Bunzl plc (BZLFY) Shareholder/Analyst Call Transcript
Summarize this article with:
SA Transcripts157.39K FollowersFollow5ShareSaveCommentsPlay Earnings CallPlay Earnings Call Bunzl plc (BZLFY) Shareholder/Analyst Call December 17, 2025 2:30 AM EST Company Participants Richard Howes - CFO & Executive Director Conference Call Participants Annelies Vermeulen - Morgan Stanley, Research DivisionSimona Sarli - BofA Securities, Research DivisionDavid Brockton - Deutsche Bank AG, Research DivisionKarl Green - RBC Capital Markets, Research DivisionWilliam Kirkness - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division Presentation Richard HowesCFO & Executive Director Good morning, and thank you for joining. As we head towards the end of a challenging year and look forward to 2026, we hope you find having a call helpful. I'll make a few brief remarks regarding our preclose trading update before opening up for questions. Firstly, on 2025. Despite challenging end markets, I'm pleased to say we expect to achieve an adjusted operating profit in line with guidance we set out in April this year. Within this, we expect underlying revenue to be broadly flat. Despite the tougher comparatives, we expect to see good momentum in the final quarter, supported by the benefits of actions taken to improve our performance, including new business wins in North America. This recent performance is encouraging, and volume growth is slightly better than we had anticipated. Alongside the support of acquisitions, we expect group revenue growth over the year to be between 2% and 3% at constant exchange rates. We expect operating margin to be around 7.6% compared to 8.3% in the prior year, but expect to demonstrate a moderation in year-on-year operating margin decline in the second half as outlined in our guidance. This moderation is driven by the benefits of actions taken in North America and Continental Europe to improve performance, easier comparatives in Continental Europe and Nisbets synergy benefits. We also completed our GBP 200 million share buyback at the end of October, and continue to expect leverage to be just over 2x.