Link Group half year 2021 update – preliminary result above guidance

The key reasons for the outperformance against the trading update provided on 9 December 2020 are:

? positive revenue momentum across the business during December 2020 generating an Operating EBIT of $2 million above guidance;

? PEXA5 performance during December 2020, delivering another record month of transaction volumes on the PEXA Exchange, and contributing to $3 million outperformance in Link Group’s Operating NPATA guidance. PEXA 1H FY2021 revenue and Operating EBITDA were $104 million and $51 million, respectively; and

? a lower than anticipated effective tax rate, driven by a larger than forecasted use of unrecognised tax losses. In this half year period, the lower effective tax rate has had a positive impact on Operating NPATA of $3 million. Our expectations for the effective tax rate for the year ended 30 June 2021 are revised to 27 – 28%.