Bhagwan Marine Limited (BWN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Bhagwan Marine FY '25 Results Announcement. [Operator Instructions]. To view documents relevant to today's meeting, Select the documents icon, available documents will appear. When selected, the document will open within the Lumi platform. You will still be able to listen to the meeting while viewing the documents. Text questions can be submitted at any time and the audio queue is now open. I will now hand over to Managing Director and CEO, Loui Kannikoski.

Welcome, everyone, to Bagwan Marine's full year results presentation. I'm pleased to be joined today by Andrew Wackett, our Executive Director of Finance; and Cheryl Williams, our Chief Financial Officer. Throughout the presentation, we'll be referring to the investor deck released on the ASX this morning. For those new to Bagwan, we are the largest listed marine solutions provider in Australia, operating across the offshore energy, subsea, ports and inshore and the emerging defense sectors. We have a strong track record and a 25-year history of working with major energy, mining and construction companies together with government organizations. Today's agenda is outlined on Slide 4, and we will focus on 4 key areas: FY '25 financial and operational highlights, a detailed review of our financial performance, which Cheryl will cover, an overview of our operations and the market outlook and how Bhagwan is positioned for growth. You'll also notice additional information included in the appendices. Following the presentation, we'll be happy to take any questions. Moving now to the highlights on Slide 5. FY '25 marked a significant milestone for Bhagwan, our first year as a listed company. Over the past 12 months, we focused on strengthening every part of the business to set ourselves up for long-term sustainable growth. We maintained momentum across our core sectors, advanced within new growth segments and made meaningful improvements to our operations and capabilities. All of this was achieved against a backdrop of high inflation, oil and gas price volatility, 0.9% last year, and our TRIFR was 11%, up from 7.7%. This reflects both higher activity across the business and the care our people take in everything that they do. As announced to the market in April, we were pleased to welcome Mark Anand as our Chief Operating Officer. Mark shares our strong commitment to safety and is tasked with leading operations, delivering results and focusing on growth. Turning to our financial performance. Net revenue reached $283 million, up 5% on FY '24. This strong result was driven by solid activity across all sectors, particularly offshore Energy and Ports and Inshore. Pro forma EBITDA was a record $50.9 million, up 23% from last year with an EBITDA margin of 18%. Net cash from operations grew to $35.8 million. We're also proud to announce our [indiscernible] dividend, reflecting both our strong cash generation and confidence in future growth. That concludes the highlights for FY '25. I'll now hand over to Cheryl to cover our financial performance in more detail.

Thanks, Louis. Now moving to Slide 7. As Louis mentioned, our net revenue was $283 million, a 5% increase on the prior corresponding period. The graph on the right shows the contribution from the TVI project, which added $26.4 million in FY '25, all reported in the first half. This compares to $65.4 million in FY '24. More importantly, revenue from our core business grew by 26% compared with the prior corresponding period, highlighting the strength and momentum of our underlying operations. The pie charts on this slide show our diversified profile and the impact of completing the TVI project on our revenue mix. This is shown in the orange sections. During FY '25, this was offset by growth in our core business, particularly in the offshore energy and ports and insure sectors. Moving now to our earnings on Slide 8. We delivered a record pro forma EBITDA of $50.9 million, up 23% on FY '24, which included $5.9 million from the TVI project. Notably, earnings from our core operations grew by 33%. The overall EBITDA margin improved from 15% to 18% in FY '25. Excluding the TVI project, this margin went from 17% to 18%. Pro forma EBIT was GBP 22.8 million, an uplift of 28% compared with GBP 17.8 million in FY '24. The pro forma adjustment of GBP 0.7 million to EBITDA relates to nonrecurring transaction costs from our IPO. For further details and reconciliations of pro forma to statutory numbers, please refer to the appendices to the presentation. Turning now to Slide 9, which provides additional detail on the impact of the TVI project and the performance of our core business. Over FY '24 and the first half of '25, the TVI project contributed $91.9 million in revenue and $9.9 million in EBITDA, achieving an 11% margin. Importantly, this project provided an excellent platform for securing future contracts in the high-growth decommissioning segment. Core FY '25 revenue grew by 26% to $256.6 million, driven by increased fleet numbers, improved utilization and higher average day rates. Administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue improved to 13%, while core EBITDA margins returned to 18%, in line with expectations. For the remainder of FY '26, we will focus on margin expansion initiatives. This should see our EBITDA margin moving closer to our medium-term target of 20%. Looking now at our cash flow on Slide 10. Operating cash flow for the year reached $35.8 million, up 23% compared with last year. This increase was driven by higher earnings and lower interest charges. This was partly offset by high activity levels at the end of the financial year, which temporarily increased working capital. Pleasingly, working capital levels have since returned to normal. Free cash flow was impacted by higher sustaining capital expenditure. This included completing the 10-year dry docking of the Dryden, our flagship vessel. Additionally, costs associated with an expanding fleet and higher inflation from the vessel maintenance market. I will cover CapEx in more detail on the following slides. Finally, our IPO last year raised a net $76.8 million in cash, which we used to strengthen our balance sheet by repaying external debt. Looking now at our CapEx in more detail on Slide 11. We have categorized our expenditure into growth, sustaining and discretionary CapEx. As highlighted on the previous slide, the 10-year dry docking and capability upgrade of the Dryden totaled $6.7 million with $2.8 million in growth CapEx and $3.9 million in sustaining CapEx. The growth portion included upgraded electronic operating systems and dynamic positioning technology. Also within growth CapEx, we acquired the CORAL KNIGHT and anchor handling vessel previously leased by Bhagwan. We added a new tug to meet rising demand at Dampier Port, and we invested $0.6 million in innovation focused on remote operations and hybrid vessel development. Looking ahead, growth CapEx for FY '26 will include the planned purchase of 2 currently leased vessels. These vessels include a landing craft leased to a global energy company and a multicat to support increasing demand for ports and inshore projects. With the largest multicat fleet in Australia, we have a strong competitive advantage in civil works tenders. Sustaining CapEx is expected to remain elevated, reflecting our ongoing commitment to fleet quality as well as the increased costs I mentioned earlier. Our approach is to remain flexible, bringing forward selected maintenance to optimize cost efficiency and ensure vessel availability for longer-term projects. Turning briefly to our balance sheet on Slide 12. I'd like to highlight 3 key points. Firstly, the higher PPE reflects the additional growth CapEx and leased vessels. Our net debt is $5 million at the end of the financial year. Our net debt-to-equity ratio post IPO is 23%, including operating leases. And finally, our annualized ROA improved to 9% from 7% in FY '24, reflecting higher profitability. Looking more closely at our debt and lease structure on Slide 13. On the asset side, we hold a loan to a related fleet management company recorded under -- our financial debt was reduced following the IPO, strengthening the balance sheet. Subsequently, we drew from our CapEx facility to fund the acquisition of the CORAL KNIGHT. This facility was drawn to $13.2 million at the 30th of June. As mentioned earlier, we have additional vessel leases with growth driven by the Ada Clara, a remote operations vessel and the Keller Ocean a multicat. We have also extended several barge leases and secured extended terms on some of our properties, supporting project delivery and customer commitments. For example, the extension of the Port of Melbourne contract and extended facility lease. That concludes the financial performance section. So I will now hand back to Loui to cover the operational overview.

Thanks, Cheryl. Slide 15 recaps our diversified business model and key resources and capabilities. Across all 4 core sectors, we deliver a mix of long-term projects, typically 3 to 5 years and short-term projects, which offer higher margins. Looking to the right of the slide, we operate at major marine hubs around Australia. This lets us provide timely mobilization and support whenever our clients need it. Our diverse multifunctional fleet supports a wide range of operations, and we have the largest fleet of multi-cat in Australia, which contributes to our competitive advantage. We're also Australia's largest in-house marine crew provider with over 1,000 skilled professionals, including up to 200 qualified divers. Our crews are locally based, known for their strong safety culture, operational excellence and ability to deliver high-quality outcomes in complex environments. Finally, we are investing in marine innovation to make our fleet more sustainable and future ready. For example, in 2025, we commenced a paid trial with a global energy company. This trial utilized our remotely operated 26-meter inspection vessel, the first of its size in Australia. Such a vessel reduces operating costs, improves safety and minimizes time away from home for our people. Other key operational highlights for the year are summarized on Slide 16. Starting with offshore energy, -- as Cheryl mentioned, we completed the multiyear TVI project. Importantly, this project provided foundational capability in the offshore decommissioning sector and reinforces our commitment to safety and operational excellence. Our 5-year standby support contract of the Pilbara Coast continued throughout 2025. We acquired the CORAL KNIGHT to support growing demand for larger vessels and tendering activity for projects in FY '26 remains strong. In Subsea, we completed the HDD support at Australia's largest LNG project of Barrow Island, delivered subsea pipeline support for an offshore gas and condensate project in the Northern Territory and undertook another substantial decommissioning support project in quarter 4. Like offshore energy, tendering activity for FY '26 is strong with several opportunities on the horizon. Within the ports and inshore sector, we secured a 6-year maintenance contract extension with the Port of Melbourne. And more recently, the Port of Melbourne also extended the scope of works of an existing beacon pile replacement program to include an additional 34 beacons. This expansion increases the total contract value to $16.5 million. Importantly, our long-standing relationship with the port positions us well to win additional work as the port investment grows. We also supported the Mardie Salt and Potash Wharf project in the Pilbara and continued work on the Groote Eylandt Wharf repair project in the Northern Territory. Finally, in defense, we continued our work with the [indiscernible] and border protection contracts. We also commenced upgrades to our Henderson facility driven by increased government investment in defense. Moving now to the final section of the presentation to cover our growth opportunities and outlook. We've included the table on Slide 18 previously to illustrate our growth segments. As highlighted, we continue to see promising opportunities within the decommissioning and offshore wind segments together with demand for larger vessels within offshore energy. While our defense business is currently small, growth opportunities remain compelling. Key external drivers include a substantial pipeline of offshore oil and gas decommissioning projects, aging offshore assets and marine infrastructure requiring inspection, repair and maintenance. 6 priority offshore wind zones designated by the Australian government and increased government investment in defense port upgrades and infrastructure expansion. I'll now hand over to Andrew to discuss the macro outlook.

Thanks, Loui. Moving now to Slide 19. We've included graphs developed by global shipbroker, Clarksons, which provide valuable industry insights. The chart on the left illustrates a steady recovery in the utilization of the global offshore support vessel fleet, including both anchor handlers and platform supply vessels since the impact of COVID-19. This increased utilization has driven global day rates back to levels last seen in the mid-2000s, as shown in the middle chart. As previously highlighted, the slight dip in global rates to the right of the graph is largely due to project deferrals in the Middle East. This has caused a short-term increase in PSV availability. However, it had little to no effect on rates within the Australian, Asian market. The chart on the right highlights that despite day rates trending upwards, newbuild orders remain constrained due to high costs, limited financing options and uncertainty surrounding fuel options. This supply-demand imbalance suggests that day rates will continue to be well supported over time. Further, we believe global day rates are not currently high enough to incentivize new builds. While anchor handling and platform supply rates are up 22% and 10% since 2014, newbuild prices are up 72% and 97%, respectively, over the same time period. In summary, while we expect short-term macroeconomic uncertainties to persist over the medium term, vessel market fundamentals remain constructive to rates and utilization. With the largest fleet in Australia, Bhagwan is exceptionally well positioned to meet the growing demand for marine services in a constrained global vessel market. I will now hand back to Loui.

Thanks, Andrew. Turning now to Slide 20. Looking ahead, Bhagwan's focus remains on growth and building long-term value. Our approach can be grouped into 4 themes: market penetration, market development, margin expansion and operational excellence. On market penetration, we'll continue to draw on our deep experience across offshore energy, subsea, ports and inshore and defense. We'll leverage our leading market position and keep investing in innovation and marine technology to strengthen that leadership. We'll also stay alert to opportunities for accretive acquisitions that add capability in our core markets. At the same time, we see meaningful opportunities in market development. These include expanding our role in decommissioning, capturing growth in offshore wind, deploying the CORAL KNIGHT to meet demand for larger vessels and further building on our established presence at key defense hubs. We will also remain disciplined in pursuing opportunities that extend our reach and create long-term value. Of course, growth must be underpinned by margin expansion. For the remainder of FY '26, we'll focus on generating quality revenue in an improving pricing environment, maintaining disciplined cost control and optimizing procurement. Equally important is strong capital discipline, ensuring that we convert earnings into free cash flow and continuing to refine systems and processes that deliver operational efficiencies. Finally, we're conscious that Bhagwan is still in the early stages of its journey as an ASX-listed company. We will continue maturing our strategy, strengthening the executive team and embedding the systems needed to support growth at scale and maintain strong governance. I'd also like to reaffirm that with the appointment of Mark and -- and as COO, we have added further depth to our leadership team. Through all of this, our foundation remains unchanged, a relentless focus on safety, operational excellence for our customers and a family culture that sets Bhagwan apart. Moving now to our final slide for a closing summary and outlook. I'm immensely proud of what our teams have been able to achieve in 2025. I also want to thank our Board members for their guidance and strategic leadership. This support has been invaluable as we have navigated through our first year as a listed company and built strong foundations for growth. While short-term macro uncertainty is likely to continue, the medium-term outlook for pricing and utilization remains positive. With a strong operational base and momentum across multiple markets, we are well placed to capture the opportunities ahead. Together, we are confident in our ability to continue progressing in FY '26, building a stronger and more resilient business. With our experienced track record and an exceptional team, we are well equipped to deliver lasting value for our customers and our shareholders. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Andrew and Cheryl and I are now happy to take any questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Larry Gandler from Shaw and Partners.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you, Larry

Margin expansion is obviously a focus. And just a little bit confused about a couple of comments. In the slide there, it looks like day rates have kind of capped out. But I think, Loui, you mentioned that pricing is improving. Just wondering for that margin expansion, are you going to be able to benefit from improved pricing? Or do you think there'll be other drivers of that margin expansion? Maybe go through those drivers.

Thanks, Larry. No, there's going to be a couple of things. Obviously, when we increase prices, we do that -- Sorry, there was a bit of an echo there, but what we do is we increase pricing, but pricing doesn't -- we're pricing on jobs that could be 12 months out and those sorts of things. So sometimes the effect of that is there's delays to it. But other drivers are also improving -- getting our invoices in quicker and these sorts of things and improving the way that we build to make sure we capture all the costs and get the dollars in quicker. So hopefully, that answers that, Larry.

Yes. So it sounds like there'll be some benefit from pricing, and it sounds like there'll be some operational things you'll be doing to drive those margins up.

Yes, correct. And that there is still room for pricing increases as well. Industry is getting used to increased cost of spare parts and all the sorts of things that we're facing inflation and et cetera. So there's still room for price increases.

And Larry, just to add to that, too, in the macro session prices for our sized vessels [indiscernible] this year according to the data. So definitely the larger end of the global fleet, particularly in PSVs, which is where we're not, there's been a flattening, but certainly not in our end of the market. And like Loui said, there's plenty of ideas that we can pursue over the next couple of years.

Okay. Great. And I'm wondering if you guys can give a bit more color on the pipeline. There are a few bullets in there, but particularly interested if where you're at in utilizing the CORAL KNIGHT. Maybe you could talk to how it's being used today and how its use will increase over the financial year. Yes. Well, the CORAL KNIGHT has been running since we purchased the boat since we've had the boat on charter since last July. The boat has been about 85% utilized. So it's been pretty well fully utilized in the ongoing works with one of the major clients out of the Northern Territory, and that's continuing on at present. on a month-by-month basis. But we expect that to change, hopefully, within the next few months. But it's been very good. work, as I say, about 85% of its utilization rate.

Our next question comes from Gavin Allen from Euroz Hartleys. He has 2 questions. The first one is if there are -- is there a broad rule of thumb to think of revenues in terms of the split between large complex projects, medium projects and spot market? And the second question is, is there an easy way to think of the economy -- economics of owning a large vessel versus leasing it?

So look, I think in terms of the broad rule of thumb, I think referring to what's on Slide 3 here. So as a general rule, our spot market and smaller contracts, that's most at our marine hubs, and that's our year in, year out business that we do, that's up to around 20% to 30% of revenues last year [indiscernible]. And then you go to the medium projects, that's a similar size. And that's -- if you're thinking for examples of that, it's like the Barrow Island contract that Loui referred to last year and the Mardie Salt project. And again, they're around that similar size, around 20% to 30% of our revenues. The larger projects are the long-term standby support we have that Louis mentioned up in our oil and gas business which generated substantial revenues for us last year, the balance of the business. So that's probably how to think about the sizing of the business and that's first question. And the second question around the economics of owning a vessel versus leasing it. The way we tend to own the fleet that we can use for multiple purposes and like multicat is a good example, really gives us a competitive advantage. We can use it across a lot of our sectors in construction in subsea, -- and if we can see 3 to 5 years of high utilization for a vessel that makes sense to own it. If we've got a short-term contract or highly specialized contract like last year with the Island or TVI project, we leased some of the equipment for that because it was a short-term project, only 1 year in nature. And we didn't have the follow-on work for that vessel. So we tend to lease those vessels. So that's really the way we look at it. And obviously, we look at whether we own things in terms of required hurdle rates of return and also the tenure of the contract that we can see that return coming over.

The next question is from Andrew Johnston from MST [indiscernible].

A couple of questions. The first one, I don't know whether you can provide any more color about the pipeline of decommissioning work that you're looking at. I've got a couple of other follow-on questions as well.

Yes. No worries, Andrew. Look, the decommissioning work, [indiscernible], as we continue to talk about was obviously a major project, if you like. But since then, we've been involved in probably 3 or 4 other decommissioning projects, not one as big as the TVI project, but the pipeline going forward is for the next sort of short term or short to medium and long term is very, very positive. We're expecting some larger projects coming up towards the end of the year that we'll be tendering on. So I expect over the next couple of years, we'll see a smoothing of stops and starts in some of these projects as decommissioning really gets moving. But the future of decommissioning process for us is I look at it and say it's very, very bright. So I expect that we will start to see results of that over the next 6 to 12 months. So hopefully, that answers that part of it, Andrew, for you.

Yes. And just on that, Loui, what's the time line between when you put in a tender and then when you -- if you win the tender when you start the work?

Well, look, that does depend obviously on a lot of these things have to go to the environmental approvals and all these sorts of things before they -- which always sounds a bit weird to me because you're taking stuff out of the water. But it has to go through these approval processes, which can be quite extended. So it's a bit hard to actually put a definitive time on that. But it's sort of -- to give you an idea when we were going through the TVI process, there was 9 platforms to remove -- and through that whole job, which in the 8 months, sorry, that we did offshore, there was also about 18 months of engineering before that. But through that whole thing, we were getting approvals through it. And it's not the approvals that the contractor takes the client themselves has to go through that. But look, it's anywhere to try and give you some indication, it can be anywhere from a couple of months, 3 to 12 months. So it's sometimes even longer. So it's pretty hard to definitely put a number to that.

Okay. So medium term, we should see that smooth out. But short term, we might still have a bit of volatility around when those contracts hit. If I can move on to just -- and this may be a really simple question, but is there much seasonality between first half and second half? And I suppose the corollary of that question is, is second half a good base to think about what your business looks like starting going into FY '26?

Look, the business is -- I suppose to try and answer that correctly. Oil and gas can be a little bit seasonal. And the time that that can be seasonal is around cyclone season. And then -- but the rest of the business through construction and port services and things like that is usually pretty steady. I mean we do see some changes around the Christmas New Year period when people are taking holidays and things like that. But last year, for instance, was busy through all of that period. But sometimes over the years, we have seen some seasonality. So -- but it's not something that you can really put your finger on, but it's -- like I said, the oil and gas can be due to the cyclone season that things slow down a little bit. But if we're in projects, they normally go straight through those periods.

AAndrew, just to add to that, it's more probably project based than it is actually hard seasonality. So like Louis said, cyclone season in the second half of the year. There's a few less trading days in January, obviously, in the second half year. So in an average year, we're probably slightly weighted to the -- slightly to the first half, sorry. But by and large, it's project driven.

The next question is from Michael [indiscernible] from MST Financial.

Just a question in relation to CapEx going forward. I think you mentioned that you expect sustaining CapEx to be fairly steady. But can you comment on the outlook you have for discretionary CapEx and whether there's additional potential for further fleet expansion going forward as well?

Sure. Thanks for that, Michael. So we said that maintenance CapEx will remain probably at similar levels to our maintenance CapEx plus our discretionary CapEx this year going forward. And that's really increased costs and [indiscernible] multicat and we see very high utilization over the last 4 to 5 years [indiscernible] around Australia [indiscernible] very, very positive economic [indiscernible].

The next question is a text question from Tim McArthur from Asymmetric Asset Management. Tim asks, given the lead time, is it reasonable to assume there will be no contribution from decommissioning services to FY '26 revenue?

No. The answer to that is no. We're doing decommissioning most months. And what we're actually looking at doing is splitting it out a little bit better because [indiscernible] was a major new project. But since then, we've done about 4 other projects ranging from anywhere from a sort of $2 million to $5 million contract, if you like. But no, we continue on. So we will see results from decommissioning in FY '26. At the moment, we're saying that there's not any major like TBI project coming up in that particular period, but we'll certainly have some income coming in from decommissioning.

Look, and just for clarity, at the time of the IPO, we did separate out that TBVI project because it was unusual by size. And so -- and going forward, T

I has become part of our regular offshore energy business. And like Louis said, we're seeing that sector mature. We're seeing an increasing number of opportunities. We certainly see the industry regulator put pressure on the operators to decommission their assets in a timely manner.

Thank you. There are no further questions. I'll now hand back to Loui for closing remarks.

Thanks, Michelle. Look, thanks, everyone, for joining us today. I'd like to leave you with 3 key points. First, our foundation is strong. In our first year as a listed company, we remain focused on building capability and a more resilient business. Second, there are exciting opportunities for growth, both within our core business and in adjacent areas. And finally, the outlook is positive, strong tendering activity and healthy industry fundamentals gives us confidence in what lies ahead we -- sorry, we really appreciate your support and look forward to what's ahead. Thanks very much.

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