Coles Profits Up Nearly 14 Percent Despite $235 Million Staff Underpayment Hit

Shoppers check out at a Coles supermarket in Sydney, Australia, on March 16, 2018.
William West/AFP via Getty Images

Supermarket giant Coles has returned higher sales and profits despite what group managing director and CEO Leah Weckert calls a “challenging operating environment”

The company’s 2026 full-year results (pdf) record a 2.8 percent jump in sales to $45.58 billion and a 9.9 percent rise in earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to $2.32 billion.

However, that’s before an offset of $235 million for underpaying staff.

Net profit after tax did even better, with a rise of 13.7 percent to $1.26 billion, up from $1.10 billion.

The group saw strong performance across its supermarkets, where revenue was up 3.7 percent and EBIT up 12.2 percent, while eCommerce sales grew 26.4 percent to $5.6 billion.

However, its liquor arm, Liquorland, saw sales slump by 3.3 percent and earnings collapse 47.8 percent to just $59 million as the result of subdued demand and higher costs. It’s a situation Wecket says the company has “a clear strategy” to resolve.

Popular Toy Giveaway Has Little Impact

Coles said that in the first eight weeks of the new financial year, sales growth had been “broadly consistent” with the fourth quarter just gone.

That update covers precisely the period—mid-July to late August—in which Woolworths ran its exceptionally popular Disney Ooshies giveaway, which sold out more than a week ahead of schedule and has been widely credited with pulling shoppers away from Coles, Aldi and IGA.

The promotion offered Woolworths, BIG W and MilkRun customers one of 40 collectable Ooshie figures for every $30 spent, along with a $10 “collector case” in which to display them.

Demand outstripped supply so much that Woolworths had to hold in-store swap meets to help collectors finish their sets, while a secondary market flourished on eBay and Facebook, with complete collections fetching around $200 and one listing for a rare flocked Bullseye figure seeking bids as high as $2.5 million.

In response, Coles on Aug. 11 unveiled a $3.4 million package of counter-offers, including its “Shop, Scan, Win” instant-rewards promotion—running until Sept. 22—and a short-lived 10 percent discount on Coles eGift cards.

Staff Underpayment Led to Bonus Cuts

The $235 million provision follows a Federal Court judgement in September 2025 over the historical underpayment of Coles staff, arising from Fair Work Ombudsman proceedings.

In response, Coles cut short-term incentives by a combined $1.66 million across executives held accountable for that failure and a separate misleading conduct finding over ticketing practices.

In its results announcement, Coles also flagged a fresh $190 million investment in a new “capability centre” which it says will deliver more than $100 million in annual benefits by 2029, and which will involve “a comprehensive change programme, dual-running and redundancies.”

Woolworths is trading near a five-year/52-week high, up around 24 percent over 12 months, while Coles is up a more modest 11.6 percent over the same period.

Coles’ online penetration continues to climb, reaching 15.7 percent of total supermarket sales in the first eight weeks of FY27.

Woolworths’ recovery has been rockier: its half-year result in February showed net profit down 20.6 percent to $739 million and an interim dividend cut 17 percent, with industrial action alone estimated to have cost $240 million in lost sales.

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