Judgement Day

Research evidence excerpt

Judgement Day

Australia | Consumer Staples

Coles EquityMayResearch14, 2026

FLASH NOTEJudgement Day

Today's decision is negative but balanced given it found price hikes were RATING BUY

commercially justified & COL may have been competitively disadvantaged PRICE AUD20.53^

had it not acted as it did. This may influence the determination of penalties & PRICE TARGET | % TO PT AUD25.50 | +24%

soften consumer backlash. With minimum price establishment period now 52W HIGH-LOW AUD24.28 - AUD20.10

set, the field is now level and we expect the industry to remain rational. FLOAT (%) | ADV MM (USD) 99.9% | 66.30

Higher inflation should benefit sales but margin upside likely limited by MARKET CAP AUD27.5B | $19.9B

political backdrop. TICKER COL AU

^Prior trading day's closing price unless otherwise

noted.

Federal Court of Australia finds Coles engaged in misleading conduct - This judgement

relates to the commencement of ACCC proceedings against COL & WOW in September 2024.

The ACCC alleged that COL made false or misleading representations to consumers about the

prices of 245 products under the 'Down Down' promotional campaign between February 2022 COL vs WOW vs ASX 200 (Industrials) PE

& May 2023. The Court found that COL breached Australian Consumer Law in 13 of the 14 28x26x

agreed sample cases (including both branded & private label products) that were considered 24x

because a reasonable minimum price establishment period was not observed. 22x 20x

18x

Potential guardrails for minimum price establishment - The Court determined that a 16x

reasonable minimum price establishment period of 12 weeks was not observed before placing Mar-25 Apr-25 May-25 Jun-25 Jul-25 Aug-25 Sep-25 Oct-25 Nov-25 Dec-25 Jan-26 Feb-26 Mar-26 Apr-26 May-26products on the Down Down promotional campaign.