Ann: Market release FY21 results, Coverforce, placement, page-8

More questions:

SDF expects moderate price increases in FY 22 of five to 10 percent.

The 4th quarter looks to have been fairly flat, an analyst said. In 1H 21, all the revenue organic growth went through to bottom line profit, but in the rest of the year, $23m of $28m was retained through to profit after rewarding staff through bonuses for the good performance during a year with no salary rises.

Mr Jim Angelis won't be expected to walk away from CF involvement (at least for a couple of years, in the sense I got that he'd be sort of supervising). He will be able to help SDF with his historic and future entrepreneurship, and (hopefully?) will continue on in an executive role after a year or two 'as his influence wanes' (this comment seemed to be about a natural progression from CF to Mr Angelis being inside SDF, and was not a shot at Mr Angelis. Obvious that SDF regards the latter highly).

Mr Kelly said that SDF hadn't been adversely affected by small businesses experiencing difficulty. An investor commented on desolate shopping strips and to some extent shopping centres in Melbourne. Mr Kelly said that helped by the banks who were supporting businesses through COVID-19 rather than sending them into administration, and the Federal Government's JobKeeper, businesses in Melbourne (and Sydney) were surprisingly robust.

He said had he had a similar conversation a year ago, he would have thought there'd be a more adverse effect, but acknowledged that some businesses may still find the going challenging. He stated 'these may not be clients of SDF' by which one assumes he meant 'direct or indirect'.

The MD also said the Board wouldn't be scaling back retail applications by '98 per cent' in response to a jocular query. (Pleasing).

He referred to how putting together an SPP was more challenging than a placement to instos and the like. (One factor with SPPs as noted above is many retail holders don't apply for shares). He said the Board would continue to look after all shareholders.

The company has 27000 holders compared to (say) WOW's c.15 times more, but visibility of SDF wouldn't be at even five per cent of WOW, yet SDF is a constantly achieving listed entity with a good track record.

One aspect hardly touched on, even by the MD/CEO or CFO let alone analysts, was how SDF operates in NZ and (to a smaller extent) in Singapore. It always strikes me as terrific when local companies in Oz can successfully bring their expertise in tertiary services (at which many Australians are good) to foreign climes.

While insurance broking is technical and specialised, the phone hookup was thorough, the CEO didn't pull any punches and at times injected a little humour into dry proceedings, always important to keep up the interest level.

There was much of interest even for those of us who don't understand every intricacy.

Hard to say if this company has a 'moat' around it, as AUB and others are competitors, but the continual M & A working towards more equity in brokers makes that, at least in part, a possibility.