The Netwealth Group Ltd (ASX: NWL) share price is in focus after announcing it will acquire Paradino, an AI-enabled adviser workflow automation business, for a total upfront consideration of $20 million. Netwealth will also invest an additional $10 million over two years to support Paradino’s growth and technology development.

What did Netwealth report?

• Acquisition of 100% of Paradino for $20 million (upfront), with up to $9 million in earn-out and retention payments over four years
• Additional $10 million to be invested in Paradino’s product roadmap and capability
• Paradino has annual recurring revenue of $1.6 million and supports over 500 financial advisers
• Paradino’s EBITDA for FY27 is projected to be a loss of approximately $3 million
• The transaction is not expected to have a material near-term impact on Netwealth’s earnings and existing guidance is maintained

What else do investors need to know?

Netwealth’s acquisition of Paradino significantly expands its adviser platform capabilities. Until now, Netwealth’s main focus has been on platform administration and implementation, but this deal brings advice workflow automation and specialist AI engineering expertise in-house.

Paradino automates some of the most time-consuming elements of financial advice, such as file notes, Statements of Advice, and advice presentations. This is designed to directly address adviser capacity constraints – freeing up more time to spend with clients and helping advisers serve a greater number of people across Australia.

Paradino brings a strong track record, having rapidly grown its subscriber base and recurring revenue since launch, with a churn rate of less than 1%. The acquisition is expected to strengthen Netwealth’s long-term growth prospects and support the company’s Dx30 ambition of improving adviser productivity.

What did Netwealth management say?

Matt Heine, CEO and Managing Director of Netwealth, said:

Our focus is on supporting advisers to grow their businesses and achieve their ambitions. A key part of this is helping advisers increase productivity so they can support more clients and spend more time delivering advice. This acquisition expands Netwealth’s capability beyond platform administration into key advice workflows, increasing our support for advisers across a larger part of the advice process. Together, we believe we can create Australia’s leading AI-enabled wealth management and adviser productivity platform. By combining Paradino’s workflow capability with Netwealth’s platform, data and adviser ecosystem, we look forward to helping our existing and future adviser clients operate more efficiently, improve outcomes for their clients and support the growth of both businesses. This will also help unlock the full value of our Unify data management platform and further drive AI-enabled automated processes. The transaction is consistent with our disciplined approach to capital allocation and adds an important strategic capability that will generate meaningful long-term growth.

What’s next for Netwealth?

Completion of the Paradino acquisition is targeted for the end of October 2026, subject to standard closing conditions. After completion, Netwealth will invest $10 million over two years to speed up Paradino’s product development and expand capability for advisers nationwide.

Netwealth intends to progressively integrate Paradino’s automation and artificial intelligence technology across its broader platform. This forms part of its strategy to support greater adviser productivity, deepen client relationships, and strengthen its leadership in wealth management technology.

Netwealth share price snapshot

Over the past 12 months, Netwealth shares have declined 38%, trailing the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), which has declined 1% over the same period.

View Original Announcement

The post Netwealth to acquire AI platform Paradino, boosting adviser automation appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• ASX 200 bank shares led a financial sector rebound last week
• Where I’d invest $15,000 in ASX shares now
• 40 ASX shares with ex-dividend dates next week
• 4 ASX shares scoring upgrades in the final week of earnings season
• Buy, hold, sell: Netwealth, Sigma Healthcare, and Wesfarmers shares

Motley Fool contributor Laura Stewart has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Netwealth Group. The Motley Fool Australia has positions in and has recommended Netwealth Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips. This article was prepared with the assistance of Large Language Model (LLM) tools for the initial summary of the company announcement. Any content assisted by AI is subject to our robust human-in-the-loop quality control framework, involving thorough review, substantial editing, and fact-checking by our experienced writers and editors holding appropriate credentials. The Motley Fool Australia stands behind the work of our editorial team and takes ultimate responsibility for the content published by The Motley Fool Australia.

CSL Ltd (ASX: CSL) shares have staged a sharp recovery, gaining around 26% over the past month despite remaining down 17% in the past year.

By comparison the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) fell 5% in a month and lost almost 1% over 12 months.

After falling 5% across the previous trading days, the ASX blue-chip stock bounced 3% on Monday to $171.57, reigniting the question: how much further can this recovery run?

From deeply beaten down to recovery mode

To understand CSL’s rebound, it helps to remember how severely the market had punished CSL shares.

At one point, CSL was trading around $90, a level not seen for more than a decade. Even the COVID-19 market sell-off failed to push the stock that low.

Investors appeared to be pricing in a prolonged deterioration in the company’s earnings. Then came the FY26 result, which delivered a painful set of numbers but also appeared to give the market a cleaner starting point.

CSL reported a US$2.6 billion net loss, following US$7.1 billion of pre-tax impairments and US$799 million in restructuring costs. Much of this was non-cash, with CSL Vifor accounting for a substantial portion of the impairments.

Look beneath the headline loss, however, and the picture was less alarming. Underlying NPATA declined just 2% to US$3.1 billion, while revenue fell 1% to US$15.8 billion, ahead of expectations.

That helped investors focus on what CSL could look like after the reset.

FY27 is the next big test

The recovery now rests heavily on CSL’s FY27 outlook.

Management expects underlying NPAT to grow about 5%, ahead of consensus expectations for roughly 2% growth. Behring is expected to deliver mid-single-digit growth, supported by immunoglobulin sales forecast to increase at a mid-to-high single-digit rate.

Vifor remains the weak spot. Revenue is expected to fall around 25% as generic competition hits its iron products.

The bullish argument is that Behring’s scale can increasingly offset Vifor’s decline. Consensus forecasts currently put earnings per CSL share at about $9.00 in FY27, $9.50 in FY28 and $10.10 in FY29.

At $171.57, that puts CSL shares on roughly 19 times forecast FY27 earnings. That’s not obviously cheap, but it could prove reasonable if the expected earnings recovery materialises.

Do brokers see more upside?

Several major brokers remain positive following the rally.

UBS has a buy rating on CSL shares and a $181 price target, while Morgan Stanley is overweight with a $182 target. Morgans is also bullish, with a buy rating and a $187.71 target.

Those targets suggest roughly 6% to 10% potential upside from around $171.

Macquarie is considerably more cautious, however, with a neutral rating and a target of roughly $133.

So, CSL shares may still have room to run, but the easy part of the recovery could be behind them. The key question now is whether earnings can catch up with the share price.

The post CSL shares have surged over 25%. Do brokers see more upside? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• Turning 60? You could be leaving superannuation money on the table
• Here are the top 10 ASX 200 shares today
• 5 things to watch on the ASX 200 on Monday
• CSL shares just fell 5% after a strong rally. Is the recovery losing steam?
• Are ASX shares heading for a crash? Here’s how I’m preparing

Motley Fool contributor Marc Van Dinther has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended CSL. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended CSL. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

We can buy a wide range of ASX shares. Some get little investor attention, while others are rated buys by many analysts.

When numerous investment professionals think a stock is a buy, it could suggest there’s a clear opportunity.

Let’s look at two of the ASX shares with the biggest number of buy ratings right now.

ALS Ltd (ASX: ALQ)

ALS describes itself as a global leader in testing. It says it provides comprehensive testing solutions to clients in a wide range of industries around the world. Its two main segments are commodities and life sciences.

FY26 was a strong year for the ASX share, with 10.7% growth of revenue, 19.3% growth of underlying operating profit (EBIT) and 25.8% growth of underlying net profit after tax (NPAT).

The company has started FY27 well, stating that it’s on track to deliver high-single-digit organic revenue growth and margin improvement consistent with FY26.

The commodities business’ organic revenue growth is trending above the 15% to 17% guided range for the first half, with continuation of the positive exploration conditions and activity levels from the junior miners continuing to grow and outpace major and mid-tier miners.

ALS’ life sciences division’s organic revenue growth has improved from the second half of FY26, but it’s still below mid-single-digit expectations.

According to CMC Invest, analysts have made six rating calls on the business in the last three months. Five of them were buy ratings, and one was a hold.

Cuscal Ltd (ASX: CCL)

Cuscal is the other ASX share I want to highlight. It’s an authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) with the licences, connectivity and processing capability to support all payment types and regulated data services. It was only listed on the ASX in November 2024.

The company says that the combination of these capabilities and credentials within a single organisation in Australia is limited to the four major ASX bank shares and Cuscal.

Cuscal had a solid FY26 – statutory NPAT rose by 49% to $42.7 million. Underlying net profit rose 20% to $46.2 million, and underlying net operating income grew 20% to $347.7 million.

It acquired Indue on 1 December 2025 and Paymark on 29 May 2026, adding around $40 million to its net operating income. Those acquisitions increased its scale, strengthened its position across Australia and New Zealand, and expanded its range of payment capabilities it provides to clients.

The ASX share expects to deliver “strong profit growth” in FY27, supported by resilient transaction volumes, the acquisitions and cost management. It expects FY27 to show growth in the mid-20 % range for both transaction volumes and underlying net profit.

According to CMC Invest, there have been five analyst ratings on the business in the last three months, with four of those being a buy and one being a hold.

The post 2 ASX shares highly recommended to buy: Experts appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• Broker puts fresh buy ratings and tips 36% upside for these earnings results winners 
• Cuscal FY26 earnings: Profit jumps 49% on Indue & Paymark deals

Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.