Childcare giant G8 loses more than $300m
Gold Coast-headquartered childcare giant G8 Education has reported a net loss of $303.3 million for 2025.
That equates to the Varsity Lakes-based company losing almost $6 million a week. On the back of the result, the company chose not to issue any dividends to investors and put a halt to share buybacks.
Despite the poor bottom-line result, much of the losses were of the paper variety, with the company reducing the value of goodwill on its books by $349.1 million.
At the operating level, the news was a little better, with the company reporting a net profit after tax of $59 million, down from $72 million in 2024.
G8 Education, which is Australia’s second largest provider of childcare services, owns almost 400 early childhood education and care centres throughout Australia, catering to more than 40,000 children.
G8 Education Managing Director Pejman Okhovat said tougher living conditions, increased competition and falling birth rates were all leading to lower enrolments at its centres.
Mr Okhovat said media coverage of several high-profile child abuse cases had also hurt the childcare sector.
The company reported it’s a 7.2 per cent cut in revenue to $948.2 million while occupancy at is centres fell from 70 per cent to 65 per cent.
And the occupancy rate during the start of 2026 has continued to fall, with the company reporting that occupancy had fallen to 57.2 per cent.
“At G8 Education, children remain at the heart of everything we do,’’ Mr Okhovat said.
“During 2025, we focused on enhancing our family value promise, strengthening team member capability and uplifting the quality of our centres.
“Our strategy was refreshed to further enhance how we work and to clearly prioritise the drivers of improved outcomes for children and our teams.
“We continue to have an unwavering commitment to our child safety and child safeguarding practices, supported by our dedicated centre-based leadership teams, robust compliance oversight and active engagement with governments and regulators.”
Mr Okhovat said the company was competing in a “challenging operating environment”.
In the near term, G8 is being affected by the cost-of-living crisis for families, the continued trend of declining birth rates, and no material relief in sight from inflation or interest rates.
Other factors hurting the company include the flattening of work participation rates of women and significant changes to regulation and compliance.
“Given this backdrop to macro factors and conditions, we are actively adjusting to operate effectively in this new normal,’’ he said.
“We remain focused on strong execution and continue to further strengthen our core operations with initiatives focused on key safety and occupancy drivers.”
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