eEnergy Group Plc (A1Z1.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the eEnergy Group Plc investor presentation for the full year results for the year ended 30th of June 2021. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. These will be available via our Investor Meet Company dashboard, and you'll be notified once they're ready for your review. I'd also like to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Harvey Sinclair, CEO; and Ric Williams, CFO of eEnergy Group Plc. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everybody. So for those that aren't familiar with our end-to-end strategy, eEnergy came to the market in Jan '20 to set out a vision for, I guess, the B2B sector for both public sector and commercial that would allow them to get to net zero without using their own capital, and we call this Energy Efficiency as a Service. Our core business has been in the energy efficiency space. And more recently, we have moved into a more end-to-end proposition through the acquisition of 4 businesses over the last 12 months. We're pleased to say that we've seen fantastic revenue growth of over 200% in the last year. 75% of that has come from organic year-on-year growth. We've registered our first maiden profit, GBP 0.8 million, and we're in a very fast-growing and addressable market that's growing over 40% CAGR. So we're now in a position where our core proposition is about addressing energy wastage for both public sector and commercial businesses. And we've got a really seamless end-to-end solution now, which navigates customers in what we call the climate pathway. So we're really pleased with the growth that we've achieved in the last year in spite of what has been a pretty challenging market. And I think the team has navigated the challenges of COVID remarkably well. And I'm pretty pleased with the outcome of where we got to in the last 12 months. As a reminder, we've now got 4 key brands under the eEnergy banner. The first is, obviously eLight, which is our original business that we brought to market, which is a Light-as-a-Service business, growing extremely strongly in both the U.K. and Ireland and starting to branch out into the health care sector as well as new commercial, industrial subsector, so really pleased with the growth in education as well as emerging growth in the health care and C&I space. And then we've got a newly formed Energy Management division, which we are essentially transforming into an Energy Management-as-a-Service division through the acquisition of both Beond and UtilityTeam. I'll talk about those shortly, but both businesses are very complementary. We're looking to rationalize those 2 brands under the eEnergy brand as we go into next year's first quarter. But the essence of that is a renewable procurement platform to procure and manage complex energy procurement solutions for the public sector and also for large multisite commercial and industrial sectors. The MY ZeERO investment that we have made through the acquisition of Measure My Energy is right at the center of our strategy and is now providing data analytics and consumption, visualization of energy spend to our customers and I'll talk about that shortly. This year has definitely been transformational. We've set out some pretty big goals at the beginning of the year, and I'm pleased to say that we've delivered everything we set out to achieve. We've transitioned from a pure-play Light-as-a-Service business into an integrated energy services company, addressing a very large addressable market. We've been able to scale organically, as I've mentioned, and we've made some significant investments in technology that delivers efficiencies for growth in that energy efficiency business. We've successfully integrated the RSL business, which has given us a platform for Multi-Academy Trust in the education sector. And our pipeline of multisite academies is growing very rapidly. We expect to see some multisite rollouts this year, which will be one of the drivers of that division. We've also integrated a number of back-office technologies and platform plays across the Beond business to enable it to be transitioned into the UtilityTeam business so we can leverage the platform we've got. And as I mentioned, we've launched a brand in MY ZeERO to replace the old Measure My Energy brand, which allows us to offer data insights to our customers who are looking to identify where their energy waste is coming from and to really empower them to make more informed decisions around their energy efficiency strategies. I'll hand over to Ric just to talk about the revenue split, and then I'll recap on our strategy before we go into numbers.

Thanks, Harvey. Clearly, I will talk to the FY '21 numbers themselves but -- after Harvey has just outlined the strategy. But before doing that, I just wanted to give a snapshot of what the group looks like today in terms of where the revenue comes from today on a kind of a pro forma annualized basis, including the acquisition of UtilityTeam, which, as Harvey said, we completed last month. So by division, we generate 55% of our revenue from Energy Efficiency and 45% from Energy Management, so I think clearly weighted towards Energy Efficiency. The business has moved in part because of the organic growth rate, in part because the acquisitions have been in the U.K. Last year, we were 50-50 between the U.K. and Ireland. Now we are 6/7s in the U.K. and 1/7s Ireland and I think that is likely to continue. And then, finally, in terms of the industry split, 85% of our Energy Efficiency revenues in FY '21 were in education. As I look at the enlarged group today, education is still the most important opportunity business sector for us. It's about 50% of our revenue, but we're well positioned in public sector and health care, and we'll talk a little bit more about those as well as having a balance in the commercial and industrial space. So overall, what you can see is that the group today is now very balanced in terms of where the revenues come from and the opportunities, both in terms of sector and the services that we provide. Harvey, do you want to talk about the strategy then?

Sure, yes. So what we've effectively built now is an end-to-end proposition for a customer that is managed by 2 divisions in our business. So we have the Energy Management division, which really provides 3 core services. The first service is access to the renewable energy market. It's actually access to the whole energy markets, but we make a strong emphasis to all of our customers that are looking to procure energy, a strong recommendation is they should only be considered -- only should be considering the green renewables. And the Beond platform is one of only a handful of platforms in the U.K. that actually allows our customers to tender their contracts into the open market and then see a transparent open bidding process, where they're seeing open market pricing. You get that price tension. And then you see the full flavor of green, whether it's green wash brown energy right through to nuclear energy, right through to the different types of renewable pure sustainable energy sources, and then a range of fixed and flexible products. So it really does disrupt the offer that our competitors are offering in the sense that we're able to navigate a very transparent solution, and that's proving to be an extremely valuable tool within what is a very regulated public sector. So that's the core proposition effectively in Energy Management, if you like, division. The Energy Management-as-a-Service transition that we are doing is to essentially sleeve our meter business, our smart meters, within the energy procurement contract, so that through a subscription model, our customers can subscribe to our smart meters that are linked to our analytics platform for a reasonably low-cost entry subscription model that allows them to get absolute transparent energy consumption data behind their main meter. So what that allows them to do is identify exactly where they're consuming their energy, and it allows them to identify where they are wasting their energy. So to give you an example, with a school, 25% to 30% of the school's energy is still consumed when the school is closed. But without the ability to measure and track and understand where that energy is being consumed, the operators of that building cannot make behavioral changes in order to achieve any drop in demand. So this provides visibility, provides data, completely disruptive energy management solution to the market. More importantly, it provides them consultancy opportunities for our overall division to provide insights to their customer on how they can now reduce demand. And that then is a perfect segue into our other division, which is the Energy Efficiency division, which at the moment is principally offering 3 services. As I've discussed in the past, the first energy efficiency measure that any building operator should deploy, if they've not already done so, is a transition to LED lighting. It's one of the only energy efficiency measures that provide soft benefits. It's essentially good lighting drives good operating performance or good learning environments. And so switching to LED has a significant reduction in overall demand of electricity and provides a lot of soft benefits. After that, what we are now offering is what we call energy optimization, is essentially turning dumb buildings into smart buildings, so using controls, using IoT, connecting devices so that buildings become smart and then using our -- effectively our smart metering and analytics platform, creating a contract for that customer that shares in the downstream savings below Light-as-a-Service. So we've got a carbon waterfall slide in a second, which will demonstrate what that does, but this is a really significant added-value measure that really drives a really strong return for our customers once they've done lighting. And that may include boiler optimization. It may include HVAC optimization, depending on the environment we're working in. So for example, in the hotel sector or in the hospital sector, HVAC is a really significant draw in energy, and there's a 30% saving with retrofit HVAC systems that doesn't see the need to replace them but just sees the ability to optimize the efficiencies. Think of it like an ECU chip in a modern car. It gets more performance or more efficiencies out of the building or the engine without having to upgrade the engine. And then the final piece, which is one of the most exciting growth opportunities that we are now really focused on, is how we can provide on-site generation to our clients with PV, i.e., solar and therefore as an add-on to that, EV charging solutions. We are in an energy environment at the moment where we've seen unprecedented energy costs. There are many reasons for that. We can touch on that at the end. But one of the reasons is the increase in carbon tax and the increase in carbon tax is only going one way. And that increase in carbon tax is driving an ecosystem of higher energy prices. And so the only way really building owners and operators can reduce their carbon footprint and also reduce their operating costs is by significantly reducing their demand, i.e. energy consumption requirements. The only way you can do that is by deploying the energy efficiency measures we've talked about. And our entire model is around funded as-a-service solutions where the subscription service the client is paying is always less than the savings that we're delivering, so taking that knowledge and that relationship we have with our customers on lighting and being able to expand it downstream. So hopefully, that really does cover the next couple of slides. But I think, in essence, it really does capture the journey we're taking our customers on. And if you look at one of the really key drivers of why did we move into Energy Management, well, in the world of energy efficiency, acquiring the customer is the hardest part of the, if you like, the customer life cycle. And by having a relationship with how we manage the energy procurement and the energy management of a client's procurement strategy, we've got an ongoing relationship with those customers. So to transition into a value-add, drive down carbon, drive down energy costs, drive down operating costs for the business without the requirement of capital is such a powerful proposition that we're finding that those conversations are opening very fast indeed. And you'll see there that we've got 1,800 customers in the Energy Management division. We manage over 5.3 terawatts of energy. This is several billion pounds worth of energy through our platform for 1,800-plus customers. And all of those customers are motivated to reduce their carbon footprint and to reduce their energy costs and, therefore, their operating costs. So we have got a huge tailwind of high energy costs behind us. We've got a very large addressable market. We're trying to provide an end-to-end solution for our customers who don't have energy departments. Our customers, albeit have very large energy spends, but they often have very, very limited resources who are experienced in demand-side reduction, energy efficiency technologies, energy management, risk management, compliance around energy strategy. So we're a partner for our customers aimed very specifically at a specific type of profile, which is public sector, multisite, COVID-resilient commercial and industrial customers who have all got a really big pain at the moment around the energy price market and how to get to net zero. So I've got a slide here which really frames what I've just described. We call it the carbon waterfall and it's, in a sense, the journey we navigate a customer on. So this particular customer is a recycling company, 20-plus recycling sites, has a GBP 2.4 million energy spend, very much a typical midsized commercial and industrial client. And you can see here that on the left, you've got this big block, which is current carbon footprint. And on the right, you've got the downstream activities that we're doing to reduce energy consumption and also, therefore, the carbon footprint. So for this customer, who was essentially a customer of another energy management procurement competitor, bought into our service because they recognize that horse-trading around kilowatt price was not really the value driver in executing a strategy that's going to drive long-term value to the customer. What they wanted was a partner that could navigate them to green energy in a transparent way. So for this particular customer, they signed a 5-year direct agreement with ourselves as their energy consultant, where we would give them access to our platform, and they would get open market pricing. We would drive down their carbon footprint by getting them to the most appropriate green, flexible, risk-managed product they needed in the market. At the same time, we embedded our sub smart metering within their portfolio, and we did that at the same time as signing an LED Lighting-as-a-Service contract. And so you can see that we, in those 3 measures, have been able to achieve a huge amount in less than 90 days. And on the right-hand side, you can see what the potential approximate value over a 10-year period is to us from a net revenue perspective. We're now in the fourth stage where we're at the consideration stage of having done an assessment of all other energy conservation measures. And now what we will do as a result of having embedded our smart metering is we'll wrap all of those measures up, whether that's putting IoT controls into, optimize the way how much the buildings consume its power, whether it's optimizing their old HVAC systems, upgrading some of the components of their boiler system and putting on some technologies that will optimize the way their compressors and pumps work, we'll wrap all that up. And what we're putting in place is a 10-year agreement on a share of savings model linked to the energy savings that we deliver, where we take 70% of the savings. Now the customer takes a, if you like, a net 30%. They offload the risk management of the technology, of the installation, the ongoing operating management of any of that technology. We have a long-term revenue stream that we'll collect annually as a result of the savings, okay? And that is a really good example of how we're capturing, in one contract, what I would call a multiple selection of energy optimization measures. And then in parallel, we're discussing with this customer as much on-site generation of PV on their rooftops, as we can, in conjunction with sort of a starting position for all of those buildings with EV charge points. So we've taken this customer that would have perhaps been worth GBP 400,000 to GBP 500,000 over a 10-year journey in, if you like, the old business model. And you can see that we've got 4x the downstream revenue opportunities over a 10-year journey. And that gives you an insight as to quite how exciting our opportunity is when you look at the customers that exist over at Beond, whether that's multisite cancels, whether it's over at UtilityTeam with multisite distribution centers, multisite retail centers, multisite hospital chains. These are large consuming portfolios that are trusted -- we are a trusted partner to them and they're motivated to drive down their energy consumption. So hopefully, that captures the buy-and-build story that we've been assembling. We have a couple of small, if you like, missing chunks that at the moment working with joint venture partners on. So in the solar space, we're working with third parties. We think there is an exciting opportunity to maybe acquire a small bolt-on, fast-growth solar solutions business to enable us to capture a greater share of margin. But we've got really strong demand in these downstream opportunities, and I think that's going to reflect the future growth of the business. In terms of near-term drivers, there's a handful of really big drivers at the moment. One is market demand for renewable energy. We're now at a point where nobody should be entertaining buying brown energy. It just does not make any sense at all. There's parity, and in some sense there's actually a better value proposition in terms of price to go green than to go through the traditional brown energy options. Huge demand at the moment for energy data. Everyone has finally woken up that you can't manage what you can't measure. And everyone recognizes now that the only way to reduce their operating costs and their carbon footprint is to reduce their demand. This concept of moving everything we do to as-a-service is being widely accepted across the world as the enabler of change as the energy sector becomes digitized and becomes a much more flexible data-driven business model in the same way that software took quite a while to get going with this as-a-service concept. When the switch happened, it was big and it was almost complete within a decade. We think we're right at the beginning of this journey, where the energy markets are finally aware of the capital constraints of energy efficiency and the transfer of risk-benefits of moving down a maintained asaservice business model. So I think that they're really some of the macro drivers of the business. And then internally, we've got some fantastic digitization of our internal model. So the development of our app to enable growth in the SME sector. What that really means is that we can handle smaller projects through third parties without having to invest the same amount of time in them. It means that we can touch more customers at the same time without increasing our -- if you like, our fixed cost base of customer-facing consultants. We've got this huge customer base, which is going to be the real focus now of all of our strategic account management strategies. And we've got back-office integration efficiencies that our COO is putting into place, having invested heavily in the C-suite to enable these integration efficiencies to provide better products, better services with our sort of integrated companies. And finally, there's an obvious revolution happening with electric vehicles, with electrification of transport. Every building owner or operator needs to be able to offer some form of infrastructure to support that and, therefore, they're going to need partners that can provide that alongside perhaps on-site generation.

Thanks, Harvey. Let's turn to the FY '21 results. And I think standing back from it, we set ourselves some very ambitious targets and we have delivered against all of them. We've delivered the strong organic growth. We've delivered our maiden profits. We've made 3 strategic acquisitions, which we have successfully integrated. And since the year-end, we've acquired UtilityTeam, which we will talk about shortly and specifically what that also brings to the group. I've got a slide in a moment on the financial highlights. I think from a -- if you like, from an operational perspective, we absolutely secured the leadership position in providing energy-as-a-service and Light-as-a-Service to the education sector when we acquired RSL in July. RSL was fully integrated into our operational platform and which reinforces that position that we've got in that marketplace. I think we've talked about the importance of the reverse auction platform and the technology that we've got within the Energy Management business within Beond and how that drives our zero carbon marketplace and gives our clients the confidence of seeing a whole of market view around their pricing. And Harvey's already touched on the importance of having MY ZeERO and the ability to measure and monitor and provide the analytics on energy consumption as a key step to identify and then eliminating energy wastage. And in terms of the importance of the whole cross-sell and how we are bringing those services together, we secured our first -- and that was the case study we talked to, our first combined Light-as-a-Service and smart metering and analytics client in June. And that has now moved into being an energy procurement -- an Energy Management client as well. And we have started to see the successful deployment of our Light-as-a-Service project into the Beond clients in the last month or so. So really very pleased with the results for FY '21. If I move on to talk about the financial highlights. Again, we've touched on some of these already, but revenue in FY '21 is more than 3x what it was in the prior year at GBP 13.6 million and 76% of that has come from organic revenue growth in the Light-as-a-Service business. And that is really -- that organic revenue growth has come from a combination of delivering more projects. So we did 211 rather than 125 in the prior year, but also by those projects being larger. So the average size of project is more than 50% larger than it was in the prior year. So in terms of our margins in the business, okay, we've been able to drive the gross margin in the Light-as-a-Service business up 360 basis points after commission expense to 34.5%. That is a combination of both improved funding arrangements for the Irish business, but more importantly, the relationship that we've got with our OEM supplier who delivers to us eLight-branded technology that we at a very competitive price. And that combination of the revenue growth and the improved margins is what's enabled us to post our maiden profit. So our adjusted EBITDA for this year is GBP 0.8 million compared to GBP 1.5 million loss in the prior year, and that also translates into a profit before tax and exceptional items. From a working capital perspective, looking at the group as a whole, we finished the year with net cash of GBP 0.8 million. Our Light-as-a-Service model is cash generative because what we do with our Light-as-a-Service model is we are paid -- we assign the contracts to our funding partners so we get paid out at the beginning of the contract. And then we are typically paying our install partners and our technology providers after the installation. So we are paid within 5 days of installation on one of our projects, and we pay the month following to our supply partners, which is -- gives us a very positive cash generation profile for the business as a whole. And that's what helps contribute to the net cash position, including accounting for leases under IFRS of GBP 0.8 million. A lot of those financial highlights are really focused on the Light-as-a-Service -- the eLight business and the Light-as-a-Service business. Looking at the Energy Management business, we acquired Beond in December. And in that time, we've seen strong organic growth coming through Beond as well. Because we haven't got comparative financials, I think the best way of capturing that is really the meters under management, and we saw a 9% increase in meters under management to just over 30,000 in the 6 months of ownership. So it has been absolutely a transformational year. We delivered strong organic growth across the business. We've entered and diversified the model -- entered new markets and diversified the model as well as delivered our maiden profits in line with market expectations. And that is despite what we've faced into in terms of the global pandemic. So just to provide a little bit more background on some of that growth. The revenue bridge here shows where that revenue growth has come from. So the left-hand side of the bridge is around the Energy Efficiency business. So that we have organic growth in both the U.K. and Ireland, and that organic growth has been complemented by the revenues that we generated through RSL. So we improved from GBP 4.5 million of revenue in the prior year to GBP 11.4 million of Energy Efficiency revenue in the current year. And I think as I said, we acquired Beond in December, so it's -- all of it comes through acquisition, which is what gives us our GBP 13.6 million of revenue for FY '21. If I now turn to look at what that means in terms of profit, last year, as I say, we posted a loss of GBP 1.5 million at the EBITDA level. The impact of volume of that increased revenue that we've seen coming through the Energy Efficiency or Light-as-a-Service business delivered an additional GBP 2 million of profit. The improved margin, that 360 basis point lift, gave us nearly another GBP 600,000 of profit, and that puts us into a very strong position. I think it's been fair to say that the impact of the COVID restrictions in Ireland have been much more severe than they were in the U.K., but we have managed the cost base in Ireland accordingly. We took the wage subsidies that the Irish government offered, and we've managed the working hours and staff numbers for the team in Ireland. And as a result, we saved nearly GBP 0.5 million in terms of operating costs in the Irish business. Now actually, we still retain the ability to scale within the business, and so we're well placed for the year to come. I think in terms of the U.K., we were investing in both incremental marketing, and we spent GBP 120,000 of additional marketing in the U.K., but also in our sales and operational resource so that we're able to deliver -- both acquire and deliver the additional volume of projects that we've seen coming through. And then, finally, we've got the incremental head office costs. Harvey touched on the fact that after we acquired Beond, we brought Rob in as our COO. That's part of that investment in our group capabilities to help drive future growth across the expanded division. With Beond's contribution of GBP 700,000, that is what leads us to our maiden profit, our maiden adjusted EBITDA of GBP 0.8 million for the year. So Harvey, shall I talk to UtilityTeam?

No, I'll cover it. It's fine. So this is a business that was well known to us. The CEO, Delvin Lane, who's now our Managing Director for the Energy Management division, someone I've been working with and have known for over a decade from his days at Centrica when he ran that business and latterly Anesco. So lots of experience in energy services. He moved into being the Chairman of UtilityTeam and then Chief Executive about 4 years ago, and really took this, what was a very, very strong and very successful Energy Management business, into a much more strategic energy consulting and strategic Energy Management business, focused much more heavily on large multisite C&I customers. So it's a very, very well-respected business, has been growing at 24%-plus over the last, I think, 7, 8 years. It has a very strong C&I customer base, multisite customers, strong health care and what I call sort of COVID-resilient commercial sector customer base. And it really does, I guess, pivot its strategy around the net zero -- strategy is a founder of the net zero standard. And the -- complements to the Beond business were very evident from day 1. They've got a very commercial focus, whereas Beond had a very technical operations focus. And so we were looking for a partner that was going to complement the similar-sized business and whereby there was a natural fit for the technology platform. So under Delvin's management, the plan will be that these 2 businesses will come together under the eEnergy brand in Q1 next year. And we will have the opportunity to leverage both efficiencies but also product offerings across the portfolio that will bring in stronger revenue growth and also more efficiencies. So yes, a very well-respected business with a very complementary customer base.

In terms of the financial performance of UtilityTeam, I think there's 2 things that I want to pull out here. Firstly, it's a well-established business, as Harvey has described. But what we've seen is an acceleration in the volume of new business contracts that are being written in the business. And that reflects in a 20% -- 26% annualized growth between 2014 and 2020. The step change that you see from 2017 to 2018 was part of a deliberate change of strategy. That is when Delvin joined the business initially as an adviser, then as Chairman, before stepping in to take over as CEO. But there was a deliberate decision to focus on the larger, more complex contracts, which is part of the attraction for that business for us today. And that has been sustained through 2020 despite the impact of COVID. I think the second thing to pull out, as I look at the -- on the right-hand side, how we present that in terms of the P&L performance, the business is a -- these are the numbers that are presented under IFRS, so consistent with the eEnergy accounting policies. What we see there is strong growth in the revenue. That revenue reflects the accounting for -- the way revenues are accounted for in an Energy Management business is that the procurement element is recognized upfront. And typically, UtilityTeam are recognizing 20% of the value of the contracts upfront, and then the balance of the contract value is recognized over the contract term. And so you can see the new business growth is driving the revenue that is being recognized in each year. But also, you're seeing the improved profitability that is coming from the business. We have adjusted out for the unusual and nonrecurring items in arriving at our adjusted EBITDA that we are presenting here. Most of those adjustments are around judgments around the revenue recognition where we are -- we take a more conservative view than management had originally, but that conservative view will continue going forward. But one of the benefits of the revenue recognition and the accounting in the Energy Management business is that I can look and see a very strong order book. So I can see that we've got a forward order book today of over GBP 10 million, which is booked revenue that will unwind over the next 2 years or so, which is the average contract length. And I can also see that looking at it today, I already have more than 2/3 of the FY '22 revenues, that's my FY '22 revenues through to June, already contracted and booked for the business. So really a strong position. The trading for UtilityTeam means that 2021 is going to be materially ahead of the 2020 numbers that are presented here. And actually, the acquisition as a whole is going to be significantly earnings-enhancing for eEnergy in the current financial year. Harvey, did you want to pick up on this?

Yes. Just to say that we've had a growth M&A mindset from day 1, okay? So we did set out our infrastructure and our management team with the intention that we would be doing a number of pretty fast-paced acquisitions and integrations. So what we are not is a consolidator. We're not a business that's just looking to add lots of the same businesses together, and we are quite cognizant of the risks that are involved in integration. So we've been very measured in our approach. The acquisition strategy around UtilityTeam from the very beginning was all around how would we collaborate and how would the fit with both people and systems come together. And we're very comfortable that the way in which we're going to migrate client data and leverage the best of breed from both businesses utilizing, for example, the Coventry operations center will be where the majority of the delivery and service capabilities of the business are focused. And that's been at the center of everything we've been doing. We're looking to centralize our client acquisition strategies under a single eEnergy route to market. That's going to give us, over time, a number of economies of scale and more efficiency around messaging. We just come out of the back of a number of education events in the last 2 weeks, which have been a real eye-opener because, as you can imagine, the events industry has been closed for the last 18 months and before we went into lockdown was previously probably the most successful customer acquisition format we had. We've acquired more opportunities in the last 3 weeks than we have done in the last 5 months. And the event platform was centered around an eEnergy proposition, around the way in which we were enabling customers to get on that carbon waterfall journey that we spoke about. And so already, we're starting to see that the blended combined offer that we have is much stronger than the previously strong single proposition with Light-as-a-Service. So even where we are talking to customers in the education space, and, in particular, the Multi Academy Trusts, which is going to be the real growth driver for this year, because, obviously, 1 customer who is a trust can have anywhere between 5 and 50 schools. Some of them have already done LED transitions. And actually, where they were really excited was, what can we do next? We can't see the obvious next measures. And so after having consultations with those customers, we are receiving strong demand for appraisals around smart metering, around solar, around IoT. And so that really has helped us. So that concept of an integrated brand and an integrated back office is already starting to come through. I think we're going to have a very sector-driven sales approach, and we're very focused in the fact that we think the public sector is probably the most powerful, if you like, sector that has the right, if you like, portfolio of needs. And we think that's going to be a continued big push for us. And I think obviously, the metering platform is going to be at the center of pretty much everything we do. I think just to summarize, transformational year, successful M&A delivery, both in the profile of the acquisitions and the strategic fit and the earnings accretion that we believe they are going to deliver. A strong platform for growth, where we expect to be materially ahead of FY '21 and with a tailwind of almost a perfect environment to build this business. So I hope that was useful, and obviously, very welcome to talk about some of the interesting questions that have been put through the platform here.

Fantastic. Harvey, Ric, thank you very much indeed for your presentation. [Operator Instructions] But just while the team take a few moments to review those investor questions submitted already, I'd like to remind you the recording of the presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via investor dashboard on the Investor Meet Company platform. I'd also like to remind you that your feedback is important to the company. And immediately after the presentation has ended, you'll be redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations.

Harvey, Ric, as you rightly say, I've had a number of questions come through during the event. We did have 2 pre-submitted questions. If I may, just start off with those. The first one reads as follows. There seems to be a much lower acceptance of your LED proposition than one might have expected, given the 0 setup costs and savings. Do you agree that this is the case and why do you think this is?