Energy One Limited (EOL.AX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
November 16, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Andrew Bonwick
executiveOkay, thank you very much. Thank you very much, and welcome to the Annual General Meeting of Energy One Limited. My name is Andrew Bonwick, and I am your Chairman in the Sydney office today, and we have other Non-Executive Directors, Ian Ferrier and Ottmar Weiss, who retires from the Board at the conclusion of this AGM. And Ottmar will take a few minutes to reflect on his time as a director here as well as his significant contribution at the end of the meeting. Our group CEO, Shaun Ankers, is currently onsite in Belgium. He's joining via teleconference. And our CFO, Guy Steel, is also with us in the Sydney office. And unfortunately, Vaughan Busby, one of our directors, is in Rockhampton today with another Board commitment so he can't join us. Also joining us online is Clayton Eveleigh from BDO, our auditors. And we have a number of shareholders in the Sydney office as well, which is great. Thank you. We confirm that the notice of meeting was duly given and the meeting has been properly convened. Please note that only shareholders, proxy holders or shareholder company representatives can vote. I note that there's a quorum present, either by proxy or online, and I declare the meeting open. So I'd like to now give the Chairman's Report for this year. It's with pleasure that I'm able to report that Energy One has achieved its ninth consecutive year of profitability. In FY '22, Energy One continued to see the benefits flowing from the strategy of organic growth and synergistic acquisitions made in prior years despite the impact of COVID on our major project sales, which we flagged in providing guidance for this year. Revenues, up 16%, and underlying earnings, EBITDA up 15%, both grew strongly as did net profit after tax, which increased by 16% from FY '21 to $4.35 million. This performance is a strong affirmation of the strategy pursued by the company and delivered by its management. Recurring revenue grew in 2022, eclipsing total 2021 revenues and has had a compound average growth rate of 42% since 2018. This year was marked by the acquisition and integration of EGSSIS in Continental Europe, the acquisition of CQ Partners in Australia and continuing organic growth of the Australian and U.K. operations. 54% of our revenue is earned in Europe, and management have grown the European revenues and margins every year. Australian revenue grew 6% despite the drop in project revenues, with recurring revenues up 13% in a market where we enjoy high market share. EBITDA margin in this market improved as well. We look forward to the continuing opening up of Europe to the major strategic project sales processes that are part of our revenue mix and provide long tail SaaS revenues. We closed a major customer sale in Europe shortly into FY '23, and Australian and European major sales activities are progressing well. Contigo, eZ-nergy and EGSSIS recommended the adoption of Energy One branding across the European market late last year. This started with our presentations and booth at E-world in Essen in June, which is a very big European energy conference, and in the London Energy Conference in August with the main branding as Energy One. This suggestion originating in Europe is a strong indicator of good cultural integration. Continuing product development and sales with SaaS-based products of modern design and construction and with a strong customer orientation is a good indicator of continued growth in our market share in our largest markets. Australian sales and delivery performed well under the guidance of the Australian CEO, Dan Ayers. After a strong project delivery year in 2021, the impact of COVID meant that we had no major project in 2022. This was mitigated by a focus on a stream of medium and small projects to deliver the revenue and to keep the development staff engaged and busy. The acquisition of EGSSIS and CQ has enabled Energy One to complete the building blocks for our announced development of a follow-the-sun 24/7 global operational capability. We currently serve some European customers from Australia during their night shift, and the integration of the 2 regional businesses will proceed with cross-training and employee exchange [ in Zacondin ] providing domain knowledge in both centers. We have started systems augmentation and integration using our in-house tools to provide a common user experience for operators on both sides of the world. Increasing use of automation will also allow us to continue to grow the asset service by Energy One without commensurate cost growth. Sales into the services business will come from new entrants, independent renewables companies, with whom we have a high market share in Australia, and energy companies struggling with out-of-hours trading support. Our ability to provide out-of-hours support has been welcomed by a number of global energy corporates, a number of the existing software -- our software customers across the globe, and will provide a strong platform to move from out-of-hours support to broader services and software sales for these customers. With the worldwide shift from large thermal generators and big retailers to a complex web of renewables, batteries, load shifting and multiplying market participants, the need for these operational services is growing. Energy One has a robust platform of well-regarded software and a quality existing operational services business. We estimate the addressable market for this type of software and operational service to be in excess of $1 billion over the next 5 to 10 years, and major customers in Europe and Australia tell us we have a unique offering in that growing market. We have announced that FY '23 and FY '24 cash flow will be used to invest between $1 million and $2 million per annum on the services business, and we look forward to updating you with our progress as we go. Our recent history has been marked by both organic and acquisitional growth. The near term will be marked by a concentration on the delivery of the very high potential exhibited by the operational services business. We announced guidance for FY '23 of revenues increasing 37% over FY '22 to be in excess of $44 million and EBITDA growing 33% over FY '22 to $12.5 million, and we reiterate that outlook. In the last several years, we have welcomed an interest in the company from institutional investors, and the development of an ongoing dialogue with those fund managers as they invest their time to get to know the company. This led to a successful placement of $7.5 million with a number of high-quality institutional investors and a rights issue of about $2 million earlier this year. We thank shareholders for their support of the company in subscribing these funds. When reviewing the existing capital position of the business and assessing the potential for future business growth, the Board remains mindful of the need to balance future new investment against the need to realize expected returns from investments already made. With both of these in mind, the Board decided to declare a final dividend of $0.06 per share in FY '22. The ongoing availability of the dividend reinvestment plan in conjunction with the payment of the dividend this year -- last year is intended to provide a further incremental improvement in the liquidity of our shares. I would like to take a moment to reflect on Ottmar's service to your company. Ottmar joined us prior to the float in 2007 and stepped into the Chairman's role during a challenging early period for the company. He guided your company through the establishment of our software capability, and worked with the CEO and the Board as we built our electricity software suite in Australia, the move into gas software and the steps we took to consider and then enter the U.K. market. The Board has looked at a number of options and challenges over that 15 years, and Ottmar brought a quality skill set and a deep commercial and organizational skills to the Board's development of strategy, the supervision of the delivery of that strategy and building the shareholders' equity. He has a deep commitment to shareholder value and a core role in the success that you are seeing today. I will miss his insights. I thank him for his contribution and wish him well in his future endeavors, and look forward to meeting him in future Annual General Meetings. In closing, I would like to thank my fellow directors, management and staff for their continued support, their dedication and strong efforts during this busy and productive year. In particular, I would like to highlight the quality of this year's results in Australia and Europe, despite the disruption to travel for corporate and sales activity by COVID on both sides of the world. This is a testament to the leadership of your CEO, Shaun Ankers, and the quality of the leaders he has developed as part of his team. Thank you. So moving to the resolutions. The resolutions for consideration today may only be voted on by shareholders, proxy holders and shareholder company representatives. I propose to call a poll on each of these resolutions. Those in attendance who have not submitted a proxy vote may only vote on the provided AGM working form, and that form is to be handed in at the end of the meeting. Resolutions 2 to 7, including Resolutions 5A, 5B and 5C set at the notice of meeting are to be considered as an ordinary resolution, as such, may be approved by a simple majority of the votes passed by shareholders entitled to vote and voting on the resolution. Resolution 1 - Financial Statements and Reports. There's no requirement in the Corps Act or in the constitution of the company for the shareholders to approve these reports. However, I will move that shareholders approve the director's report, financial statements and independent audit report for the financial review ended 30 June '22. There have been no questions provided in advance. Are there any questions from those present? Are there any questions from the video? Thank you. There being no further questions, I seek approval that the annual report containing the financial statements for FY '22 on the show of hands. The annual report is adopted on a show of hands. Resolution 2 - Adoption of Remuneration Report. I now move that the remuneration report for the financial year ended 30 June '22 be adopted. There have been no questions provided in advance. Are there any questions from those present? Are there any questions from the video conference?
Unknown Executive
executiveChairman, on the [indiscernible], the proxy votes.
Unknown Executive
executiveYes.
Unknown Executive
executiveAny votes in the meeting will be added to the proxy votes and we'll release the results slide today after the meeting.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveUndirected -- there being no further questions, we will put the resolution to a poll. Those in attendance, please vote for the resolution on the voting form. Undirected proxies will be voted in favor of the resolution. The final results of the poll on this part and all the others will be announced at the ASX today -- later today. The poll will cease 5 minutes after the closure of the formal part of the meeting. Do I have to pass this over or can I -- do I have to pass over the [indiscernible]. Okay. Resolution 3 - Election of Directors. Myself, Andrew Bonwick. I now move that myself, a director of the company who retires by rotation at this Annual General Meeting in accordance with the Energy One constitution and being eligible offering myself for reelection, be elected as a Non-Executive Director of the company be adopted. There have been no questions provided in the advance. Are there any questions from those present or from the video conference, please?
Unknown Attendee
attendeeSo Chairman, I've been a director of many companies. So I don't know that actually, it's been a situation where there's not one vote cast against your reappointment. So perhaps next year I'll arrange something to do that just say that your [indiscernible].
Andrew Bonwick
executiveThere being no further questions, I'll put the resolution to a poll. If you're present in the meeting, please vote on the form. Undirected proxies will be voted in favor. Resolution 4 - The grant of performance rights to the Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Shaun Ankers,. I now move that for the purposes of Listing Rule 10.14 and for what purposes, to approve the grant of 87,210 performance rights to the Managing Director and CEO, Shaun Ankers, as detailed in the accompanying explanatory memorandum. There have been no questions provided in advance. Are there any questions from those present or from the video conference? Thank you. There being no further questions, we put the resolution to a poll. If you're in the meeting, please vote on the form. Undirected proxies will be voted in favor of the resolution. Resolution 5 - grant of service rights to the non-executive directors. I now move that for the purpose of Listing Rule 10.14 and for all other purposes to approve the grant of 9,690 service-based share rights to Andrew Bonwick, 5,814 service-based rights to Vaughan Busby and 4,845 service-based rights to Ian Ferrier. The basis, continued conditions of issue for the rights and other matters are explained in the explanatory memorandum. Essentially, the directors take half of their remuneration in rights and half in cash. The grant of rights to each director will be considered as 3 separate resolutions to be voted on by the shareholders. There have been no questions provided in advance. Are there any questions from those present or on the video conference? There being no further questions, we put the resolution to a poll. Undirected proxies will be voted in favor of the resolution. Resolution 6 - Approval of potential leaver benefit payments to Mr. Shaun Ankers and non-executive directors. I move that for the purposes of Section 200B and 200E of the Corporations Act of 2001 and for all other purposes, to approve payments under the Energy One Equity Incentive Plan to the Managing Director, Shaun Ankers, as well as to non-executive directors, myself, Ian Ferrier and Vaughan Busby, if they were to cease to hold office at Energy One Limited, as detailed in the accompanying explanatory memorandum. There have been no questions provided in advance. Are there any questions from those present? Are there any questions from the video? There being no further questions, I'll put the resolution to hold undirected proxies being voted in favor of the resolution. Resolution 7. I now move that for the purposes of Listing Rule 7.4 and for all other purposes, the shareholders ratify the prior issue of 1,666 -- sorry, 1,666,667 ordinary shares under the institutional placement earlier this year, as detailed in the accompanying explanatory memorandum. There have been no questions provided in advance. Are there any questions from those present? Are there any questions from the video, please? There being no further resolutions, we'll put -- no further questions, we'll put the resolutions to a poll. Undirected proxies will be favor in voted of the resolution. Thank you. The final results of each poll will be announced to the ASX later in the day. That concludes the formal business of the meeting, and a reminder that the polls will close 5 minutes after this meeting. Before we take questions, I'd like to invite Ottmar to address the meeting, as requested by a shareholder on a video conference earlier this year.
Ottmar Weiss
attendeeThank you, Andrew. And before -- thank you very much for those kind words that you offered earlier in your chat though, very much appreciate it, so thank you. So for better or for worse, I find myself the first director in Energy One's history to actually leave the Board. That probably says a lot about the nature of the company, to begin with. I've been here for 15 years now, from 2007 until now. One slight correction to your earlier introduction, no I wasn't Chairman at the time of the float, [ perhaps if I shout out to Ian ]. Yes, sure. So yes, 15 years, and that 15 years sort of has spanned across 3 different decades, the 2000s and the '10s and now the '20s. And as I reflect on my time at Energy One, 3 seems to have been a number that has featured prominently. We've had 3 offices since I've been here. [indiscernible] 2 of those are also on Level 13. So I'm not sure what that's worth. We've had 3 Chairmen, which I was one for a while and Ian was one and now Andrew's the other. There's been 3 CEOs, 3 CFOs. We've had 3 major acquisitions in Australia and more likely, we've had 3 major acquisitions in Europe. And non-offshore purchases actually [indiscernible], but I just was interested to note that's the way it is. I would say that the best description of my time at Energy One has been a very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating challenge. It's been very varied. The nature of the markets that the company operates in and the businesses that it undertakes are very different now to when we first started. And I've also sort of increasingly become aware, certainly so far, that the company's business model is not really directly correlated to the general economic conditions that will provide the domestic economy and the international economy. And that's probably because the company finds itself in a very fast-growing, very fast-changing and pretty dynamic business environment. And that is that the entire way that energy is created and distributed to consumers, whether it be residential or industrial consumers, has changed and it's changing very rapidly. And in reality, that change is -- that change process is only at the beginning. And the next few decades, whether it's driven by regulatory change or genuine concern about climate change or whatever, the fact is it is all changing and the shift away from fossil to green is just going to place Energy One and the types of products that it offers in a very unique position. And certainly, in the Australian market, there's no other company that is offering the product or has the opportunities available to an Energy One does. So actually, I feel very confident that the company that I'm retiring from is very well placed in every regard. It has very strong executive management and at all levels. It has a very strong board. And as I just reflected upon, the opportunities that are available to the company are, in my opinion, at least large and probably increasing every day. And the challenge will be to actually seize those opportunities and convert them to the benefit of the company and therefore, the shareholders. But -- and I've got a great time here. I'd like to thank everybody that I've worked with, the Board members and all the staff at Energy One, as everybody's been terrific. And in closing, yes, I'll just -- I wish the company very well, and I'm still not quite a substantial shareholder anymore, but just under that 5% of the company. So I've still got quite a lot of shares in the company. So I'll also taking a very active interest in terms of doing anything that I can to help [ across the bridge ] in the future. So thank you.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveThanks, Ottmar. So we'll move to general questions. There's been no questions announced by email to Guy prior to the meeting. But does anybody have any questions from the floor at first?
Unknown Attendee
attendeeI might ask a question. First one, I guess, in this [indiscernible] my list of questions, but what do you see as your greatest impediment to growth? Maybe I suppose it's [ sea island ].
Andrew Bonwick
executiveNo, look, I think the Board has been very careful over many years to grow at a rate that's appropriate to our financial resources, our physical resources and the products and services we offer. And by way of example, we've talked about investing $1 million to $2 million this year and next year on services. So this is something we can afford on services -- on the services business, there will be some software, some people and some other bits and pieces, admin in that. That's an amount that we can afford. It's a conservative approach to rolling into a new segment. And as that is successful, we'll keep looking at do we spend more, do we spend in a different way? How do we do that? So every sale brings a risk, large and small. We have to service what the customer needs incredibly well and deliver the things that we promise. So we're a conservative company. We will continue to grow. We'll continue to drive these healthy rates and to keep control of our destiny, I suppose.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeSo let's sort of move to -- my question is probably more directed at the sort of transition that we spoke about with the move to greener, more carbon-neutral energy. So how are you sort of positioning yourself to go along with the growth in that area? And what you see as your biggest risk to the company to taking that growth? Happy to hear your financial ...
Unknown Executive
executiveI give you an example. In the Australian landscape, 10 years ago, you had a few very dominant energy providers, the Queensland government, Origin and AGL and a few others in Australia. And now like every new person sets up a wind farm or a solar farm has the ability to sell electricity into the national grid. And to do so, there are particular protocols that they need to obey as they're bound to. And they generally need a software solution to be able to satisfy that and that software solution is provided by Energy One.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveSo there's been 196 new ...
Unknown Attendee
attendeeSo in terms of impediments, so that is competitors or what do you see your biggest risk is going into that?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveThe competitive landscape is -- in Australia is very soft. We're the dominant provider. In Europe, the software and services that we offer, there's nobody else that offers software and services. So we're in a good place there. It's more of a sales environment in Europe than it is here. There's half a dozen other people that offer software in Europe. The major risks are the delivery of software and services. We've got to do the things that we promise to do. And so we've got to be conservative and careful to make sure that we can sell things that we're able to do. And in the last 7, 8, 9 years, we've had a consistent history of good customer service, doing what we say we're going to do. So I think we're very well placed. I really do.
Unknown Attendee
attendee[ Sometimes, you do ].
Andrew Bonwick
executiveYes. Well, that's a characteristic of our software that it's not -- we don't have to bespoke do it for every single customer. It's pretty much an out-of-the-box type product. It's a very sophisticated box, I'd have to say. But it's very much on-time delivery. It's a very important thing that we provide.
Unknown Executive
executive[ Soon I think it with alternative ] shareholders, they have proposed similar in Europe on insurance.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveOkay. So with the acquisition of CQ in Adelaide, they're predominantly a services business, but they also had a small broking business for broking energy derivatives in weather. So for example, insuring weather events for a wind farm or a solar station or outage products and that sort of thing. They have a dominant market share in Australia of that sort of product.
Unknown Executive
executiveVery well-known insurance companies.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveYes, yes. Sub-underwriters, particularly international.
Unknown Executive
executiveWe don't carry any insurance risk, of course.
Unknown Executive
executiveNo, but we brought the product, and so in the last couple of months, we've taken that to Europe. And so there's a webinar happening to [indiscernible] tomorrow, give or take, with European customers to introduce these products and these concepts to those customers. There are 115 people attending that webinar in Europe. It's the first one we've done. So -- and that's being listened to by traders, operators, by specialist risk managers, by customers, by noncustomers. So one of the variety of activities that we do to increase our reputation and knowledge across the European market, but also to cross-sell the products that we have into other markets as well. So [ that's what we say ].
Unknown Attendee
attendeeTake a example -- sorry, just to continue. I was the only one with a question, so. So I come from a country, we're sort of leading the world in energy production, approval of the windmills. So how many of the wind farms and -- or how big a portion of the windmills say do you have from the Eurozone?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveWe don't disclose individual customers.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeBut I'm asking for a percentage also, a proportion of the market.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveWe have about 15% of the English market goes through our systems overall, so about 15% of the U.K. plus just under 10% of Europe. So we have quite a good market share. But obviously, there's a lot -- it's our runway for growth. We have a lot more sales we can make in Europe and in the U.K. In Australia, we're the fourth largest generator in the national electricity market of the power stations that we manage through our services business. So we've grown strongly in Australia through 3Q. We would continue to grow in Europe from that 15%, 10% base.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeSo do you expect a new -- the growth to come from new wind farms or to sell to existing wind farms?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveSo our customers in Europe, okay, would be large thermal power stations, large gas power stations, hydro, wind, solar, brokers, financial intermediaries, large industrial customers, traders. We have an enormous variety of customers. And yes, generating wind farms are some of those, but it's the diversity of people in the wholesale energy market that we sell to. That's one of the strengths of the company. So no, we're not exposed just to growth in wind at all or just the growth in [indiscernible].
Unknown Executive
executiveThat's on both sides, the supply and the demand is the supplier and the customer.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveAnybody else with questions likely?
Unknown Attendee
attendeeJust wondering about -- you're growing quite a bit by acquisition. I'm just wondering how you're integrating those acquisitions, the [indiscernible] like the Adelaide. The South Australian one, you're able to transport that to Europe. I'm just wondering, it's a relatively complex product suite. How complex is it behind the scenes in terms of all these businesses being added on? And are you able to keep the people and IP?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveYes. So I'll answer that in a couple of different ways. Firstly, the products are extremely complex. But the job that they're doing is the same in Australia and Europe and Belgium and France, 19 countries or something. Do I turn a power station off, do I turn it on, what contract of it sold, how much energy I need to buy today in different markets. So integrating the products is relatively straightforward because in order to install them, we need to connect them up with SAP and the finance system and the display system. So there's quite a lot of XPs within the company in terms of making the product suite work smoothly together. And the acquisition of EQ -- sorry, the acquisition of EGSSIS in Europe and its integration with eZ, we have very similar product suites, they're literally going through at the moment, saying, we have this one and this one and this one and this one, okay, and rationalizing the products we do. So that's going very well. The acquisition of the people is just as important. The first stage is always to get the stuff out of their hair they don't like. So integrating the finance systems, taking the accounting back, to make sure we're all on the same e-mail domain, all those sort of housekeeping type things so that the people in the business can focus on the thing that they do really well, which will be selling software, selling services and so on. And then over time, we want to make sure that the vendors of those businesses stay with us for a reasonable period of time. So you'll notice that all of the acquisitions have a mixture of cash and shares. And the shares is so that the people that come along with us are with us for a period of time and share the risks that the shareholders do in the acquisition of those companies. So we aim to keep people in the business for a long while. And within Contigo, which is one of our older acquisitions, there's still a very, very substantial number of people in that business that have come along with us because it's a very specialized set of skills. And the customers know them and we want to hang on to them. We just want to enable them to do what they do really, really well, better. The other integration that I think is important is that we've run a very good software business in Australia, and we do that by doing the simple things well. So for example, if the contracts says the price is going to go up for CPI on October 1, make sure the price goes up. A lot of our products are sold based on seats, how many seats you got, counting the number of seats they're using and increasing the bill when they use more seats, all that sort of sensible stuff. And all of the programmers, they want to do really well for the customer. And so in the software business, the customer says, can I have an all-green spot here, and the developer will say, yes, sure, fill out a statement of works, and I'll put it into the next thing and you pay for it and we'll put it in, sort of thing. And so those sort of disciplines are really important as well. So the management's approach to integration is quite sophisticated. And at this stage, all those things are going very, very well, very well.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeCan I just ask about Europe? Is Europe, Europe, or is it every country got its own licenses and challenges?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveEvery country has its own electricity licenses and challenges. So in Australia, the energy market on the East Coast is different to the energy market on the West Coast because the Westerners didn't want to do what they did on the East Coast. We have 3 nodes, 1 in each state. And Europe has a lot of those same sort of things. So Australia has 3 different grid operators. Belgium has 2. France has got 1, but that's the French. And each of those countries has the potential for sale of our products, and we're in 19 countries at the moment, I think.
Unknown Executive
executiveYes, probably about 21, I think.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveYes, which will have gone up since the last presentation. But yes. And that -- so that difference means that our ability to provide software to each of those markets is really important. And that's a key part of the way we sell. We announced a sale to a -- and I talked about a large corporate sale earlier this financial year. That takes us into another new region. So the customer is working with us, paying us to go into another region. And that's sort of part of the way we grow.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeSo how do you share that news with the shareholders? Do you release updates [indiscernible]?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveSo the last update was the 23rd of August, which was the presentation around the full year results. That presentation is designed to provide information about the financial performance, about the structure of the business and about our outlook as well.
Unknown Executive
executiveWe did say there was a stock exchange announcements on the Energy One website.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeYes, right. So you've got some -- sorry, on your website, you have -- so it doesn't get released to the ASX, it's [indiscernible].
Unknown Executive
executiveNo, it does.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeI think you've got some good news to share, release it. If you do it again, well, report, I think, absolutely.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveSo we've had a very welcome set of questions from those around the table. Thank you. I'll come back. Is there any from the video conference at all?
Unknown Attendee
attendeeAndrew, can you hear me? This is [ Andrew Tam ] here. Okay. Just firstly, thanks to Ottmar for his long years of service to the Board and shareholders. So that's been well appreciated. So thanks, Ottmar. Just had a question about the 24/7 services kind of progress. You're integrating it, doing a 24/7 style service and investing that capability. How is that going? Like has that been slower than expected?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveNo, no. It's progressing according to expectations at the moment. The project requires the recruitment of some key people, like a project lead, a specialist in global cyber. We've put on a global head of HR, and that's all happened. Actually, the people that I just mentioned, the project lead, I think, is on his third visit to Europe with Shaun and [ Alyssa ], our HR, as we speak, there for 2 weeks. The working together integrate the systems is proceeding and the design of interfaces and those sort of things has gone well. And we have at least 2. So we've had in Australia and Europe for a while and has come back. We've got the European sort of -- the second ones arrived who are working in the Adelaide office. We've transitioned some European customers across to the night shift in Australia, as I've talked about, well. So it's going very well, Andrew. And in our report to shareholders for the half year results, we'll provide another update.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeOkay. So I guess from an external viewpoint, how do we gauge the success of that strategy? Like what are the milestones that we should be looking for?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveSo we've said that it would be 18 months to 24 months as a program, and we expect to see some results in the first 12 months. So yes, the first 6 months would be that -- released to shareholders in February, and so we'll give you a substantial update at that point in time.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeOkay. And I guess with Europe opening up again and business returning to normal, I noticed in one of the press releases that you signed 25 new logos since 1 July. I guess how is the market? Is it opening up? Are vendors or energy participants now looking for software again?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveIt's opening up reasonably well, Andrew,. One of the things that management noted in the E-world conference in June -- so that's an enormous conference. You get 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people turning up. They noticed this year that all of the Europeans attended, but none of the Americans. So attendance was something like 80% of what it would be in a full year. So it is opening up, but it's going to take a little while. Certainly, the sales processes and the strategic sales processes are going well. So the Contigo people are very pleased with the way that, that is all going.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeOkay. Sorry, just jumping around here. I think I read in your address that some of your large corporates now are using our 24/7 service. Is that incremental? Or is that just more that they're getting service from Europe rather than Australia for those night shifts now?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveSo there are some very large customers that we have in Australia that we also have in Europe who have 24/7 operations now. And several of those in Europe and Australia are discussing with us doing that out of our service. That sale hasn't happened yet, but the discussions have certainly gone very, very well.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeOkay. Okay. So that would be incremental work if you do succeed there?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveYes.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeAnd just lastly for me, I guess the Australian market, you typically have done 1 to 2 large projects each year. Last year, there was a bit of a lull in that. What's the pipeline in Australia for large projects?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveYes. If Dan was here, I'd get him to answer that.
Unknown Executive
executiveWould you like me to answer that?
Andrew Bonwick
executiveYes, go for it. Yes, yes.
Unknown Executive
executiveYes, Andrew. So yes. So the pipeline is good. At this stage, we are in the process of trying to land some of the big fish. So the pipeline is as we expect it to be. It's just a matter of -- especially with larger clients, it takes a bit of time to get them over the line, the extended procurement process, and it always has been. So it really is a matter of just making -- the timing is more or less in their hands than in ours, whereas smaller clients, as you know, they can move a bit quicker. So we're working on it. And of course, by the time February comes along, we'll be able to provide additional information.
Andrew Bonwick
executiveAny other questions from the video floor?
Unknown Executive
executiveAndrew, again, we've got Clayton in attendance, whether anyone's got questions for the auditor..
Andrew Bonwick
executiveAs well, yes. Any other questions from the physical floor? Okay. If there are no further questions, then I will close the meeting. We have traditionally had very, very short meetings and this meeting has gone for 45 minutes, which is nearly twice what we would normally have because of the questions, so thank you very much for the questions that have been asked. And I will close the meeting. Thank you.
Unknown Executive
executiveThank you.
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