By Stuart Condie

SYDNEY--Australian jobs advertiser Seek raised its dividend after its first-half profit rose by 35% on improved operating leverage.

Seek on Tuesday reported a continuing operations adjusted net profit for the six months through December of 104.1 million Australian dollars, equivalent to about US$73.6 million.

That was up on the A$77.0 million it reported a year ago and in line with the A$104.2 million expected by analysts, according to data compiled by Visible Alpha.

Net revenue jumped 21% to A$646.6 million, or by 12% to A$600.9 million on a continuing operations basis.

Seek said the revenue lift was supported by new AI-enabled advertising tiers and performance-related pricing, which helped improve Australia and New Zealand yield by 17% as volumes slipped 2%. Continuing-operations costs rose by 7%.

"By prioritising discretionary capital toward grow-the-business activity such as AI-focused product development and containing run-the-business costs, we kept cost growth well below revenue growth despite significant investment," Chief Executive Ian Narev said.

Seek raised its interim dividend to A$0.27 a share from A$0.24 a year earlier and tightened its full-year guidance ranges for revenue, earnings and profit.

On a statutory basis, Seek swung to a A$249.9 million net loss, weighed by A$356 million of previously announced impairments against its stake in Chinese jobs platform Zhaopin.

Last week, Seek wrote down its stake for the second time in 18 months due to what it called China's weak macroeconomic conditions. Seek said at the time that the decision to cut the value of its stake to A$182 million from A$529 million at June 30 followed a strategic review by Zhaopin management.

Narev said that Seek had still generated a 3x return on its investment in Zhaopin. In 2021, Seek received an initial A$500 million when it cut its stake from 61.1% to its current 23.5%.

For the full fiscal year, Seek said it expects an adjusted net profit of between A$195 million and A$215 million, compared with August's guidance of between A$190 million and A$220 million.

It anticipates revenue of between A$1.19 billion and A$1.23 billion. The midpoint of the new guidance is slightly higher than that of its previous A$1.15 billion-A$1.25 billion range.

Seek also raised the floor of its earnings guidance to A$530 million from A$510 million. The top end of the earnings guidance range remained A$550 million.

Seek still expects total expenditure of between A$810 million and A$840 million, with the final figure dependent on revenue.

Write to Stuart Condie at stuart.condie@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 16, 2026 17:09 ET (22:09 GMT)

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