28 September 2026

Christie Group plc

Interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2026

Continued momentum in H1 with underlying operating profit up 11.1%; interim dividend up 67%

Full year expectations remain unchanged

Christie Group plc ('Christie Group' or the 'Group'), the leading provider of Professional & Financial Services (PFS) and Stock & Inventory Systems & Services (SISS) to the healthcare, hospitality, leisure, medical, childcare & education and retail sectors, today announces its Interim Results for the six months ended 30 June 2026 (the "Period").

H1 2026 Financial Headlines

·     Revenues up 5.4% to £36.0m (H1 2025: £34.1m) with growth across all five trading brands, both in the UK and International operations

·   11.1% increase in operating profit pre non-recurring pension scheme curtailment cost ("DB curtailment cost") to £2.4m (H1 2025: £2.1m); improved operating profit margin of 6.6% (H1 2025: 6.3%)

·     Non-recurring and non-cash DB curtailment cost arising from the closure to future accrual of the Group's two defined benefit schemes of £0.4m (H1 2025: £nil)

·      Operating profit (after accounting for the DB curtailment cost) of £2.0m (H1 2025: £2.1m)

·     Profit before tax of £1.5m (H1 2025: £1.7m); 12.3% increase in profit before tax (before DB curtailment cost) to £1.9m (H1 2025: £1.7m)

·     Significant improvement in cash balance, with cash & cash equivalents increased to £8.7m (H1 2025: £5.0m)

·     57% growth in total EPS to 4.12p (H1 2025: total including discontinued operations 2.63p); 116% growth in adjusted EPS before DB curtailment cost to 5.69p (H1 2025: 2.63p)

·     Reflecting the Group's strong momentum in the Period and its continued confidence in the long-term outlook, the Board has declared an interim dividend of 1.25p, an increase of 67% (H1 2025: 0.75p per share)

H1 2026 Operational Headlines

·    607 businesses sold in the Period, up 11.2% (H1 2025: 546) and totalling around £835.3m (H1 2025: £978.2m) in value

·     5% growth in transactional brokerage income from our UK and International operations

·     4% increase in Valuation and Business Appraisal revenues with over £4.4bn of assets valued in H1 (2025: £3.2bn)

·     15% growth in our finance brokerage income

·     31% growth in our insurance brokerage income; high client retention levels maintained, with 87% renewal rate for existing clients during the Period

·  Modest growth achieved in our hospitality stock audit business in line with management expectations against the backdrop of widely recognised challenging conditions for the UK hospitality sector 

·   Employee benefit expenses for the Period were up by 7.8%, reflecting a 4.4% increase in headcount to support future growth as well as inflationary pay adjustments

·      Other operating expenses well controlled, reducing to 23.5% of revenue (2025: 25.4%)

·     Completed sale of the Vennersys business, the Group's final loss-making divestment, at the start of the Period in January, enhancing profit margins and enabling the greater focus on continuing operations

Current trading and outlook

·      Transactional brokerage activity across our UK and International operations has remained robust throughout H1, with the combined value of active mandates and agreed deals in solicitors' hands up 7% at 30 June 2026 compared to the start of the year

·      Finance brokerage activity has also been encouraging with strong instruction levels throughout H1 and a pipeline of lender-sanctioned loan offers at 30 June 2026 which was 27% higher than H1 2025 and 8% higher than the start of the year

·   Investment and lending appetite into our chosen sectors remain robust despite geopolitical climate

·    Investment in growing our operations both in the UK and overseas continues. In August, we expanded our dental brokerage and advisory offer in the Republic of Ireland, to support a sector experiencing growing investor and operator interest

·     Earlier this month we announced the appointment of Darren Bond, Global Managing Director of Christie & Co, to the Board as an Executive Director. Darren's extensive experience across valuation, brokerage, consultancy and capital markets activities further strengthens the Board's expertise and positions the Group well for further growth

·  The Board anticipates delivery of a full year performance in line with current market expectations*, and once again anticipates selling in excess of 1,000 businesses in the year. The Group has a strong pipeline of deal flow in H2 and, as previously disclosed, expects a second-half weighting to invoicing

Financial results for the six months ended 30 June 2026

Dan Prickett, Chief Executive, commented:

"The Group's first half results build on an exceptionally strong year of growth in FY25 and demonstrate continued progress and momentum across the Group's brands and geographies.

Demand for our broad range of services - driven by ongoing investor and lender appetite for our specialist sectors - has remained resilient despite domestic and geopolitical uncertainty. This illustrates the sound long-term fundamentals which underpin the sectors in which we choose to specialise and the quality, dedication and energy of our teams who consistently deliver successful outcomes for our clients.

In acknowledgement of this continued momentum and our confidence in the long-term outlook, the Board has recommended an interim dividend of 1.25p, up 67%. At the same time as increasing shareholder distributions, our strong profit growth and cash generation enables us to continue to invest in attracting and retaining the strongest talent to support our growth ambitions, both in the UK and internationally.

We continue to anticipate a second-half weighting to our FY26 revenue and a full year performance in line with current market expectations, supported by the strength of the pipelines we carry into H2 and positive ongoing deal momentum."

*Prior to this announcement, market forecasts for FY26 were revenue of £75.0m and adjusted profit before tax of £4.6m.

Enquiries:

Christie Group plc
Dan Prickett                                                       07885 813101
Chief Executive

Simon Hawkins                                                   07767 354366
Chief Financial Officer

Shore Capital
Patrick Castle                                                     020 7408 4090
Nominated Advisor and Broker

Hudson Sandler
Alex Brennan/Emily Brooker/Lottie Lambert        020 7796 4133 / [email protected]
Financial PR                  

Notes to Editors:

Christie Group plc, quoted on AIM, is a leading professional business services group with 32 offices across the UK and Europe, catering to its specialist markets in the healthcare, hospitality, leisure, medical, childcare & education and retail sectors.

Christie Group operates in two complementary business divisions: Professional & Financial Services (PFS) and Stock & Inventory Systems & Services (SISS). These divisions trade under the brand names: PFS - Christie & Co, Pinders, Christie Finance and Christie Insurance: SISS - Venners.

Tracing its origins back to 1896, the Group has a long-established reputation for offering valued services to client companies in agency, valuation services, investment, consultancy, project management, stock audit and inventory management. The diversity of these services provides a natural balance to the Group's core agency business.

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the UK Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 which is part of the UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

For more information, please go to https://www.christiegroup.com/

Chief Executive's Review

We are pleased to report a strong and progressive first-half performance, where we have delivered further growth in revenues and underlying operating profit. Demand for our services continues to be robust across all the sectors in which we operate, despite a period of geopolitical uncertainty both in the UK and internationally. We have increased first-half revenues in each of our five trading brands and achieved growth in both our UK and International operations. Our pipelines for business sales and finance brokerage activity are all higher than H1 2025 and the start of 2026, providing us with confidence for the second half and beyond.

Financial Review

The Group reported H1 revenues from continuing operations of £36.0m (2025: £34.1m) and an adjusted operating profit of £2.4m (2025: £2.1m). First half operating profit margin pre non-recurring and non-cash pension scheme curtailment costs improved to 6.6% (2025: 6.3%).

The 5.4% growth in first-half revenues was driven by a 5.8% increase in revenues from our Professional and Financial Services ("PFS") division where, despite the exceptionally strong invoicing in Q4 of FY25, we carried good momentum in our M&A brokerage activities into 2026. Revenue growth of 2.1% in our hospitality stocktaking business that comprises our Stock and Inventory Systems and Services ("SISS") division was slightly more modest, as owners and operators continue to manage costs tightly reflecting widely reported pressures across that sector.

Operating profit from continuing operations pre non-recurring pension scheme curtailment costs increased by 11.1% to £2.4m (2025: £2.1m). This increase at more than double the rate of revenue growth, evidences the increased productivity from our established teams, augmented by a 2.7% reduction in other operating expenses to £8.4m (2025: £8.7m). This improvement is after absorbing the investment associated with a 4.4% increase in headcount, as we continue to invest in expanding our PFS division teams to support our medium and longer-term growth ambitions. The corresponding revenue growth from those new roles will materialise in future periods given the time taken to secure new M&A and finance brokerage instructions and bring those through to deal completion or sanctioned loan offers.

Total employee benefit expenses increased by 7.8% to £25.1m (2025: £23.3m). This reflects a combination of two factors: the 4.4% increase in headcount previously referred to as part of our growth investment, and the balancing 3.4% being attributable to pay inflation on existing personnel.

The closure of the Group's two defined benefit pension schemes to ongoing active accrual, which we announced on 2 April, has meant we have been required under accounting standards to recognise a non-cash and non-recurring cost of £0.4m as a past service cost in our H1 results due to those formerly active members being revalued as deferred members. An equivalent £0.4m credit has been recognised in the statement of other comprehensive income, reflecting the fact that this is an accounting adjustment only and there is no impact on either our balance sheet, cash or distributable reserves. As previously reported, both of our defined benefit pension schemes remain in healthy surplus and we are working collaboratively and constructively with the trustees of both schemes towards our shared objective of a full buy-out which fully protects members' accrued benefits.

Finance costs relating to lease liabilities remained consistent at £0.4m (2025: £0.4m). We continued to have no interest costs payable on bank facilities, given our positive net cash position. Our cash and cash equivalents balance at the end of H1 increased by £3.7m year-on-year to £8.7m (2025: £5.0m). The £0.7m decrease in the cash balance since the year end was entirely as anticipated and reflects our normal first-half working capital pattern where bonuses and commissions relating to FY25 performance were paid out in H1. We anticipate a cash-generative trading performance in H2.

Having completed the disposal of the loss-making software business, Vennersys, the total first-half earnings per share from both continuing and discontinued operations increased by 57% to 4.12p per share (2025: 2.63p per share), after allowing for the non-recurring and non-cash pension curtailment cost. Reflecting this significant earnings uplift and the positive outlook for H2 from our continuing operations, the Board has declared an increased interim dividend of 1.25p per share (H1 2025: 0.75p per share) which will be paid on 6 November 2026 to shareholders on the register on 9 October 2026.

Operational review

We saw positive performances and progress during the period across our PFS division businesses with year-on-year revenue growth achieved by all four brands - Christie & Co, Christie Finance, Christie Insurance and Pinders - that comprise it.

Having brokered the sale of 1,164 businesses in FY25 and 1,187 in FY24, we increased the volume of businesses sold in H1 2025 by 11.2%, completing on 607 (2025: 546) business sales in the Period. The mix of business in the Period, comprising higher volumes from the Pub, Pharmacy and Retail sectors than H1 2025, meant that our average fee on completed deals was 5% lower than the same period last year.

Nonetheless we ended H1 with the value of our M&A pipeline - deals where an agreement between vendor and buyer is in place and the transaction is now in solicitors' hands and subject to ongoing due diligence - up over 5% on the prior year and the average fee level of that pipeline marginally ahead. Within that transactional pipeline, our focus on the continued but measured expansion of our international activities saw our international pipelines up by over 24% on the end of H1 2025, despite challenging conditions in what is currently a weak German market.

We have also maintained progress in our advisory activities where Valuation and Business Appraisal income was 4% higher than H1 2025, which itself was 20% higher than H1 2024. During the Period we valued assets in our sectors worth over £4.4bn (2025: £3.2bn) for new lending, covenant monitoring and refinancing purposes.

In Christie Finance, our FCA regulated finance brokerage business, we delivered a 15% growth in H1 fee income compared to the equivalent period in 2025. New instructions levels have remained strong throughout the first half of the year with robust demand experienced by our Commercial Mortgage, Corporate Debt Advisory, Real Estate and Bridging, and Unsecured lending teams. Despite the healthy income growth achieved, this strong instruction level has supported a growing pipeline which ended H1 27% higher than a year earlier and 8% up on the start of 2026. We anticipate an encouraging second half income performance as a result.

Christie Insurance, our insurance brokerage business - also FCA regulated - continued to achieve strong client renewal levels, with 87% of clients choosing to renew their cover in the period. This, coupled with a steadily improving performance from our expanded sales teams who offer clients general trade insurances and life and protection products tailored to our specialist sectors, meant that our insurance brokerage commissions income was increased 31% on the same period in 2025.

In the SISS division, Venners, our hospitality stock audit business continued to see challenging conditions impacting the sector. Notwithstanding this, the business achieved modest growth in its revenues, where both Stock Audit and Compliance income were ahead of the prior year. This growth was achieved through an improved level of new business activity and quote conversion, which served to offset the negative impact of existing clients choosing to extend stock periods as part of their own cost management strategies and staff availability.

Underlying productivity of our fee-earning stock audit teams showed stronger improvement and outpaced pay inflation, with a 4.3% increase in income per head from a 2% reduction in that fee-earner headcount. As a result, the gross margin achieved by the business from its H1 performance improved by 1.3%. Performance improved as we moved through the first half, with Q2 revenues 5.5% higher than a slightly subdued Q1.

Outlook

The Group commenced the second half with transactional and finance brokerage pipelines ahead of both the same point last year and the position at the start of the year following very strong growth in FY25. This evidences robust ongoing demand for our services despite the backdrop of ongoing conflicts and domestic and geopolitical uncertainty experienced throughout the first half of the year. It also underpins our continued expectations of a stronger second half performance than we have achieved in H1, and a full year performance in line with the Board's expectations.

M&A activity across our specialist sectors remains resilient, underpinned by continued investment and lending appetite which reflects the strong fundamentals of the businesses and sectors we support. Our balance sheet and cash resources have significantly improved over the last two years, providing us with the confidence to continue to invest in strengthening and expanding our teams where we see further growth opportunities.

Once again, I would like to thank our superb teams who continue to deliver outstanding outcomes for our clients, and those clients for putting their trust in us. The first half performance is testament to our team's ongoing passion, expertise, commitment and collaboration and means we are well placed to achieve our ambitions for the full year and beyond.

Dan Prickett

Chief Executive Officer

Independent Review Report to Christie Group plc

Introduction

We have been engaged by the Company to review the condensed set of financial statements in the half-yearly financial report for the six-month period ended 30 June 2026 which comprises the Interim Consolidated Income Statement, the Interim Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income, the Interim Consolidated Statement of Financial Position, the Interim Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows, the Interim Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity and the related Notes 1 to 16.

Based on our review, nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the condensed set of financial statements in the half-yearly financial report for the six months ended 30 June 2026 is not prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with International Accounting Standard ('IAS') 34 "Interim Financial Reporting", as adopted for use in the United Kingdom and the AIM Rules issued by the London Stock Exchange.

Basis for Conclusion

We conducted our review in accordance with International Standard on Review Engagements (UK) 2410, "Review of Interim Financial Information Performed by the Independent Auditor of the Entity" issued for use in the United Kingdom. A review of interim financial information consists of making enquiries, primarily of persons responsible for financial and accounting matters, and applying analytical and other review procedures. A review is substantially less in scope than an audit conducted in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) and consequently does not enable us to obtain assurance that we would become aware of all significant matters that might be identified in an audit. Accordingly, we do not express an audit opinion.

As disclosed in Note 2, the annual financial statements of the group are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards adopted for use in the United Kingdom ("UK adopted IFRS"). The condensed set of financial statements included in this half-yearly financial report has been prepared in accordance with International Accounting Standard ('IAS') 34 "Interim Financial Reporting", as adopted for use in the United Kingdom.

Conclusions Relating to Going Concern

Based on our review procedures, which are less extensive than those performed in an audit as described in the Basis of Conclusion section of this report, nothing has come to our attention to suggest that management have inappropriately adopted the going concern basis of accounting or that management have identified material uncertainties relating to going concern that are not appropriately disclosed.

This conclusion is based on the review procedures performed in accordance with this ISRE, however future events or conditions may cause the entity to cease to continue as a going concern.

Responsibilities of directors

The directors are responsible for preparing the half-yearly financial report in accordance with International Accounting Standard ('IAS') 34 "Interim Financial Reporting", as adopted for use in the United Kingdom and the AIM Rules issued by the London Stock Exchange.

In preparing the half-yearly financial report, the directors are responsible for assessing the Group's ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the directors either intend to liquidate the company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor's Responsibilities for the review of the financial information

In reviewing the half-yearly report, we are responsible for expressing to the Company a conclusion on the condensed set of financial statement in the half-yearly financial report. Our conclusion, including our conclusions relating to going concern, are based on procedures that are less extensive than audit procedures, as described in the Basis for Conclusion paragraph of this report.

MHA, Statutory Auditor

Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

25 September 2026

MHA is the trading name of MHA Audit Services LLP, a limited liability partnership in England and Wales (registered number OC312313)

Consolidated interim income statement

All profit after tax is attributable to the equity shareholders of the parent.

30 June 2025 has been restated to reflect the discontinued operation in December 2025 - see note 5.

Consolidated interim statement of comprehensive income

Total comprehensive income for the period is wholly attributable to equity shareholders of the parent.

Consolidated interim statement of changes in shareholders' equity

Consolidated interim statement of financial position