comes from. The marketplace is two-sided and the audience side is where the defensibility sits. Autotrader averages over 9 million unique visitors and 548 million minutes of on-site activity per month. Over 80% of that traffic arrives directly through the apps, a typed URL, or a search for the brand name; 13% comes from organic search and only 4% from paid. On the company's Comscore-based minutes measure, users spend 11x longer on Autotrader than on the nearest competitor, 22x longer than on the next largest individual brand, and 6x longer than on all main competitors combined. 67% of the audience visits none of those competing sites. The mobile app reached a record 3.7 million monthly active users in May 2026.

The data layer. Autotrader is integrated with over 220 technology partners and served an average of 155 million API and data-service calls a month in FY2026, up from 91 million. It runs more than 50 proprietary machine learning models and analyses roughly 800,000 vehicles a day to produce a Retail Price Index used by the Bank of England and the Office for National Statistics. It also holds a 49% stake in the Dealer Auction joint venture with Cox Automotive, which contributed £4.1m of profit share and a £4.9m dividend in FY2026.

Where the model is under strain. The forecourt count is the denominator of the entire model, and it is falling. With stock per retailer also a drag, all of the growth now has to come from price and product, which is precisely the lever that triggered retailer resistance in late 2025.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are taken from Autotrader's full year results announcements and published financial statements. Autotrader reports half-yearly, not quarterly. The fiscal year ends 31 March, so FY2026 is the twelve months to 31 March 2026.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022	432.7	+64.7%	25.61p	25.61p†	8.2p	Nil
FY2023	500.2	+15.6%	25.01p	27.12p	8.4p	£57.5m
FY2024	570.9	+14.1%	28.15p	29.37p	9.6p	£27.7m
FY2025	601.1	+5.3%	31.66p	31.66p	10.6p	Nil
FY2026	624.3	+3.9%	34.17p	34.17p†	11.6p	£163.4m

† No adjusted EPS was disclosed for FY2022 (the metric was not in use that year) or for FY2026 (the only adjusting item, the Autorama deferred consideration charge, had ceased); the GAAP figure is repeated. In FY2025 the adjustment was nil, so adjusted and basic EPS were identical at 31.66p. The FY2022 growth rate is measured against a COVID-depressed FY2021 revenue of £262.8m. Long-term debt is the balance-sheet non-current borrowings figure, stated net of unamortised issue costs: FY2026 reflects £165.0m drawn on the revolving credit facility less £1.6m of unamortised costs. Current borrowings were nil in every year except FY2023 (£1.1m).

Cash generation and the balance sheet. Cash generated from operations rose to £418.0m in FY2026 from £399.7m, with net cash from operating activities of £322.8m after £95.2m of tax paid. Cash capital expenditure was £27.4m, up sharply from £4.0m, because of the fit-out of the new Manchester head office; a further £44.5m of right-of-use asset additions on the same lease were non-cash. Depreciation of £8.2m and amortisation of £15.2m gave total depreciation and amortisation of £23.4m. Cash and equivalents ended the year at £18.2m against £163.4m of non-current borrowings, so net bank debt was £146.8m, a swing from £15.3m of net cash a year earlier. Total equity fell to £407.1m from £569.4m after £369.1m of buybacks and £94.1m of dividends. On 15 May 2026 the group exercised a £100.0m accordion, taking the revolving credit facility from £200.0m to £300.0m committed to February 2030.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H2 FY2026 (6m to 31 Mar 2026)‡	£306.6m	16.91p†	16.91p‡
H1 FY2026 (6m to 30 Sep 2025)	£317.7m	17.26p†	17.26p
FY2026 total (year to 31 Mar 2026)	£624.3m	34.17p†	34.17p

‡ Autotrader publishes half-year and full-year statements only; it does not report quarterly and does not publish a standalone second-half statement. The H2 FY2026 line is therefore derived by subtracting the reported first half from the reported full year. The H2 earnings per share figure is approximate because the weighted average share count fell materially through the second half as the buyback accelerated. Results for the half year ending 30 September 2026 are scheduled for 5 November 2026 and are not yet reported.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	6.01% of issued share capital at 9 September 2026, the FCA aggregate net short position. Free float is roughly 99% of shares in issue, so the float-based figure is effectively the same. The trend is upward: 5.57% on 7 September, 5.98% on 8 September, 6.01% on 9 September.
Twelve-month price change	Approximately −34%, and roughly 41% below the November 2025 high

A note on data quality: the UK short-selling disclosure regime changed on 13 July 2026. Individual position holders are no longer named, the notification threshold fell to 0.2%, and the FCA now publishes only an anonymised aggregate net short position per issuer. Any source still listing named short holders in Autotrader is serving a frozen July archive that understates the true figure by roughly half. Several retail data sites are also serving badly stale cached prices for this line.

7. What Are They Building

Deal Builder. The digital retailing product is the central strategic project and the source of FY2026's difficulties. It ended March 2026 with more than 6,700 retailers signed up, against 2,000 a year earlier, 175,000 vehicles live (2025: 84,000) and 137,000 deals with a full reservation placed (2025: 49,000). Management says the resulting enquiries convert into sales at roughly double the normal rate. The rollout nevertheless triggered a retailer social-media campaign in November 2025, after which the company paused the automatic rollout, ran open listening sessions in London and Manchester, created formal Customer Advisory Groups for independent and franchise retailers, introduced a "request a reservation" option, and changed the product language so that retailers would not read it as Autotrader completing transactions itself.

Co-Driver. The generative AI toolset for retailers was launched in 2024 and bundled into standard packages from 1 April 2025. It writes vehicle descriptions, generates highlights, and tags, orders and optimises images. 86% of retailers have used a Co-Driver tool and 66% used one in the last 30 days; 1.9 million descriptions have been generated and 700,000 smart image re-orders performed, cutting average listing creation time from 28 minutes to 5 across more than 340,000 vehicles uploaded monthly.

Buying Signals. Launched in January 2026, this is a machine learning model trained on verified anonymised transactions and consumer interactions that flags high-intent enquiries to retailers. It featured on more than 800,000 enquiries by the end of the fiscal year, and passed 1 million high-intent leads on 23 June 2026. Flagged leads convert at roughly twice the platform average.

Conversational and AI-assistant distribution. On 15 May 2026 the Autotrader app went live inside ChatGPT, built on the Model Context Protocol so the same interface can be reused for other assistants. On the consumer site, FY2026 delivered an "I'm looking for" AI-powered suggested search, a trial of conversational text search, AI-generated vehicle highlights, a rebuilt search relevancy algorithm, and specification-adjusted valuations underpinning the price flags. The July 2026 summer app update added AI lifestyle search categories and online reservations across more than 200,000 vehicles.

Autotrader Connect and the leasing business. Connect remains the stock management backbone behind the 220-plus partner integrations. On the leasing side, FY2027 guidance is for Autorama to move to a small profit, with commission and ancillary revenue up 8% to 12% and vehicle and accessory sales of approximately £40m.

8. Competitive Landscape

The UK classifieds market changed shape during 2026. On 27 May 2026 the Motors.co.uk consumer marketplace was retired and the whole platform relaunched under the Cazoo brand, which MOTORS had bought out of administration for up to £5m in 2024 and now positions explicitly as a challenger to Autotrader. Cazoo Group Ltd itself is in liquidation and its UK administration was extended by the High Court to 2028. Motors.co.uk is owned by O3 Industries and Novum Capital, not by eBay; eBay is a distribution partner within a single-invoice network spanning MOTORS, eBay, Gumtree and Cazoo.

Peer	Key 2025/2026 metric
Rightmove (RMV.L)	H1 2026 revenue £225.8m, +7%, with underlying operating profit £155.1m at a 69% margin; full-year revenue growth guidance cut to 6% to 8% from 8% to 10% on 31 July 2026
Scout24 (G24.DE)	Q2 2026 revenue up 20% year on year, reported 6 August 2026; FY2026 guidance of 16% to 18% revenue growth and an EBITDA margin of up to 61%
CarGurus (CARG)	Q2 2026 revenue $251.0m, +13%, reported 6 August 2026; adjusted EBITDA $84.7m; FY2025 revenue $906.98m
Cars.com (CARS)	Q2 2026 revenue $179.9m, +1%, reported 6 August 2026; adjusted EBITDA margin 29.4%; FY2025 revenue $723.24m
Carwow	FY2024 revenue £85.1m, +55%, with a £20m pre-tax loss and £1.1bn of Sell My Car gross merchandise value; guided to exceed £100m in 2025, with FY2025 accounts not yet filed at Companies House
Cazoo / MOTORS network	Company-stated approximately 2.4 million visitors per month and 300,000-plus cars from 6,000-plus dealers; relaunched under the Cazoo brand on 27 May 2026

For scale context, Autotrader reports over 9 million unique visitors a month, roughly four times the traffic MOTORS claims for the Cazoo platform, and states that users spend six times longer on Autotrader than on all main competitors combined.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Nathan Coe has been Chief Executive Officer since March 2020, having joined as Chief Operating Officer in April 2017 and served as Chief Financial Officer from July 2017. Jamie Warner has been Chief Financial Officer since March 2020 and signed the FY2026 accounts on 21 May 2026. Matt Davies has chaired the board since the 2023 AGM. Catherine Faiers stepped down as Chief Operating Officer on 9 December 2025 and left the group on 27 February 2026 to become Chief Executive of Moonpig plc; she was not treated as a good leaver, so her unvested awards lapsed and no replacement has been appointed.

Nine directors bought roughly £269,000 of stock across 59,207 shares, and the Chairman then added two further tranches. There were no open-market purchases by any director during the whole of calendar 2025, and no discretionary sales in either year.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Matt Davies (Chair)	21 May 2026	Buy	5,532	Open market
Amanda James (NED)	21 May 2026	Buy	5,477	Open market
Jamie Warner (CFO)	21 May 2026	Buy	4,377	Open market
Nathan Coe (CEO)	22 May 2026	Buy	11,000	Open market
Geeta Gopalan (SID)	22 May 2026	Buy	5,521	Open market
Jasvinder Gakhal (NED)	22 May 2026	Buy	5,554	Open market
Adam Jay (NED)	22 May 2026	Buy	10,846	Open market
Megan Quinn (NED, joint with spouse)	22 May 2026	Buy	10,900	Open market
Matt Davies (Chair)	27 May 2026	Buy	5,643	Open market
Matt Davies (Chair)	29 Jun 2026	Buy	5,102	Open market
Nathan Coe (CEO)	20 Jul 2026	Sell (tax cover)	70,158	Tax-cover sale on 2023 PSP and 2024 DABP nil-cost option exercise of 148,898 shares
Jamie Warner (CFO)	20 Jul 2026	Sell (tax cover)	32,481	Tax-cover sale on 2023 PSP and 2024 DABP nil-cost option exercise of 68,934 shares
Nathan Coe (CEO)	24 Jun 2026	Grant	430,112	LTIP 371,867 (performance to FY2028/29) plus DBP 58,245 (service only, vests 24 Jun 2028)
Jamie Warner (CFO)	24 Jun 2026	Grant	216,240	LTIP 184,871 plus DBP 31,369
Jamie Warner (CFO)	21 Jul 2026	Grant	1,582	2026 SAYE scheme, exercisable from 1 September 2029

Every disposal in the record is a mechanical tax-cover sale accompanying a nil-cost option exercise. Nathan Coe's disclosed holding including persons closely associated has risen from 3,322,270 shares in 2025 to 3,519,827, or about 0.452%, at 24 August 2026.

10. Key Risks

• Shrinking retailer base: average forecourts fell 0.5% to 13,942 in FY2026 and were 1.7% lower in the second half, with guidance for a further 1% to 2% fall in FY2027. Retailer revenue is 80% of the group, so a falling denominator forces all growth onto price and product.
• Loss of pricing confidence after the Deal Builder revolt: the November 2025 retailer campaign forced a pause in the automatic rollout and a cut in the 2026 price event to about 5.5% from about 8%. April 2026 revenue was flat year on year, and Consumer Services revenue fell 8% with private listings down 11%.
• Autorama impairment exposure: the CGU carried £118.1m at 31 March 2026 with only £16.8m of headroom, tested on 44% compound car-delivery growth and market share rising from 10% to 26% over five years at a 12.5% pre-tax discount rate. The company discloses that 40% growth would eliminate the headroom and a combined downside would require a £30.3m impairment. From FY2027 Autorama disappears into a single reporting segment, removing the standalone profit visibility investors would use to monitor it.
• Intensifying competition: the Cazoo brand relaunched as the MOTORS network's flagship consumer marketplace on 27 May 2026, claiming approximately 2.4 million monthly visitors and 60% brand awareness, sold through a single invoice spanning MOTORS, eBay, Gumtree and Cazoo. Carwow grew revenue 55% to £85.1m in 2024 and guided above £100m for 2025.
• AI disintermediation of the traffic moat: less than 1% of the audience currently arrives from generative AI assistants and 13% from organic search, so today's exposure is modest. But the "over 80% direct" figure includes users who search the brand name on a search engine, a route an AI assistant could intercept. The company concedes the change "presents some risk" and has built a ChatGPT integration as a bridge.
• Two live regulatory overhangs: the CMA opened a consumer-protection investigation on 26 March 2026 under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, into whether one-star reviews moderated by Feefo were withheld from publication and from star ratings; it is disclosed as a contingent liability, and the promised September 2026 case update has not yet appeared. Separately, the FCA's motor finance redress scheme, confirmed on 30 March 2026 at £7.5bn of redress and £9.1bn of total cost to firms, was legally challenged from 1 May 2026 and partially suspended by the Upper Tribunal on 2 July 2026. Autotrader states it has no direct liability but is exposed through the financial health of its dealer customers and finance partners; Motoring Services revenue already fell 4% on lower income from an insurance partner.
• Leverage and buyback execution: net cash of £15.3m became net bank debt of £146.8m in a single year, with leverage guided to approximately 1.0x in FY2027 to fund a c.£500m buyback. £222.1m had been executed by 21 August 2026, but no Transaction in Own Shares announcement has been published in the three weeks since, and the weekly run rate had already fallen sharply as the price recovered.
• Culture and talent: the proportion of employees agreeing they are proud to work for Autotrader fell from 91% to 72% in a single year, which the company attributes to restructures, external factors and a tighter office-attendance policy. For a business whose moat rests on product and engineering talent, that is worth watching.

11. Recent Developments

• 26 Mar 2026 — CMA opens a consumer-protection investigation. The Competition and Markets Authority began an enforcement case under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, examining whether a number of one-star reviews moderated by Feefo Limited were not published and not counted towards star ratings. Autotrader was named alongside four other businesses when the case was published on 27 March 2026.
• 30 Mar 2026 — FCA confirms the motor finance redress scheme. The scheme covers agreements from 6 April 2007 to 1 November 2024, with 12.1 million agreements eligible, £7.5bn of redress and £9.1bn of total cost to firms. Autotrader published commentary the same day stating it has no direct liability or financial exposure.
• 15 May 2026 — Autotrader goes live inside ChatGPT and expands its credit facility. The app launched on the ChatGPT surface using the Model Context Protocol. The same day, the group exercised a £100.0m accordion taking its syndicated revolving credit facility from £200.0m to £300.0m, committed to February 2030.
• 21 May 2026 — FY2026 results and a new capital allocation policy. Revenue £624.3m (+4%), operating profit £392.7m (+4%), basic EPS 34.17p (+8%), final dividend 7.8p (+10%), and FY2027 operating profit guidance of £395m to £415m.
• 21 May 2026 — Nine directors buy shares on the open market.
• 27 May 2026 — MOTORS retires its consumer brand and relaunches as Cazoo. The Motors.co.uk marketplace migrated to cazoo.co.uk, positioned as a challenger to Autotrader.
• 08 Jun 2026 — 2026 Annual Report and Notice of AGM published. The notice sought authority to buy back up to 15% of issued share capital, raised from the customary 10%.
• 23 Jun 2026 — Buying Signals passes one million high-intent leads within six months of its January 2026 launch.
• 02 Jul 2026 — Upper Tribunal partially suspends the FCA motor finance redress scheme on terms agreed between the FCA and four challengers, with the FCA adopting a central planning assumption of no scheme.
• 16 Jul 2026 — 2026 AGM passes all 18 resolutions. 80.61% of shares were voted. The buyback authority passed with 98.58% in favour; the largest protest vote was against the Chair's re-election, at 97.25% in favour.
• 23 Jul 2026 — Summer app update released, adding AI lifestyle search categories and online reservations on more than 200,000 vehicles, with a record 3.7 million app monthly active users reported for May 2026.
• 24 Aug 2026 — Last buyback announcement to date. No further buyback announcement has been made in the three weeks since.
• 08 Sep 2026 — August Retail Price Index shows the used market turning. Used car transactions rose 2.6% year on year with franchise, independent and supermarket channels all growing for the first time this year, and used electric vehicle prices rose a record 3.8% to an average £25,095, reversing 40 months of decline.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 25 Sep 2026 — FY2026 final dividend of 7.8p per share paid (ex-dividend 27 August, record date 28 August 2026)
• Expected Sep 2026 — CMA case update on the online reviews investigation; the published case timetable states September 2026 but nothing had appeared as at 12 September
• 05 Nov 2026 — H1 FY2027 half year results for the six months ending 30 September 2026, confirmed on the company financial calendar and in the FY2026 announcement
• Expected Jan 2027 — H1 FY2027 interim dividend ex-dividend and payment dates; the prior-year interim went ex on 2 January and was paid on 26 January
• 27 May 2027 — FY2027 full year results for the year ending 31 March 2027, confirmed on the company calendar
• Expected Jun 2027 — publication of the 2027 Annual Report
• Expected Jul 2027 — 2027 Annual General Meeting; the 2026 meeting was held on 16 July

No capital markets day or investor day is currently scheduled; the last one on the company calendar was the investor day held on 6 September 2022. For the wider macro backdrop against which these dates land, see the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and discuss this research with other members in the ChartsView Forum.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 10 September 2026

Alliance Witan plc is a large UK-listed global equity investment trust, created in October 2024 when Alliance Trust absorbed Witan Investment Trust in what was then the largest investment-trust merger in UK history. It is externally managed by Towers Watson Investment Management, part of WTW, which does not pick stocks itself but hires and fires eleven specialist boutique managers and allocates capital between them. Net assets were £5.11bn at 31 December 2025 and roughly £5.29bn by 31 July 2026. The trust raised its dividend for a 59th consecutive year in 2025, and is on course for a 60th in 2026 — but it has now trailed its MSCI All Country World Index benchmark for two full years and the first half of a third. This report sets out what the accounts show, what the Board has changed, and what would need to happen for the record to improve. It contains no analyst opinions, price targets or ratings.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Alliance Witan plc
Ticker / exchange	ALW, London Stock Exchange
Structure	Closed-end investment trust, global equity mandate, multi-manager
Benchmark	MSCI All Country World Index, in sterling, net dividends reinvested
CEO / Leadership	No chief executive — the trust is externally managed. Dean Buckley is Chair of the Board. Investment management is delegated to WTW, whose Investment Committee for the mandate is Craig Baker (Global Chief Investment Officer), Stuart Gray and Mark Davis.
Employees	None — Alliance Witan has no employees. It is externally managed by WTW, with Juniper Partners as company secretary and administrator, and the Board consists of non-executive directors only.
Revenue (FY2025)	Total investment income of £98.1m, up from £72.8m in FY2024. Including portfolio gains and derivatives, and after management fees, finance costs and currency movements, the total return line was £241.2m.
Profit for the year (FY2025)	£224.5m, against £490.7m in FY2024
Net assets	£5,112.7m at 31 Dec 2025; ~£5,294.8m at 31 Jul 2026
NAV per share	1,337.2p at 31 Dec 2025; 1,416.5p at 30 Jun 2026; 1,426.5p at 31 Jul 2026
Shares in issue	367,285,276 with voting rights at 9 Sep 2026 (405,193,982 issued less 37,908,706 held in Treasury)
Ongoing charges	0.47% for FY2025; the management fee falls to a flat 0.46% from 1 Apr 2026 and 0.41% from 2027
Dividend	28.32p for FY2025, a 59th consecutive annual increase; at least 29.32p guided for FY2026
Gearing	9.1% gross, 5.5% net at 31 Jul 2026

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Cost has been cut twice and is now genuinely competitive: the Board announced on 25 Mar 2026 that the WTW fee moves from a tiered 0.52%/0.49%/0.46% structure to a flat 0.46% from 1 Apr 2026 and 0.41% from 2027, which is expected to take the ongoing charges ratio to about 0.57% in 2026 and 0.51% in 2027 — close to passive territory for an actively managed global fund.
• The buyback is large and consistently accretive: 17.8m shares, or 4.7% of issued capital, were repurchased in FY2025 for £223.6m at an average 5.1% discount, and a further 9.8m shares in H1 2026 against 4.9m in H1 2025. Every share bought below NAV adds to NAV per share for those who stay.
• Genuine diversification against a concentrated index: the portfolio holds 223 stocks with an active share of 71%, and the top ten positions account for only 23.8% of assets. As mega-cap listings concentrate global indices further, that structural difference is the product being sold.
• Scale and liquidity: at roughly £5bn of net assets the trust is one of the largest in the sector, which supports index membership, dealing liquidity and the fee negotiating position that produced the 2026 cut.

Bear Case

• Two and a half years of benchmark underperformance: NAV total return was 13.3% in FY2024 and 4.7% in FY2025, the latter against an MSCI ACWI return of 13.9%; H1 2026 delivered 7.0% against 12.7%. The Board raised the investment performance risk rating to increasing in the H1 2026 report and commissioned a structured review of stock-picker selection, portfolio construction and risk management.
• The diversification that defines the product is what is costing it: being underweight the largest technology and artificial-intelligence names produced a stock selection drag of 8.9% in FY2025 and 4.8% in H1 2026. The strategy only works if index concentration reverses, and there is no timetable for that.
• The discount is widening despite record buybacks: it moved from 4.1% at 31 Dec 2025 to 5.1% at 30 Jun 2026 to 5.7% at 31 Jul 2026, even as repurchase volumes doubled year on year. Buying back shares is not currently containing discount drift.
• Gearing amplifies a weak run: gross gearing was raised from 8.6% to 9.3% early in 2026 and stood at 9.1% at 31 Jul 2026, funded partly by £308.1m of fixed-rate loan notes at 31 Dec 2025. Leverage magnifies relative underperformance as readily as it magnifies gains.
• Manager and key-person concentration: the whole approach rests on the WTW Investment Committee choosing the right boutiques, and on named individuals inside each of the eleven firms, several of which are effectively single-manager operations. Four stock-picker changes were made across 2025 and 2026, which is itself an admission that selection is hard.

3. Revenue Segments

A closed-end fund has no trading segments. What follows is the composition of the portfolio — how capital is allocated across the appointed managers and, in the second table, where the money is invested. Allocations are as at 31 July 2026.

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Financials	22.9% of portfolio	Banks, insurers and payments. Visa and Mastercard are both top-ten holdings.
Information Technology	22.0% of portfolio	Microsoft, Taiwan Semiconductor, NVIDIA and SAP are the largest positions in this bucket.
Industrials	13.9% of portfolio	Capital goods, transport and business services.
Consumer Discretionary	10.3% of portfolio	Includes Amazon, the fourth-largest single holding.
Health Care	8.4% of portfolio	Includes HCA Healthcare, a top-ten position.
Communication Services	8.2% of portfolio	Alphabet is the largest holding in this group and the second largest overall.
Consumer Staples	4.5% of portfolio	Food, beverage, household and personal products.
Energy	3.2% of portfolio	Integrated oil and gas and energy services.
Materials	2.5% of portfolio	Chemicals, mining and packaging.
Utilities and other	1.0% of portfolio, plus 3.1% stock-picker cash	Regulated utilities plus uninvested cash held by the individual managers. Real Estate exposure was nil.

Income by source. Of the £98.1m of FY2025 total income, £95.1m was dividend income from portfolio holdings and £3.0m was other income, principally interest. That mix is why revenue earnings per share is far more stable than total earnings per share.

Manager allocation. Eleven stock pickers run concentrated mandates of up to 20 stocks each: GQG Partners 16%, Jennison Associates 11%, and then Lyrical Asset Management, Sands Capital, EdgePoint, Artisan Partners each at 9%, Vulcan Value Partners, Metropolis Capital, Dalton Investments and Brown Advisory each at 8%, and Veritas Asset Management at 5%. Geographically the portfolio was 59.0% North America against a benchmark weight of 66.5%, 18.6% Europe, 12.6% Asia and emerging markets, and 6.7% UK against a 3.2% benchmark weight.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Alliance Witan buys and holds global equities. Shareholders earn a return in two ways: the dividends the underlying companies pay, which fund the trust’s own dividend, and the change in the value of the portfolio, which shows up in net asset value. The trust charges shareholders a management fee for this, and borrows modestly to gear returns.

The multi-manager structure. WTW does not select individual stocks. It appoints eleven independent boutique firms, gives each a concentrated mandate of up to 20 of their highest-conviction ideas, and blends them so that the combined portfolio of 223 holdings has a 71% active share but far lower single-manager risk than any of its components. WTW also decides how much capital each manager gets and replaces those it loses confidence in — Artisan Partners replaced ARGA and Brown Advisory replaced SGA with effect from September 2025, and a further reallocation in Q2 2026 shifted about 5% of capital from Veritas, Metropolis and Brown Advisory towards Jennison, Sands and Dalton.

What passes for a moat. Three things. Scale, at around £5bn of net assets, which supports dealing liquidity and the bargaining power that produced two fee cuts. A dividend record of 59 consecutive annual increases, which is a genuine switching cost for income investors and hard for any new fund to replicate. And a closed-end structure, which means no forced selling when investors head for the exit — they sell shares to each other rather than redeeming from the fund, at the cost of a discount to NAV.

Where the model is vulnerable. None of that protects against the core risk, which is that a genuinely diversified active global portfolio underperforms an index increasingly dominated by a handful of very large companies. That is precisely what has happened since the merger.

5. Financial Health

Annual record. Figures below come from the audited statements of comprehensive income in the Alliance Trust and Alliance Witan annual results announcements. The revenue column is the trust’s total return line — investment income plus gains on investments and derivatives and fair-value movements on debt, net of investment management fees, finance costs and foreign exchange — before administrative expenses and tax. That is the figure market data providers map to revenue for a closed-end fund, and it swings with markets rather than trending. Statutory investment income alone was far steadier: £95.5m in 2022, £71.3m in 2023, £72.8m in 2024 and £98.1m in 2025. Long-term debt is total borrowings at the year end, being fixed-rate loan notes plus drawn bank facilities.

Fiscal Year	Revenue — total return (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022	−£229.4m	n/a	(81.14)p	26.14p	24.00p	£206.6m
FY2023	£609.1m	n/m from a negative base	208.53p	18.55p	25.20p	£230.1m
FY2024	£506.5m	−16.8%	158.25p	17.30p	26.70p	£359.5m
FY2025	£241.2m	−52.4%	56.97p	18.52p	28.32p	£370.0m

† Alliance Witan does not report an adjusted or non-GAAP earnings figure. The Adjusted EPS column above is the revenue return per share reported under Association of Investment Companies guidance — the income-only earnings that fund the dividend — while GAAP EPS is total earnings per share including capital returns. FY2021 is omitted because the pre-merger Alliance Trust statement of comprehensive income for that year could not be retrieved from a primary source; for reference, the FY2021 dividend was 19.05p. FY2024 is the merger year, in which net assets roughly doubled from £3.34bn to £5.22bn through the combination with Witan rather than through investment performance, so year-on-year comparisons across 2023, 2024 and 2025 are not like for like.

Half-year record. Alliance Witan reports half-yearly. The revenue column here is statutory total investment income, not the total return basis used in the annual table above.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 2026 (to 30 Jun 2026)	£55.2m	10.90p	91.33p
H2 2025 (derived)	£46.1m	8.65p	67.35p
H1 2025 (to 30 Jun 2025)	£52.0m	9.87p	(10.38)p
FY2025 total	£98.1m	18.52p	56.97p

H2 2025 is derived by subtracting reported H1 2025 figures from the audited full year; the trust does not publish a standalone second-half statement. The Adjusted EPS column is again revenue return per share.

Balance sheet at 31 December 2025. Investments held at fair value were £5,358.9m, cash and cash equivalents £121.2m and total assets £5,490.1m. Against that sat £61.9m of current bank loans and £308.1m of fixed-rate loan notes held at fair value, leaving net assets of £5,112.7m and a NAV per share of £13.37. The comparative at 31 December 2024 was net assets of £5,222.0m and a NAV per share of £13.05. By 30 June 2026 borrowings had risen to £304.1m of fixed-rate loan notes plus £99.6m of bank loans.

Cash flow. Net cash inflow from operating activities was £63.4m in FY2025, against £37.4m in FY2024, driven by £95.6m of dividend income received. Investing activities produced a net £226.6m inflow as £5,153.2m of disposals exceeded £4,937.9m of purchases. Financing consumed £350.1m, of which £223.5m went on share buybacks and £110.0m on dividends. Cash fell from £182.7m to £121.2m over the year.

6. Valuation and Market Data

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Ongoing charges	0.47% for FY2025 (0.59% excluding the WTW fee waiver linked to the Witan combination); the fee falls to a flat 0.46% from 1 Apr 2026 and 0.41% from 2027
Gearing	9.1% gross and 5.5% net at 31 Jul 2026
Active share	71%, across 223 holdings; top ten 23.8% of the portfolio, top twenty 32.8%
Short interest (% of float)	No net short position in ALW is currently disclosed. Under the UK Short Selling Regulation only positions of 0.5% or more of issued share capital must be published, and Alliance Witan does not appear in the FCA register. Verify at fca.org.uk/publication/data/short-positions-daily-update.xlsx.

7. What Are They Building

An investment trust has no research pipeline. What Alliance Witan is building is a lower-cost, better-performing version of the same structure, and in 2026 that took four concrete forms.

A structurally cheaper fee base. The 25 Mar 2026 announcement replaced the tiered WTW fee with a flat 0.46% from 1 April 2026, falling again to 0.41% from 2027. Management expects the ongoing charges ratio to move from 0.59% on an underlying FY2025 basis to about 0.57% in 2026 and 0.51% in 2027. For a fund whose main competitive threat is a passive tracker, this is the most direct lever the Board controls.

A structured review of the investment approach. Disclosed in the H1 2026 report alongside an explicit upgrade of the investment performance risk rating to increasing, the review covers stock-picker selection, portfolio construction and risk management. No conclusions have been published. This is the item most likely to change the shape of the portfolio over the next twelve months.

An actively reshaped manager line-up. Artisan Partners replaced ARGA and Brown Advisory replaced SGA with effect from September 2025. A further tactical reallocation in Q2 2026 moved roughly 5% of capital away from Veritas, Metropolis and Brown Advisory and towards Jennison, Sands Capital and Dalton Investments — a tilt towards growth mandates after a period in which value and diversification lagged.

A larger buyback and a simplified reserve structure. The August 2025 Court of Session approval cancelling the share premium account credited £1.38bn to distributable reserves, giving the Board far more headroom to repurchase stock and support the dividend. FY2025 buybacks were 17.8m shares for £223.6m, and H1 2026 volumes doubled year on year to 9.8m shares. The Board is also running an investor forum in Edinburgh on 22 Sep 2026 as part of a wider retail distribution effort.

8. Competitive Landscape

Alliance Witan competes with other large, self-managed or externally managed global investment trusts, and increasingly with low-cost index funds. Market capitalisations are as at September 2026.

Peer	Key 2026 metric
Scottish Mortgage (SMT.L)	—
F&C Investment Trust (FCIT.L)	—
City of London (CTY.L)	FY to Jun 2026 dividend of 22.10p, up 3.8%, a 60th consecutive annual rise; annual management charge of 0.30%, the lowest ongoing charge in the AIC UK Equity Income sector
Monks Investment Trust (MNKS.L)	Ongoing charge of 0.46% and a discount of around 5.1%, with NAV of 1,700.51p at 1 Sep 2026
Bankers Investment Trust (BNKR.L)	—

Alliance Witan is the largest global generalist trust of the group by net assets and, after the 2027 fee step-down to 0.41%, will be among the cheapest actively managed options in it. The AIC ranks Alliance Witan jointly with City of London and Bankers as its longest-running dividend heroes at 59 consecutive years of increases, ahead of Caledonia Investments at 58.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Alliance Witan has no chief executive because it has no employees. Dean Buckley chairs the Board, having joined in 2021 and taken the chair in late 2023; he signed both the FY2025 results on 5 Mar 2026 and the H1 2026 half-year report on 31 Jul 2026. The other directors are Sarah Bates as Senior Independent Director, Jo Dixon as chair of the Audit and Risk Committee, Rachel Beagles, Shauna Bevan, Milyae Park as chair of the Marketing Committee, and Robert Talbut, the former Chief Investment Officer of Royal London Asset Management, who joined on 1 Jun 2026. Vicky Hastings stepped down on 31 Jul 2025 and Andrew Ross on 31 Dec 2025. Day-to-day investment decisions sit with the WTW Investment Committee of Craig Baker, Stuart Gray and Mark Davis.

Director dealing is light, as is typical for an investment trust board. The dominant share transaction is the company’s own buyback programme, which runs on a near-daily basis.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Rachel Beagles (Non-Executive Director)	04 Sep 2026	Sale	2,128	PDMR matched trade, no change to beneficial holding
Rachel Beagles (Non-Executive Director)	04 Sep 2026	Purchase	2,128	PDMR matched trade, no change to beneficial holding
Alliance Witan plc	09 Sep 2026	Buyback into Treasury	250,000	Company share repurchase programme
Alliance Witan plc	23 Feb 2026	Buyback into Treasury	55,000	Company share repurchase programme
Alliance Witan plc	H1 2026 aggregate	Buyback into Treasury	9,800,000	Company share repurchase programme
Alliance Witan plc	FY2025 aggregate	Buyback into Treasury	17,837,838	Company share repurchase programme

Treasury holdings stood at 37,908,706 shares as at 9 Sep 2026, against 405,193,982 shares in issue, leaving 367,285,276 with voting rights.

10. Key Risks

• Relative investment performance (Investment): the Board explicitly upgraded this risk to increasing in the H1 2026 report. NAV total return of 4.7% in FY2025 trailed the MSCI ACWI’s 13.9%, and 7.0% in H1 2026 trailed 12.7%. Stock selection attribution was negative 8.9% in FY2025 and negative 4.8% in H1 2026, driven by underweight positions in mega-cap technology.
• Discount widening (Market): the discount moved from 4.1% at the FY2025 year end to 5.1% at the half year to 5.7% by the July 2026 factsheet, despite buyback volumes doubling. A persistent discount reduces the return shareholders realise relative to portfolio performance.
• Gearing (Financial): gross gearing of 9.1% at 31 Jul 2026, funded by fixed-rate loan notes and bank facilities totalling roughly £403.7m at 30 Jun 2026, magnifies losses as well as gains. The Bank of Nova Scotia facility was cut to £75m plus a £25m accordion and the Royal Bank of Scotland International facility was repaid and cancelled in January 2026.
• Key person and manager selection (Operational): outcomes depend on the WTW Investment Committee choosing well and on named individuals at eleven boutique firms, several of them effectively single-manager operations. Four manager changes across 2025 and 2026 illustrate how frequently that judgement has to be revisited.
• Index concentration and competition from passives (Strategic): both the FY2025 and H1 2026 manager commentaries flag that very large new listings could concentrate global indices further, structurally disadvantaging diversified active strategies. The counter is fee reduction, which is finite.
• Outsourced operating model (Operational): with no employees, the trust depends entirely on third parties — WTW as manager and AIFM, Juniper Partners as company secretary and administrator, plus depositary, custodian and registrar — for controls, cyber security and continuity.
• Dividend cover (Financial): revenue earnings per share of 18.52p in FY2025 covered only about two-thirds of the 28.32p paid, with the balance funded from reserves. The revenue reserve fell from £55.6m to £18.5m over FY2025, though the £1.38bn credited to distributable reserves in August 2025 provides substantial headroom.

11. Recent Developments

• 27 Jan 2026 — fourth interim FY2025 dividend declared.
• 23 Feb 2026 — buyback programme continues.
• 06 Mar 2026 — FY2025 annual results published.
• 25 Mar 2026 — management fee cut announced. The tiered WTW fee is replaced by a flat 0.46% from 1 April 2026 and 0.41% from 2027, expected to take the ongoing charges ratio to roughly 0.57% and then 0.51%.
• 29 Apr 2026 — 2026 Annual General Meeting held at the WTW offices in London.
• 12 May 2026 — board appointment announced. Robert Talbut, former Chief Investment Officer of Royal London Asset Management, appointed a Non-Executive Director.
• 01 Jun 2026 — Robert Talbut joins the Board.
• 31 Jul 2026 — H1 2026 half-year report. NAV total return of 7.0% against the benchmark’s 12.7%, total income of £55.2m, total earnings per share of 91.33p, discount widened to 5.1%, second interim dividend of 7.33p declared, and the investment performance risk rating raised to increasing alongside a structured review of the investment approach.
• 04 Sep 2026 — PDMR notification. Non-Executive Director Rachel Beagles executed a matched sale and repurchase of 2,128 shares with no change to her aggregate beneficial holding.

Dividend dates and market-moving macro events are tracked on the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and reader discussion is on the ChartsView Forum.

12. Key Dates

• 22 Sep 2026 — Alliance Witan investor forum, Edinburgh International Conference Centre
• 30 Sep 2026 — second interim dividend of 7.33p per share paid; the shares went ex-dividend on 27 Aug 2026
• 26 Nov 2026 — ex-dividend date for the third interim dividend of FY2026
• 31 Dec 2026 — third interim dividend payment date
• 25 Feb 2027 — ex-dividend date for the fourth interim dividend of FY2026
• 31 Mar 2027 — fourth interim dividend payment date, completing a guided FY2026 total of at least 29.32p and a 60th consecutive annual increase
• Expected Mar 2027 — FY2026 annual results; the FY2025 results were published on 6 Mar 2026 and FY2024 on 7 Mar 2025
• Expected Apr 2027 — 2027 Annual General Meeting, which the Board has said will return to Dundee
• Expected Jul 2027 — H1 2027 half-year report, following the 31 Jul 2026 and 1 Aug 2025 pattern

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 8 September 2026

Anglo American is midway through the most aggressive restructuring in its hundred-and-nine-year history. Since 2024 it has demerged its platinum business, sold the residual stake in it, agreed to sell steelmaking coal and nickel, put De Beers up for sale, and agreed a merger of equals with Canada's Teck Resources to create a copper-led group to be renamed Anglo Teck. As at today that merger has not completed: the company is still Anglo American plc, the London ticker is still AAL, and Chinese antitrust approval remains the final outstanding regulatory condition. What is left of the underlying business is already transformed — copper produced 73% of first-half 2026 underlying EBITDA on 47% of revenue, at a 60% margin. This report sets out the reported figures on the bases the company actually used, the disposals still in flight, and the dates that matter. It contains no analyst opinions, price targets or ratings.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Anglo American plc
Listings	London Stock Exchange (AAL), with secondary listings in Johannesburg and Botswana
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Sector	Diversified mining, increasingly copper-led
CEO / Leadership	Duncan Wanblad, Chief Executive Officer since 19 April 2022. John Heasley, Chief Financial Officer. Stuart Chambers, Chair.
Employees	43,477 full-time employees on a FY2025 annual average basis, plus 39,364 contractors; approximately 60,000 employees and embedded contractors on a full-time-equivalent basis at 31 December 2025
Revenue (FY2025, continuing operations)	$18,546m, up 4.5% on the re-presented FY2024 figure of $17,745m
Result attributable to shareholders (FY2025)	Loss of $3,741m, after a $2.3bn pre-tax impairment of the De Beers natural diamonds business
Underlying EBITDA (FY2025, continuing)	$6,417m at a 33% margin
Pending transaction	Merger of equals with Teck Resources to form Anglo Teck plc. Not completed as at 8 September 2026. Chinese antitrust approval is the final outstanding regulatory milestone.
Shares in issue	1,178,050,272 at 31 August 2026, no treasury shares; 98,906,534 are held by legacy buyback vehicles with voting rights waived
Net debt (30 June 2026)	$8,234m, at 1.0x underlying EBITDA
Reporting currency	US dollars; financial year ends 31 December

Figures are taken from the FY2025 preliminary results of 20 February 2026, the interim results of 30 July 2026 and the total voting rights announcement of 1 September 2026. Market data is as at 8 September 2026.

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Copper is now the business, and it is earning like it: in the first half of 2026 copper generated $2,936m of $4,002m group underlying EBITDA — 73% of the total — from 47% of revenue, at a 60% segment margin. Group EBITDA rose 35% year on year and the margin moved from 32% to 38%.
• The disposal programme has actually delivered cash: the platinum business was demerged as Valterra in May 2025 and the residual 19.9% stake sold for approximately $2.5bn in September 2025. Steelmaking coal is under contract to Dhilmar for up to $3.875bn, with $2.3bn payable upfront. Net debt fell from $10,623m at the end of 2024 to $8,571m and then $8,234m, and leverage is down to 1.0x.
• The merger carries a large, pre-agreed cash return: the terms provide for a special dividend of $4.5bn to Anglo American shareholders, approximately $4.19 per share, declared and approved ahead of completion. Anglo holders take approximately 62.4% of the combined group, the London listing remains primary, and $800m of pre-tax recurring annual synergies are targeted.
• The Chilean growth pipeline is contracted, not aspirational: the Codelco joint mine plan across Los Bronces and Andina was completed in June 2026 after regulatory approval, and is expected to add roughly 120,000 tonnes of copper a year on average from 2030 to 2051, shared equally. Collahuasi debottlenecking stage one is due to deliver first production in the fourth quarter of 2026.
• Unit costs are falling into a rising price: group copper C1 cash costs fell to 136 cents per pound in the first half of 2026 from 155 cents, with Quellaveco at 45 cents against 88 cents, while the copper market price rose 39% to 593 cents per pound. Attributable free cash flow rose 149% to $803m.

Bear Case

• The merger is unfinished and the last approval is the hardest: China's State Administration for Market Regulation is the sole outstanding regulatory condition, is reviewing under the normal procedure, and reporting suggests the review clock may be paused. Completion is guided only to a window between September 2026 and March 2027.
• There is no diversification left to cushion a copper downcycle: platinum, thermal coal, steelmaking coal and nickel are gone or going, and diamonds are for sale. The entire $1.0bn year-on-year EBITDA increase in the first half of 2026 was $1.2bn of price benefit net of $0.4bn of adverse currency, inflation and volume effects. The post-merger group is explicitly designed for more than 70% copper exposure.
• Three consecutive years of statutory losses: $3,068m in FY2024, $3,741m in FY2025 and $858m in the first half of 2026. The drivers were a $2.9bn De Beers carrying-value reduction, a further $2.3bn De Beers impairment and $943m of pre-tax steelmaking coal impairments. There is no meaningful trailing price-to-earnings ratio because there are no trailing earnings.
• Disposals are agreed but unclosed, and one is not even agreed: the coal sale to Dhilmar completes only by the first quarter of 2027 and follows Peabody's termination of the earlier agreement, which is now in arbitration. The nickel sale to MMG is still in European Commission merger review. De Beers has no named buyer at all, only a formal sale process in a weak diamond market, with Venetia being paused for two years. Woodsmith's final investment decision is explicitly conditioned on deleveraging that depends on these completing.

3. Revenue Segments

The table below shows FY2025 group revenue including associates and joint ventures, on the continuing-operations basis. Group revenue of $19,325m reconciles to statutory revenue of $18,546m after removing $792m of associates and joint ventures.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Copper	42.0%	$8,122m revenue and $3,983m underlying EBITDA. Copper Chile (Los Bronces, a 44% share of Collahuasi, El Soldado and the Chagres smelter), Copper Peru (Quellaveco) and the Sakatti project in Finland. The engine of the group and the centre of the Teck merger rationale.
Premium Iron Ore	34.4%	$6,651m revenue and $2,873m underlying EBITDA. Kumba Iron Ore in South Africa (Sishen and Kolomela) and Minas-Rio in Brazil. High-grade, low-impurity ore that earns a premium over the 62% iron benchmark.
De Beers	18.1%	$3,493m revenue and a $511m underlying EBITDA loss. Rough and polished diamonds, held within continuing operations for accounting purposes despite being subject to a formal sale process. Loss-making, and the source of both recent large impairments.
Manganese	2.4%	$472m revenue and $127m underlying EBITDA. A 40% attributable interest in the South32-operated manganese ore operation at Groote Eylandt, Australia.
Corporate and other	2.0%	$392m revenue and $11m underlying EBITDA. Marketing and trading net margins, third-party shipping, ancillary products, unallocated corporate costs, exploration and the captive insurer.
Crop Nutrients	1.0%	$195m revenue and a $66m underlying EBITDA loss. The Woodsmith polyhalite project in North Yorkshire, still pre-production; revenue is almost entirely from Cibra, a Brazilian fertiliser distribution associate.

The mix has shifted sharply since. In the first half of 2026, copper reached 46.9% of group revenue and 73% of underlying EBITDA, iron ore 31.5% of revenue and 29% of EBITDA, and De Beers, corporate and crop nutrients were all net negative at the EBITDA line. One external customer within the copper segment accounted for $1,134m of first-half revenue, roughly 11% of the group total.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Anglo American digs ore out of long-life open-pit and underground mines, processes it into concentrate or pellets, and sells it at prices it does not set. In the first half of 2026 the average copper market price was 593 cents per pound and the 62% iron ore benchmark was $106 per tonne. The company controls volume, cost and grade; it does not control price. This is why the entire year-on-year EBITDA improvement decomposes to $1.2bn of price, offset by $0.4bn of currency, inflation and volume drag, with a $0.1bn cost benefit.

Where the durability comes from. Mining moats are geological and regulatory rather than commercial. Quellaveco, Collahuasi and Los Bronces are large, long-life, high-grade orebodies in established jurisdictions, and the permits attached to them took decades to assemble. Quellaveco alone produced $1,500m of first-half EBITDA at a 69% margin from a single mine. Kumba's ore commands a premium over the benchmark because of its grade and low impurity content. These positions cannot be bought or built quickly, which is precisely why the Teck merger exists: the strategic prize is the physical adjacency of Collahuasi to Teck's Quebrada Blanca operation.

How the cost position is defended. The group delivered $1.8bn of run-rate cost savings by the FY2025 results and cut copper C1 cash costs to 136 cents per pound in the first half of 2026 from 155 cents. Being low on the cost curve is the only defence a price-taker has in a downcycle, and it is the explicit logic behind selling the higher-cost, more volatile businesses.

What the restructuring is actually for. The portfolio programme is a deliberate trade of breadth for margin. Revenue on the continuing basis is roughly half the total-operations figure of four years ago, but the first-half 2026 EBITDA margin of 38% compares with 32% a year earlier, and attributable return on capital employed rose from 9% to 15%. The intended end state, after the Teck merger and the remaining disposals, is a copper-dominated group with more than 70% of exposure in one metal.

5. Financial Health

Anglo American has re-presented its accounts twice in two years as businesses moved into discontinued operations. The annual table below is therefore explicitly labelled by basis, and the two bases are not comparable. FY2021 to FY2023 are total operations as originally reported, including platinum, steelmaking coal, nickel and De Beers. FY2024 and FY2025 are continuing operations, which excludes steelmaking coal, nickel and platinum but still includes De Beers.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021 (total operations)	41,554	+63.0%	$6.93	$7.22	419c†	$12,856m
FY2022 (total operations)	35,118	−15.5%	$3.72	$4.97	198c	$14,365m
FY2023 (total operations)	30,652	−12.7%	$0.23	$2.42	96c	$16,912m
FY2024 (continuing, re-presented)	17,745	n/m‡	($2.53)	$1.60	64c	$18,210m
FY2025 (continuing operations)	18,546	+4.5%	($3.30)	$0.54	23c	$15,481m

† The FY2021 dividend of 419 US cents includes 130 cents of special dividends alongside the 289 cent ordinary distribution. Later years carry no special dividend. ‡ The FY2024 year-on-year change is not meaningful because the basis changes at that row: FY2024 revenue was originally reported as $27,290m on a total-operations basis in February 2025 and re-presented to $17,745m in February 2026 as $9.5bn moved into discontinued operations. Any comparison of a $27.3bn FY2024 figure against an $18.5bn FY2025 figure produces a phantom 32% decline. The like-for-like move is plus 4.5%, against the re-presented FY2024 base.

Adjusted EPS is Anglo's own underlying earnings per share measure, stated on the total-operations basis in each year. GAAP EPS is basic earnings or loss per share attributable to equity shareholders. Long-term debt is total borrowings at the year end. Two further discontinuities matter: the share consolidation carried out alongside the Valterra Platinum demerger on 31 May 2025 reduced the weighted average share count from 1,192m to 1,072m, so per-share figures before and after that date sit on different denominators; and FY2022 balance sheet figures were restated for the amendment to IAS 12.

The real contraction in the revenue line is not an accounting artefact. Anglo American genuinely is close to half the company it was in 2021, because it has sold or demerged platinum, thermal coal, steelmaking coal and nickel, with diamonds to follow. The question the figures pose is whether a smaller, higher-margin, copper-concentrated group is worth more than the larger diversified one it replaced.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 2026 (to 30 Jun 2026)	$9,926m	$0.58	($0.80)
H1 2025 (to 30 Jun 2025)	$8,954m	$0.15	($1.58)
H1 2024 (to 30 Jun 2024)	$9,584m	$1.06	($0.55)
FY2025 full year	$18,546m	$0.54	($3.30)

Anglo American reports half-yearly rather than quarterly, though it publishes standalone quarterly production reports. Revenue is on the continuing-operations basis; adjusted and GAAP EPS are total-group figures, consistent with the annual table above. The first-half 2026 loss per share of $0.80 is entirely a discontinued-operations effect: continuing operations delivered positive basic EPS of $0.28 and underlying EPS of $0.77, while the $1.08 discontinued-operations loss per share reflects writing steelmaking coal down to the agreed Dhilmar sale price.

From the interim results of 30 July 2026, covering the six months to 30 June 2026: revenue $9,926m, up 11%; underlying EBITDA $4,002m, up 35%, at a 38% margin against 32%; cash flows from operations $3,523m; total capital expenditure $1,489m, of which $1,125m was sustaining; attributable free cash flow $803m, up 149%; net debt $8,234m at 1.0x underlying EBITDA; total borrowings $17,261m following $2.3bn of March 2026 bond issuance; and liquidity of $15.5bn. Copper production was 344kt, flat year on year, premium iron ore 30.6Mt, down 2%, and manganese ore 1,667kt, up 52%. An interim dividend of $0.23 per share was declared, at the company's 40% payout policy. Impairments in the period were $943m pre-tax on steelmaking coal and $25m on nickel.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	1.70% of issued share capital, position date 3 September 2026, per the FCA aggregated net short positions file. That implies roughly 20.0m shares short. Individually disclosed positions above the 0.5% threshold in mid-2026 were held by Pentwater Capital Management and HBK Services — names associated with merger arbitrage rather than a directional bear position.
Net debt / EBITDA	1.0x at 30 June 2026, down from 1.3x at 31 December 2025

One warning on the valuation multiples above: every one of them is calculated on a company that is contracted to change shape. Completion of the Teck merger would add Teck's assets, issue approximately 1.3301 Anglo shares for each Teck share, and pay out approximately $4.5bn in a special dividend, while the coal and nickel disposals would remove further assets and bring in cash. For live technical levels see our Live Charts page.

7. What Are They Building

Collahuasi, Chile. Anglo holds 44% of Collahuasi and is debottlenecking it in stages. Stage one adds crushing capacity and flotation cells to lift throughput from roughly 170,000 to 185,000 tonnes per day, adding around 10,000 tonnes a year on Anglo's share, with first production due in the fourth quarter of 2026 and less than $0.1bn of the $0.2bn budget remaining. Stage two takes throughput to the full permitted 210,000 tonnes per day from late 2027, adding a further 15,000 tonnes a year on Anglo's share. A standalone stage three, comprising a fourth processing line and mine expansion, could add up to 150,000 tonnes a year on Anglo's share from the mid-2030s, subject to studies, permitting and shareholder negotiations.

The Collahuasi and Quebrada Blanca integration. This is the single largest value item in the merger case and it sits outside the $800m of corporate synergies. Collahuasi is physically adjacent to Teck's Quebrada Blanca operation, and the announcement quantifies operational integration at approximately $1.4bn of average annual underlying EBITDA uplift on a 100% basis over 2030 to 2049, equating to roughly 175,000 tonnes of additional annual copper production, with first production targeted as early as 2030. It remains subject to shareholder negotiations and permitting. A live complication: the environmental authorisation for the Collahuasi desalination plant was set aside by Chile's Second Environmental Tribunal in May 2026, and the mine is running on alternative water sources while Anglo works to restart it.

Los Bronces and the Codelco joint mine plan. The definitive agreement with Codelco to run a joint mine plan across Los Bronces and the adjacent Andina mine was completed in June 2026, following competition and regulatory approvals. It is expected to deliver approximately 120,000 tonnes of copper a year on average over 2030 to 2051, shared equally between the parties, and was framed at announcement as unlocking at least $5bn of value. Implementation remains conditional on environmental permits, currently expected by 2030. Nearer term, restarting the second processing plant at Los Bronces drove first-half 2026 production up 19% to 95kt.

Quellaveco, Peru. Stage-one debottlenecking, approved in 2025, added a second pebble crusher and further flotation cells. Both are installed and under commissioning, taking throughput to approximately 142,000 tonnes per day with improved recoveries by late 2026, against a permit that now allows 150,000. Capital cost is approximately $0.1bn with less than $0.1bn remaining. Early studies support a longer-term expansion.

Woodsmith, North Yorkshire. The polyhalite project remains pre-production and unapproved. The service shaft has reached 904m of a required 1,600m, the production shaft was paused in June 2024 at 712m, and the mineral transport tunnel stands at 30.4km of 37km. Spend is approximately $0.3bn in 2026 and a further $0.25bn in 2027. A final investment decision is not expected until 2028 and is conditional on a feasibility study demonstrating robust economics, a clear pathway to syndication, and sufficient deleveraging. Mitsubishi Corporation signed an investment agreement in February 2026 signalling an intention to evaluate a potential 25% stake at that decision point.

Sakatti, Finland. The greenfield copper, nickel and PGM option in Finnish Lapland, with the second phase of the pre-feasibility study targeted for completion in December 2026.

8. Competitive Landscape

Anglo American competes for the same copper and iron ore markets as the other diversified majors, and increasingly for the same investor demand for copper exposure. Market capitalisations below were re-checked live on 8 September 2026 and converted at that day's rates.

Peer	Key 2025 metric
BHP Group (BHP)	FY2026, to 30 June 2026: underlying EBITDA $32.9bn, up 27%, at a 59% margin. Copper revenue rose $6.5bn to $29.0bn and copper EBITDA rose $5.9bn to $18.2bn, more than half of group EBITDA for the first time. Produced roughly 2.0Mt of copper, the world's largest producer for a second year.
Rio Tinto (RIO.L)	H1 2026, to 30 June 2026: underlying EBITDA $14.8bn, up 28%; copper EBITDA up 84% to $5.7bn; free cash flow up 75% to $3.8bn; copper-equivalent production up 3%.
Glencore (GLEN.L)	H1 2026: own-sourced copper production 397kt, up 15% from 343.9kt, with full-year guidance maintained at 810 to 870kt. Adjusted industrial EBITDA $6.5bn, up 72%.
Vale (VALE)	Q2 2026: iron ore production 84.3Mt, up 1% year on year on record S11D output plus Capanema and VGR1; iron ore sales 79.7Mt, up 2.4Mt. Full-year 2026 iron ore guidance 335 to 345Mt. The principal comparator for Anglo's premium iron ore business.
Freeport-McMoRan (FCX)	Q2 2026: revenue $7.03bn; net income $984m, or $0.68 per share; adjusted net income $1.1bn. Sold 710 million pounds of copper at a realised $6.17 per pound, against full-year 2026 guidance of approximately 3.1 billion pounds.
Teck Resources (TECK)	The merger counterparty rather than a competitor. Anglo American shareholders would take approximately 62.4% of the combined group and Teck holders approximately 37.6%, at an exchange ratio of 1.3301 Anglo shares per Teck share.

The comparison that matters is against BHP and Freeport, both of which are further along the copper concentration path Anglo is now travelling. BHP produced roughly 2.0Mt of copper in its 2026 financial year against Anglo's 344kt in the first half of 2026; Freeport guides to approximately 3.1 billion pounds, around 1.4Mt. Anglo is buying scale in copper through the Teck merger rather than building it.

9. Insider Activity

The chief executive is Duncan Wanblad, appointed on 19 April 2022 and confirmed still in post, having been named as the designated chief executive of Anglo Teck after the merger. John Heasley is chief financial officer and is likewise designated to continue; Stuart Chambers is chair and would be succeeded by Sheila Murray on completion, with Teck's Jonathan Price becoming deputy chief executive.

Only routine all-employee share plan activity was disclosed during 2026.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Duncan Wanblad (Chief Executive Officer)	15 Jun 2026	Acquisition of partnership and matching shares	6	Share Incentive Plan
John Heasley (Chief Financial Officer)	15 Jun 2026	Acquisition of partnership and matching shares	6	Share Incentive Plan

These are automatic monthly salary-deduction purchases under an HMRC-approved all-employee plan, not discretionary signalling trades. Beyond them, no discretionary insider buying or selling by Anglo American directors was disclosed in 2026. That absence should be read in context rather than as a signal: directors sit inside a live, price-sensitive cross-border merger with an outstanding Chinese antitrust decision, which effectively places them in a continuous closed period. The company's own share purchase transactions page carries no entries after February 2022, when the last buyback programme completed.

10. Key Risks

• Merger completion: Chinese antitrust approval is the sole outstanding regulatory condition, is being reviewed under the normal procedure, and reporting suggests the review clock may be paused as a Phase 3 deadline approaches. Completion is guided only to a window between September 2026 and March 2027, with no fixed date. China absorbs roughly half of global refined copper output and weighs strategic supply-chain considerations alongside competition.
• Single-commodity concentration: copper produced 73% of first-half 2026 underlying EBITDA on 47% of revenue, and the entire year-on-year EBITDA increase was price-driven. Platinum, thermal coal, steelmaking coal and nickel have been sold or demerged and diamonds are for sale, so there is essentially no remaining diversification to absorb a copper downcycle. The post-merger group targets more than 70% copper exposure by design.
• Woodsmith is an open-ended capital commitment with no approval and no revenue: the Crop Nutrients segment lost $66m of EBITDA on $195m of revenue in FY2025 and a further $49m in the first half of 2026. Two shafts remain incomplete, one paused since June 2024, spend continues at roughly $0.3bn a year, and the final investment decision is not expected before 2028 and is explicitly conditional on deleveraging that depends on disposals completing.
• Disposal execution and litigation: steelmaking coal completes only by the first quarter of 2027 and is subject to competition clearances and pre-emption rights; nickel remains in European Commission review; De Beers has no named buyer. Anglo is simultaneously in arbitration with Peabody over the terminated 2024 coal agreement, and the Kabwe class action in Zambia over alleged lead-related health impacts is at the certification stage.
• Chilean water and permitting: the Second Environmental Tribunal set aside the environmental authorisation for the Collahuasi desalination plant in May 2026, and the mine is running on alternative sources. Anglo's own guidance carries the caveat that copper production is subject to water availability, the El Soldado life-extension permit was only submitted in the second quarter of 2026, and the Los Bronces joint mine plan remains conditional on permits expected by 2030.
• South African rail and currency exposure at Kumba: Anglo states in its own guidance footnotes that Kumba production is subject to third-party rail and port availability. FY2025 Kumba results included penalty income received from Transnet, a direct admission of rail underperformance. Kumba unit costs rose to $46 per tonne in the first half of 2026 from $39, driven by a stronger rand that cost the group $0.2bn of EBITDA, and FY2026 production is being cut to 31 to 33Mt for a plant tie-in.
• Peru single-asset concentration: Quellaveco alone contributed $1,500m of first-half 2026 EBITDA at a 69% margin, roughly 37% of the group total, from one mine. First-half production fell 6% on lower grades, EBITDA absorbed a provision for Peruvian profit-sharing costs, planned concentrator maintenance in 2027 will further reduce output, and guidance shows Peru declining from 310 to 340kt in 2026 to 290 to 320kt in 2028.
• A record of impairments producing statutory losses: three consecutive reporting periods of losses attributable to shareholders, driven by a $2.9bn De Beers carrying-value reduction in FY2024, a $2.3bn De Beers impairment in FY2025 and $943m of steelmaking coal impairments in the first half of 2026. FY2025 sensitivity disclosures show a 0.5% move in the discount rate alone shifts the impairment charge by $0.2bn.

11. Recent Developments

• 01 Sep 2026 — Special dividend and name change mechanics published. A total voting rights announcement confirmed 1,178,050,272 shares in issue and set out the timetable mechanics for the $4.5bn special dividend and the change of name to Anglo Teck plc, including a new share code and short name. It also confirmed the merger remains subject to outstanding conditions.
• 30 Jul 2026 — Interim results for the first half of 2026. Underlying EBITDA of $4,002m, up 35%, on revenue of $9,926m; net debt down to $8.2bn at 1.0x; an interim dividend of $0.23. The chief executive confirmed Chinese antitrust approval as the final outstanding regulatory milestone and completion within the original September 2026 to March 2027 window. The Anglo Teck executive leadership team was announced the same day.
• 23 Jul 2026 — Second-quarter production report published, followed on 28 July 2026 by Kumba Iron Ore interim results and Copper Mark recognition for Quellaveco, Los Bronces, El Soldado and Chagres.
• 24 Jun 2026 — Codelco joint mine plan completed. The definitive agreement covering Los Bronces and Andina was completed following competition and regulatory approvals, opening the path to approximately 120,000 tonnes a year of additional copper on average over 2030 to 2051, shared equally.
• 18 May 2026 — Steelmaking coal sold to Dhilmar for up to $3.875bn. The structure is $2.3bn upfront plus up to $1.575bn of coal-price-linked earnout, with completion expected by the first quarter of 2027. Arbitration against Peabody over the terminated 2024 agreement continues.
• 18 May 2026 — Collahuasi desalination permit set aside. Chile's Second Environmental Tribunal annulled the environmental authorisation for the plant; the operation continues on alternative water sources.
• 29 Apr 2026 — Annual general meeting held, following the first-quarter production report on 28 April 2026.
• 20 Feb 2026 — FY2025 preliminary results. Continuing-operations underlying EBITDA of $6.4bn, net debt down to $8.6bn, $1.8bn of run-rate cost savings delivered and a $2.3bn pre-tax De Beers impairment, with a total dividend of $0.23. Anglo also announced a Woodsmith investment agreement with Mitsubishi Corporation covering a potential future 25% equity stake at final investment decision.
• 05 Feb 2026 — Fourth-quarter 2025 production report published. In the same month the Queensland regulator lifted the final directives at Moranbah North, allowing a staged restart to longwall production.
• 16 Dec 2025 — Canadian government approval for the merger under the Investment Canada Act, following approval by both Anglo American and Teck shareholders on 9 December 2025.
• 09 Sep 2025 — Merger of equals with Teck Resources announced, five days after the sale of the residual 19.9% Valterra Platinum stake for approximately $2.5bn completed Anglo's exit from platinum.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 14 Sep 2026 — currency conversion rates announced for the interim dividend
• 29 Sep 2026 — interim dividend No.49 payment date, at $0.23 per share. The London ex-dividend date of 20 August 2026 and record date of 21 August 2026 have both passed
• 14 Oct 2026 — dividend reinvestment plan results released
• 20 Oct 2026 — third-quarter 2026 production report, confirmed on the company investor calendar for 06:00 GMT
• TBD — Teck merger completion. Guided to a window between September 2026 and March 2027 with no fixed date, gated on Chinese antitrust approval. Once the remaining conditions are satisfied, completion follows eleven trading days later
• TBD — declaration and finalisation announcement for the $4.5bn special dividend, to be published no later than eight trading days before the special dividend record date, which is itself triggered by satisfaction of the remaining merger conditions. The same announcement will carry the timetable for the change of name to Anglo Teck plc and the new share code
• Expected Feb 2027 — FY2026 preliminary results, alongside the fourth-quarter production report and the FY2026 final dividend notice. The FY2025 equivalents were published on 20 February 2026
• Expected Mar 2027 — completion of the steelmaking coal sale to Dhilmar, guided to the first quarter of 2027
• Expected Apr 2027 — annual general meeting, alongside the first-quarter production report. The 2026 meeting was held on 29 April 2026, though the 2027 meeting may be convened by Anglo Teck plc if the merger completes first
• Expected Dec 2026 — completion of the second phase of the Sakatti pre-feasibility study
• Expected Jan 2028 — earliest window for the Woodsmith final investment decision, which management describes as preparing for from 2028

Two items sit outside a dated timetable. The De Beers sale process has no named buyer and no deadline beyond management's commitment to provide an update through the course of 2026. The nickel sale to MMG remains in European Commission merger control review with no announced decision date. Readers tracking the macro backdrop against which these events land may find our Economic Calendar useful, and discussion of individual holdings continues in the ChartsView Forum.

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