The good: Practice acquisitions appear to be occurring on more...

The good: 

Practice acquisitions appear to be occurring on more favourable terms (purchase multiple to earnings) than what had been the case in the more recent lean years. The notes in the FY accounts indicate that practices acquired in H1 are performing very much better than what was initially indicated. This is very pleasing and verifies management's stated objective of only deploying capital when practices can be acquired on favourable terms. This is very pleasing.

The less good:

Fee revenue (OTC) seems to be having a hard time growing, beyond that being acquired, and margins do not appear to be rebounding, as I would have expected by now. On the other hand, I note that Townsville's unemployment rates, whilst having been on a downward trend to the Dec 17 quarter, now seem to have headed up quite strongly (as at the Mar 18 quarter) (using Townsville unemployment rates as a proxy for economic conditions in regional Queensland, particularly given ONT's heavy exposure to Townsville). So perhaps my expected economic tail winds are not yet blowing. There's also the large current supply of dentists, which whilst perhaps helping ONT in attracting dentists and keeping a lid on costs (perhaps), may also be putting pressure on margins.

So for me, all in all, a solid enough and typically clean result, well backed by good cash flow numbers, but not an exciting result.