Hill & Smith Stock

All right. Good morning, and welcome to the 2025 full year results presentation for Hill & Smith. First, I would like to officially welcome Chris McLeish, who joined as CFO in October 2025 and also to thank Mark Else, who acted as Interim CFO for the period, Hannah stepped down and when Chris joined. Mark has done a very good job, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for that.

In terms of the structure of this morning's presentation, I will first take you through the highlights. Chris will then focus on the financials and operating review, and I will finish with a strategic update and the outlook.

So let me start with the highlights. I'm very pleased to say that the group delivered good full year '25 results, underpinned in particular by the strong performance of our U.S. businesses, whilst the U.K. market backdrop remains challenging. Organic constant currency revenue growth for the year was 3% and accelerated to 4% in the second half. And underlying operating profit increased organically by 6%.

Operating margin for the group increased again, reflecting an improved portfolio mix with further margin expansion in our U.S. Engineered Solutions and Galvanizing Services businesses. The group remains highly cash generative and continues to deliver strong returns. The balance sheet is also strong, providing significant strategic flexibility as we look forward.

And with that, we continue to allocate capital in a disciplined way. I will share more details later in this presentation. But just here to highlight, we have committed to organic investments of GBP 35 million over the next 2 years to expand network capacity in our U.S. growth platforms. And I'm very pleased to announce that we have recently agreed to acquire 2 businesses, Freeberg Industrial fabrication in the U.S. for a headline consideration of $36 million for 80% of the equity and Hentech Fabrication in Ireland for a consideration of EUR 7.3 million, both closely aligned to our operating company framework and both providing exposure to some of our priority end markets.

In addition, we continue to actively pursue our pipeline of further attractive M&A opportunities, and we commenced GBP 100 million share buyback in August 2025. Looking forward, we continue to be well positioned for future growth with a growing share of revenue generated from more attractive, higher growth markets. And we expect a strong trading momentum in the U.S. to continue into 2026. However, we remain cautious about the degree of recovery in the U.K. market conditions. So to summarize, we're confident of making further good progress in full year 2026 and beyond.

With that, I'd like to hand over to Chris.

Thanks, Rutger, and good morning, everyone. Starting with the results for the year. Revenues of GBP 869 million were 3% ahead of the prior year on an organic constant currency basis with growth accelerating to 4% during the second half. Underlying operating profit was up 6% on an OCC basis. Operating profit of GBP 151.3 million is stated before nonunderlying items, and I've included a schedule in the appendix detailing these items. Underlying operating margin for the year increased by 60 basis points to 17.4%, reflecting an improved portfolio mix with further margin expansion within Galvanizing Services.

The return on invested capital increased by 190 basis points to 26.7%, reflecting both an increase in underlying profitability and the continued efficient management of the invested capital base. Underlying earnings per share grew by 8% to 132.2p, and the Board is recommending a final dividend of 35p, which would bring the total dividend to 53p, an increase of 8%.

Moving to the geographical and divisional views of revenue and operating profit. In the 2 pie charts at the top of this page, you can see the continuing growth of our U.S. businesses denoted in light blue, which increased their share of group revenues and profits to 63% and 79%, respectively.

Looking at the divisional revenues in the bottom left chart, U.S. Engineered Solutions denoted in green, increased its share of group revenues by 2 percentage points to 48%, and Galvanizing Services in orange grew by 1% to 24%. Conversely, U.K. & India Engineered Solutions reduced to 28% of revenues.

Turning to cover divisional performance, starting with U.S. Engineered Solutions, which performed very well. Revenues grew by 6% on an OCC basis, with OCC growth during the second half of 8%, ahead of our targeted range. Our Composites business delivered excellent growth with demand for utility poles, particularly during the second half of the year being especially strong. Our power transmission and distribution business, V&S Utilities also delivered strong growth, benefiting from a positive demand backdrop. Our Engineered Supports business also performed well and started to benefit from the new capacity available following the expansion at our Waggaman site in Louisiana.

Our road safety business supplying attenuators and road barrier improved during the year with the new management team delivering stronger performance as the year progressed. Conversely, the off-grid solar business delivered a weaker performance, reflecting a more challenging market. In light of this softer backdrop, we took a decision during the year to combine this business with the message boards business of Hill & Smith Inc. to create a broader unified product platform with a single manufacturing base at National Signal site in La Mirada, California. Overall, the divisional margin increased by 20 basis points to 18.0%, which reflected cost investment in our platform businesses to support continuing growth and a year-on-year reduction in margin at National Signal.

The outlook for the division looks strong, supported by ongoing investment to modernize critical infrastructure and deliver power network capacity increases to support increasing technology demand.

Turning to Galvanizing Services. The division overall delivered a strong performance with 10% OCC revenue growth and 13% OCC profit growth. Performance accelerated during the second half with half 2 OCC revenue growth of 14%, following a slower start to the 2025 year, which was impacted by adverse weather conditions.

The U.S. business continues to benefit from very positive demand tailwinds, whilst the U.K. business was also able to grow volumes, revenues and profits despite broader infrastructure and industrial construction markets in the U.K. being more muted. Execution in both regions was very good, and we saw improvements in both operational efficiency and commercial execution. Overall, the outlook for Galvanizing Services remains positive in both regions.

Turning to cover U.K. & India Engineered Solutions. The division delivered lower levels of revenue and profit compared to last year, down by 6% and 17% on an OCC basis, respectively. Whilst there were some positive parts of the business, particularly those focused on faster-growing international markets, those parts of the division serving U.K. transport, residential construction,and general infrastructure markets experienced progressive weakening of market demand as the year progressed. Transport infrastructure, which accounted for over 40% of divisional revenues was impacted by reduced investment in U.K. roads as we await visibility of Roads investment strategy or RIS3.

Our Building Products business experienced reduced volumes and a more competitive [indiscernible] stronger with both our perimeter security and industrial flooring businesses benefiting. Our Indian Engineered Supports business delivered a profit performance in line with the prior year with performance improving throughout the course of 2025. Overall, we remain cautious around the degree of recovery in our U.K. Engineered Solutions businesses in 2026.

Accordingly, we are assessing a range of measures to strengthen our U.K. operations overall, making our businesses more resilient in the current environment and better able to capitalize upon opportunities as markets recover. We would expect to update you further on this at the half year.

Turning to cover the cash flow and balance sheet. The group continues to be highly cash generative with a very strong balance sheet and significant funding capacity. Cash conversion for the year was 91%, well ahead of the 80% in our financial framework, reflecting good management of working capital and the disciplined deployment of capital expenditure. This strong focus on the capital base, combined with the growth in operating profit drove a material improvement on return on invested capital, which increased by 190 basis points to 26.7%.

The balance sheet closed the year with net debt of GBP 51 million, which represented covenant leverage of 0.1x once you strip out the impact of leases. The share buyback initiated in August 2025 continues to be executed with around GBP 32 million completed at close of business on Monday. Rutger will discuss capital allocation later, but it is clear that with committed borrowing facilities of almost GBP 350 million available as at year-end, we have significant investment flexibility and capacity to support our growth objectives.

Turning now to briefly cover a change we will be making in our group reporting currency from the 2026 year. As I noted earlier, an increasing share of our revenues and profits are generated in U.S. dollars with almost 80% of profits in the 2025 year earned in dollars. We believe that reporting group performance in U.S. dollars will provide greater transparency and comparability over time and reduce volatility from period to period caused by movements in exchange rates.

Accordingly, starting with the 6 months to the 30th of June 2026, we will report our performance in U.S. dollars. And starting with the 2026 interim, we will also declare dividends in U.S. dollars, although shareholders will continue to receive dividend payments in sterling unless they elect otherwise.

Let me turn to briefly cover progress against our financial framework. As you can see on this slide, overall, performance has been good. Organic revenue growth of 3% reflected good progress in 2025. Growth was above our range of 5% to 7% in the U.S. platform businesses, but was held back by weaker performance in the U.K. Engineered Solutions businesses. Pleasingly, OCC revenue growth accelerated to 4% in the second half. Operating profit margin continued to move forward and has grown by 260 basis points over the last 2 years. And as I noted earlier, our return on invested capital grew strongly this year to 26.7% and is almost 500 basis points ahead of the level achieved in 2023. And cash conversion at 91% remains well above our target of at least 80%.

In summary, the business delivered a really robust performance in the 2025 year and with strong demand backdrop in our U.S. businesses, we are well placed to deliver further progress in 2026 and over the medium term.

And with that, let me hand back to Rutger.

All right. Thank you, Chris. As you know, after I joined as CEO, we refreshed our purpose, introduced our operating company and priority end market framework, updated our financial framework and recently also introduced our group values. In the next few slides, I want to show you how these frameworks helps us to drive organic growth by generating a higher share of revenue from our priority end markets, how they help the decision-making process for both organic and inorganic investments and how they are reflected in our approach to capital allocation.

As you know, we categorize our end markets in 4 groups, as shown on the slide. I've noted before that our revenue footprint is different in our 2 regions, which you can see in the right 2 doughnuts on the slide.

In the U.S., a more significant proportion of revenue is generated from the high-growth and resilient growth anchors, represented by the green and amber parts of the doughnut and historically, in the U.K., a higher share from the cyclically more sensitive markets, the light blue part. What's good to see, though, is that in both regions, we increased our exposure to the higher growth groups in 2025. In the U.S., the revenue share from those groups increased from 35% to 47%, and that reflects the strength in T&D and water infrastructure across our platform businesses and also a growing presence in data centers.

In the U.K., our perimeter security and access flooring businesses are pivoting to global data center construction with a strong opportunity pipeline, and 9% of revenue is now generated from data center-related markets versus 5% in the prior year. The end market prioritization is now firmly embedded in our operating company strategic planning and decision-making. And as a group, revenue from high and resilient growth markets increased from 23% in 2024 to 34% in 2025.

Let me now move on to our capital allocation framework and how that is shaped by our end market focus. As I mentioned earlier in the highlights, we have a disciplined approach towards capital allocation, which together with our strong balance sheet and excellent cash generation provides us with significant flexibility. We apply a clear prioritization with our first priority to drive organic growth through investment in capital projects, talent and innovation, focusing on higher growth, higher return end markets.

Our investments in capacity expansion in our U.S. platform businesses, which I will set out in more detail shortly, are good examples of this in action. Our second priority is to target inorganic growth with a structured approach to M&A based on our operating company and financial frameworks, and we target to invest GBP 50 million to GBP 70 million per year. I'm pleased that we've agreed the acquisitions of both Freeberg and Hentech, strengthening both in the U.S. and the U.K., our position in the higher growth end markets. In addition to that, our M&A pipeline remains very active.

Thirdly, we aim to deliver a growing dividend, understanding the importance of providing consistent and growing returns to our shareholders. For the full year, we've grown the dividend by 8% and doubled it since 2020. And lastly, we will return surplus capital to shareholders where leverage is expected to remain low for a sustained period of time. And having assessed the capital requirements of the business to fund organic growth, execute on acquisitions and providing a growing dividend, in August, we announced GBP 100 million share buyback over a period of around 18 months.

So on the next slide, let me talk a little bit more about capital allocation for organic growth going forward. With the strong structural growth dynamics in our priority end markets in the U.S., we have committed GBP 35 million over the next 2 years to grow our existing network in our utilities and galvanizing businesses. In V&S Utilities, we're seeing increasing investments in power transmission and distribution, given the long-term trends in load growth, the evolution of electricity supply and the need to improve the resilience of an aging grid.

Private utility companies have announced significant growth in their 5-year CapEx programs, and that has manifested itself in a record order book for our business. The planned capacity expansion will meet anticipated demand whilst maintaining customer lead times, which is a key differentiator for us in this market. When we look at our V&S Galvanizing business, demand drives are more broad-based, positively impacted by federal, state and private investment to support industrial expansion and technology change, but also with positive end market mix, increasing the share of galvanized steel.

The increased capacity will enable our plants to run at utilization levels where we can continue to offer our industry-leading quality and service as well as to cater for specific end-use market demands. All in all, these investments will underpin our growth ambition in our U.S. platform businesses for 2027 and into the medium term.

So let me now move on to inorganic growth and talk to you in more detail about our acquisition of Freeberg. We're very excited about that, and I will explain why in the next 2 slides. Freeberg is a leading designer and manufacturer of custom metal enclosures and other engineered solutions located in California with strong exposure to attractive end markets, including data centers, power generation and other infrastructure. To meet significant increased demand within the data center market, Freeberg is currently expanding its footprint with the construction of a new facility in Arizona. And this will set to become operational in H2 2026, which will position it as a premier metal fabrication and power generation packager in the U.S.

In terms of the deal structure, the headline consideration is $36 million to acquire 80% of equity. A further consideration of up to $50 million is payable for the remaining 20% linked to the achievement of future profit targets. Mark Brown, CEO and owner, will continue to lead the business post transaction. The deal is subject to U.S. regulatory approvals, which we expect in Q2. And once completed, we expect Freeberg to be earnings enhancing in 2026 and with significant multiyear demand visibility at strong operating margins, we're confident in its long-term growth prospects.

So we're very pleased with the acquisition of Freeberg as it fits very well within our strategic framework. At the headline level, there's a very strong alignment with that framework. If we look at the markets, Freeberg will increase our exposure to higher growth end markets, particularly data centers. It aligns with our aim to operate in niche end markets, and those markets are fragmented and present further opportunities for bolt-ons as Freeberg will be a new stand-alone platform in our U.S. Engineered Solutions division.

When we look at Freeberg's business model, Again, there's a strong fit. There's a high degree of customer intimacy in the business with long-standing relationships with key customers. It differentiates in the market through design engineering, underpinned by deep technical expertise, certified engineering and regulatory compliance. And whilst there is elevated capital investment in the short term on the construction of the new Arizona facility, this will trend lower in the medium term.

And lastly, in terms of management and culture, there's a strong leadership team, and we are pleased that they will continue to run the business. The team is complemented with a strong skilled workforce. And lastly, but importantly, we believe there is a strong cultural fit and alignment of values that's well suited to our decentralized model. So as I said, we're very pleased to welcome Freeberg to the Hill & Smith Group and look forward to working together on capturing the exciting growth opportunities.

So let me now finish with the outlook. We expect the positive momentum in the U.S. to continue, underpinned by investment to upgrade an onshore vital infrastructure and support technology change. Our organic investments in capacity expansion and our active M&A pipeline will further help to drive that growth. We expect the U.K. environment to remain challenging, so we're cautious about the degree of recovery in U.K. markets, and we anticipate lower levels of project activity.

Against that background, we are assessing a range of measures to strengthen our U.K. operations overall, making our business more resilient in the current environment and better able to capitalize on opportunities as markets recover. Outside of the U.K., we continue to see attractive growth opportunities for our India business, both in terms of their export and domestic markets.

We note the emerging situation in the Middle East. And whilst the group has no operating footprint in the region, we continue monitoring any potential impacts from broader risks to trade and cost inflation. But overall, we are confident of making further good progress in full year 2026 and beyond, underpinned by our focus on structurally growing niche end markets, our agile decentralized operating model and continued focus on value-enhancing M&A.

And with that, Chris and I would be delighted to answer your questions.

Robert Chantry from Berenberg. So 3 questions, I suppose. Firstly, just on the range of CapEx scenario to scale the U.S. business, i.e., is GBP 35 million enough? So if we're looking 2, 3, 4 years out, what type of quantum do you think you could deploy organically into effectively U.S. capacity to scale it up separate from M&A?

Secondly, some kind of insight into the kind of negotiations on Freeberg price and deal structure. So clearly, a big payoff for Mark, if you pulled it off. Is that commensurate with the profit potential different scenarios around that? And if you could comment, I guess, if there's any debt because I think the statement refers to equity?

And then thirdly, clearly, the broader narrative around the U.K. is a weak volume growth. And then the galvanizing business is reporting good volume growth, good customer focus, improved productivity. I guess, could you just touch on the different end market drivers impacting that part of the business relative to the broader building products type environment and market share, et cetera?

Okay. If you talk about the Freeberg deal structure, you can do that. I can maybe pick up the other ones. So I think we are indeed seeing with the GBP 35 million slight increase in the organic investment, which I consider to be a positive thing because it's underpinned by good sort of demand in those markets. I think we've said over time that in our Composites business, we've got still good capacity. So I wouldn't expect there immediately. But in our galvanizing business, we've talked about potential greenfields over time as well. So that could happen. So I think I don't have a complete view of what the exact number is going forward, but at a slightly higher level than what we've seen in the last couple of years, I think makes sense. But clearly, we will only commit to that when we feel that there is the right market and demand for that. So yes, slightly increased.

In terms of Freeberg, Rob, so the initial enterprise value used for the first 80% essentially is $45 million, which on that sort of $5.3 million of op profit is about 8.5x multiple. So that's the first tranche. Clearly, what we wanted to do with that 20% is create very strong incentive alignment to drive value accretively over time. And the way to think about that essentially is that, that future payment will be a function of 2 things: the multiple that will be applied to that level of earnings and the operating profit achieved on average in that measurement period. And there is a range of potential multiples. But if you take the sort of top end of that range being 10x, clearly, when you work out and back solve a 20% equity value being worth $50 million, you would see that you'd need to deliver something in the region of $25 million a year to hit that upper cap. And the business made $5 million last year.

So therefore, you can get a sense of the range or progression that would be necessary in profitability terms to come out at the top end. So I think that is really -- we think that given the multiyear visibility of demand that we've got into some of our key priority end markets, that is an ambitious outcome what will be driving the business. And frankly, if we get to that sort of level, then I think all parties will be very happy indeed.

Okay. On the U.K., I'm glad that you picked up that the galvanizing business has actually done pretty well in the U.K. So it's not all doom and gloom. And I think if you compare the galvanizing business to our U.K. Engineered Solutions, again, that footprint will be different in terms of end markets. So Engineered Solutions, almost 60% is transport and residential, and we will all know that, that is a tough market to be in now whereas in galvanizing, we will be more exposed to water investment, energy investments. And so I think they have a better end market footprint than in the -- historically in our U.K. Engineered Solutions.

So I think we all know that there will be more clarity about the Road Investment Strategy 3 in the first half of this year. We'll clearly look at what that means for our business in our roads business. I think residential, I've heard this for the last 3 years, it will be in the second half. So we're not counting our chickens there yet. But over time, that should recover. In the meantime, what we've said is we will look at what -- are there other options what we can do to make it more of a resilient business.

Now the best thing to do is, of course, to tilt towards those more attractive markets, which is what we're doing with our perimeter fencing business and also our access flooring business and Hentech will really help in that sense a little. So those 2 businesses are -- that's their sort of task in a sense to go there. But we'll look at are there other opportunities maybe in terms of route to markets that we can benefit between them. And we've already taken quite a bit of cost measures there as well. But Chris said that we'll come back to that in the -- with the first half results to what we're actively doing at that time. We're planning at this stage. We'll be doing stuff by that time. Yes.

I may as well go along the line. David Farrell from Jefferies. A couple of questions from me. Just in terms of the Freeberg acquisition, obviously, located in California, a new site in Arizona. Is that company able to kind of export across the U.S.?

Yes. So they -- I think they can, but there's a reason and a benefit for putting that new factory into Arizona. There's a lot of activity going on with data centers. And therefore, if you look at it on a regional basis, it will put Freeberg in a very strong position in terms of serving the regional. And if you look at the the planned and already committed sort of data centers investment in that area, that's definitely positive. So the first priority is to benefit from that geographic sort of location.

Okay. And then can we just touch on transmission and distribution in terms of what's going on and your ability to push pricing in that market? Because it seems like everybody has got tightness of capacity, therefore, it should be an environment you can push pricing.

It's interesting you say prices. I mean it's more margin, I would take because they are not standard products, they are projects that are coming in and that we price them, right? But anyway, the -- clearly, we're pretty optimistic about the outlook there. If I look at our utilities business, I think over the last 2 years, they've probably grown organically by something like 13% or 14%. So they are growing pretty healthily above what potentially is -- I'd look at market studies, they're saying sort of high teens or high single-digit sort of market growth, and we expect that. Clearly, we've got a strong order book. We're putting capacity in. We've put in additional shifts as well to have that in the shorter term as well.

And we generate pretty healthy margins. We'll always look at can we push that further. But I think there's a balance between getting that growth at very healthy margins to over -- to be too aggressive in terms of trying to get that. I think there are opportunities in some operational efficiencies that will drive the margins. So I think there's an upside in margin, but we're careful in not overdoing it. And we're putting the capacity in there to basically be able to shorten the lead times because the lead times, that's where you have a competitive advantage. And if we can reduce that further, then I think we've got a better opportunity to drive those margins further, yes, because that's where you differentiate.

And then just final one and staying on margins. You've obviously talked about Freeberg, I think, being kind of 17% margins and getting up to 18%. If I look in the appendix, you've also got the financials for Hentech, and that looks like it was kind of 10%, 11% margins. What are your expectations for where that can go?

Yes. I mean I think on Hentech, it's a business we know well. It's part of the supply chain within the existing industrial flooring business that does work into European data centers. We certainly think that there's an opportunity bringing those businesses together to move it forward, certainly towards the group's ambition as a whole of 18%. So we'd expect it to be capable of getting up into the sort of mid-teens over the medium term.

It's Richard Paige from Deutsche Numis. A couple from me and then a few little tip bits at the end if I've got room. Firstly, galvanizing, very strong margin in the second half. I think a lot of your peers are talking strong outlooks and strong trading conditions as well on there. Obviously, I think data center is creating quite a big influence there as well. Could you just talk about what we should expect from you and particularly that margin movement over the next year or 2, please?

I mean if you look so interestingly, in the first half, our margin was a little bit lower, right, I remember. And now -- so I then already said, look, it moves between the band. So I'm not worried. And good news is it sort of bounced back in the second half. So -- and yes, data centers does help there as well. So I think we're quite positive about the outlook. I think in the second half last year, things really all came together, and we don't always expect that to continue. But overall market outlook is good.

You probably will also know that our margins are probably industry-leading already. So I, again, will not push for a significant increase there. I think we're at a very healthy level. And if we can deliver those revenue growth that we've seen in the second half, maybe a little bit tempered going forward, but still good, then I think we're in a very good place.

Sorry, just an addendum that the U.S. volumes were up high teens. I think, in the second half. There was nothing exceptional in there also.

You're right. I mean volumes and revenue in the U.S. in half 2 were kind of plus 19%. So yes, you're right. I mean it's broad-based. You've got general levels of infrastructure activity that are strong. Clearly, T&D is driving a lot of that. And actually, what's quite interesting in the U.S. is that you're finding that of the potentially galvanizable steel, we're actually seeing some penetration and progress there because the end market applications that are best suited to galvanizing, i.e., extending the length of that -- the life of that steel tend to be the areas of end markets that are doing better.

So I think you've got general kind of levels of infrastructure spend stepping forward. And then you've got penetration of galvanizing, which has helped to be positive as Rutger said, I mean, I think the stars aligned very much in our business in the second half. And we are being a little bit more cautious about that sort of extrapolating into '26, but there's no question that the sort of backdrop for galvanizing over the next 3 to 4 years is extremely positive.

Shifting to -- back to U.K., U.K. roads. Could you give us an idea of where that business is currently trading relative to, I think, it was 2019 levels as its most recent peak? And then obviously, what we could expect in terms of timing if RIS3 comes through, how long it takes?

I mean it's significantly down. I think Chris always knows what's the number that we sort of -- is it like at least half. So they are significantly down because this is a business where in the rental business, where utilization is pretty important. And with the delay in RIS3, that utilization has been much lower. But that arguably has -- and the other way, if it goes up, can be quite interesting as well. I think we are very keen to understand -- overall, I think RIS3, there will be more on maintenance in terms of new. But then the question is how big is that maintenance because that sort of drives whether they really -- if they're bigger projects that -- where we are better positioned in a sense.

So we just need to see that in the first half of this year. I don't expect anything major in 2026, yes. Hopefully, there's some good upside and then that will probably move into 2027 and beyond. But we are really a little bit unfortunate in a bit of a holding position because we need the clarity and then we can have a further view on all of that.

And just a small one going back to the acquisition of the Arizona -- with the Arizona facility, 160,000 square foot. What -- could you just give us an idea of what that is relative to existing capacity?

Yes. I mean it's roughly doubling the footprint of the business by bringing that one.

But it's a very different type of operations. So this will be interesting where the current operation is much more -- this sounds a wrong word, but a jobbing operation. So there are lots of different smaller things designed and then manufactured where this is bigger enclosures that are -- will make a lot of them, and they will be more similar. They might be slightly different for different customers.

So it's a different type of operational setup. It's much more industrialized in a sense. And the CapEx, which is going in there will be -- to have more than enough capacity to deal because there's opportunities outside of data centers as well and -- but there's capacity to deal with that as well. Yes. So there will be really different types of operations in a sense.

Just a few from me, Thomas Rands from Berenberg. Just on the Freeberg. I had a quick look through the website this morning, just trying to understand what it does and I take on board the kind of data center kind of offering. But is the power supplies, are they meant to kind of -- is to back up power supplies to these sites? Or is it more permanent? As these data centers get bigger and bigger, it's how many of these do you need per site? Do the units get bigger?

A lot.

What's the offering?

It's really incredible how much they need. But anyway, the current sort of opportunity that we have the visibility on for the next 2 to 3 years is very much about the backup power. Currently, Freeberg is already supplying into more permanent power solutions as well. So there is an opportunity on both, but the data centers is focused at the moment on the backup.

Okay. Second one, just you mentioned the utility pole, the composite pole growth being very strong. What's the driver behind that? And how do you see that kind of panning out through 2026?

Yes. So in terms of the composite proposition, I mean, it has very profound functional advantages over other sources of material, notably wood, okay? So this is something that utility companies are looking to put in as a step to really reinforce the resilience of their utility transmission networks. So that's the sort of big picture.

Now the demand patterns for utility poles can be somewhat lumpy. It's a function of when the major customers are kind of committing their CapEx into their network. So it can -- it will tend to fluctuate a little bit from year-to-year. But the backdrop is very positive. I mean, I think that the product -- and we have -- there are degrees of innovation around this that are reasonably significant in terms of bringing a product to market that has differentiating properties. So we see this as a very positive area of progress.

As we say in the statement, it was a key driver of outperformance as we got into the fourth quarter of 2025. But we see this as something that really is a strong growth engine for the group over the years ahead.

Okay. And then lastly, just on National Signal. It had a very good kind of first couple of years post acquisition, and then it's been a bit of a challenge kind of a sense. Is this the kind of the macro kind of regulation backdrop? Or is there other kind of customer concentrations or kind of differentiating that customer base that's kind of holding it back a bit?

Yes. I think historically, it's been very -- the customer concentration has been very high. And that customer has sort of overordered and then -- so that hasn't been helpful. So customer concentration is an issue. I think this is the one business where probably, if you ask me, what's the impact of Trump overall, I would say, well, not for most of our markets, not that much. But for this one, where the off-grid solar is a little bit more, there was a push. I think the people who rent out these units, they prefer almost diesel ones, and there's no real push for the off-grid solar.

But having said all of that, we are -- as Chris said, we have this messaging board business and which are trailers as well from [ inc., ] and we've now consolidated that. That actually improves the customer base. And we'll see how that pans out this year. I think it's -- we're in the early stages, but I think that potentially will help to make that into a better business, but it will take time.

It's Harry Philips, Peel Hunt, and apologies for arriving late so this might have already been covered. But just thinking about the U.K. one-offs you talked about, just I'm probably asking for a repeat, but if you could repeat what they might be and what they were, that would be very helpful. And then the timing of -- if we get the roads program detailed this year, how long does that sort of take to work through into activity around barrier rentals and other aspects, please?

You can take the first one.

Yes. So in terms of those one-offs, we flagged actually, Harry, at the half year, the benefit that we had in the first half of '25 from projects activity. And these are U.K. infrastructure transport markets. So this is something that is relatively -- again, it's lumpy in its nature. It gave us a benefit in the '25 year, somewhere in the order of a handful of millions at operating profit level and getting into sort of double-digit revenue benefit in the top line. And the guidance that we said is, look, ultimately, we don't expect it to repeat at that sort of level in 2026. So that's the sort of the headwind that we would be lapping year-on-year relating to that particular line item.

And on the roads program, I did indeed say before, but the risk-free, we'll get the final sort of plan in the first half of this year. We'll then have a good look at what the implications are. I don't see significant upside from that this year if there's upside, which we hope there will be, then that will be in '27 and beyond, right? We know it's focused more on maintenance. The key question is how big are those maintenance sort of projects and whether they need that temporary barrier or if there are other solutions. But that is something that we'll get sight on to in the first half of this year.

Just going to turn to a couple of questions from the kind of webcast. So the first question is from one of our shareholders, from Rathbones. How does geographical ramifications in energy prices impact the underlying segments? And what actions can you or are you taking at this early stage?

Do you want...

Yes. So in terms of energy prices, our absolute level of exposure to energy is not huge. Clearly, we use natural gas in our galvanizing businesses. Those would be the 2 biggest drivers of energy cost. But it's -- you're talking about something that's in that kind of GBP 20 million order of magnitude in terms of the overall cost within our P&L. As a matter of policy to manage price risk, we take good levels of forward cover, both in the U.K. and in the U.S. So for example, in the U.K., I think we've got 75% of summer '26 covered on the natural gas side. And in the U.S., something similar. And we've got a decent tail of cover that goes all the way out into 2028.

So from a kind of price risk perspective, I think we are well covered. Clearly, a more significant input within our business is steel. The reality is that most of the steel, the vast majority of the steel that's consumed in our businesses is domestically manufactured. So again, you're not talking about risk to supply chains. I think the bigger risk that we're flagging here is just to macro sentiment and the impact of current uncertainties on that. But I think at a micro level, from a business perspective, the effects are relatively modest.

Thanks, Chris. A second question from Tom Fraine of Shore Capital. It's quite wordy, but I'll try and work through it. So the additional consideration for Freeberg indicates you see considerable potential for its profit growth. Can you provide any color on the level of profitability to 2031 required to maximize the consideration to the additional $50 million? And any color on how you see this profit growth progressing? Will it be back-end weighted? Or do you anticipate a significant uplift in 2028 after the new facility is up and running?

Yes. So I mean, I think a bit similar to Rob's question of, look, how should we think about this on a 5- to 6-year view? And just to sort of reinforce that point, ultimately, when you look at that kind of multiple and you look at the earnings growth that would be necessary to come out at that sort of top end of the range, that $50 million, you'd be talking about needing to move the business forward from sort of $5 million of operating profit last year to $25 million. So that gives you a sense of the scale. And I think when you look at it from left to right, we're confident that the business will be able to grow the top line, and we've got this multiyear demand visibility into data centers that Rutger talked about. So we'd expect to be well in excess of the group's kind of organic revenue growth range, 5% to 7%.

You're going to see growth that's going to accelerate comfortably above that. I think there's clearly a broad continuum of outcomes that are a function of market progression over the next 5 to 6 years. So I think talking about where we expect that to be in 5 to 6 years is probably a little premature. But what we have done is created that incentive where if we can get to that sort of level, all stakeholders in this thing will be very, very happy. So that's the way that we really view the forward view.

We're going to have to give you sort of guidance over that period when things sort of developed. That's -- but as Chris said, we will be delighted if we get to the point where indeed we pay $50 million because we have a fantastic one.

Thanks.

Anyone follow-up questions? Can you maybe summarize.

No. So well, thank you for being here. But clearly, we feel very positive about the results and the momentum. I'm very pleased about the acquisitions. We think both of them make a lot of sense and also positive about the organic investments as well because that's always what we said we want to do both of those, and we're doing that. The U.K., some parts are still a bit of a challenge, but we'll work that through. And overall, I think we're in a good place.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.