Costain Group PLC (COST) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning and welcome to Costain's 2024 Half Year Results Presentation. Thanks for taking the time to be with us. I'm Alex Vaughan, Chief Executive of Costain, and I'm going to take you through the headlines and then a bit of an operational overview. And then Helen Willis, our Chief Financial Officer, is going to take you through and give you the real meat of the financial results that we've announced this morning. And then I'll come back and I'll give you a bit of a strategic update on the business and the outlook that we've got for the business. Look, as a result of the very clear strategy and our purposeful focus, we've built real momentum right across our business. And firstly, I'm incredibly proud of the whole Costain team and the really strong set of results that they've delivered this morning and that we've been able to announce this morning. We've delivered strong growth in our operating profits and we've now got a really financially robust position and we're capitalizing on the opportunities that are in our marketplace. As you'll have seen in the results: adjusted profits have increased again, operating margins are heading in line with the targets that we've previously outlined and free cash flow remains a very positive aspect of the business and will continue. And that is really benefiting from the contract selection process that we're going through, the markets that we've positioned, how we run our contracts and we're confident that you're going to continue to see that as a core aspect of our business. Secondly, we said when we presented to you at the full year results that we would win a lot of work in the first half of this year and we've done just that. We've really won and capitalized on a lot of good market opportunities and we've now got a forward work position of GBP 4.3 billion. That is well over 3x our revenue and is definitely in that industry-leading bracket. And also since the period-end, we announced the award of another GBP 500 million contract for Southern Water. What's great about that is not just what we're going to do and how we're going to help Southern Water; but the fact that by the time we get to the end of that contract, we would have worked consistently for them nonstop for 35 years and I think that's a testament to the quality of the service we provide and how much they value. And we also expect to be announcing further award wins in the second half of this year. And then thirdly, if I look at our forward work, it gives us real confidence in the positive outlook for the business. We've purposely positioned ourself in those markets where we believe the essential infrastructure the U.K. needs to meet some of our critical national challenges is going to be made. We're making good progress in broadening our strong Tier 1 customer base and we're also making good progress in growing our consultancy alongside developing our construction expertise. So in summary, on the back of a very strong financial performance and a strong outlook for the market where we're delivering work well, we've got high quality contracts, we've got an enviable forward workload for the business, broader customer base, we're in some of the best health we've been for a long, long time. And as a result of that strengthened financial position, we've announced a GBP 10 million buyback today and continuing with our dividend. If I come to the operational review. As expected, we've seen a small reduction in the volume in Transportation and that's really around the completion of a couple of contracts. But in roads, we've continued to support National Highways. We're working with them on 5 programs live and we're also working with them on developing the M60 contract. We're going through the detailed design phase and we'd expect that to go to site towards the end of '25 into '26. So there's forward work coming there. We're also continuing to operate the Area 14 contract and helping them with some of their strategic thinking around their future roads program. And then in the local authority market, we're very, very busy at the moment bidding a lot of local road schemes. So we see continued opportunities in that road space. In rail, our HS2 contract is going very well. We're delivering it to plan. And I've got to say when I walk around our HS2 contract, I'm incredibly proud about the best-in-class industry-leading way that program is being delivered. And we've opened the Gatwick Station contract and now we've completed that contract in the first half. We're continuing to support Network Rail, continuing to support them in the delivery and development of some of their future infrastructure planning as well as supporting the DfT and some of the big picture thinking as well. And we're actively bidding a number of CP7 contracts for Network Rail and we're well into those bids as well as a couple of the systems contracts on HS2. So we see good opportunities moving forwards in Rail. And in integrated transport, we're now beginning to see the growth coming through on the back of having won those long-term contracts with Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airports Group, Transport for London and some of the local authorities. So we're now getting the work coming through those and building our position in those space and we continue to see growing opportunities in that marketplace. In Natural Resources, as we expected, a very strong performance in that market. Revenue, profits and margins have all grown as a result of the operational improvements that we previously made, the quality of the contracts that we've been taking on and the consultancy volume of work that we've got in this space. I'm going to talk a lot more a bit later about water. But the water programs in AMP7 are progressing well for the 6 large water companies that we work for. The services that we provide are broadening as we build those long term. When you work with someone for 35 years, you've got a big opportunity to actually help them and do a lot more for them. And we've also continued to secure further work for AMP8 and we're very well progressed for that and excited about the opportunity that presents. Our energy activities, which are predominantly consultancy, are progressing well and we're seeing increased demand for our services. It was announced after our full year results that we'd secured the carbon capture contract for BP up at Net Zero Teesside and you'll have seen an announcement 2 weeks ago that we've now been awarded the hydrogen network design work as well. So we are growing our position in that strategically important cluster for that customer. We're also continuing to secure work with the energy companies and ensuring the resilience of energy supply moving forwards and we will be targeting the energy network space as we see big opportunities there with government very clearly prioritizing energy investment and driving towards net 0 as a key priority for them. Defense and nuclear energy continue to provide strong demand for us with the activities supporting the Continuous At Sea nuclear program helping our customers, but also on the nuclear decommissioning and extending the asset life of existing nuclear facilities. The bidding activity in this marketplace is extreme, I would describe it. At the moment we're very busy a huge amount and we look forward to updating you with more on that. So overall I'll put a smile on my face, I'm very proud of the team. Very pleased and excited about the progress that we've been making and the opportunities ahead. We've got growth in profits, growth in margins, cash continues to grow, strong forward workload and we've positioned ourself as a clear result of our strategy in markets for growth moving forwards. So Helen, I'll pass over to you.

Thanks, Alex. Firstly, an apology. I've got a bit of a cough so will dart for the water every now and then. So sorry about that. Good morning. It's great to be here and have a really strong set of results to be able to report to you. And as Alex said, we really feel we're building momentum in the business in growing the operating profit, improving the margins, growing that forward order book and always generating cash and I think it really pays dividends. We've been investing through our transformation program and we can really see those solid foundations coming through now and the momentum we're building. You'll remember from previous results announcements that we report both on adjusted and reported metrics to give clarity through the business and the adjusted metrics are importantly how we monitor the business on a day-to-day basis. So I'll take you through both statutory and reported metrics as we go through the presentation. So revenue of GBP 639.3 million reflects growth in Natural Resources and, as expected, a small reduction in Transportation due to the completion of some road and rail contracts. Adjusted operating profit was up 8.7% to GBP 16.3 million, in line with expectations, and reported operating profit was up 82.9% to GBP 13.9 million. Adjusted operating margin at 2.5% for the first half was up 20 basis points against H1 '23 and that's driven mainly by improved performance in Transportation and the growth in Natural Resources, which has a greater mix of consultancy services. Importantly, we remain on track to meet margin targets of 3.5% during FY '24 and 4.5% during FY '25. Adjusted basic earnings per share for H1 '24 was 5.6p compared to 4.4p last year. That's a growth of 27.3% supported by net finance income of GBP 3.1 million. We returned free cash flow of GBP 14.2 million for the half year and that was lower than last year and that was really driven by timing differences in working capital around the period end as well as higher tax and CapEx payments as we invest for growth. And I'll take you through in more detail on a cash flow performance slide later. So now turning to revenue. Revenue, as we said, has reduced marginally compared to last year and that's reflected growth in Natural Resources offset by a small and expected reduction in Transportation. Revenue in Transportation decreased by 8.8% reflecting lower volumes in road due to the completion of some contracts and in rail due to the completion of our main works for Gatwick Station partially offset by increased revenue in integrated transport due to our expanding work at Heathrow and Transport for London. Natural Resources revenue increased by 10% and that's reflecting growth in water and in defense and nuclear energy. Water revenue increased by 11.8% on the first half with good visibility across AMP7 programs through to 2025 and then recently announced AMP8 projects for Northumbrian Water and United Utilities extend through 2030. Defense and nuclear energy supports several public and private sector organizations in a variety of customer-side delivery partnership roles and that's across the U.K. defense and nuclear enterprise. Revenue increased by GBP 7.4 million, 16.1% up on prior year driven by growth in demand for support within our current delivery partnership roles with AWE and Babcock and in our EDF and Sellafield framework contracts. Now moving on to operating profit. In headline, operating profit is up to GBP 16.3 million, an increase of 8.7% driven by increased volumes and operating margin improvement and this is in line with market expectations. I'll cover the adjusting items on the far left and far right hand side of the chart on the next slide. Profit in Transportation increased by GBP 1.6 million to GBP 13.8 million due to improved operating performance margins across our newer contracts. This led to an increased Transportation operating margin of 3.1%, up 60 basis points versus last year. Natural Resources was up GBP 0.9 million bringing overall divisional operating profit to GBP 8.4 million due to an improved operational performance as well as volume growth in water and defense and nuclear. The operating margin for the division increased 10 basis points on the prior year to 4.3%. Central costs shown here have increased by GBP 1.2 million from the same period last year. GBP 0.7 million of that is a change in allocation methodology against prior year and the balance is driven by cost and wage inflation as well as accounting cost of our share incentive schemes. It's important to note that this is only a portion of administrative costs and the total cost across the group reduced by GBP 2.8 million in the half from GBP 33.5 million to GBP 30.7 million in H1 '24 driven primarily by cost savings from our transformation program. So adjusting items. During the first half of the year, we incurred transformation and restructuring costs of GBP 2.4 million versus GBP 2.1 million last year. You may remember in H1 '23 there was also a GBP 5.3 million charge on the impairment of an intangible asset relating to the repositioning of digital services. We expect reduced transformation and restructuring costs of around GBP 5 million for FY '24 and thereafter such cost to be minimal. Net finance income in the first half increased to GBP 3.1 million compared to GBP 0.9 million last year. This was driven by GBP 1.9 million of higher interest income from bank deposits due to the higher cash balances on deposit and of course higher interest rates and GBP 0.9 million of lower bank charges. The interest income of the net assets in the pension scheme was consistent half-on-half. Interest expense on lease liabilities was GBP 1 million, similar to the previous year. The balance sheet has strengthened with net assets increasing from GBP 219.4 million at December '23 to GBP 23.3 million at June '24. Noncurrent assets balances increased on the year-end position driven by an increase in the retirement benefit asset. Trade receivables and other current assets balances increased on the year-end position driven by an increase in both contract assets and trade receivables. And lastly, trade payables and other liabilities increased on the full year '23 position largely due to increased subcontractor accruals. Through the first half of the year we've seen continued cash generation driven by growth in operating profit and increased finance income. Adjusted free cash flow of GBP 14.2 million in the half was lower than the previous year as we incurred higher capital expenditure payments of GBP 4.1 million from investment in new systems and higher tax payments of GBP 1.9 million. We also saw a slight working capital outflow in the first half driven by timing of customer cash receipts landing in the first couple of days of July. The red bar at the left of the chart shows cash flow and adjusting items of GBP 3.3 million, principally representing our transformation program. In the first half of the year, we've made cash contribution payments to the pension scheme of GBP 1.7 million, in line with the group's defined benefit pension scheme arrangements. An assessment of the scheme funding position was carried out at the 31st of March '24 and as the funding level on a technical provisions basis was more than 101%, contributions will stop from the 1st of July '24 to the 30th of June '25. These contributions would have amounted to GBP 3.4 million for the period should the scheme funding have been less than 101%. It's also worth noting that operating lease expenditure is shown separately from cash from operations and that was GBP 6.1 million for the first half. So at half year, our resulting net cash position is GBP 166 million. We expect the 2024 year-end net cash position to at least similar to that at the end of the half and that's excluding the impact of the GBP 10 million share buyback announced today as the underlying adjusted net free cash flow from the business is likely to be offset by the unwinding of the cumulative working capital timing benefits previously announced. And finally, I'm happy to announce that we've been reconfirmed as one of the top fastest paying lead contractors in construction, paying more than 97% of invoices within 60 days, and that's a really critical factor supporting our high quality supply chain. Net cash as at the end of the half comprised Costain cash balances of GBP 96.2 million, cash held at joint operations GBP 69.8 million and borrowings of 0. During the year, the group's average month-end net cash balance was GBP 173.9 million as shown on the chart and the average week-end net cash balance was GBP 168.2 million compared to GBP 141 million last year. This continued growth in our average net cash balance is a clear illustration of our continued strong underlying cash flows. Utilization of the total bonding facilities as of June '24 was GBP 65.3 million and that was lower than the previous year at GBP 69.9 million. Our facility's agreement runs to September '26 and comprises an GBP 85 million sustainability-linked revolving credit facility and surety and bank bonding facilities totaling GBP 270 million. This is backed by a group of 4 banks and 5 sureties. So as Alex has mentioned, our forward visibility remains strong with a forward work position standing at GBP 4.3 billion at the period end, up from GBP 3.9 billion at the end of December with contract wins across all sectors and of course substantial growth in water. The forward work position is a total of the order book and what we refer to as the preferred bidder book and this includes revenue from contracts awarded within frameworks where the value is confirmed by the customer, but subject to individual call-off contracts. The order book evolves as contracts progress and as new contracts are added at periods aligned to the customers' strategic procurement windows, which are typically every 5 years. We have a continuing shift towards the preferred bidder book away from the order book as we continue to secure long-term 5- to 10-year framework positions with our customers especially in the water sector, but it does provide a reliable and long-term stream of work. So the total forward work position of GBP 4.3 billion represents more than 3x our FY '23 annual revenue and we've continued to win work post the period-end with at least a further GBP 500 million of new work in water. So we've been transforming our business: changing the values, behavior and culture of the business; investing in attracting and retaining talent; creating a more agile approach to our workforce, which is so important in mobilizing new work; taking a risk-assessed view of opportunities and hence winning good quality work; and driving operational improvement. We've taken out costs to afford investment in key capabilities and improvement activities throughout the business. Our approach to risk has underpinned the changes we've undertaken. It's also informed conversations with customers both in winning the right work and in delivering that work well. Target operating model work focuses on people, process and system. Our work to date has been to prioritize people and process and we're now moving on to the next phase to drive system changes to gain further efficiencies. As an example, we started with the HR system due to go live at the end of this year and have a 3-year plan to assess systems and tools across the entire business. All this activity drives better quality information and predictable results as a result of better capital management and hence cash generation. It also drives the path to higher margins as demonstrated by our continued margin progression over the prior period. We remain on track to deliver, firstly, adjusted operating profit margin of 3.5% during FY '24 as we increase effectiveness within the business through the implementation of our transformation plan and the operating excellence model, growth of consultancy services and increased effectiveness of procurement and ongoing control of operating costs. Secondly, adjusted operating profit margin of 4.5% during FY '25 by improving margins within complex program delivery, further efficiencies from our transformation program and an increasing mix of higher margin contracts. Costain continues to perform well against its strategic targets and expects to deliver long-term sustainable value for its stakeholders. The group's capital allocation priorities are investing for growth, progressive dividend, selective M&A and returning surplus capital. We will continue to invest for growth and to invest in key areas such as systems and digitization that will accelerate the business' transformation. The Board recognizes the importance of dividends for shareholders and expects to target dividend cover of around 3x adjusted earnings. Dividend payments take into account the cash flow generated in the period and the potential impact to the dividend parity arrangement relating to the defined benefit scheme. Dividend payments were resumed in H1 '23 with an interim dividend of 0.4p per share for the 6 months ended the 30th of June '23 and a final dividend of 0.8p per share. In line with the H1 '23 payment, the Board has declared an interim dividend of 0.4p per ordinary share for the 6 months ended 30th of June '24. The interim dividend will be paid on the 18th of October 2024 to shareholders on the register at the close of business on 13th of September '24. And we expect the dividends will typically be paid 1/3 as interim and 2/3 as final. Under the dividend parity arrangements, an additional matching contribution the excess of the total dividend scheme above the pension contribution is paid to the Costain pension scheme when the total of the interim and final dividends is greater than the contributions paid into the scheme the previous year. I mentioned in an earlier slide that pension contributions are being stopped for a year as the funding level of the scheme at 31st of March '24 was more than 101%. This also means that dividend parity with the pension scheme will be suspended for a year. Having reviewed the group's strong cash performance and ongoing capital requirements, the Board has concluded that an on-market share buyback program for a maximum aggregate consideration of GBP 10 million is an appropriate and value-enhancing use of cash while continuing to maintain the financial flexibility to invest in the group strategy to deliver sustainable growth and attractive returns. So we've increased our forward work position to a significant and high quality GBP 4.3 billion at the half year with contract wins across all sectors. We continue to drive improvements in the business, the quality of our earnings is improving and we continue to grow our net cash position. With our clear strategic priorities, our alignment with an increasingly broad and high quality customer base which is investing in critical infrastructure and our opportunities for further operational and margin improvements, we expect continuing positive net cash flow generation and increasing returns to shareholders. While we remain mindful of the macroeconomic and political conditions and the importance for the near-term government priorities and timing of spending, we remain on track to deliver an adjusted operating margin of 3.5% during '24 and 4.5% during '25 and in line with our ambition to deliver margins in excess of 5%. Our expectations for FY '24 remain unchanged. And with that, I'll hand back to Alex.

Thanks, Helen. So I think we'll all recognize and certainly it came to life during the election debate some of the real critical challenges that the U.K. faces. We've got to drive economic growth right across the U.K. economy to be able to afford the public services that we want, but also to improve people's lives. We have to address the impact of climate change with the weather systems and that has a massive impact on infrastructure today. And also we need to get to net 0 so that we prevent any further damage. Very clear of what was set out that we've got to safeguard the water environment and we've got to ensure that there's a strong supply of water for the future because believe it or not, the supply of water is a big challenge for this country. And we also need to address natural security in a very, very difficult public place. And all of that has been taken by the National Infrastructure Commission who did an assessment and they turned around and have set out the critical natural infrastructure that needs to be the essential infrastructure that we have to deliver to tackle and meet these big challenges. And if you look at the pipeline what might that be worth, then the latest government pipeline turns around and says that's about GBP 700 billion worth of investment. That's an increased level of investment to meet those challenges. Now the majority of it is going to come from the private sector both regulated and private companies coming through that. And therefore, Costain has purposely positioned ourself under our strategy to really help meet those critical national needs by providing the essential infrastructure across our 4 marketplaces. And I think what's really important is that the customers we've chosen to work with, and you can see there that we've got a broader base of customers that we're adding improving the strength of the businesses, those customers that want to work with us in strategic and by strategic it means that we sat around with their exec co talking about how we can help them move their business forward, strategic relationships on a long-term basis. Long-term basis means you work with someone like Southern Water, National Highways, Network Rail for 20 years and you've got that intimacy, you've got that knowledge and you're able to grow and develop their business where we as a business can bring our very best and unlock the full potential to be able to tackle and meet those needs. Now our infrastructure, our customers in our chosen markets predominantly work under 5-year investment programs and that allows us to be able to understand and have good long-term visibility of their work. As a business, we have a tremendous track record in securing places on these 5-year programs and you've just seen that in water and that will continue in a lot of the other areas. Our role on those programs is to shape, create and deliver these solutions that are going to meet those essential infrastructure requirements. So for national highways, they're just finishing. They're actually going to extend RIS2 for another year while they go through their plans for RIS3 and then we'll move into the RIS3. Network Rail are already delivering their GBP 43 billion investment for CP7 just for England alone and we're looking at opportunities in both England and in Scotland. And then Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airports Group, Gatwick Airport investing huge amounts of money in upgrading their airport facilities to drive growth in their ambitions. And I'll talk a bit more about water in a minute. And then we're also seeing -- you saw the announcement from BP, huge and you'll have seen recent announcements around the whole electricity transmission network, all markets that we want to play a role in, that program is now going to come through in the latest development. So huge opportunities for us and we're really excited because of the track record we've got of winning places on these long-term programs. And when you look at the water awards we've had recently, we're winning those contracts and we're being given an opportunity to work with those customers for 12 years, which is really exciting. If I could just talk about water. Over the last 10 years we've worked really hard. Whilst others may well have left the market, we've worked really hard to build a leading position in this marketplace; really strong relationships with the customers, a really strong expertise and pedigree in water and a much broader service offering. We now have contracts with 8 regulated water companies in England having added Northumbrian Water to our customer base for AMP8. So we've secured extensions with United Utilities for the maintenance managed service program that we run for them with Severn Trent Water and Thames Water and we've obviously won contracts with the United Utilities, Northumbrian Water and most recently with Southern Water for AMP8 and AMP9 moving beyond that. It's a really exciting place. We are seen as a valued customer and partner for our customers. And as a result of the long-term nature, we're able to broaden the service offering that we provide to those customers. So they call on us to help them optimize the performance of existing infrastructure because that's a critical priority for them. They ask us to help them convert wastewater into energy. They ask us to design new solutions for them. And then obviously they want us to help deliver their capital programs as well as for United Utilities where we do the maintenance program for us. Our transition from AMP7 into what's going to be a broader and much larger AMP8 program is a significant opportunity for us that we're really excited about and we're investing significant money today. Helen talked about investment. We are investing significant money today. We've already mobilized the team that is working on how we are going to resource up and be able to deliver this program. Exciting times. Now our strategy is very different from many other businesses. I've talked about this before. We believe that we're trying to be a new kind of customer. When you work with someone for 20 years, you have a very different relationship and that allows you to have a much broader impact. What we want to do is help our customers meet all of them. There's many of their business plan objectives. So we don't just come along as a capital delivery partner and say how could we help you deliver new infrastructure? We're very much a partner bringing our construction delivery DNA to help our customers. So very much we influence shape and advice. So we work with water companies and Ofwat to look at new innovation about how we can transform the water sector. We've worked with BP, which we've talked about, to put together the concept design and then the front-end engineering design about how are we going to create a carbon capture network in Teesside? How are we now going to create a hydrogen network? So we're growing our position at the very front end in providing the solutions to the big challenges that exist. And then yes, we do. We create and we deliver new infrastructure for a significant number of those customers. And then importantly, because a lot of our infrastructure is a very aging asset and needs a lot of TLC, lots of love, care and attention; we work with our customers one, to maintain it, but then to also repurpose it. So for a lot of the water companies, we're repurposing a lot of the infrastructure that we've got and then optimize. So for EDF, we've got 170 people every single day spread across the existing nuclear power fleet in the U.K. helping them extend the life. Billions of pounds being invested to extend the life of that nuclear generation. So we have a varied type of business and that is what's giving us great opportunities moving forwards. This is something that we take very seriously. We take it very seriously as the individuals that work for Costain. Our purpose is to improve people's lives and we don't just say it, we mean it. This is what attracts new people into Costain. This is what really gets the very best out of our people. But it's also a critical enabler in us securing work for our customers because they have exactly the same objective. And if we want to turn up and work for our customers and win new work, we need to have the credentials that we really take care and get the very best of our people that we look after the planet and we're taking care of it and we're really driving to get to net 0 and that we are a very positive force for good in working with society. It's helping us build new skills, it's helping us grow the business by winning new work, it's helping us give customers better solutions, it's giving us a stronger supply chain base that we're able to support. We have a very proactive force for change here in how we drive things like a supply chain academy where we take fledgling SME companies and we really work with them to help them scale up and become very strong supporting businesses, where we run skills academies. So one of the conversations in the energy space at Teesside is if you look at the scale of investment, the skills academy that we need to build there. This is very personal and I know it's very personal to our banking colleagues in the room here because this is what enables us also to secure green finance opportunities. So please take this as a measure of the type of people that we are. So we're continuing to improve and develop our construction capability. As said earlier when I walk around HS2, I am absolutely blown away by just the leading capability that we are building as a business. When I walk around our water plants, when I walk around any of our construction projects, National Highways; I took Nick Harris, the Chief Exec of National Highways, to visit our Birtley to Coal House scheme up near Newcastle. Absolutely blown away by the caliber of people that we have in our organization and the real modern way that we are delivering and how we're using data and things like that. I'm really proud of the progress that we're making to become a predictable best-in-class deliverer of infrastructure, which is absolutely critical to unlocking the investment in the future. We're also growing our consultancy business and we've talked about this before, but that breaks down into 3 different areas. One is where we almost turn up as a contractor, but we're not the contractor. We're the client's delivery partner, their program manager. So we're running Devonport for Babcock, AWE, Cadent and Heathrow where we're really providing that project management capability. And this is a part of the business that we really want to grow and we're actively bidding opportunities in that space. Then we're growing our engineering and design. So we are a design house, very forthright on terms of actually let's make sure that we design what we want to deliver. So you've heard the work we're doing for BP, but we're also in the water sector now increasingly our own designer designing both for water companies directly, but also ourselves. Doing design work for EDF and Network Rail, we're doing a lot of their master planning, big picture thinking at the moment and helping them with their delivery optimization work as well. So that's going to be a growing part of the business also. And then from an advisory and digital solutions point of view, this is where we bring to bear our project management, change management, [ solutioneering ] expertise as a business to really help our customers. So that EDF opportunity, 170 people. That's a project management and a change control capability that we put into that organization to help them. So it's our core DNA, but applied working. It's the same for Yorkshire Water. Yorkshire Water, we run the safe systems of working bringing our safety expertise as well as a PMO capability for them. So these are areas that leverage our core DNA that we are growing that capability and we'll be giving you more detail on that moving forward. So if I could just summarize for you. I'm very, very proud of the Costain team and I'm very proud to be leading such an amazing team. The strong operational and financial performance is a testament to them and we're delivering continued growth in our operating profits. We've built a very strong financial position for the business. Clive tells me really, really strong cash position of money that we've got in Costain's bank account and we're on track to meet our margin targets that Helen's talked about. As we said, we've won the work that we were targeting, been very successful. We've got a very strong forward work position. We've got a high quality volume of work that we're still bidding. Long-term customer relationships that really improves the performance of what we're doing and a broader offer, as I've just outlined, to meet those customers' needs. A very clear strategy, rigorous focus on providing the essential infrastructure to meet those critical national needs. We're making great progress. We've got much more to do. We're excited about the journey we're on and we look forward to updating you more in the future. So thank you very much and we'll take your questions.

Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just 3 actually. First of all on the balance sheet, obviously you'd want to maintain that cash for kind of operational commercial bidder reasons. But just trying to get a feel of how much kind of surplus cash is on the balance sheet I guess and what would be the optimal level you'd like to run with going forward or need to run with? Secondly, just on the forward position. Obviously lots of recent contract wins, GBP 4.3 billion. Just how much comfort there is in the gross margins in that order book to support the kind of 4.5% run rate and beyond? And then thirdly, just interested to hear your thoughts on upcoming budget and new government where you see the best opportunities and timing of how that may kind of fall through?

I'll take the third and you do the first 2?

So cash, we haven't given a number, but I guess you can take an indication that having announced the buyback for the end of this half that kind of denotes a level of comfort at the current level of cash. I think also if you think looking at the dividend level plus the aggregate level of the buyback, that's similar to where we might be if we were at our dividend policy. So I think that sort of shows that we feel comfortable in that level of return overall. And of course all of our plans, as we've been indicating, really further generate cash. The cash flows remain strong through our plan period and therefore, I think that underpins both our investment ambitions. I talked about the systems that we want to invest in, continued investment in people and premobilization and absolutely underpins our return to shareholders. And then on the forward work, we talked a lot about that risk assessment of the work that we win, making sure we're winning the right work that we know we can deliver well. We know we can manage the risks. We're not risk averse, but we prefer risk aware. We know we can manage the risks. The margins in there are where we want them to be for the 3 different areas of the business, the 3 different buckets of consultancy that Alex described and then the complex program delivery. And so it's down to us delivering well now. So we're very comfortable with the terms of the work we've won and all focus is on top-notch delivery now.

And I think, Aynsley, if I can come just to your government question. I think it's obviously early days, but I think the sort of early signs are positive. There was a lot of engagement by the government with us before the election and they'd been very clear that they want things like a 10-year infrastructure plan, which will be a real positive for the industry. One, it will give us certainty; 2, it will allow us to be a lot more productive and efficient as we are. I think they've set out also some of the changes they want to make around planning, which I think is going to be a big help on that. We can very clearly see priorities are going to be around driving the economic growth. And certainly when we look at the highway schemes they are targeting, they're very clearly linked to what is going to be an economic growth driver or even a net 0 driver. So a lot on that and we expect them to drive energy forward. So we're very hopeful that when we get the final investment decision on the Teesside in September that you'd hope that it's going to be a big sign from them that they want to get on with it. They're obviously agitating like everyone about improving the water ecosystem that we've got in the U.K. and they're very supportive of defense spending. So naturally the first presentation that Rachel made to the House was a bit of a challenge. But I do think the positives from that is they're going to make the hard decisions about prioritizing what infrastructure is going to get built and what isn't. And I think a lot of our clients are screaming out for look, let's just make some decisions and then we can get on with certainty and that's certainly what we would want as well. So early days, positive. There's a lot of work to do and we look forward to seeing the progress with them.

Joe Brent at Panmure Liberum. Three questions as well, if I may. Firstly, could you give us an indication of which contracts you're most excited about in the next 6 months in terms of opportunity? Secondly, if we take it as a given that the water markets double in the next 5 years, would you see yourself growing in line with that market growth? And thirdly, you talked a bit about energy networks and some of your competitors are very excited about National Grid and SSE and the ASTI framework. Could you just put a little bit more flesh around that opportunity?

So I'll take all 3 of those. It's lucky the other MD is not in the room because I get asked this by the staff quite a lot. What's the most exciting project? And both MDs are looking at me just to see if I give the answer. It's very difficult. I suppose personally what am I most excited about for me as a person, I think it's what we're doing with BP because I really want us to make a big change here and I want Costain to be at the very forefront of that energy transition change. So that's my personal view. That might not be the business' view, but that's my personal view. Will water investment double? Yes, it will. I think we can see that in the regulatory in the draft determination and that will result in our business certainly doubling in size from a water point of view. But I think it's important that that's also going to be a better quality so we'll be growing. The amount of design that we'll be doing will be much more and that will be at a higher margin so it's also going to be much better quality work. And I think it's a testament to where the water companies are and how important it was for them to secure the right partners. The terms and conditions we've been able to negotiate have been very good for us. Energy Networks, so we might not be as well placed as some of the others that spoke last week, but we've got extensive capability in that area. We've been recruiting people into the business with expertise and relationships in that area. We do big gas and water pipeline transmission so certainly that will be a marketplace that we're looking to break in that at the moment we're not in. And so it is an exciting opportunity for us.

Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. Again 3 questions. A couple for Helen maybe first of all. If we look at the Natural Resources margin, which obviously nudged up slightly, should we not have expected something a little bit better given the ongoing mix shift which is happening there as well as some of the reallocation of cost into sort of central overhead? Are there any sort of moving parts in there that we should be aware of? Second, on the pension, you say it's over 101% funded. Can you give us a feel for how much better than the 101% it was, Clearly that will then give us some insight to how sustainable the position that you're in is now? And lastly, for Alex, sort of slightly higher level. But in terms of the terms and conditions that you're signing up to particularly in terms of water, are these effectively sort of many frameworks within an overarching framework? Are you having to take any fixed price delivery risk because there's clearly going to be enormous skill shortage and just to give us the confidence that you're not at risk of not being able to deliver on particular engagements?

So Natural Resources, I think if you look at the breakdown of Natural Resources, defense and nuclear energy and the energy sectors are predominantly consultancy and I don't predict a particular mix shift within those 2. There will be a volume shift there. And important to note the different types of consultancy in there that we pulled out in the presentation. Where I do think we might see improvement is in water. So as we've been negotiating better terms, I would hope that we would see an uptick there. But again remember that a lot of that work is complex program delivery and therefore, lower margins. But that's really an underpin to the operational improvements that I've been flagging. So I would expect to see something in there in the longer term. But also bear in mind AMP8 doesn't really kick in until '26 and beyond. But that's why we're working very hard on how to do this smart right now. Pension, how close to 101% where we were? Pretty close is all I'll say, not a lot of headroom if that helps you.

If Sam was here, he would have said yes, we expect better. But he's not here this morning. He's probably watching so he will be screaming at me later. So just Ts and Cs, I think the really positive thing about the water frameworks is for some of them we've already been allocated the work already. I think from a RIS point of view, there are no fixed price RIS contracts. The way the water frameworks work is we get paid by the client to develop the design and then once we've developed the design, we're able to then agree a target cost and at that point we then commit to that target cost and then there's an incentive mechanism that we both share in how we perform. So the really good news is number one, we get intimate access to all the operational team, the existing asset, their team to be able to develop the design with them so we can mitigate all of the risks going through the design and we can then go and build the project having designed it. So it's a pretty low risk environment, much better. So it's not like for Southern Water, we haven't signed up to a fixed price for GBP 500 million worth of work. It will end up being probably in the region of about 200 smaller contracts that we will take through design and then deliver over that period. So it's a pretty good quality place and it's very similar to what we do with TFL, Heathrow and people of that very similar type of work.

Jonny Coubrough from Deutsche Numis. Could I ask firstly on the margin targets, 3.5% this year going to 4.5% next year, which is a run rate. Should we expect the group adjusted margin to increase by a similar magnitude, i.e. 100 basis points?

So we've given our group operating margin so we are expecting to reach that during the course of FY '25. So it should be a rate as we exit FY '25. Now we can't be any more specific than that, but that's what we're aiming for. That is absolutely the group operating margin.

So over the year, it should be increasing by a similar amount?

Yes. The only other caveat I'll put to that is that we do have a sort of H1, H2 split that you've seen it through history. So the profit is always higher in the second half than the first half. So it's not straight line improvement.

And then on the transformation program in terms of the costs that's come out. Now that you're growing particularly in Natural Resources, is the cost that will go back in or is that now -- should we see operational gearing on that?

I think we should see operational gearing in the longer term when that volume comes through. So we said no more transformation costs. We have invested in the cost of those teams, the capabilities we've building are in our sort of run rate costs now. The only other part of investment and one I flagged is more CapEx loaded our work through systems. There might be some OpEx in that, but I would hope to be able to counter that with other efficiencies. And then there is the work that Alex was just referencing as we are planning how to deliver AMP8 in a really smart way. But it's fairly minimal in the grand scheme of our cost base.

And last one for me is I mean it sounds like you expect Natural Resources revenue to grow through the next few years. Could you give us any guidance on Transportation? How do you expect that business to evolve over the next few years?

Look, I think so Transportation will certainly sort of be at the level it's at certainly moving into next year as well and then it will grow from there. It's just a long-term gestation of the contracts that were being awarded. So if we look at the M60 as an example, we will be spending over 12 months doing the design. And again kind of back to Andrew's point from a RIS management point of view, that's what you want to do and then it will be getting into the delivery phase in '26. So 26 is when we would expect you to start seeing the benefits of the work that we'll be winning.

Rob Chantry, Berenberg. Three questions, all on water. So firstly, you talked in the presentation around the scope of work broadening. Can you give some kind of broad indication of what CapEx budget percentage is addressable for those firms at the moment versus what it was a few years ago, i.e., how much has your capability and scope to deliver work broadened? Secondly, on capability, I mean clearly these are kind of potentially very large numbers in the total scope of CapEx broadening. Is there any capabilities you'd want in that set that you don't currently have that either you could develop more organically or look at external opportunities to get that capability? And then thirdly, given I guess the scale of the transformation and CapEx required, could you just give some color around your thoughts around market share, competitive environment? Do you believe that will attract new types of firms or new firm trying to win a share of that aren't very good? And how you see the competitive environment evolving?

Could you just ask that first one again? Because I'm trying to I think about how I would answer it.

I am sure there's a very short answer and a very complex answer. So basically you mentioned in the presentation the scope of the work you do broadens with certain clients. Can you provide some kind of framework around what capability that was a few years ago and what it is now? Some kind of indication of how much the capability has broadened? I'm aware it's a very complex answer.

No, no, it's a good question. So in terms of that scope, the delivery of the construction programs is sort of there's going to be twice as much of that type of work, but we've always done that type of work and we haven't done it for Northumbrian Water before and we haven't been doing it for United Utilities. So those are big additions plus everyone else is going to be spending twice as much. So that volume of work will be going up. Things like the asset optimization that we now do for the majority of the water companies, that's something we only really started 5 years ago and that is now growing. So to help with a lot of these unplanned discharges that make the headlines everywhere, we're doing a lot of work for all the water companies and basically repurposing the infrastructure they've got there to help prevent these spills by just making small interventions that will just improve the overall process through the whole system. So I'm looking at it from a systems point of view. The engineering design so one of the things that we've negotiated. So when we won AMP7, we didn't have the ability for Costain to do the design ourselves. We've now purposefully negotiated into all of our AMP8 contracts the ability for us to do the design and earn a margin on that design as well as earning a margin on the final delivery as well. So that gives us an opportunity to grow that on the basis that it's going to make an accretive return for us. So hopefully, that just gives you a few bits around the sort of principal bits on the scope. From a capability point of view, I think for what we do at the moment, we've got the capability we want. I don't want to become too specialist in any particular areas. I do think we need to look at doing more around the whole starter sort of place. So we've got a digital capability in the business. But if I have a look at what Southern Water are doing in particular, I think the pace at which they're adapting to that change is something that we could look at capability. But I think we can probably bolt that on by organically recruiting it into the capability that we've got already, but that will certainly be growing. In terms of market share, I would say there's 2 buckets for this. I think there's the big water companies and then there's the smaller water-only companies and smaller water companies. For the big water companies, we probably got about 1/5 market share at the moment, which is good. So we've been selected by all of them to work with them and we're certainly seeing a couple of other people sort of growing their position in this water space. But I think between us and there's 1 other listed organization that's also got a very strong position in water, we're probably the 2 dominant players in this marketplace. Have we got any? Nothing online. Shall I close then? So look, thanks very much again for giving up your time and spending your time with us. We're really proud of what we've delivered in terms of our financial performance in the first half and that will continue into the second half. We're excited that we're winning all of this work. Look, we're really relevant to our customers and as a direct point of our strategy, we're able to win that work and we expect to win more work in the second half. And the future market presents a real opportunity for where we position Costain and where we're going. So thanks very much and we look forward to giving you further updates as we go. So thank you.