Mader Group Stock

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Mader Group Full Year Results Announcement. [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Justin Nuich, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, Sherry. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Mader Group's Full Year Results Presentation for the 2026 financial year. Joining me today as well is our Chief Financial Officer, Paul Hegarty.

As Mader moved into its third decade of operations, we are proud to reflect on [ a while so ] year for the group, marked by stronger achievement [ to ] business. This year, we successfully closed out the final year of our first 5-year strategic plan as a listed company, delivering record annual revenues of [ $1.1 billion -- $1.1 million ], a 15% increase on FY '25. This incredible achievement reflects the discipline and precision with which our teams operate across the globe.

Through their commitment, they have continued to grow our customer base, strengthen our market position and further establish Mader as a leader in technical services across industries. Our people have played a critical role in achieving the results we're presenting today, and I'm truly grateful to their contribution.

Now we've got quite the deck to get through. So with that said, let's dive into it. For those that are unfamiliar with our journey, Mader was founded in 2005 by our Executive Chairman, Luke Mader, identifying an underserviced niche in the industry, we've started providing flexible maintenance solutions to customers with the youth or trucks for our North American [ listeners some tools ] and a vision. Today, that vision has led moved to become a global business, delivering a wide range of technical services across multiple industries in 10 countries. Back [ side ] of more than 4,500 skilled employees around the world. We proudly provide support for the 520 customers in more than 685 locations.

As you can see on this slide, we have successfully evolved into a truly global diversified company with our unique business model replicated across multiple industries and service lines. While launching fully organic start-ups in new markets, expanding geographically and broadening our suite of trades, we have delivered around 30% comparing annual growth over the last 10 years. As I mentioned earlier, this achievement would not have been possible without our people, which leads nicely into our next slide, highlighting the specialized workforce that makes it all happen.

From the start, a core part of [ Lex ] vision to Mader was to build a workforce where people not only take pride in what they do, but also get the job done while working alongside their [ rates ]. This idea has grown from one mechanic into a global business, comprising a highly skilled team of technicians, each with diverse and specialized skill sets. This includes heavy mobile [ agreement ] technicians, auto and high-voltage electricians, road transport and light vehicle mechanics, fixed plant trades, welding and fabrication and so much more.

While we strive to build meaningful careers for people at any stage in [ Mader ] as you can see on the screen, around 60% of our workforce is under the [ agency ]. This is largely driven by our culture and the flexible and adventurous career pathways that our [ world ] offer. Mader's unique offering typically attracts people who are looking for more logistic job and rather a career for [ an endless ] adventure and opportunities.

Complexible [ Ross ], site variety and diversity across industries, locations and equipment, we invest heavily in our [ network ] so we can deliver opportunities that are truly unrolled within the industry's work. The 2 core drivers to this are on the spoke culture-led programs, global pathways and [ 3 years ], which I'll speak more on later.

However, one thing that has remained unchanged since day 1 is our commitment to the safety of our people. This financial year made a reported -- a total recordable injury frequency rate of 3.65 recordable injuries per [ million ] hours, made a strong safety track record was supported by ongoing education, innovation and investment in our geared to safety program. This continued strengthening -- the strengthening of motors engineered safety controls within its global service vehicles, as well as hosting more safety focus Mader [ date ] across our global operations, while continuing to recognize positive behaviors through field-based safety awards and engaging vehicle campaigns that reinforced our commitment to sending everyone home safely.

Now moving on to the executive overview. I'd like to provide a quick summary of our FY '26 highlights. In FY '26, we delivered a record annual revenue of [ $1.101 billion ] an increase of 15% versus the prior corresponding period. NPAT closed out at $65.4 million, up 15% on the PCP. And furthermore, our balance sheet was strengthened delivering a net cash of $35.7 million, up from $8.3 million in net debt versus the PCP. The labor markets in which we operate continue to exhibit extremely competitive divisions. However, through our multidimensional recruitment pathways, strong brand and attractive employment opportunities, we delivered strong net headcount growth of Circus 600 during the financial year. Demand remains strong across all regions with our core mechanical and other industries vertical service offerings, consistently meeting customer needs.

The North American segment continued its steady growth profile delivering $186.6 million in revenue, a 12% increase on the PCP or more importantly, a [ 17% ] on a constant currency basis. And we successfully closed out our 5-year strategic plan, exceeding market guidance year-on-year during this phase.

So let's have a look into how our geographical segments performed. As you can see on the left, in Australia, revenue was up 16% versus the PCP, delivering $797.7 million. Infrastructure maintenance and ancillary services delivered strong revenue growth of 45% and 37%, respectively, versus the PCP. In North America, revenue increased by 12% or 17% on a constant currency basis, producing $186.6 million for the full year. We also achieved a record headcount of 660 employees within that region. In Canada, headcount growth was supported by our global [ pata ] program, which deployed more than 240 technicians in FY '26. And jumping over to the Rest of the World operations, we provided [ specialist ] services and technical support to customers in 7 countries across Africa, Asia and Oceana. We mobilized close to 50 technicians to fulfill these projects in these regions.

I'll now pass over to our CFO, Paul Hegartt, to run through the financials in more detail. Paul, over to you.

Thanks, Justin. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call this morning. As Justin mentioned, we delivered record annual revenue of [ $1,101 million ] up 15% on the PCP. This result marks the end of the group's first 5-year plan as a listed company and is a significant achievement. When this plan was enacted in FY '21, our annual revenue was circa $300 million, delivering an NPAT of $19.3 million. To be standing here today, having delivered the strategic plan outcomes and being part of a much larger, more diversified business is a momentous occasion and something we have Mader are all extremely proud of.

Importantly, this revenue growth has been delivered to plan, and not at the cost of lower margins. Over the last 5 reported financial years, the group's NPAT margin has not deviated by more than 0.6% between the highest and lowest reported year. From a shareholder perspective, EPS increased to a record of $0.322 per share, an increase of 14% versus the PCP. The Board has elected not to declare a dividend in respect of this financial year given a number of organic and inorganic growth opportunities that are being considered at present.

Let's move on to the financial position. As you can see, our asset base primarily comprises cash on hand, trade receivables and property plant and equipment. Our trade receivables position is largely with Tier 1 principles and large mining contractors. And generally, touchwood, we don't have any abnormal credit risk profiles in the debtor book. Our DSO improved by 2 days during FY '26, closing the year at 67 days.

Our disciplined use of capital and asset base is reflected in our return on invested capital, which was 25% in FY '26. Importantly, this isn't a one-off. These returns have been consistently delivered at this rate over many years. Likewise, when it comes to our return on assets that closed FY '26 at 18%, a slight improvement on the PCP. We are well supported by our Australian lenders, in particular, now than Westpac, the flexibility that has been established within our finance facilities allows us to respond quickly to opportunities when necessary. Finally, we announced about 18 months ago, a plan to transition the business towards net cash in the medium term. I am pleased to update you that this has now been achieved with a net cash position at 30 June of $35.7 million, up from a net debt position of $8.3 million at the PCP. This will allow greater flexibility and freedom to make strategic decisions around future growth.

Now on to the cash flow slide. Our net cash flows from operations was $85 million for the year. Our intense focus on EBITDA conversion was maintained, operating cash flows before interest and tax as compared to EBITDA were 99%. This reflects the quality of our client base and trade receivables ledger, as I mentioned earlier. Free cash flow generation continued to improve year-on-year. In FY '26, the group generated $57.5 million of free cash flow. This is reflective of the shift in capital requirements as the group expands its revenue base into new opportunities that are extremely capital light. This is expected to continue into FY '27 with our capital expenditure expected to be between $30 million and $35 million for the year which is about the same level as it was in FY '26. Given this strong free cash flow generation is expected to continue into the new financial year. As I mentioned earlier, the group is now in that cash position, much to the disappointment of our lenders. This place is Mader in an enviable position to tackle the next phase of growth. This funding flexibility will be critical to achieving the next 5-year strategic plan, which Justin will talk about in a few slides time.

That's all for me. Back to you, Justin.

Thank you, [ Paul ]. Good set of numbers, well done. So 5 years ago, the Board led the foundation for our future. By setting out some key areas of focus in our strategic plan as a publicly listed business. Since then, this has been a blueprint to guide our growth. The strategic plan set growth targets and operational goals in 4 key areas while keeping culture at our core. Number one was geographical diversification. The second was service line diversification. Third, expansion of industry verticals. And fourth, and definitely not least, of course, to scale the existing business.

Further, ambition stretch targets for NPAT was set and successfully exceeded. And now with our first 5-year strategic land complete, we look forward to the next 5 years and continued long-term growth beyond. This 5 years we are embarking on is the next stepping stone on the way to a generational plan to build Mader group into a large global industrial [ com grower ].

So let's take a deeper look at what the future looks like. Over the next 5 years, Mader will activate accelerated growth initiatives in new service verticals as part of our global expansion strategy. Our focus will be on front-end loading of high-growth areas, mergers and acquisitions, increased development pathways, capital investment into growth and new market benches. All building blocks that will lead Mader towards the goal of becoming a globally diversified industrial encore. As always, Mader strong culture continues to be the foundation of its business model. So let's have a look at what's expected over the coming years.

Over the next 5 years, the business expects to deliver the following things: circa 15% EPS growth per annum, existing strong margins are to be maintained, capital investment of $30 million to $50 million per annum and expansion into new markets. These initiatives will be pursued while maintaining a measured leverage position and delivering market-leading returns on capital.

So now that we've covered our growth trajectory. Let's have a look at the core building blocks on delivering this next phase. So just deliver the next phase, Mader is focused on the following 5 core building blocks, continuing to increase our footprint into the opportunity-rich North American market, continuing expansion across the industries in Australia and in new verticals beyond our existing service lines through organic and inorganic means, investing in workforce development power plays and maintaining our culture led approach. Together, these building blocks position our business to sustainable growth while staying true to the values that define our success.

Now let's jump across to our workforce. A key differentiator for Mader is its unique global workforce opportunities and culture-led approach. Our success is built on attracting and retaining a highly skilled team that delivers a premium service to our customers worldwide. We support our people through structured career development, including the global pathway initiative, which creates opportunities to work and grow across international markets which I'll touch more on [ sure ]. We also invest heavily in our leadership capability, strengthening our entire leadership team to drive strong accountable operational performance. Complementing this [ is 3 years ], our employee engagement and retention program, which helps build culture from the ground up. Together, these initiatives create a motivated, capable workforce that underpins Mader onto its long-term growth.

So let's jump across investing in our people. This is a key pillar for Mader's long-term success. Through mentoring, training and structured development programs, we create clear career pathways that support progression from field-based roles into leadership and management positions and beyond. This approach has helped build a strong homegrown leadership pipeline from within the business with 89% of Mader management and 82% of general managers and executives beginning their career as technicians.

In addition, our general managers and executives have an average tenure of 11 years, reflecting the strength of our culture and employee retention. By investing in our people, we strengthened culturally aligned leadership capability, preserve operational expertise and support sustainable growth across the entire organization. So let's look at how we're looking our opportunities globally.

Our global pathway initiative connects our people with career opportunities across the world. With employees already participating in overseas placements and 2-way transfers between Australia and North America are underway, the program supports talent mobility, workforce development and access to global telecos. FY '26 alone saw more than 240 specialists deployed to North America and almost 50 across other countries in Asia, Africa and Oceana. Global Pathways has been a key enabler of both employee growth and major international expansion. And I think needless to say, with the [ assistance of Elbow and Jim's ] latest budget, it has never been easy to convince people to [ embark on ] an offshore opportunity.

Now let's look at our offshore demand over the coming years. The demand for skilled trades people continues to outpace supply, creating a significant workforce challenge across Australia's mining and resources sector. As you can see on this slide, more than 24,500 additional BET qualified [ roses ] are needed by 2035 to meet Australia's mining and resources [ metal ].

With that said, access to skilled labor will be a key differentiator and Mader investment in recruitment, training, development and retention positions our business to meet this demand and support ongoing growth. This challenge really puts Mader in the backseat to utilize its many angles. It has to fulfill the gaps on top of our existing 4,500 people, creating a significant market to get started.

On the topic of talent, let's have a look at one more of major key training and upskilling progress. As we've seen in the previous slide, demands of skilled technicians continues to grow. Mader is proactively investing in its future workforce and one of the ways we do this is by the trade-up program. This program helps bridge the skills gap by developing and upscaling tradespeople across key markets while creating long-term career opportunities for employees. Since inception in 2019, over 520 apprentices and graduated from the program across Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Canada. So let's take a look at our multidimensional recruitment model.

As represented in this slide, Mader's workforce pipeline is supported by a multichannel recruitment strategy that has been designed to deliver still talent at scale. While combining employee referrals, international mobility programs, new talent pools, team-led hiring and rapid mobilization capabilities, we can efficiently attract and deploy employees when they need it the most. This recruitment model and approach supports growth while maintaining the flexibility to respond to changing customer demand -- so let's jump across and take a look at the resilience of the Mader business model.

This is probably one of my favorite slides. So this will highlight the resilience of our business model and its ability to deliver consistent growth across varying market conditions. Over the past decade, the business has achieved a revenue CAGR of approximately 30%, growing from $43 million in FY '14 to $1 billion in FY '26. Importantly, this growth has been achieved despite significant fluctuations in commodity prices across iron ore, coal, copper and gold being our highest exposure commodities.

Mader's reactive service model allows the business to capture opportunities through commodity cycles, while our employment model provides flexibility for employees and helps protect margins. In addition, the continued diversification of service offerings reduces the reliance on any single commodity or sector. So let's take a look at the opportunity ahead of us in Australia.

In addition to our core business, Mader also see strong growth opportunities across infrastructure, transport and logistics, and defense with the defense sector allocated a budget of $897 billion over the next decade. All of these sectors and opportunities share a common need for reliable maintenance, services, skilled technicians and mobile workforce solutions in an already depleted trade-based labor market. With a strong pipeline of infrastructure investment, a large national freight network and substantial long-term [ defense ] team, these sectors represent incredibly attractive opportunities to diversify revenue streams and expand Mader's addressable market within Australia.

Moving on. The next slide illustrates the mining process. From extraction of the pit through processing, rail and road transport and ultimately to port operations for export. Today, approximately 93% of Mader's revenue is generated in the excavation and extraction phase of that value chain. This highlights a significant growth opportunity within the resources industry itself. As maintenance expenditure continues across every stage of the process, Mader is well positioned to leverage its existing with expertise, workforce and customer relationships to expand further downstream.

While increasing our presence across processing infrastructure, transport networks and port operations, we can capture a greater share of mining maintenance spend and unlock additional revenue opportunities throughout the entire pit to [ for ] -- so let's cross over to North America, the land of opportunity. So North America remains a strong growth segment for Mader with a CAGR of approximately 54% -- in the region. It demonstrates market acceptance and execution capability. Although our entry has been strong, we are still relatively early in our journey in the region with great prospects for expansion and growth. The opportunity for Mader is to continue replicating our proven Australian model across the North American market, which is several times larger in scale, which will have a [ little at now ].

Australia remains Mader's most mature market, generating approximately $800 million in FY '26 revenue compared to approximately $190 million in North America. That said, despite North America's smaller current revenue contribution, the region presents a significantly larger addressable market and a substantial growth in [ late ] -- to start as North America has a population of more than 620 million people compared to around 27 million in Australia, providing a much larger labor and customer base.

The mining and resources sector is materially larger with about 3,500 active mines and projects versus approximately 900 in Australia. As you can see, resource production is also significant [ in rate ] across [ Ron ] gas and oil production. With a relatively small share of a very large addressable market, North America remains a key long-term growth driver for our business. The focus is on expanding service lines, increasing market penetration and leveraging Mader's workforce model to capture a greater share of this opportunity.

So let's have a look at the opportunity ahead. On this slide, we compare Mader's North American business today with where the Australian business is currently positioned, to highlighting the significant growth highlight -- still Australia is a mature and diversified operation with [ HD ] mechanics making up around 46% of the workforce, supported by a broader mix of trades and multiple service verticals. In contrast, [ 17% ] in North America's workforce is currently made up of HD mechanics, reflecting the business' early stage of development in that region.

Labor storages across North America, driven by an aging workforce and declining trade participation creates strong demand for skilled technicians and specialized workforce solutions. Programs such as made a global part initiatives are helping the business access international talent and support access international talent and support workforce growth in this region. Now let's sit across and have a look at our growth -- our postgrowth as a business.

Mader's growth strategy has historically been built on organic expansion, underpinned by technical capability, on customer relationships and a customer approach. Now in our third decade, this approach has enabled us to successfully enter new markets and expand into new industries while maintaining operational -- our culture remains a common foundation across every growth initiative, providing a scalable platform for entering new sectors and geographies. While organic growth remains the primary focus, we also remain open to small sinusitis we like to accelerate growth, add capability will provide access to attractive markets.

The solvency is simple, acquired more than scale hard, made up as a prudent framework for growth. in capability, leverage culture, new markets and scale efficiently over time. As mentioned in the previous slide, while organic growth remains our primary strategy, we are also evaluating targeted acquisitions. We focus is not on large transformational deals, but on the quarry businesses that complement makes existing capabilities and culture. Acquisitions can significantly accelerate revenue generation and market entry. Allowing Mader to establish a presence much faster than building organically from the ground up.

Our key benefit is immediate access to establish customer relationships, improve the market credibility and existing revenue streams. These acquisitions will also overcome various tier, such as the high opportunity sectors like defense, where acquiring can provide access to specialized licenses, accreditations and technical capabilities. as well as work panels that would otherwise take many years to develop organically.

So let's have a look over at the FY '26 outlook. If you come to mind back to Slide 10, where we touch on our strategic plan, this slide shows our progress against the NPAT target set. As you can see for the entirety of our first 5-year strategic plan, we have not only achieved but exceeded our impact guidance. These results highlight the strength of our scalable operating model and execution capability.

To summarize the approach for the next 5 years, our goal towards becoming a globally diversified industrial conglomerate is well underway. During this next phase, the business expects to deliver the following: circa 15% EPS growth per annum, continued strong margins, capital investment of $30 million to $50 million per annum. New market expansions, our measured leverage position and market-leading return on capital. With existing solid foundations, made is strongly positioned to continue building a global business at scale that pushes boundaries and delivers long-term value for our shareholders. customers and employees alike. I'd now like to cover our FY '27 guidance.

FY '27 is a year of heavy strategic investment and front-end loading of high-growth opportunities. We expect revenue of at least $1.13 billion of NPAT and at least $72.5 billion -- sorry, $1.13 billion of revenue and NPAT of at least $32.5 million all while expanding to new margins and packing high-growth opportunity. We will continue building an opportunity which is to capitalize on future growth prospects. Our focus is simple. Good scale, strengthen our portfolio and deliver market-leading returns over the long term.

Now let's say, look at our investment case. With Slide 26 wrap up or improve confidence as we enter this new financial year. The current and prospective investments made to present a robust investment opportunity with many prospects ahead. That's field adaptable business model, we have grown to have a market cap of around [ $1.2 billion ] today. The resilience and hardware as been shown through in many areas. And within behind us, we'll continue to deliver a superior to invest for our customers and value to our shareholders. So that concludes today's presentation. Thank you for joining us, and we'd be pleased to take your questions at this time.

[Operator Instructions]. The first question comes from [indiscernible] from Unified Capital Partners.

First question here is a great job on achieving the long-term targets, which is good, going from 300 milligrams to 1 bill organically in a small amount of capital is increasing in an achievement. Can we spend a bit more time on the 15% per annum target, Justin. We're quite here were quite large at the moment, and the law of large numbers means to get higher and harder. We'll just growth be a mix of organic and inorganic or mostly small bolt-ons loading the balance sheet strength.

Yes. Thank you, Joe. If you haven't hit enough of my voice in -- yes. But I mean, 16% year-on-year, they are the targets, especially off the bikes that we're -- and look, I think hence the guidance for this year, and I must really just double down on the investment in some of the new opportunities we're looking at. We've just taken on the other side of our workshops and we've doubled the size of our workshop capability, so putting 8,000 meters under roof. We've started up the defense business. So obviously, the start up of that and associated starting of that. We bought executive and -- people into key infrastructure and project roles. As well as support teams to focus on supercharging those. We've incorporated an indigenous joint venture within the infrastructure of rail division and then also working in the background on a couple of large opportunities. as well.

But needless to say, those required some significant investment. I mean we see the markets, we've seen the opportunities. North America remains a massive addressable market for us. But again, we'll troop and gives us nothing but confidence that is been to over the medium and long term will be at

Thanks, Justin. A question here on FX headwinds in the in the financial year. I'll take that, and you can have a rest. There were a little bit there. I guess the FX impact to the revenue line was about $8.2 million to the negative. That would have been closer to $1.010 billion. We have those FX movements and the NPAT impact was close to $800,000. So it would have been sort of north of $66.1 million NPAT without those FX headwind.

Perhaps extending new verticals, Justin. Which of these are most likely probably the infrastructure maintenance space to oadly in Australia. Anything further to add in that space?

No. Look, I mean we've done a few bit of DD on the sense, look, we know how big that industry is and the spend that's coming up to there via passenger we've been on. So we've chosen to be a titer. So we're well underway to tendering working in defense. Infrastructure maintenance is just in lowering some executive and see cause powder to really supercharge that effort and that is huge as well as rail and road transport. The North American market as well, I mean needless to say -- you saw on the slide, any that is we've seen tailwinds in both the U.S.A. and Canada. So again, we'll throw the kitchen at making sure that, that has the support needed to scale as quickly as we need so.

A question from Joe House from Bell. In North America, what vertical market penetration is the easiest to deliver in the near term is it structural? Yes, we recite Look, I think some of the service lines as well, like our electrical trades, fabrication trades and the like that we sort of support within our core business as well with being up there. infrastructure differently, and they're certainly seeing some big projects come online that we could definitely plan to support rolling at this point in time.

So a little bit -- another question from John on from Unifi. A couple or any further information on rest of world, how we're feeling about that in the second half, and then I'll talk about guidance assumptions?

Yes. Thanks, Jon. Yes. Look, rest of the world, we're always busy doing a bunch of business development. Obviously, that went backwards a little last year and the reason for that was a large contract that we had in -- with us all these has come to an end, which was I was on a finite time anyway. We started some other stuff up in New Zealand where we're doing another job in Africa as well. So it will always be ends and flows of that rest of the world business, but we love to keep doing that to create opportunities for people that have those opportunities and will continue to do so.

And just to round out your question there, John, FY '27 assumption from Rest of World is sort of not much coming from a growth perspective there. Do you think that we can hold the line there, but it will be a growth footing, but we're not putting out too much that for FY '27, the growth will come out of Australia and in North America?

Okay. A question from [ Garen Alestra ] -- when thinking about the 15% medium- and long-term growth targets, can we take this to be organic growth with inorganic growth perhaps accelerating this from time to time? How do we feel about that?

I think you probably said it perfectly -- an organic contain most of our sort of gross assets. But obviously, new organic will accelerate in from time to time as we see the opportunity to spring or us beyond what we could do organically.

Excellent. Just a question from Nika Palmer from -- in FY '27, NPAT growth -- is this deliberately conservative given the investment phase is an upside to FY '28 as those investments mature. That's only for the conservative big let's talk to that, but to be next...

Thanks, Mike. Yes, look, it's definitely -- look, there's is. But we also had enough organic start-ups to know that -- these things don't just turn on and it produces bulk input and revenue on day 1 year. They take a while to get going to get teams in there as we work to mobilize and start really kicking in, in a meaningful way. So we are allowing for that this year. We are investing hard. We know the opportunities there, we believe in it. But we're not even enough to say it's going to too in H1 '27, like that is something that we're really investing hardly now the siege if you look beyond the 11% this year, our EPS guidance is 15% over the 5 years. So if we take those short-term lens is off and have a look sort of beyond FY '27, the investment today will pay dividends into the future. So it's kind of a go fast approach...

Very good. A question from Ivy from [indiscernible], lots for the question about M&A as you say everyone was to about it. A question around M&A. Can the existing business delivered this 15% CAGR growth without any M&A? Just a review.

I think we've got liquid easy, to be honest, but we are we're committed to exploring M&A. And as I said before, I think where it makes sense and where it can give us a springboard in sort of beyond what we can do organically, we'll definitely consider and definitely take up those opportunities as they arise if they make sense. Very good. Just a clarification on cutter as well. The guide of $50 million per annum in the long-term plan, that is excluding M&A. So that's that service vehicles and tooling and the like that we need to deliver the revenue growth not including any M&A allowances in that number.

Okay. Maybe A question from that, Josh from -- can we talk about defense industry and what we're thinking about there and the size of that opportunity? How do we feel about the trends, particularly given all the -- as changes happening in the next decade?

Yes. Thanks, Matt. Good to see you for the annual report. Early with the cars as always. But yes, look, we made a small acquisition into the fence. It was a small consulting base company, maybe white collar, but it gives us is it gives us panels on labor panels and essentially some experts within the defense industry that are going to help us get going within the fence. So needless to say, we are busy tendering for work in defense and working with -- are there other primes and partners within that industry and we're in a good position to head into at in FY '27.

Thanks, Justin. A question from John Ferguson from the Australian Shareholder Association. This question is 12% of the major workforce auto and Machan, with the shift to electrification across the Australian economy, are their plans to boost this 12%.

Yes, John. Good to hear from you, mate. Yes, look, at some earlier needless to say the effort towards electrification, both in mining equipment and infrastructure and renewables and the like is real. So we think -- and again, that's probably another investment that we make in sort of supercharging our electrical divisions. So it sort of recruit electrical trades, but also our training departments that have very successfully been upskilling people through trade-up programs and the like.

To look at dual trading to look at how we sort of trade the task on some electrical sort of works that are required. So yes, so your question, John, we expect to see that piece of the pie graph grow significantly over the company years.

Thanks, Justin. Christian, another follow-up question from -- from Bells. North American margin FY '26 EBITDA [ 17.5 ] historically made been sort of 20%, how should we see the margin to be business?

Great question, Ed. We saw second half EBITDA margins in North America improved by about [ 1% ], and that's helped overall margins come up. We think that the 20% target that we've talked about is very real and insight for FY '27. There's been a lot of good work completed in that in that market as well as the significant pipeline of new opportunities in North America that will only improve the margins across cross a lot over there. And perhaps on that, Justin, we are pretty buoyant about North America, both U.S.A. and Canada. Do you want to talk about the general state of the nation over there?

Yes, I can do, Paul. Yes, I think probably starting in Canada, that is -- I think, outperformed everybody's expectations, probably even including our continues to be a great proving ground for us. The team up there has set up an absolute force of a team. We would have obviously, circa 150 to 200 vacant roles to fill in Canada as it stands today, which is -- sorry, the demand for our products, the demand for the skilled trades and also the opportunity that provides for our business to fulfill those roles. The U.S.A., again, seen some great tailwinds. I think the current administration as you will, but certainly pro industry. I would say as well as sort of everybody with a golden copper mine at the moment is try to as much getting out of the ground as they can. So is the activity there has grown significantly. So to see both North American opportunities really pushing in leases now is great to see. And we don't really see that changing over the sort of medium term. We think the opportunity is real. Those addressable markets are there. We think it's really go time as far as how we accelerate just beyond HD mechanics in North America, bringing in our other service lines, looking at other opportunities in different industries and scaling a side as we can.

Very good. I think we'd probably as -- one last question again on M&A because that's what we've opened the door on that. A question from Julian in from [indiscernible]. Any color on M&A pipeline, anything currently advanced? Or is organic still focus for us at the moment.

Yes. Thanks,. Look, certainly some stuff well and truly in advanced discussions on the M&A pipeline. I want to look at pretty much color on what that is at the moment. Yes. There's probably 2 in particular that sort of down the track on a bunch of discussions. But again, they're not transformation joint acquisitions, these are things are going springboard us into opportunities that would take us a little longer to do organically.

Well, I think that might be the end of the time that we have allocated for questions. We will leave it there. Thanks very much for joining us this morning.

Thanks, team.

Goodbye, and welcome to the Made Group half year results announcement. If you would like to ask a question today via the webcast, please enter into the Ask Question box and click submit. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Justin Norwich, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, Darcy, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to MadaGroup's FY '26 Half Year Results Presentation. Thanks for joining us this morning. And Jody this morning is our Chief Financial Officer, Paul Egoli. All right. Let's get underway. So with the first half of FY '26 completed, we're proud to have delivered a record half year revenue of $485.2 million, an increase of 18% compared to the first half of FY '25. This result positions us well as we enter the second half of FY '26 and approach our target of $1 billion of annual revenue.

These results are a testament to the alignment, hard work and dedication of the Meda team which has positioned the business well to successfully close out the final year of its 5-year strategic plan. This strategic plan has been a blueprint for our business to deliver continued growth and diversification of revenue base for the last 4.5 years.

We enter the final 6 months with confidence that we'll deliver to plan and lay a solid foundation for what lies ahead. I'd like to extend my gratitude to the entire Meta team for their commitment and determination that they have demonstrated day in and day out. Okay, with that said, let's jump into it. For those unfamiliar with our duty, Meda was founded 20-plus years ago in 2005 by our Executive Chairman, like mad, identifying an underserviced niche in the industry, Luke started providing flexible maintenance solutions to customers with a youth or truck for our North American listeners, some tools and a vision.

Today, that vision has led made to become a global business, delivering technical services across multiple industries and service lines in 10 countries backed by a team of more than 4,100 specialists around the world, we proudly support over 490 customers in more than 685 locations.

As you can see, we have successfully evolved into a truly global diversified company with our unique business model replicated across multiple industries and service lines across the world. By launching fully organic start-ups in new markets, expanding geographically and broadening our suite of trades, we have delivered an impressive average compounding annual growth rate of circa 30% over the last 10 years.

As I mentioned earlier, this achievement would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the major team. This leads me to our next slide, a snapshot of our specialized workforce. From the start, a core part of Luke's vision are made up was to build a workforce where people not only have pride in what they do, but they get the job done while working alongside their mates.

This idea has grown from 1 mechanic into a global business comprised of a highly skilled team technicians, all with diverse and specialized skill sets. This includes heavy mobile equipment technicians, auto and high-voltage electricians, road transport and light vehicle mechanics. Fixed plant trades, welding and fabrication, energy specialists, rail and rolling stock experts and so much more.

And while we strive to build meaningful careers for people at any stage of life, as you can see on the screen, more than half of our workforce is under the age of 35, which unfortunately rules Paul and I added that back at these days. This is largely driven by our culture and the flexible and adventurous career pathways in our roles offer. Made is unique offering typically attracts people who are looking for more than just a job but a career full of endless possibilities.

From flexible rosters, site variety and diversity across industries, locations and equipment, we invest heavily in our people so we can deliver opportunities that are truly unrivaled in the industries in which we operate.

The 2 core drivers for this are our bespoke culture lead programs, global pathways and 3 years. These have both been continuously refined to ensure alignment with the growth of business and the needs of our people and more on these later. This year, Meda also received 2 prestigious awards as WA Large Business of the Year as well as the overall winner of the WA business of the year at the Western Australian business awards.

This is an incredible honor among some stiff and worthy competition and great recognition for the entire team who have work portable injury frequency rate of 3.6 recordable injuries per million hours worked -- made a strong safety track record was supported by ongoing education, innovation and the investment in our gear for safety programs.

This included continued strengthening of Meda's engineered safety controls within its global service fleet evolving the Madorapp as well as hosting after safety-focused made to days across our global operations to further educate our teams on safety-related information.

Before we head into the financial review, I'd like to provide a quick snapshot of our half year highlights. We delivered a record half year revenue of $485.2 million, an increase of 18% on the prior corresponding period. This was coupled with a solid NPAT of $30.5 million, up 17% on the [indiscernible] . Further, our balance sheet was strengthened with net debt down 57% to just $3.6 million.

The labor markets in which we operate continue to exhibit extremely competitive conditions. However, through our multidimensional recruitment pathways, we delivered strong net headcount growth of more than 250 people during the first half.

This is evidence of our ability to continually attract and retain the best talent in the industries in which we operate as well as deliver value to our technicians with unrivaled growth and development opportunities. These include our global pathway initiative and trainer program that unlock career possibilities around the world as well as our 3-years program that promotes comradery and Advent, 2 venues that are at the core of everything made it does.

Demand remains strong across all regions with our core mechanical and other industry vertical service offerings consistently meeting customers' needs. The North American segment continued its steady growth profile, delivering its third consecutive half year period of revenue growth, delivering $90 million of revenue. This sets a solid foundation and positive outlook for the remainder of the financial year. We are more than ever focused to achieve our strategic plan with guidance in line with expectations for FY '26.

Now onto a more detailed look into our performance across our all market segments. Our Australian segment continues to move from strength to strength with revenue up 19% on the PCP for the half year. Demand for ancillary and infrastructure services continues to grow with both areas delivering strong revenue during the period. As mentioned earlier, our North American segment delivered steady growth.

Drilling down into the half the segment is showing positive upticks our workforce and customer base continues to grow. Our customer profile in this segment is very strong a large portfolio of blue-chip companies secured across both Canada and U.S. operations. This high caliber of customers supports a stable pipeline of work for the group as we move into the second half of the financial year. In terms of our Rest of the World operations, made delivered a 36% increase in revenue for the period.

This was achieved through our continued diversification in our global operations, including putting our first boots on the ground in New Zealand. This global growth is supported by made strong reputation for safety and technical excellence. Our team continued to deliver significant value to customers across the globe. We bespoke tailor-made solutions designed to improve equipment reliability, safety and upskill local workforces. I'll now pass you over to our CFO, Paul Agee, to run through the financials in more detail.

Thanks very much, Justin, and thanks to everyone who's taken the time to join us on the call this morning in what is a very busy results day. I'll be going over the half year financial performance for the group. .

To start with -- as Justin mentioned, we delivered $485.2 million in revenue, up 18% on the PCP. This growth rate exceeds the growth rate implied in our annual revenue guidance of 15%. Importantly, this revenue growth has been delivered with stable margins with NPAT being delivered at 6.3%, consistent with the PCP and in line with our historical first half versus second half metrics. Our second halves typically deliver a stronger NPAT margin as we scale into the operating base that is established in the first half.

Importantly, we are comfortable with the margin position as it stands today. There are several margin optimization projects in place as they always are in any services business, which are expected to improve our second half margins in parallel with operating leverage, as I referred to earlier.

North America continued its growth trajectory, delivering its third consecutive half-on-half revenue growth with it now representing almost 20% of group revenue. Excitingly, the visible workflow pipeline ahead is encouraging for this segment's second half. EBITDA increased by 9.2% versus PCP which is a little behind our NPAT growth rate of an increase of 17% versus PCP. The reason for this is with much stronger growth momentum and improved earnings our annual short-term incentive payments have scaled upwards, which reflects the much stronger position the business is in today compared to 12 months ago.

For those shareholders familiar with our performance-driven growth-focused incentives these payments accelerate in line with NPAT growth. And given NPAT has increased by 17% versus PCP. Our incentive payment accruals reflect this. From a shareholder perspective, EPS increased to just over $0.15 per share, reflecting an increase of 16% versus the PCP. Finally, the interim dividend was suspended this half year following the review of the capital management strategy by the Board.

Typically, capital management reviews and alterations like this point to something less positive happening in the business. But in our case, it points to something much more exciting ahead and I'll touch on capital management on the next slide. Let's move on to the financial strength of the business. Cash collection and free cash flow generation improved during the half year, and days sales outstanding reduced by 10 days down to just 50 days compared to 60 days at 30 June 2025.

This in conjunction with an increasingly capital-light service delivery model contributed to a reduction in net debt by 57%, down $4.7 million which meant we closed out the half year with net debt of just $3.4 million. This translates to net leverage of just 0.03x which is as close to new net debt that we can get without actually getting there.

We continue to be well supported by our lenders with our primary lender Nav in Australia and also have strong working relationships established in the U.S. and Canada. This leads nicely on to an update to our capital management framework, as I mentioned earlier. The Board has adjusted its capital management framework and elected not to pay an interim dividend for the first half. This action, in combination with improved free cash flow, which I'll expand on in a few minutes, we'll accelerate the group's pathway to net cash and strengthen our liquidity to support a more aggressive approach to organic and inorganic growth opportunities.

In the past, the group's dividend payments have been modest with a dividend yield of circa 1%. Given this, the group's primary focus remains on optimizing capital allocation to fund growth. This approach is intended to enhance overall shareholder value through higher earnings capacity in the future, improved returns on capital and increased financial flexibility whilst, of course, maintaining a growth-focused business direction.

Now on to the cash flow. Our net cash flow from operations was $30.9 million. Our intense focus on EBITDA conversion was maintained throughout the first half of FY '26. Operating cash flows before interest and tax as compared to EBITDA was 98%. This great result reflects the quality of our client base in the trade receivables ledger, as I mentioned earlier. Consistent with the lighter ratio of capital expenditure to revenue growth, Free cash flow increased to $15.8 million for the half year. And I'll expand on this point a little further to help paint the picture a little more clearly.

This is the sixth consecutive half year period of positive free cash flow and is being made possible by scaling non-vehicle based service delivery lines, meaning we can grow earnings without having to purchase the high lux Land Cruiser or Dodge Ram for every new employee we bring into the business. Whilst we have always considered our business model to be capital light, it is becoming more so as we scale into new verticals with lower capital requirements. That's probably enough for me on the financials. Jan, back to you.

Thanks, Paul. Let's keep it moving on to our next slide, the strategic plan. Almost 5 years ago, the Board laid the foundation for our future by setting out some key areas focus in our first strategic plan as a publicly listed business. Since then, this has been a blueprint to guide our growth. The strategic plan set growth targets and operational goals in 4 key areas: geographical diversification, service line diversification, expansion of industry verticals and of course, to scale the existing business.

Further, targets for NPAT were set out, as you can see detailed on the slide. With that said, we identified the need to establish a series of core building blocks to create a solid foundation for future growth, which leads us on to Slide 13 and 14, our building points. Over the years, we've built a strong foundation for growth and 1 that goes beyond just financial metrics. At the heart of it all is our culture, and our culture is the driving force behind everything that we do.

Programs like Global pathways and 3 years bring this to light, offering our people incredible opportunities to travel the world whilst working and spending their R&R creating memories with their team and families. These programs are now active across Australia and North America, and I would also add that these experiences are currently unmatched in our industries. We have worked diligently to expand both programs, so the opportunities are bigger and better than ever before.

This has seen more than 160 employees during the first half, take on both short- and long-term overseas comments as well as an extensive range of adventures cultivated for our global team. Of course, culture is just 1 piece of the puzzle. Another key driver of our growth is how we apply our proven business model across different industries. By expanding into new markets, we're creating a compounding effect by diversifying revenue streams and tapping into large addressable markets.

Resources and infrastructure maintenance remains a core focus of the business as we continue to demonstrate our quality service delivery offering. Over to Slide 14. We see 2 more large addressable markets energy and transport logistics. In the energy market, we have primarily been focused on delivering latence for natural gas compression stations in the United States. In the transport and logistics industry, we have expanded our efforts to provide maintenance for rail and road transport now operating across most of Australia. Given the critical role of transport and logistics in Australia's resources industry, there is significant growth potential that aligns well with our existing operations. Finally, our building block that is key to future growth involves deliberate entry into emerging markets. As necessary, we'll conduct market research into new industries and assess the suitability for the motor business model to be deployed with some very positive due diligence advancing.

An evolving business, Slide 15. We have a proven track record of organically replicating our unique business model across multiple industry verticals. Exploring opportunities outside of our core services will allow us to capitalize on extending across industry verticals and geographies, effectively creating more opportunities for our level and diversifying revenue streams sustainable growth while tapping into new labor and talent pools.

In addition to enhancing our service offerings, geographical expansion remains central to our growth strategy. We have multiple geographical beachheads and are always looking to enter new locations and diversify our commodity exposure. The Australian business continues to generate the largest portion of revenue for the group at 79%. We are confident in the stability of this segment and now we will continue to deliver strong results in this area. The North American segment continued gaining momentum and contributed 19% of the group's revenue.

There is a significant runway ahead for us in this region with a solid foundation laid. The outlook is really positive for the mid- to long term. Our Rest of the World segment contributed 2% to revenue across the business. And whilst this is still a modest number, it is an important offering for our most specialized technicians. As a business, we continually seek to improve the diversity of our revenue profile. This is a pivotal step towards achieving our FY '26 target of $1 billion in revenue.

Through the strategic enhancement of our service offerings, we can tap into new markets that allow us to expand the group's revenue streams. We are constantly assessing addressable markets where we can apply our culture led business model. This is key to driving future growth and ensuring long-term sustainability of the business.

Our diversified operations continue to create sustainable compounding returns for our shareholders with a continuing high-growth agenda ahead. Now if you can to wind back to Slide 12, where we first touch on our strategic plan, this slide here shows our progress against the NPAT target set on that plan. As you can see for the first 4 years of our strategic plan, we have not only achieved but exceeded our NPA targets.

This half year, we have retained 47% of the target today. We are pleased with this result and remain focused on achieving this goal as we close out FY '26.

With low capital intensity, a unique culture led business model and opportunities identified to drive growth we are pleased to reaffirm Made's FY '26 guidance of $1 billion of revenue and an NPAT of at least $65 million. We have delivered a 10-year compounding annual growth rate of around 30%, and as the business continues to mature, we are excited for what lies ahead as we deploy the compounding effect of the major business model to existing and new markets.

With the first half of FY '26 wrapped up, I'm filled with nothing but confidence as we complete the remainder of this year. The current and prospective investors made to present a robust investment opportunity with many prospects ahead. Backed by a nimble, adaptable business model, we have grown to have a market cap of around $1.8 billion.

The resilience and hard work of our team shines through in many areas, and with them behind us, we will continue to deliver a superior service for our customers and value for our shareholders. Okay. That concludes today's presentation. So thanks, everyone, for joining us, and we'll be pleased to take some questions at this time.

Okay. Let's move into the question time. Normally, it's you asking me the Kelly question we quite like it being on the other foot. Let's start with Joe House from Belote, and we'll break this down probably by segment and go around the grounds. So what exactly is giving you the confidence in the outlook for the Australian segment in the sort of second half and moving into FY '27. And then we'll move into other segments after that.

Yes, good stuff Yes. Thanks, Johan. Thanks for joining us. I guess, look, starting with Australia, as you can see, that 19% revenue growth in the first half, it just shows really positive ongoing compounding growth in Australia. We're watching our verticals continue to scale, infrastructure maintenance, road transport, rail and the like, Joe, on top of an ever growing core business gives us that confidence that there's just a huge runway ahead for us in Australia as time goes by. .

But I think if we look across the rest of the business, North America, some decent growth of 13% there. Really quite I suppose, a building block has for us there in North America. We're seeing a lot of work come on, watching the flow of people both -- through both global pathways in sort of Jan 7 and beyond coming into Canada and the U.S. as well as internal recruitment on top of a very good customer demand in that segment. We're really excited about what's happening in North America moving forward.

And then Rest of the World continues to scale. We had some work come on in New Zealand some really good conversations in other parts of the world as well. And although it is a small part of our revenue sort of profile, we continue to made adding value in these parts of the world and continuing to get interest from customers to continue to scale in there.

So with all those things as well as some of the emerging stuff up and coming, it's a pretty exciting story ahead. I'm fairly excited about where we're at and where we're going, Joe.

Tough. Thanks, Justin, for that one. If Matt Josh from Manasquestion around the strategic plan, timing of its release, how are you feeling about all that, Justin?

That wouldn't be a question all with you without the 5-year strategic plan. But it's coming together really nicely, might where I'd say we're probably a couple of months away from sort of releasing that and mainly just to keep the business really focused on what we're delivering for this financial -- sorry, for this strategic plan.

But yes, pretty excited to deliver that when the time comes before end of financial year.

Thanks, Justin.

Question from Joe from Bell Potter again. Echoing back to my comments around the EBITDA margins being softer compared to prior years. And as discussed, Joe, it's really around -- the main driver is around those material annual incentive payments, which have scaled up in line with NPAT growth. They're a really important feature of us sort of driving growth and resetting every year. You only pay that incentive for that growth once baseline resets every year. So that's a really positive thing that the business is very comfortable with. Importantly, those bonuses are divided by 12 and amortized or expensed over the 12 months. So you actually get a little bit of operating leverage in the second half as the revenue base grows without obviously the incentive payments scaling up at the same time. So hopefully, that answers your question on that.

Another question from Joe. probably for you, Justin. Let's talk a little bit more about the organic and inorganic growth opportunities that we've talked about a little bit today. What do they look like? How close are they -- and what does it mean for the business going forward?

Yes. Thanks, Joe. Look, I guess the organic growth profiles, the opportunities continue to grow for us every time we sort of expand into a different area, a different region of countries we operate in currently as well as sort of the new ones that we spend into, yes, those are continuing sort of on a daily basis. Inorganic, we -- again, we're not sort of sitting here and so we're going to turn into this big M&A company. We're not. But we are looking at and opportunities that can really springboard us into new industries and areas that we haven't worked and don't have the current specialist sort of knowledge of.

So you're looking at how we potentially do a strategic M&A to push us into large addressable markets that are sort of here and now. So they are coming along really well, Joe. We're having some really positive conversations probably too early to let on more than that, but pretty encouraged by where we're at.

And yes, looking forward to the next few months as that unfolds.

A question here from Matt again, probably along the same sort of lines. With the dividend being held back or chats being built, -- when we talk about an acquisition, if that is in case -- that is indeed where the money is spent. Is it -- what's the scale like? Is it going into $100 million of debt? Like what does it look like from that point of view?

Yes. I think for anyone that's followed us for a while now, we're not -- we're kind of allergic to debt. We really don't like it. So we want to build that watches that gives us the optionality to really pursue things aggressively, but pursuit with cash or very low debt. We're not there to put hundreds of million dollars of debt on the balance sheet.

We really want to be strategic and deliberate but take small deliberate steps towards where we want to go next.

Question from Khalid from Bluestem. Of the 250 plus net head count globally, how many were field deployed technicians generating revenue versus corporate and support staff. So a good ratio there, Colitis sort of 7% to 8% of that number is in the support function, workforce coordination recruitment, et cetera, with the rest being in field technicians.

We'll move down to Sam Pittman from Taylor Collison morning, Sam. Thanks for joining us. Probably just let's circle back to the Rest of the World segment, small. How do we think about growth there?

Yes. I mean I think if you have a look at the on the slides there, Sean, the addressable market in those areas is undeniable. I guess, with the rest of the world, we're quite cautious around how we approach that and where we work. But we do look for Tier 1 clients in safe and stable jurisdictions to deploy our technicians into. And yes, there's plenty of that going on around the world and we're in sort of various stages of sort of business development as we enter there. So look, it's certainly exciting. It's certainly 1 that we see a massive sort of growth platform ahead but we're very cautious, deliberate and just safety and security focused, really pointing our efforts towards Tier 1 global clients where we enter those. Good stuff.

Thanks, Justin. A question here from Mitch from Macquarie. Can you give us a little more detail or color on the initiatives underway to improve margins? Was there any other factors impacting first half margins, AG mix of work, scaling up new regions Petra. I'll grab that one. .

There's a couple of things, Mitch. There's always things in a business and a services business like ours where we're looking to optimize margins. Those things include, for example, renegotiating flight discounts with the major airlines, which we have completed and is now in place to the second half. It's things like PPE sourcing and other initiatives of that nature. They're not designed to move the needle by 2% or 3% of the NPAT line, but incremental optimizations that we're always looking to eke out a little bit of margin.

The other factor is operating leverage. We have structured up, particularly in the infrastructure maintenance teams, for example, as 1 that comes to mind, structured with an overhead ahead of the revenue profile. And as we move into the second half and revenue continues to expand we expect we'll get operating leverage for that in the second half. I hope that answers the question there, Mitch.

Question from Sam Pittman from Taylor Collison for you, Justin. With the demand for trade being so high at the moment, -- are you seeing any change in what employees want from an employer?

Yes. Thanks, Sam. Look, from time to time, Sam, it sort of varies a little bit, but we really stick to the model that we that we've got sort of down patent as long as we're paying the teams well and providing these great opportunities sort of around the world and working with their buddies on flexible rosters and different mine sites and working on equipment that they love with their bodies. That's really what we can provide over and above sort of what competitors and essentially sort of 1 miners can. So we slot into that position, and that really keeps us as a as an attractive employment prospects to trade people.

Thanks, Jon. A question from Greg from Fattal Investment Research. Can you just talk us through this not a new truck for every new employee and how that is sort of transitioning -- or how that is continuing to reduce the capital intensity of the business?

Yes, for sure. Yes, Greg, I guess, earlier on in the the business field service operations and a lot of the, I suppose, the core business, the mechanics in trucks fixing sort of yellow and orange equipment was very I suppose, capital intensive around vehicles for -- it was probably 1 to 2.

Every 2 employees have started there be a truck required as we grew those different stores. What we're seeing now, and I guess probably getting back to that, the surge into North America, we saw a high peak or a higher sort of peak in capital as we -- we bought those expensive Dodge Rams and Ford F trucks with cranes and welders and heated bodies and all that sort of stuff for the North American teams -- what we're seeing now with things like infrastructure maintenance, rail, road transport, they're less capital intensive. Our infrastructure maintenance team would have a couple of buses and couple of dual abuts to sort of vary people around to shutdowns.

And so you're sort of seeing hundreds of people come into the business without a need for that equivalent ratio of capital to be spent on service vehicles. So as we're seeing that -- and that probably is true for other different verticals that we're moving into as well. We're just seeing the revenue versus CapEx profile of the business really sort of peel apart in a good way, if that makes sense.

Yes. Thanks, Justin.

A question from Gavin Allen from Euros Hartleys. -- as wouldn't be a half year results question with that question about North America more specifically. So Gates led this 1 off. We talk about the encouraging pipeline in North America. Can you give us a bit more of some insights into their present short-term opportunities, for example? What are we seeing?

Yes. Thanks, Kev. Look, yes, North America, I think we're seeing I guess it's probably the most encouraging growth profile across the business in North America at the moment. I would hazard a guess that there are close to 100 unfilled roles that we can get after in North America as it stands today, which is as good as it's probably been gone.

So we are really doubling down on both internal recruitment in North America as well as our global pathways programs to to get people up there and filling those roles and delivering value to our customers and obviously, building our revenue profile. But yes, I think the opportunity there, it's just I can't remember being as excited as I am about North America as I am sitting here today.

Just a question from Matt Chen from Matt. Again, thank you for joining us as well. Really that question around the EBITDA margins in the first half and in the incentives. There's not too much around incentives from a pretax perspective, that bonuses or incentives were set of $6 million plats was 1.5%. So there's the sort of the mix of cost into the business.

And then when you get to the NPAT line, obviously, there's about a $1.5 million delta to the interest expense with that net leverage coming down. So hopefully, that reconciles back to or your various models just working through a couple of things here Indy from Belo question on margins, comfortable with Australia, 12% in North America at 18% to 20% and Rest of the World circa 15%. I think that's a fair assumption moving forward. in the long term. So yes, no changes there.

CapEx question, what does that look like for the full year. We're thinking $35 million to $40 million for the CapEx forecast FY '26 Indy and then probably a question around the dividend and holding that interim dividend back.

With the focus on growth, does it mean the dividend policy has been reset.

I think it just means that it's been it's under review, and we've made a change to date, and we'll see how that goes into the future probably be the only thing I can add to that.

A question from Mitch and this looks like it might be the last question if anything else comes through. Mitch from Macquarie. -- probably back to North America, market conditions you've talked about what about customers and commodities, particularly in Canada? How do you see those conditions playing out for us into the future?

Yes. Thanks, Mitch. Canada in particular, our expansion, I guess, from the first year or 2, where we were very oil sands dominant, where we sit today our customer base has expanded incredibly well with both sort of Tier 1 customers as well as a really good variety of commodities. I'd say oil sands would probably be if it's not 30%, it's probably there or thereabout.

So from being probably 90% 2 years ago to 30% now. And not that oil sands are shrunk, we've just managed to really grow well over on the East and West Coast. So a lot of gold, a lot of precious metals, copper, there's some coal, there's some phosphates, there's aggregates the spread of commodity is, I would say, as good as Australia. And then our customer base continues to just get more and more robust.

So really, really happy and comfortable with where that sits today.

It's an interesting concept. We get a bit of conversation around the customer base in Canada, and there's probably a misunderstanding in the market out there about how good that customer base action is -- any thoughts on that?

Look, I mean, I think when you look at a lot of the global miners that operate here in Australia are absolutely our customers over there as well. You look at the likes of the text and the Arcelor Mattels and the Glencores and all the sort of certainly a name dropping, but they are. I mean, we're not sort of sitting there at night worried about an aged debt situation or customers that can't pay. I mean we're really yes, we're as comfortable with our Canadian customer base as we are here in a -- good stuff.

I think that's all the questions that I can see on the screen that have come through. We'll wrap it up there and move on to some broker calls. So yes. Thanks very much for joining us. I'll hand it back to you, Darcy. .

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Mader Group Full Year Results Webcast.

[Operator Instructions]

I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Justin Nuich, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, Rocco, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to Mader Group's full year results presentation for FY '25. Also today with me is our Chief Financial Officer, Paul Hegarty.

All right. To get started, I'm proud to announce that we have exceeded our revenue and NPAT guidance targets of $870 million and $57 million, respectively, having successfully navigated several unexpected headwinds throughout the financial year. With record annual results of $872.2 million in revenue and $57.1 million in NPAT, this achievement marks a significant milestone for our business as we enter the final year of our 5-year strategic plan, and we do so with growth momentum and encouraging market conditions.

This year marks 20 years of operation for Mader, a milestone that speaks to the hard work, grit and determination of our people. These qualities were on display throughout our global operations in FY '25. Our team's commitment to getting the job done wherever and whenever it's needed is what drives our success, and I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to our entire team.

With all that said, let's jump into it. Okay. For those who are unfamiliar with our story, Mader was founded back in 2005 by our Executive Chairman, Luke Mader, Identifying an underserviced niche in the industry, Luke started providing flexible maintenance solutions to our customers with no more than a you or a truck for our North American investors, some tools and a vision. And 20 years on, that vision has certainly come to life. Today, Mader is a truly global business, delivering technical services across multiple industries in 9 countries. And backed by a team of close to 4,000 technicians with diverse skill sets, we proudly supported over 490 customers in more than 640 locations across the globe in FY '25.

Okay. As you can see, over the past 20 years of operation, we have successfully evolved into a truly global diversified business with our unique business model replicated across multiple industries across the globe. By launching fully organic start-ups in new markets, expanding geographically and broadening our suite of trades, we have been able to achieve an average compounding annual growth rate of around 30% over the last 10 years. This growth is significant and importantly, all organically derived. Our ability to tackle new markets and geographies successfully is a testament to the unique business model that Luke established back in 2005. And we also acknowledge that none of this would have been remotely possible without our passionate and hard-working team, which leads me to our next slide, our specialized workforce.

So touching briefly back on Luke's vision. He had a dream to build a workforce where people not only had pride in what they do, but they got to get the job done working alongside their best mates. Now that camaraderie echoes loudly to this day, and we're proud to lead the market when it comes to investing in our people and our culture. As you can see, 66% of our workforce are under the age of 35. Now while we're an equal opportunity employer that provides options for those at any stage of life, our adventurous career pathways typically attract the demographic that are looking for more than just a job. From tailored rosters, site variety, wide equipment exposure, international secondments and more, we invest heavily in our people to provide opportunities that are unparalleled across the industries in which we operate. At the core of this are our 2 culture-led programs, Global Pathways and Three Gears, which have both been continuously refined to provide the best employee experience possible, and we'll touch a little bit more on these later. And last but not least, our commitment to safety remains at the center of everything we do.

With a TRIFR of 3.71 recordable injuries per million hours worked at June '25, we acknowledge that safety is a continuous journey, and the work here is never done. Ongoing education, innovation and investment in our geared for safety programs and culture are key to driving further improvement. Coupled with our investment in technology-based tools, Mader remained at the leading edge of safety across the industries in which we operate. So before heading to the financial review, I'd like to provide a quick snapshot of our FY '25 highlights. We delivered yet another record annual revenue of $872.2 million, an increase of 13% on the prior corresponding period. This was coupled with a solid net earnings of $57.1 million, up 13% on the PCP. Further, our balance sheet was strengthened with net debt down an impressive 73% to finish the financial year at $8.3 million. Amongst current competitive conditions and a destabilized talent pool throughout Western Australia, particularly in the first half, we continue to deploy our multidimensional recruitment and retention programs to deliver net headcount growth of circa 600 throughout the year. Demand remains strong across most regions with our core mechanical and other industry verticals consistently meeting our customers' demands.

Pleasingly, North America returned to growth in the second half, expanding its revenue base by half -- by 8% half-on-half and positive customer sentiment and new customer acquisition are continuing, and we remain extremely optimistic around what the future holds throughout the U.S. and Canada. And we're more focused than ever to achieve our 5-year strategic plan, which I'll touch a little later on. So flicking over to Slide 5, we'll drill down into each segment's highlights for the financial year. In Australia, revenue increased by 17% versus the PCP, delivering $686.2 million. Our core mechanical services remained strong nationally, growing by 14% despite a softer customer demand profile, particularly in the first half. Importantly, that customer demand profile has corrected and is now on an upward trajectory with very strong momentum. In addition to this, our key growth platforms continue to perform. Our Infrastructure Maintenance division increased its revenue profile by 30% versus the PCP and our road transport team, while still small, expanded their revenue profile by an impressive 64% versus the PCP.

In North America, revenue increased by 8% on a half-on-half basis. And this is a really important data point as this segment returned to growth in both revenue and headcount in the second half. Operating in 25 states across the U.S. and 8 provinces and territories in Canada, we significantly broadened our reach during the financial year. New customer acquisition remains at the heart of our growth strategy with the number of active customers in this segment increasing by circa 20% versus the PCP. And jumping over to our Rest of the World operations. We provided specialist services and technical support for customers in 9 countries across Asia, Africa and Oceania. This segment has returned to pre-pandemic activity levels with positive growth opportunities ahead. And whilst it's still a small portion of our revenue base, it remains a strategically important career pathway for some of our most talented technicians.

Okay. I'll now pass you over to our CFO, Paul Hegarty, to run through the financials in some more detail. Over to you, Paul.

Thanks, Justin, and thanks to everyone who has taken the time to join us on the call this morning in what is a very busy results week. I'll be going over the full year financial performance for the group, and Justin has pretty much stole my thunder on most of these points, but there is some additional color I'd like to add. As mentioned, we delivered $872.2 million in revenue, an increase of 13% versus the PCP. Importantly, this revenue growth has been delivered with a consistent margin profile year after year. In fact, at the 4-year mark of our 5-year strategic plan, having expanded the business' revenue profile by an average of 30% over the last 4 years, our NPAT margins have remained steady, varying by not more than 60 basis points from the highest to the lowest financial year.

Whilst this stability is impressive, it gets more exciting when you consider our North American segment returning to growth, up 8% half-on-half. With North American EBITDA margins close to double that of our Australian segment, as this business continues to scale, it represents real margin leverage for the future earnings profile of the group. From a shareholder perspective, EPS increased to $0.2835 per share, an increase of 12% versus the PCP. Total dividends relating to FY '25 were paid or declared totaling $0.088 per share, fully franked, of course. This represents an NPAT payout ratio of 31%, in line with the PCP.

Now moving on to our financial position on Slide 7. As you can see, our asset base primarily comprises cash on hand, trade receivables and PPE. We don't have contract positions or any intangibles to be concerned about. And therefore, we think we have a relatively simple balance sheet. Property, plant and equipment increased over the year as we invested in growth. We added around 450 service vehicles to our fleet, taking our global fleet to over 850 service vehicles deployed across multiple continents. Our trade receivables position is largely with Tier 1 principals and large mining contractors. And due to this, we don't generally need to manage poor credit risk profiles in the debtor book.

Pleasingly, average DSO for FY '25 came in at 69 days, an 8% improvement versus the PCP. This improvement in collection activity, coupled with an increase in free cash flow, which I'll talk a little bit more about on the next slide, enabled the group to report a net debt reduction of 73% versus the PCP, closing out FY '25 with net debt of just $8.3 million. With forecast CapEx in FY '26 expected to be in the range of $35 million to $40 million, we expect the business to transition into a net cash position during FY '26.

This reduced leverage will allow greater flexibility and freedom to make strategic decisions around future growth. We remain well supported by our lenders, in particular, by our primary lender NAB, here in Australia. In addition to this, we have strong working relationships established across all regions in which we operate, in particular, with UMB in the U.S. and JPMorgan in Canada. The flexibility that has been established within our finance facilities will allow us to respond quickly as opportunities present themselves.

Now on to every CFO's favorite slide, the cash flow. Our net cash flow from operations was $76.8 million, an increase of 12% versus PCP. Our intense focus on EBITDA conversion was maintained throughout FY '25. Operating cash flows before interest and tax as compared to EBITDA was 101%. This reflects the quality of our client base and trade receivables ledger, as I mentioned earlier. Now this next data point is perhaps my favorite for FY '25. Free cash flow generated during the year was $42.7 million, a 52% increase versus the PCP. This is the second full financial year in which Mader has generated positive free cash flow or fifth consecutive half year period. As the group continues to scale its revenue profile into non-vehicle-based services, the Mader business model is transitioning into an even more CapEx-light setting. This means we can continue to grow top line revenue without purchasing a service vehicle for every new employee. The result of this is twofold. The business can pay down its debt facilities, reducing our interest burden, which in turn leads to improved net margins. And perhaps more importantly, it positions the group in such a way that we can build a war chest to tackle new growth opportunities in the future. As I mentioned on the previous slide, this will allow greater flexibility and freedom to make tactical decisions around future growth. Now everyone can wake back up as I hand it back to Justin to talk about the strategic plan.

I love it when you get excited, Paul. Right. Let's move on to the next slide, our strategic plan. So 4 years ago, the Board laid the foundation for our future by setting out some key areas of focus in our first strategic plan as a publicly listed business. Since then, it has served as a blueprint to guide our growth. The strategic plan set out growth targets and operational goals in 4 key areas: geographical diversification; service line diversification; expansion of industry verticals; and of course, to continue scaling the existing business. Further, NPAT targets were set, as you can see detailed on the slide.

With that said, we identified the need to establish a series of core building blocks to create a solid foundation for future growth. And this leads us into Slides 10 and 11, our building blocks. Over the years, we've built a strong foundation for growth and one that goes beyond just financial metrics. At the heart of it all is our culture, which remains the driving force behind everything we do. Programs like Global Pathways and Three Gears bring this to life, offering our people incredible opportunities to travel the world while working, then spend their R&R with our internal adventure division Three Gears. This kind of experience is currently unmatched anywhere in the industries we work.

We have worked diligently to expand both programs, so opportunities are bigger and better than ever before. This has seen more than 380 employees take on both short- and long-term overseas comments as well as an extensive array of adventures delivered. And of course, culture is just one piece of this puzzle. Another key driver of our growth is how we apply our proven business model across different industries. By expanding into new markets, we're creating a compounding effect, diversifying revenue streams, while tapping into large addressable markets, for example, in resources and infrastructure maintenance. And the best part about it is we're only just getting started.

Moving over to Slide 11. We see 2 more large addressable markets, energy and transport logistics. In the energy market, we initially focused on delivering maintenance in the natural gas compressor stations in the United States. However, this industry represents a large untapped potential for future global growth. In the transport and logistics industry, we have expanded our efforts to provide maintenance for rail and road transport maintenance now operating across most of Australia. Given the critical role of transport and logistics in Australia's resources industry, there is significant growth potential that aligns well with our existing operations. And finally, a building block that is key to future growth involves deliberate entry into emerging markets. And as always, we'll conduct thorough market research into new industries and assess the suitability for the Mader business model to be deployed.

We have a proven track record of organically replicating our business model across multiple industry verticals. Exploring opportunities outside of our core services will allow us to capitalize by extending across further industries and geographies. This is effectively creating more opportunities for our people and diversifying revenue streams for sustainable growth. In addition to enhancing our service offerings, geographical expansion remains central to our growth strategy. We have multiple geographical beachheads and are always looking to enter new locations and diversify our exposure.

The Australian business continues to generate the largest portion of revenue for the Group at 79%. We are confident in the stability of this segment and know we'll continue to deliver strong results in this area. Pleasingly, our North American segment returned to a growth setting, increasing revenue and headcount in the second half FY '25. Today, it represents 19% of Group revenue with significant runway ahead in this region. Established in 2018, this segment has expanded significantly over time. And with this solid foundation laid, the outlook is positive for the mid- to long term. Our Rest of the World segment contributed 2% to revenue across the business. And while this is still a modest number, the annualized revenue exit rate for the rest of the world is now at pre-COVID levels. As a business, we continually seek to improve the diversity of our revenue profile. This is a pivotal step towards achieving our FY '26 guidance of $1 billion in revenue. Throughout the strategic enhancement of our service offerings, we can tap into new markets that allow us to expand the Group's revenue streams. We are constantly scoping addressable markets where we can apply our culture-led business model. This is key to driving future growth and ensuring long-term sustainability of our business.

Our diversified operations will continue creating compounding returns for our shareholders with strong growth rates into FY '26 and beyond. If you cast your mind back to Slide 9, where we first touched on our strategic plan, this slide here shows our progress against those NPAT targets set. As you can see, for the first 4 years of our strategic plan, we have not only achieved but exceeded our NPAT targets. We're pleased with the FY '25 result, all things considered, and now we have set our sights on closing out FY '26 in line with the strategic plan set 4 years ago by the Board. With low capital intensity, a unique culture-led business model and opportunities identified to accelerate growth, Mader has the confidence to set FY '26 guidance to at least $1 billion in revenue and NPAT of at least $65 million. We have delivered a 10-year compounding annual growth rate of circa 30%. And as the business continues to mature, we are excited to continue to deliver the compounding effect of the Mader business model to existing and new markets. In doing so, not only will we deliver continued growth into FY '26, but we'll continue to build a solid foundation for future growth well beyond that.

With the FY '25 wrapped up, I'm filled with nothing but confidence as we enter a new financial year. For current and prospective investors, Mader represents a very robust investment opportunity with many exciting prospects ahead. Backed by a nimble, adaptable business model, we have grown to have a market cap of close to $1.7 billion delivered over the last 20 years on an entirely organic growth platform. And these consistent results should also see us considered for the ASX 300 in the near term. The resilience and hard work of our team shines through in many areas. And with them behind us, we'll continue to deliver a superior service for our customers and value to our shareholders.

So that concludes our presentation today. And I'd like to thank everybody for joining us, as Paul said, in such a busy results period. And we'd be pleased to take some questions at this time.

[Operator Instructions]

Thanks, Rocco. Okay. Into questions. Jonathan Higgins from Unified Capital Partners. Over to you for this one, Justin. North America, well played back to growth. Can you give us an idea of the interplay of the recovery, V-shaped as we've spoken about previously? Noting headcount at a record, must be some better utilization to come also.

Yes. Thanks, John. Yes, look, it's been certainly a pretty exciting time in North America the last little while. I guess getting that election behind us, I think the whole market has really settled and everyone's sort of head down and back to business. which has been a great thing for us. And as we've spoken about in previous results periods, the business development efforts targeting sort of some of those key markets are really starting to come to fruition. So we're seeing that growth happen. We're seeing a really exciting, particularly gold and copper over there and starting to see that business development really come alive and looking forward to a big FY '26 and beyond. Canada as well, continuing to expand into new regions and new areas. And remembering we're only 3 years old in that space, it's a pretty exciting growth profile moving forward for that region as well.

Thanks, Justin. Another one from John at Unified. Australian verticals continuing to grow, big business. How should we think about growth moving forward?

Yes. Good question. Thanks, John, and I appreciate your questions there. Look, the verticals, we've been talking about the verticals for quite some time now. And I guess the exciting news about that is those things are starting to become of substantial size and really tipping into to move the needle on the group numbers. So things like infrastructure, we've set up both sides of the country in Australia to really take advantage of those opportunities and essentially the same customer base as what we deal with in the mobile space.

So we see that as a huge growth platform. And again, infrastructure on its own could be somewhere near the size of the core business in Australia. So when you think about that, it's a really exciting sort of runway ahead of us. And we feel like we've got some really strong teams in place to deliver those results. Road transport is another one, still far smaller. But again, we're pretty excited about the results we've seen so far. We know it's a huge industry, and we know our business model can really relate and reflect on it. So yes, good things to come.

Thanks, Justin. A question here from Anish Trivedi online. Will the Rest of World region be a focus in the next 5-year plan? Or will the focus continue to be North America?

Look, the focus will definitely be both to be able to scale that as we did last year, it sort of went up about 80-odd percent in FY '25. We still look for great opportunities. Tier 1 clients in safe regions is where we want our people to be working. It's still, as I said in the call there, it really remains a strategic focus for some of our really talented trades people that want to go and work in those areas and support local workforces. So definitely a focus for us as is North America, we see that as a huge growth platform, and we'll continue to put the horsepower into growing that.

Thanks, Justin. A question here from Gavin Allen from Euroz Hartleys. How might we think of the next 5 years? Are you in the midst of generating a new strategic plan by any chance? And I can say that question has been asked about 3 different ways by about 5 different people. So Justin, the next 5-year plan?

Yes. Thanks, Gavin. Yes, look, most definitely, we're well and truly in the midst of creating that next 5-year plan. not to be disclosed just yet, but yes, putting some finishing touches on that. And yes, needless to say, we're pretty excited about releasing that and delivering that in due course.

Good stuff. Thanks, Justin. A question here from Jon Ferguson from the Australian Shareholders' Association. Given our global operations, how are you managing currency fluctuations? The first question there, Jonathan, relates to currency FX. The way that we manage that is we create a natural hedge in country. So our operations are funded through working capital, which are established in the local currency. So Canadian dollars in Canada, U.S. dollars in the U.S. and the revenue from those operations pays down the leverage in those each -- in each corresponding region. So it creates a natural hedge.

Another one here from Joe House from Bell Potter. Provide some color on the Rest of World margins in the second half. How has that played out? And what are we thinking for Rest of World in FY '26?

I'll take that one, Joe. Look, essentially, we started a new contract in the late first half of FY '25, which meant that, that contract was in full force for the second half. And it's a contract of scale with a Tier 1 principle in Africa, and it's good work for our people, and that's what's driving that margin expansion. Into FY '26, we expect that contract to continue. so those margins are expected to hold at around those levels.

A question from Matt Joss from Maven Funds. Free cash flow growth was huge. Tell me about it, Matt. Can you talk more about what the main drivers were? There's 2 key factors there, Matt. As I talked about, the business is transitioning to an even more CapEx-light setting. Some of our new verticals like infrastructure maintenance, road transport, maintenance, rail services, et cetera, these are service lines that are almost CapEx free. Other than some tooling containers and some light vehicles, there's not a 1:1 ratio of new employees to service vehicles. So we're getting top line revenue growth without having to invest in the capital. So that's the main contributor to where free cash flow landed for the full year, which we're pretty happy about. And obviously, as we scale those new verticals in FY '26, we're expecting that to that to continue.

A question from Stephen Matt from the Australian Shareholders' Association. Thanks, guys, and well done on another good year. Just for your comment about potential ASX 300 inclusion. What are we thinking about that? How do we get to the $300 million, Justin?

Stephen, Good to see you online. Yes, look, certainly, as our market cap has grown, free float is there or thereabouts. And we continue to grow into FY '26. I think those numbers will take care of themselves over time. But yes, it certainly seems that we are close to consideration. Obviously, not a massive focus for running the business. We'll just continue delivering the numbers, but that will happen in due course.

Thanks, Justin. A question from Melinda White from Longwave Capital. To win work in Australia infrastructure or road transport, who are you typically winning work from? And what differentiates your offering versus competitors?

Yes. Thanks, Melinda. I appreciate your question there. Look, infrastructure and road transport initially are really off the back of the customers that we're doing the mobile equipment work for. So most companies that are running sort of large mining equipment are also running some sort of process plant. And many of them are also running road transport style trucks for long haul of -- to whether it be to plants or to port facilities. So definitely leveraging the vendor numbers and customer base that we have. And then also, as we build that capability, then we can also start to roll that out to others within the transport and logistics industry as we have done in the rail space.

Thanks, Justin. A question from Matt Chen from Moelis. Any parameters we can talk about, about inorganic opportunities moving forward, Justin?

Look, Matt, as always, they're certainly on the radar. We take everything that comes across our desk into consideration. Certainly, sort of sitting on the verge of net cash, that probably becomes more of a reality as we go forward. But as we said before, we're still formulating or finalizing that next 5-year plan, and that is certainly in consideration there as well.

Thanks, Justin. A question from Frank Valante online. Can we comment on what losses in FY '25 were generated on Acorns or start-up initiatives? I'll take that one, Justin. It wasn't too much, Frank, it was fairly consistent with FY '24, circa $1.5 million to $2 million for Acorn investment, as you say.

Another one from Frank around North America. Maybe talk to the splits in Canada and U.S.A. more broadly because there's a couple of questions, one from Frank on that as well as another one from Tony Shields around, I guess, customer numbers, staff numbers and locations. staff numbers increased by 21%. Locations up from 540 at December '24 to 640 now. So maybe just some color on that, Justin, around the U.S.A. and Canada.

Yes, no problems. I guess as far as headcount numbers in the North American region, I think we're sitting circa -- we'd be close to sort of 400-odd in Canada now, probably 350, 370 at the end of the financial and the remainder in the U.S.A. would be our splits there, coming close to 100-odd for the Rest of the World.

That's good. A question from Joe House from Bell Potter. How is the sales cycle going in the U.S.A. now compared to the first half, perhaps? Is it shorter and easier to win new work?

Yes. Thanks, Joe. I wouldn't say it's ever shorter or easier to win work in the U.S. But certainly, I think we're reaping the rewards of a really heavy BD cycle that we were doing sort of through that whole election period and turning that into tangible work was pretty difficult at the time. But I think once that election happened and the market sort of freed up and everyone sort of knew what was happening business-wise, we've really seen it return back to a business as usual there in the U.S. would probably be the easiest way to put it.

Good stuff. Another question from Anish Trivedi online. As we expand in the U.S. and into other modalities like rail and road transport, will we see gross margin strengthen over the next few years? Or will it be more of the same?

Yes. I guess we're early -- very early days into other industries in the U.S. and Canada industries, we still see some huge growth opportunity that we're putting all of our focus on at the moment. But look, we would expect so. We've seen that typically in the markets that we do work. So we would be looking for similar markets or similar returns on sort of new business ventures over there for sure.

Question from Andy from Bell Potter. Two-part question. I'll take the first one. You can take the second one. You talked about current capital intensity of the business and CapEx FY '26, we're guiding $35 million to $40 million. And the second question here is around capital management. With the balance sheet returning to net cash in '26, Justin, will we be exploring inorganic growth or looking at increasing payout ratios?

Yes. Thanks. Yes, certainly, with the balance sheet returning to that or getting to net cash. I guess it gives us a lot of opportunity to explore both, Andy, to be honest, and we will do both. We're definitely looking at some inorganic growth opportunities. We always have. We're just not very good at actually executing. We sort of typically get back to that organic model because it's sort of what we do well. But no, it's definitely something that we'll be considering going forward. Increased payout opportunities. I guess that's probably more of a Board question at the time.

Good stuff. A question here from Simon Carter online. Well done on improving your receivable management. I'm curious as to how far you can take this. What are the standard payment terms you offer your clients. I'll take that one, Justin. I guess, Simon, it's sort of the 30 to 60 days is typical end of month. So sitting -- DSO sitting at 69 days is pretty much where I think we'll land. We might be able to squeeze that 3 or 4 more days lower, but where we sit today is pretty optimal, to be honest.

A question here from -- where is it? Joe House from Bell Potter. Maybe some general commentary, Justin, around the various service lines, excluding heavy mobile equipment and how they're contributing to the Australian segment. Are these service lines at critical mass and contributing meaningfully compared to, I guess, the core business?

Yes. Good question, Joe. I don't have the exact percentage numbers there in front of us. But yes, look, certainly, with our electrical divisions and particularly with, I suppose, the focus from mining and other companies on electrification of things on green energy and the like that we see that as a huge continued runway ahead of us, welding and fabrication, light voltage or low-voltage electrical and then as well as things like the heavy road transport, rail and the like. They have all got massive runways ahead. They would be plus 20% of our revenue for sure. I'll double check that number and get you a more accurate one. But yes, they are definitely tipping in, in a meaningful way, and we see those with huge runways ahead.

A couple of questions here from Melinda White from Longwave. As you expand into new verticals, is the nature of the type of skills in your workforce changing?

Yes. Good question, Melinda. And it probably just gets back to that last comment around sort of electrification of many things like companies going to battery-operated mobile equipment, renewables on site and all the rest of it. So certainly, that electrical scope of work has been continuing to grow. It definitely doesn't change the need for the heavy-duty diesel mechanic. I mean that is things with tires and wear parts and suspension and final draws, all that sort of stuff is still very, very relevant. It's probably just an additional upskilling of those trades and a bigger opportunity for the electrical trades as we move into the sort of new world, I guess.

A follow-up question to that. How difficult is it to recruit skilled technicians and maybe talk to that between Australia and North America.

Yes. I would -- I don't think that's really changed too much over the years. I mean it's always been a bunch of trades that are typically very hard to get hold of. I don't think there's anywhere in our business that we're not recruitment constrained, but that is the way we like it. So our opportunity is to create those great opportunities for employees as we spoke about with our Global Pathways and our Three Gears. We pay our people very well. We look after our people. We give them huge opportunities. So it's probably really accentuating that point of difference that our business has to attract employees to come and work with us.

Another question -- a follow-up question on that. How do we see wage inflation that we're facing versus prices you can charge the end customer for work? I'll take that one. Look, wage inflation has been steady, Melinda, for the last 5 to 10 years, to be honest with you. It sat in that sort of 3% to 5% range. Over the last 12 months, we've seen that moderate slightly in Australia and be consistent in North America. And in terms of how we pass that on to our customer, we've been able to secure price increases at least in line with inflation over the last 2 or 3 years, in particular, where we have seen wage inflation at that sort of 3% to 5% range. So we're keeping up, I guess, with how wage inflation is coming through to us. And I guess that's confirmed by the margin stability that I talked about earlier.

A question here online from Tony Shields. Looking for a bit more detail on the increase in staff. Total staff increased over the year by 21% and revenue increased by 13%. What's the difference there? Tony, it really comes back to the ramp in headcount growth. First half was a little bit softer from a demand perspective, particularly in Australia, and we saw that return in the second half. So a lot of the headcount growth comes through in the second half, but you only get 6 or less than 6 months' worth of revenue out of that headcount. So that's the, I guess, the difference there between revenue growth and headcount growth. That's where that headcount growth landed in the cycle.

Another question from Andy from Bell Potter. The verticals you mentioned, they are currently offered in Australia, right? So is it something that you can take to services outside Australia as well in due course?

Yes. No, good question, Andy. And yes, it definitely is. And I guess we try and build our capability, particularly in new verticals sort of on home soil and then sort of take it away. I think with the U.S. and Canada, in particular, it's really sort of how much leadership horsepower you have to point at certain things at any particular time. And yes, at the moment, we just see a huge runway ahead of us in sort of the core business, which is where our focus is. And as -- definitely as we build that capability and leadership capability across the globe, then we'll point it at the sort of next verticals as we see fit.

Good stuff. A question online from Alex Chang for you, Justin. How is the localization of the teams in the U.S. and Canada progressing? And is skill availability a constraint on growth at all?

Yes. Thanks, Alex. Look, localization of the team, definitely happening across various parts of North America. And I think largely received well. I think we've sort of seen the benefits of a lot of that through the back end of '25, and we'll continue to see that in '26. Look, it's definitely not a silver bullet, but it's something that we'll continue to sort of apply in markets where we see it suitable. And sorry, what was the second part of that question?

And expanding them into the -- outside of Australia. And the other one? Sorry.

Constraint on growth.

Constraint on growth. No. Look, it's probably more having so many things on the table at one time. So really around us, we want to pick the markets that we want to belong in. We want to give those -- our time and effort to make sure that our customers are getting a great experience, our people are getting a great experience and sort of grow responsibly and sustainably and make sure it sticks is the real priority for us, Alex.

Question from Justin online. Just curious about the stated dividend policy. What is the logic of the targeted payout ratio? Justin, I guess the way that we structure our payout ratio is 1/3 is -- approximately 1/3 is returned to shareholders and 2/3 is reinvested in growth. And I guess that's a metric that we've held true for the last 20 years. We're a high-growth business. We're a growth-focused business. And so that 2/3 of NPAT reinvested in growth is sort of the benchmark that we think we need to be at in order to keep the growth rates up as a business. So it's always under review, obviously, but that's where it sits currently.

Question from Marcus Burns from Spheria and we're probably going to have to wrap it up very shortly. The question was how is skilled recruitment going in North America?

Yes, Marcus. Yes, look, it's going well. And I guess when we talk about North America, we've got sort of 2 streams there. And one is the global pathways of our Australian expats that go and spend their time over in the U.S. or Canada, and that continues to be a really strong stream in putting into those markets. Even more so now into the U.S., given we're back into a nice sort of growth profile there, we'll look at expanding that global pathways opportunity to those over there. And then local recruitment, still very good. I think as we're building a brand over there and becoming more well known, it's becoming an exciting opportunity for Canadians and Americans that want to sort of work outside a region and do the things that I guess the Mader model allows them to do, which is sort of travel around their own country and see lots of different things and work in different regions, different commodities on different rosters. And as that's becoming more and more well known, it's definitely an attraction piece for employees wanting to work with us.

Good stuff. Last question because we do have to get on to another couple of calls in just a minute. Last question from Marcus. Can you make any callouts in terms of the minerals exposure and the growth in various areas in North America, gold versus coal versus nickel, et cetera?

Yes. Thanks, Marcus. Look, definitely seeing a lot more buoyancy in gold and copper in the U.S. in particular. Coal, showing some signs, but early days. We thought it may switch on a little earlier, but definitely making the right noises, but probably just yet to see that sort of transform into any real sort of headcount growth in those areas. A little bit of met coal over on the East Coast, but the rest of the aggregate is still going really strong. That probably the main ones.

All right. There are still a few unanswered questions, but I can get back to those individuals in writing throughout the course of the day just to make sure we close them out. But we do have to end it there at 15 minutes too because we do have to jump on to another call. So I'll hand it back to you, Rocco, to close the call.

Yes, sir. Thank you. That does conclude today's call. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.