PEXA Shares Start Week Strong, Bulls Remain Under Pressure

PEXA Group shares (ASX: PXA) staged a partial recovery on Monday, rising 9.43% to close at A$7.31, following a bruising 17.43% sell-off on Friday in the wake of the company’s FY26 results. The bounce came as Macquarie retained its Outperform rating on the stock, arguing that management’s subdued FY27 guidance is deliberately conservative and that a draft regulatory fee cut is unlikely to be implemented in full.

Friday’s decline knocked the stock from A$8.09 before the result to A$6.68, as markets looked past a strong backward-looking print and focused instead on the FY27 outlook. Monday’s rebound recovers part of that ground, with the PEXA share price having come under plenty of pressure this year, down 45.45% since the turn of calendar 2026.

The Print Driving The Pullback

By most conventional measures, PEXA’s FY26 result was solid. Group revenue rose 7% year on year to A$406.9m, EBITDA climbed 12% to A$151.7m, NPATA increased 35% to A$65.3m, and free cash flow rose 39% to A$93.5m. The company also reduced net debt by A$92.4m, taking net leverage down from 1.8x to 1.0x. The core Australian Exchange remained the engine, with revenue up 8% to A$345.6m on a 6.4% rise in transaction volumes and a 2.2% lift in average revenue per transaction, while the Australian EBITDA margin expanded to 55.8%. FY26 earnings per share of 14.9 cents came in roughly 11% above both Macquarie’s and consensus forecasts.

The UK business, however, continues to soak up cash. UK revenue of A$61.2m was 13% below Macquarie’s A$70m estimate, although EBITDA losses of A$41m were narrower than the A$44m modelled, and lower capital expenditure left UK cash flow at negative A$58m versus the negative A$63m expected.

The sting came in the guidance. PEXA forecast FY27 group revenue of A$385-415m, an EBITDA margin compressed to 31.5-33.5% (from 37.3% in FY26), and group net profit of just A$5-20m, well shy of Macquarie’s A$24.6m and the A$24.8m consensus. Management attributed the caution to an expected double-digit decline in Australian property transfer volumes, a New Zealand pilot, and the cost of signing a second Tier 1 UK lender before the associated revenue arrives.

Hovering over all of this is the IPART pricing review. The NSW regulator’s draft recommendation would cut PEXA Exchange’s regulated revenue requirement by roughly 20% from FY28, equivalent to about A$70m in annual revenue, with single-title home transfer fees proposed to fall from around A$146 to A$93. PEXA has lodged a formal response arguing the regulator applied a “building block” methodology suited to capital-heavy physical infrastructure rather than a digital platform. Macquarie also points to potential mitigants, including roughly A$10m of relief from weaker volumes and about A$18m of AML/CTF revenue based on a survey of almost 200 conveyancers and agents.

Analysts Split on What Comes Next

The view from the broker community has been divided. Morgans described the FY27 guidance as “significantly below expectations” in cutting its price target to A$7.12 from A$9.35, while Macquarie’s view that guidance is “deliberately conservative” underpins its decision to stay positive. PEXA, for its part, contends the draft IPART framework would impose an unprecedented revenue reduction threatening investment in the security and resilience of Australia’s property-settlement infrastructure.

Macquarie kept its Outperform rating while trimming its target price to A$13.90 from A$15.15. Even so, the broker’s own numbers illustrate the depth of the downgrade cycle: earnings per share cuts of 49% in FY27, 61% in FY28 and 23% in FY29, before downgrades ease to around 5% from FY30 as regulatory uncertainty clears and growth projects mature. The perceived upside to the lower level remains huge, with ~90% from the latest close.

Other brokers are more guarded, with Jefferies commentary noting that the midpoint of revenue guidance sits below market forecasts and even the top end of the NPAT range undershoots prior expectations.

There will be plenty to watch as the year progresses from here, yet whilst there are bullish calls on the stock, PEXA remains under pressure, having just hit new all-time-lows. Price discovery at unexplored levels works both ways, and whilst bulls will be hoping that a retest does not materialise, that new low now sits at A$6.42.