1 R evenue at constant currency, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted operating profit, Adjusted basic EPS, net cash/(debt) excluding lease liabilities and cash conversion are Alternative Performance Measures (APMs) and not IFRS measures. See unaudited Appendix 1 and this Financial Review for an explanation of APMs and adjusting items, including a reconciliation to statutory information. 2 T he Group reports only one adjusted item: Individually Significant Items (which includes the £11.4m profit on disposal of Fox Crypto and £9.5m of fundamental re-organisation, strategic review of Escode and strategic review of Cyber costs). For further details, please refer to unaudited Appendix 1 and this Financial Review, which include an explanation of APMs and adjusting items, along with a reconciliation to statutory information. 3 M anagement have allocated £6.8m of these costs to Escode which have been included within the administrative expenses above. To reconcile to Escode’s statutory operating profit, these costs are reallocated to central and head office administrative expenses in accordance with the requirements of IFRS 5 on discontinued operations. This is due to the fact that if an operation is disposed of, the relevant central overheads may not decrease in the short term.
and reported to the Board, and the basis of financial measures for senior management’s compensation scheme, and provides supplementary information that assists the user in understanding the financial performance, position and trends of the Group. We believe these APMs provide readers with important additional information on our business, and this information is relevant for use by investors, securities analysts and other interested parties as supplemental measures of future potential performance. However, since statutory measures can differ significantly from the APMs and may be assessed differently by the reader, we encourage you to consider these figures together with statutory reporting measures noted. Specifically, we would note that APMs may not be comparable across different companies and that certain profit related APMs may exclude recurring business transactions (e.g. acquisition related costs) that impact financial performance and cash flows. As previously reported, the Group only discloses one adjusted item: “Individually Significant Items” (which includes the £11.4m profit on disposal of Fox Crypto and £9.5m of fundamental re-organisation, strategic review of Escode costs and strategic review of the Cyber business costs). As the £11.4m profit on disposal of Crypto represents a material gain, it has been disclosed separately on the face of the statutory income statement within the Group’s consolidated Income Statement. The Group has the following APMs/non-statutory measures: • Adjusted EBITDA (reconciled below) • Adjusted operating profit (reconciled below) • Adjusted profit for the year (reconciled below) • Adjusted basic EPS (pence) (reconciled below) • Net cash/(debt) excluding lease liabilities (reconciled below) • Net cash/(debt) (reconciled below) • Cash conversion which includes Adjusted EBITDA (reconciled below) • Constant currency revenue (reconciled below) The above APMs are consistent with those reported for the 16 month period ended 30 September 2024. The Group reports certain geographic regions and service capabilities on a constant currency basis to reflect the underlying performance considering constant foreign exchange rates period on period. This involves translating comparative numbers to current period rates for comparability to enable a growth factor to be calculated. As these measures are not statutory revenue numbers, management considers these to be APMs; see unaudited Appendix 1 for further details. The following tables reconciles how these changes have affected the historical measures of Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted operating profit, Adjusted profit for the period, Adjusted basic EPS and cash conversion, which includes Adjusted EBITDA:
Total revenue has decreased by 6.2% on a constant currency basis (actual rates: (7.2%)), with Cyber Security revenue (excluding non-core disposals) decreasing by 4.0% on a constant currency basis (actual rates: (4.9%)) and Escode growing by 2.2% on a constant currency basis (actual rates: 0.8%). The Escode revenue increase has predominantly been driven by favourable price increases and volume during the year within verification services Turning to Cyber Security revenue trajectory during the year, the UK and APAC declined by 0.6% at constant currency (actual rates: (0.8%)), and North America declined by 12.9% (actual rates: (15.4%)). These reductions have been driven primarily by declines in their respective TAS markets, as demand has recovered more slowly than expected year on year. Encouragingly, the UK and APAC improved by 5.5% at actual rates when comparing H2 2025 with H1 2025, driven primarily by improvements within the UK’s C&I business. Year on year we have experienced continued growth in our Managed Services performance by 2.8% at constant currency (actual rates: 2.6%) which has mainly been driven by our European MS business, with this growth continuing when comparing H2 2025 with H1 2025. Additionally, we have seen year-on-year growth in our C&I business of 16.6% at constant currency (actual rates: 14.9%) which has been driven by increased demand within our UK markets. Similarly to our MS business from a trajectory perspective we have seen continued growth within our UK C&I business when comparing H2 2025 to H1 2025. Year-on-year gross profit has decreased by 4.9% to £135.9m; however, gross profit margin has favourably increased to 44.5% (reflecting an increase of 1.1% pts) mainly driven by an improvement in Escode of 2.6% pts (noting Cyber Security excluding non-core disposals has remained broadly flat at c.37%). Encouragingly, comparing H2 2025 with H1 2025 Cyber Security gross margin has increased by 2.0% pts to 38.0% reflecting the increased shift in mix towards the higher margin Managed Services business. Administrative expenses (excluding share-based payments, depreciation and amortisation, and amortisation of acquired intangibles) have decreased by 2.4% from £91.4m to £89.2m, after taking into account inflationary wage increases. This movement was primarily driven by lower payroll costs (following the globalisation of certain back office functions to Manila) and savings in rent and rates during the year, offset by unfavourable exchange rate movements. Alternative Performance Measures (APMs) Throughout this Financial Review, certain APMs are presented. The APMs used by the Group are not defined terms under IFRS and therefore may not be comparable with similarly titled measures reported by other companies. They are not intended to be a substitute for, or superior to, IFRS measures. This presentation is also consistent with the way that financial performance is measured by management
NCC Group plc — Annual report and accounts for the year ended 30 September 2025 43
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