Given interest made up 73% of total revenue for the first half...

Given interest made up 73% of total revenue for the first half ($9.86m of $13.56m) we have to assume that cash has stabilised at around $400m. If it has moved any significant amount either way the company would have had to disclose this as part of their continuous disclosure obligations as a significant increase or decrease in interest revenue has a significant impact on revenue and profitability.

Interest wise there was only one increase in the first half, 0.25% on 7 Nov 2023, so only 2 months of this increased rate was built into the first half report, so we get 4 months higher interest at the new rate in the second half compared to the first which would equate to around $300k extra interest this half, if cash has remained stable.

Trading revenue was only $3.46m in the first half, so if trading volumes are up 15% and that flows through to Selfwealth then that is an increase of $500k in revenue. This will also drive-up expenses as they must pay third parties for those extra trades, not sure how much they make on trades.

Combined those two are $800k increase in revenue. This is solely based on cash remaining stable and the trading revenue reflecting the growth on the ASX of 15% you mention and excludes increased cost associated with those trades.

Expense wise the big one was $4.93m in employee benefits in the first half, but that included $766k of redundancy costs and I believe the redundancies occurred in oct/nov 23 so that $4.93m amount also includes 3-4 months of paid salaries for those made redundant. If the redundancy payout was $766k you have to assume that the total salaries for those people were at least double that and likely a lot more given redundancy payouts for 5 years employment is only 10 weeks plus 4 weeks’ notice, and I would assume most staff given redundancy were less than that given the big growth of employees at Selfwealth occurred in 2020/21. But assuming double then that is $1.5m/year of salaries cut, those salaries were paid for 3 months of the first half so around $375k in salaries paid to those people on top of the redundancy payout, but likely a lot more than that.

With the salary saving plus no redundancy payment this half you should expect employee benefits to drop by at least $1.1m (766k redundancy + 375k salary saving) assuming no growth in staff. This means baseline employee benefits should be $3.8m this half, and in reality a lot less based on the size of the redundancy payout. There were indications early in the year they were going on a hiring spree post-redundancy but given the boards big selling point was controlling costs then any amount above that $3.8m would be a black mark against the board as the aim of redundancies is to cut costs going forward.

All up that means baseline revenue growth of $800k for the half and a $1.1m saving in employee benefits, so all up should expect around $2m extra profit this half on top of the first half’s $1.6m before tax profit, so all up before-tax profit could be $3.6 in the second half on top of the first half’s $1.6m, so $5.2m for the year. This does not include the increase in expenses for the extra trades, so could completely exclude that revenue and the profit would drop by $500k to around $4.7m for the year.

But I don't expect it to be this high a value as they appear to have been hiring people so I would not be surprised if the employee benefits for the second half is higher than $3.8m, the question is how much higher than $3.8m it will be.

*The above assumes cash has remained steady and that the 15% growth in trading volume is reflected in SelfWealth’s volume combined with assumptions around the size of the salaries paid to those made redundant, any change in either direction of those values could have a significant impact in the values stated.