Galliford Try Holdings plc (GFRD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

March 8, 2023

London Stock Exchange GB Industrials Construction and Engineering earnings 38 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Bill Hocking

executive
#1

Good morning all, and welcome to Galliford Try Holdings half year results presentation for the 6 months ended December '22. I'm Bill Hocking, Chief Exec, and I'm here with Andrew Duxbury, Group Finance Director. The photo you see here is 280 Bishopsgate, which is a GBP 50 million-plus private sector refurbishment contract. It's an excellent example of our retrofit capability and has achieved a BREEAM outstanding rating for both refurbishment and fit-out. Here's agenda for today, with the recently completed first phase of our A47 program of road improvements as a backdrop. I'll start with the headlines. Andrew will take us through the numbers, and then I'll give a progress update on our sustainable growth strategy. So on to the headlines. We're really pleased with our performance in the half year with disciplined growth in revenue and operating margin. Thanks to our people, our businesses are performing well, and our acquisitions are settling in and allow us to offer a broader range of capability to our clients. Despite the delays in converting preferred bidder positions from last year, we have increased our half year PBT to GBP 11.7 million with an operating margin of 2.3%. Our balance sheet remains strong, and we're really pleased to declare an interim dividend of 3p, up from 2.2p in the same period last year. Looking forward, the order book is robust, aligned to our risk appetite, and we continue to see a strong pipeline of future opportunities across our market sectors. We are confident in achieving our full year '23 targets and continuing to improve our performance to deliver our 2026 sustainable growth ambitions. So those are the headlines, and over to Andrew for more detail on the financials.

Andrew Duxbury

executive
#2

Thank you, Bill. Good morning, everyone. The picture on the screen is from Utility Week Live, a great opportunity for us to showcase our capabilities in water. Before I get into the detail, let me remind you of our investment proposition. Galliford Try is a high-quality business, driven by a progressive culture with leading positions in robust market sectors and generating increasing returns for our shareholders. The opportunities in our market sectors remain strong with good levels of government investment. The risk profile of our portfolio of projects is very good, and we have excellent forward visibility as Bill will cover later. Importantly, we have the culture embedded across our business to deliver our strategy with everyone aligned to our purpose, values and approach. Our financial position is very strong, and we are demonstrating a track record of delivering consistent, predictable financial results. And we have a clear strategy which will further increase shareholder returns. As Bill said, we're very pleased with the performance in the first half year and the progress that we are continuing to make against our financial targets. The financial headlines are on the slide, and you can see that all these key performance metrics show improvement compared to the same period last year. In particular, revenue is up 14%. Our divisional operating margin has increased to 2.3%. Pre-exceptional profit before tax is up 65% and is actually higher than the full 12 months to 30th of June 2021. I'll come into some more detail on all of these in a moment. This all translates into increased shareholder returns with the interim dividend 36% higher than last year. Putting this together, we are confident in the outlook for the remainder of this financial year and have increased our guidance for full year profit before tax towards the upper end of the range of analyst estimates. So going into the results in more detail. As I said on the previous slide, revenue is up 14% in the period. Buildings revenue was up 3.5%, and this is despite seeing some contract starts delayed through 2022 as a result of inflation and then slower public sector decision-making. We discussed this in September, and Bill will touch on it again later, although we are pleased to see these issues are beginning to ease. Importantly, we retained our disciplined approach to tendering and our focus on quality and margin. Infrastructure's revenue is up 35%, and this is driven by our environment business. The continued improvement in AMP7 revenues and of course, it includes the full 6-month benefit of the acquired nmcn business, which didn't contribute much in the equivalent period last year. More importantly, both building and infrastructure showed margin progression compared to this time last year, with operating margin in both divisions up to 2.3%. Pre-exceptional operating profit before amortization is up 57% at GBP 10.8 million. This includes GBP 3.6 million on the sale of our interest in the joint venture business. This has no impact on the improved divisional margins as it's reported through our Investments business. But of course, it does benefit EPS this year. The disposal was a one-off sale of a noncore investment, not part of our PFI portfolio and doesn't change our overall strategy on PFI. Central costs of GBP 6.5 million are a little bit higher than this time last year due to some increased share-based payment costs and also some half year timing differences. And interest income was up by GBP 1 million, reflecting improved returns on our cash position. We've reported exceptional costs of GBP 4.5 million. These are entirely related to our investment in our cloud-based IT systems as described last year and which is still progressing to plan. The pre-exceptional tax rate at the half year of 19.5% is just below the standard rate. The rate was much lower last year due to recognition of brought-forward losses, but is now beginning to normalize towards the standard rate, as we indicated last September that it would do. Altogether, this means that EPS has increased by 49% compared to last year. The quality of our order book and contract portfolio continues to be a key driver of our margin improvement. Operating profit pre-amortization has increased to GBP 10.8 million, and you can see the underlying business improvement behind this with 30% of that increase directly from margin improvements. And that's despite the fact that there is GBP 600,000 of net costs included in that margin from the 2 acquired businesses in the half year, MCS and Ham Baker. These are good investments, but have slightly dragged the margin in the half year. Without these, the GBP 1.2 million margin increase in the middle of the slide would have been GBP 1.8 million. And in a steady state, these acquisitions will deliver higher margin revenue. Our strong balance sheet, both our cash and our PPP assets continues to help us in the market in winning work and in engaging with the supply chain. It's worth repeating that we have no pension liabilities and no debt. Our intangible assets and goodwill increased as a result of the acquisitions in the period of MCS and Ham Baker. Our PPP assets are valued at GBP 46 million, which is at a blended 7.1% discount rate. This is a slightly higher discount rate than last year, and we have seen U.K. gilt rates increase, but these assets are very defensive and with a low risk profile, so the valuation is relatively unsensitive. The portfolio contributed GBP 2 million of interest income in the half year, similar to last half year. Month-end average cash was GBP 154 million with period-end cash at GBP 196 million. This is lower than last year, but it's still very strong, and the movement is summarized on the cash bridge. We invested GBP 4.5 million of cash in our IT upgrade, which you can see as exceptional items towards the right-hand side of the slide, and we returned GBP 10 million in dividends and through the start of our share buyback program. Operating cash flow was impacted by some delayed contract starts, as I referred to earlier. And the delayed contract starts as well as the funding of the acquisitions, including the unwind of acquired liabilities has resulted in a small operating cash outflow in the period. These features will remain in the second half year, so we expect average month-end cash in the full year to be similar to the first half year. Importantly, our daily cash performances are robust and resilient, and we continue to pay the supply chain well in 26 days on average. We paid 98% of invoices within 60 days. And for our small company suppliers, we paid close to 90% of invoices within 30 days, which is very, very good in the sector. We continue to prioritize and retain a strong balance sheet. Our balance sheet provides a competitive advantage, which helps to deliver our sustainable growth plans. It is valuable to our clients who see the importance of financial stability of their contractor and to ensure we're a partner of choice for our supply chain. And on top of that, it allows us to invest in our people, in quality, in digital assets and importantly, in adjacent markets, including when appropriate, acquisitions. Each of our adjacent markets has the opportunity to grow organically. And while we aren't reliant on bolt-ons, we'll also stay alert to opportunities that arise. Our strong balance sheet also provides mitigation against future adverse market conditions and gives us the confidence that we can pay a growing and sustainable dividend. Putting together the excellent performance, a strong balance sheet, the confident outlook, we today declared an interim dividend of 3p, which is 36% up on this time last year. And of course, as we deliver our strategy with revenue growth and margin growth combining, our dividends will continue to increase accordingly. And with that, I'll hand back to Bill.

Bill Hocking

executive
#3

Thanks, Andrew. So on to an update on progress on our sustainable growth strategy. This is a photo of Ascot Sewage Treatment Works, which is a refurbishment and upgrade of an existing facility and a good example of the type of work we do in the capital maintenance part of the business. The U.K.'s planned investment in economic and social infrastructure remains resilient and underpins our growth in core and adjacent markets. We have strong positions in these markets, which I'll come on to in a minute. Our ability to support clients' objectives to reduce operational and embedded carbon remains a work winning differentiator and the green retrofit market continues to gain momentum. We see inflation subsiding, along with the subsequent delays in converting preferred bidder positions and the availability of materials is generally no longer an issue. This slide is to demonstrate that we are grounded in reality and shows what we've been doing to manage the challenges in the economy over the last year. As I said, whilst inflationary pressures are subsiding, we maintain our attitude to risk by pricing in our view of inflation across the life cycle of each project or by ensuring contractual protections are in place. In addition to our collaborative relationships with our supply chain to mitigate the risk of supply chain failure, we've implemented an enhanced due diligence regime for key subcontractors. And of course, we pay them promptly, as you saw in Andrew's slides. Materials availability is generally no longer an issue, but notwithstanding that, we have maintained some of the early planning and procurement disciplines to mitigate risk. Retaining our excellent people and attracting new good people to the business is core to achieving our growth plans. We invest heavily in developing our existing staff and are pleased with our progress in attracting new high-caliber people to Galliford Try. We have a lower voluntary churn rate and an early careers population of 6.3%. We were one of the first contractors to pay our cost of living payment, which we paid to about half of our staff and are early adopters of the new rate of the real living wage. Finally, we continue to remain very selective about the projects we undertake, and this leads to a high-quality order book, which has allowed us to despite the challenges, maintain and improve our margins. Here as a reminder of our sustainable growth strategy. We have a simple aspiration to deliver high-quality products to our clients in a socially responsible manner and provide a good return to our shareholders. There are 4 cornerstones of the strategy. First and foremost is our people and the drive to be a value-driven inclusive progressive business where the safety of our people is paramount. We focus on retaining and developing our people and attracting new high-caliber staff to Galliford Try. We go about our business in a socially and environmentally responsible manner, striving to achieve our net 0 targets for 2030 and 2045 and contributing to the local economy around our projects by employing local people and by procuring goods and services through local companies as far as possible. We deliver high-quality products to our clients and embrace modern methods of construction, off-site build and digitalization to improve quality and efficiency. A high proportion of work is delivered through our supply chain. And so our advantage through alignment program of collaboration and our net-zero partners initiatives are important as, of course, is paying them promptly on averaging 26 days as you saw earlier. And all this comes together to provide good returns to our shareholders. Our strategy targets disciplined growth in our existing markets, which you see on the left and in 3 higher-margin adjacent markets on the right. the private rental sector, the green retrofit of existing buildings and asset maintenance or asset optimization in the water sector. Our targets for 2026 are revenue of around GBP 1.6 billion at 3% operating margin, and we're making good progress towards these goals. In our existing markets, all 3 businesses have excellent long-term framework positions, strong order books and are performing well. In our adjacent markets, we have seen a hiatus in the PRS market post the mini budget of last year, but sentiment seems to be improving of late. Momentum is growing in the green retrofit market and our capital maintenance, asset optimization operations in the water sector are gathering pace with the award of a number of long-term frameworks for existing water clients. Our growth is underpinned by our sustainability commitments, and you can see some recognition of this along the bottom of the slide, from the clear assured organization of our approach to inclusivity from the job crowd for our early careers programs, our input into the U.K.'s net zero carbon standards and contract of the year from the water industry. This external recognition helps Galliford Try to be an attractive destination for good people. It supports our clients' objectives. It's great for the industry and accentuates our ESG credentials. We will, of course, have a more fulsome ESG report at the full year. Here are some more detail on one of our adjacent markets, capital maintenance and asset optimization in the regulated water industry. We work for every major water company in the U.K., and we expect this to continue in a similar format through AMP8, which is through to 2030. We've been investing in this sector organically and through acquisition and are now one of the biggest players in the sector. The combination of Lintott, MCS and Ham Baker gives us excellent off-site manufacturing capability. The bar chart on the bottom right of the slide shows that the majority of our work at present is in the design, building and commissioning of water and wastewater treatment works. Our acquisitions have broadened our capability in off-site design and manufacture of controlled equipment and chemical dosing equipment. And this gives us the opportunity to capitalize on our geographical presence to offer our clients an end-to-end service through construction and into the long-term maintenance and optimization of their assets. So you can see from the second bar that the mix of work in our water portfolio is expected to change materially over time with the higher tech, higher margin work constituting a greater proportion of what we do. You've seen the slide before, and I've included it again to demonstrate that our approach to risk remains unchanged and core to our culture. We have robust risk processes at bid stage, strong project controls to the tendency of our projects and an embedded culture of risk awareness, where we only accept those risks that we can sensibly price and manage. This is another key slide, which reiterates how quality significantly more so than cost is the basis of how we win work. The quality price split in a public regulated sector is typically 70-30 or 80-20 as you see in this example. And you can see that nonfinancial metrics constitutes the majority of the marks available. The financial criteria will include things like balance sheet strength, prompt payment performance, the ability to get bonds and insurance and so on as well as overheads and profit. As it happens, I reviewed a bit just last week where social value constituted 15% of the quality marks. Social value is investing in the local community through employment, training and using a local supply chain as much as possible. And this example demonstrates the importance public sector clients are putting on this measure. This more mature method of client procurement is now the norm in the public and regulated sectors and increasingly so in the private sector and underpins a more sustainable construction industry. We have a robust order book at GBP 3.5 billion, up GBP 100 million in the same period last year. And you can see the details of the order book in building and infrastructure on the left-hand side. The split between the public and regulated sectors and the private sector remains steady at about 90-10. And this typically varies between about 90-10 and 80-20 with the AMP cycles in the water industry having the most influence. The order book continues to have all the attributes that we need to underpin our goals in terms of its quantum, its longevity through frameworks, its sensible risk profile and, of course, a high proportion of repeat clients. It's good to see the incidence of delayed project starts reducing and we expect this to continue. At the half year, we have the vast majority of this financial year's work secured and already have 79% work in hand for the next financial year, which is an excellent position. We focus on public and regulated sector frameworks as a means to secure long-term, high-quality work. The different frameworks will have slightly different attributes, but all of them provide sensible terms and conditions, aligned to our risk appetite and the ability to form long-term collaborative relationships with our clients and reduce our tendering costs. They give us long-term visibility of the pipeline and better, more consistent outcomes. And this slide demonstrates that. It's a good visual example of the forward visibility of the work that we get through our excellent framework positions across all of our sectors. You can see a solid pipeline of work out to 2026, and this underpins our culture of risk management and selective bidding. So in summary, we remain in very good shape. Thanks to our great people, we are doing what we said we would do, consistently delivering both growth and better margins supported by a strong balance sheet, excellent order book and good supply chain and client relationships. Our key KPIs are up on last year and we're very pleased to deliver an increased interim dividend on the same period last year. We remain confident in the outlook for the full year and beyond towards our 2026 targets. So that concludes the presentation. Thank you for listening, and I'll hand back to the operator to take any questions. Thank you.

Operator

operator
#4

[Operator Instructions] Next question is coming from Mr. Andrew Nussey calling from Peel Hunt.

Andrew Nussey

analyst
#5

A couple of questions from me, please. First of all, Bill, you referenced a strong pipeline of opportunity. Are there any areas of particular interest within that? And obviously, sort of aligned to that noted sort of AMP8 awards starting to come through. And within that, is there any suggestion that AMP8 will have less of the ramp-up, ramp-down of activity that we have seen historically, is the first question.

Bill Hocking

executive
#6

Okay. The pipeline remains strong across the board. I think that AMP8 campaign for decades to have the amplitude of the cycles between the AMP cycles sort of flatten a bit. But I do think that this time around, we will see a flatter sort of interaction between AMP 7 and 8. And AMP8 looks like it's going to be a bigger program than AMP7 by some margin. We've all seen in the press about CSOs and so on in the water industry. And I think that our acquisitions in particular, are going to help us address this market through AMP8 and beyond. So I think AMP8 will be good for us personally. And then looking further forward, of course, we've got [ rules 3 ] in the highways markets coming through and in an undiminished pipeline in the public building sector across health and defense, education and so on. So we see no diminishing at all in the pipeline across the board.

Andrew Nussey

analyst
#7

Okay. And so second question, again, sort of tied to environment. Obviously, as you highlighted in the deck that you're now working with all the water companies. Are there any economies of scale or any sort of opportunities for best practice sharing by virtue of the fact you're now bringing in the maintenance angle as well as sort of design and build?

Bill Hocking

executive
#8

Yes, there are. I think the one thing that we see from our geographical presence and the fact we work all these companies, Andrew, that we see the difference stands, different [indiscernible] have different engineering standards. And what we're trying to do is try to get them to harmonize them a bit further, which allows us to then produce exactly the economies of scale that you talk about. So for example, for [ tense ] water we deliver in the program of phosphate dosing plant, these are plants that are built in our factories and are delivered to sites over the whole of the AMP7 and probably to AMP8 period. But they're slightly different for the phosphate dosing possible for [indiscernible] water and so on. So if we can get the water companies to harmonize a little bit on what they do and have a more common platform, [indiscernible] to totally compare, but a more common platform, then that gives us the opportunity to do exactly that share best practice and provide economies of scale.

Operator

operator
#9

We'll now go to Mr. John Fraser-Andrews calling from HSBC.

John Fraser-Andrews

analyst
#10

I'll have a couple, please. So the first one is on inflation, the statement...

Operator

operator
#11

Mr. Fraser, can you please check your line, sir? Your line is breaking sir. Mr. Fraser-Andrews, Your line is really breaking sir. Could you just maybe just check it quickly now, we'll give you one more chance, please, sir.

John Fraser-Andrews

analyst
#12

Can you hear me?

Operator

operator
#13

We can now sir.

John Fraser-Andrews

analyst
#14

Great. So on inflation, how are you managing this? And are you seeing this leading to any delays or cancellations in contracts? Doesn't seem to be an issue in the order book, but sort of how significant is this issue in the industry?

Bill Hocking

executive
#15

Well, inflation is definitely settling down, John. And I think what we need to be careful of is misinterpreting inflation setting down and costs going down because I would say what we see is cost plateauing and becoming far more stable and predictable with inflation slowing down. But so I think the whole environment on site is much more predictable and stable, both in terms of inflation, in terms of materials availability, in terms of people or trades availability anyway. And so yes, I think the overview is that it's much more stable altogether.

John Fraser-Andrews

analyst
#16

Bill, is this deceleration in inflation, is this perhaps providing a margin opportunity for you given that you may have budgeted for higher costs than you might see on some of these items?

Bill Hocking

executive
#17

Well, I think 2 things, John. It's probably a bit early to say that just yet. But I think the other thing which is worth mentioning is that what we've seen in this inflationary spike is a highly good pragmatism from most of our clients, not all of them, but most of them, where they've allowed us outside of the contract to put in mechanisms to protect us against inflation. And so the quid pro quo of course, of that is that as inflation comes down and settles, we might have to give a little bit of it back. So the point is that we've been protected on the way up, and I think that will sort of be buffered on the way down by the opposite. So overall, I think that typically, what we see in inflation cycle is margins improving as inflation goes down. And I think we will see some of that in the fullness of time. But as I say, that will be moderated to quite an extent by the trades we've seen from our clients and the quid pro quo.

John Fraser-Andrews

analyst
#18

And...

Bill Hocking

executive
#19

Sorry, John, you're breaking up again.

John Fraser-Andrews

analyst
#20

The final question, Bill, was on the housing development that you're doing, you mentioned the hiatus. Can you talk about that market? Is it kicking off again in terms of demand for rental property? And are you seeing a pipeline in that area?

Bill Hocking

executive
#21

Yes. Look, I think the long-term pipeline for PRS is incredibly strong. And the hiatus following the mini budget last year was just the PRS companies just posing for best and having a look at the interaction of construction price increases and inflation and rental yields and things like that. And they're just waiting to see it all settle down before it goes again. So we have no doubt that, that market remains robust in the long term. And our first development is, it was affected by this delay. But hopefully, we'll be on the ground, we'll sign up anyway in the next probably half of this year.

John Fraser-Andrews

analyst
#22

Are your margin aspirations in this Bill affected at all by market conditions?

Bill Hocking

executive
#23

No. Obviously, there's a bit of recalibration needed John, but overall, we still expect to make typically double our construction margins through the combination of the front-end development gains and the standard construction margin.

Operator

operator
#24

Today's next question is coming from Mr. Alastair Stewart calling from Progressive Equity Research.

Alastair Stewart

analyst
#25

Andrew, I have 3 questions with me. One is fairly straightforward. The PPP directive valuation came down from GBP 48.3 million to GBP 46.1 million. You mentioned in the RNS, the discount rate expanding from 7% to 7.1%. Was the decline in the valuation purely an effect of that change in discount rate? Or were there other moving parts? Question one. Question 2, you suggested, Andrew, that the working capital position would be similar in H2 and you'd have similar average net cash in H2. As things normalize, looking into FY '24, do you see the average net cash increasing and what's going to drive that, if that's the case? And then finally, you said quite rightly for some time that our strong balance sheet is a differentiator, you win some proportion of work on the basis of that, that previously would be a subjective comment. Have you got any numbers to back that up, the percentage of contracts awarded? Is that based base of balance sheet strength, earlier, you mentioned the ESG side, I think, it was 15% waiting in contract decisions. Anything objective to back up that view?

Andrew Duxbury

executive
#26

Let me pick those up. So on the PPP valuation change. So there's a little bit of redemptions in there. And then it was also on the change in discount rate. It's probably the change in value is probably kind of half and half between those 2 things, Alastair. And obviously, we look at the discount rate, but these are, as I said in the presentation, very low-risk assets. So relatively small impact. In terms...

Alastair Stewart

analyst
#27

Sorry, just on that point. That was the blended average discount rate, 7.1% during the half year. Is that likely to rise any further in H2 and going into next year because certainly the spot rate is higher year-on-year, as it were?

Andrew Duxbury

executive
#28

Well, we look at it at each reporting period. And Alastair, based on the fact of circumstances at the time. So we will obviously keep that under review, but those are [indiscernible] assets. Very happy with the valuation of those. In terms of the second question, in terms of [indiscernible], it's the net cash on the balance sheet. So you're right. We've guided to a similar position for the full year. I think as we go forward, we expect to be cash generative at the operating cash level and certainly, as the business grows, I think we will see that coming through. And certainly, some of the impacts through FY '24, so for example, in terms of our spend on the IT investment that we've got and some of the unwind of the liabilities in the acquired businesses, those will become less of an impact in FY '24 than they are in FY '23. So I think that should benefit the position as we go forward. And then in terms of your third question on balance sheet differentiation. So I suppose there's 2 things I'd say. So the first is, you can see on the scoring mechanism that Bill referred to in the presentation that we do get scores and we do get marks in our tenders for the strength of our balance sheet. So that clearly helps us in terms of getting better scores. And so you can see that's the way the mechanism works in some of the tenders. And there are specific size and projects that I could point to where we've been invited to negotiate for the work and often a one-on-one negotiation. And part of the reason that we've been invited is because of our balance sheet strength. So I can't give you a sort of precise number of exactly how many of our contracts we've won because of our balance sheet strength. But I can tell you that as I say that's in those scoring mechanisms, it's always helpful, and there are specific examples where we've been brought in because of that strength directly. So it is real. It is real and tangible.

Alastair Stewart

analyst
#29

I'm not sure if it was. I just wondered if there is anything tangible you could probably [indiscernible] you mentioned the scoring mechanism with ESG, but no, it certainly sounds like it's a real benefit.

Andrew Duxbury

executive
#30

Yes, absolutely.

Operator

operator
#31

Next question today will be coming from Mr. Alex O'Hanlon from Liberum.

Alexandro da Silva O'Hanlon

analyst
#32

Just one question from me. You and other contractors constructive have previously reported that one of the key risks is out of the supply chain failure. How do you believe this risk has evolved over the last 6 months as inflation and material shortages have become more predictable, i.e., you see that risk reduced?

Bill Hocking

executive
#33

Well, Alex, what we've seen so far is in the press some failures in the sort of smaller general contracting fraternity. We've seen 2 failures from our perspective in the supply chain on our projects, both of which we spoke about at the full year last year. We've not seen any more since then, and we've managed those again, with the pragmatism of our clients well, I think, and without detriment to our numbers. So we still hear a lot about tension in the supply chain. What we do is sort of enhance due diligence on our key suppliers, and we stay very close to our various programs of advanced alignment and so on. So we know our key supply chain very well, and we're not overly exposed to any one company because of our sort of regional nature. So overall, we've not been overly affected by it. And I have no reason to suspect that will change in the near future.

Operator

operator
#34

Next question today will be coming from Mr. Greg Poulton calling from Singer Capital Markets.

Gregory Poulton

analyst
#35

Yes, I just had one on inflation. And Andrew, you discussed this morning that you're seeing some inflation moderating in certain areas. Could you just give a bit more color on why you're seeing that? And the second one was just on the interest income was quite high in the first half from last year. Is that likely to repeat in H2 this year?

Andrew Duxbury

executive
#36

I'll take inflation, if you want to take interest income. So Greg, inflation, as I said earlier on, inflation has generally moderated. We still see some price increases here and there. But generally, they're well sign posted so we know they're coming. And generally, of course, we are much better protected or contractually against the impact of inflation than we were right back at the start of all of this. But the key thing is not to confuse prices with inflation. So in prices, we do not see going down yet. They've sort of plateaued, but the rate of growth has stabilized as well that I put it more manageable grade is the bottom line.

Gregory Poulton

analyst
#37

Yes. Okay, understood.

Bill Hocking

executive
#38

Yes, just on the interest story, Greg, there's kind of 2 main contributors to our interest income. So one is the interest we get from the PFI portfolio, that's GBP 2 million, and that's very similar to last year. So last full year, it was GBP 3.9 million. So I'd expect that part to continue at a similar level. And then the interest that we received from just on our cash deposits obviously increased this half year compared to previously. I would expect that to be, again, something similar in the second half year.

Operator

operator
#39

We have a follow-up question now from Mr. Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt.

Andrew Nussey

analyst
#40

Just a quick follow-up from me. In terms of capital allocation, if we go back to when you reported in September, you gave a range, which you felt average net cash and PPP assets combined would support the delivery of the FY '26 target. Is that range still valid as you look forward sort of 6 months on?

Andrew Duxbury

executive
#41

I think the short answer, Andrew, is yes. So that range, which we gave, which is the business grows about GBP 1.6 billion. turnover when we gave that range, that's still our thinking on that. No change.

Operator

operator
#42

As we have no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the conference back to Mr. Bill Hockey for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.

Bill Hocking

executive
#43

Okay. Well, thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. Just to reiterate, we're really pleased with our performance in the half year, and we're in good shape to deliver in the full year, too. And I look forward to speaking to you again with Andrew in September. Take care, keep well. Bye-bye.

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