Hercules Plc ($HERC)

Good morning, and welcome to the Hercules Plc FY 2025 Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Brusk Korkmaz. Good morning to you.

Good morning, Alex. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for being here today. We really appreciate your time, your support and your patience over the last year. Myself and Paul, I would like to give you a quick summary for 2025 financial year before starting our presentation. Last year was a year of strong progress in Hercules. Our revenue grew 19% to GBP 121.2 million. and our underlying EBITDA increased to GBP 6.4 million. That was a 35% increase. We also completed 3 strategic acquisitions that Advantage NRG, QTT and Lyons Power Services. And these acquisitions are helping us to build a stronger platform for our long-term growth. At the same time, we also disposed of one business that was Suction Excavator business. As you might remember, we went through a significant amount of corporate activity during 2025 financial year. As you are aware, we are a high-growth company. When Hercules is on the AIM just 4 years ago, we were turning over around GBP 25 million. Now we have grown to more than GBP 120 million in revenue. During that rapid growth, some of our internal controls did not keep pace, as you might have seen from the RNS and our end of year results, post year-end audit identified gaps mainly linked to the onboarding and documentation process around a small number of training providers. We dealt with this thoroughly and professionally by bringing in specialist accountants and lawyers while carrying out full remediation program internally across the business. Combined with the level of acquisition and disposal activity during the year and as well as the growth, this process took time, delayed our accounts, and we fully understand the frustration that caused. Before we start the presentation, I'm just going to pass to Paul to say a quick hi to you all.

Hi, everybody, and thank you again for your patience when we got the accounts finalized. It was just as frustrating for us, believe you, me, as it was for you, and we apologize for that. We have no intention of anything like that happening again. But it's worth putting it into perspective. The qualification of the auditors issued was on a very, very minor area. It's a very specific and defined area, as Brusk has just explained, had nothing to do with the numbers or our normal performance. The remediation plan, again, that Brusk just mentioned, is virtually complete. The last few bits will be done in a couple of months' time. And we're making big headway in terms of development. We've got 2 major IT implementations, Pay and Bill, which goes live in July this year and a new ERP for those who are interested in Microsoft Dynamics in April of next year. This really will set us up for the next 10 to 15 years. As well as that, we ended the year in a very, very good financial position. We ended up with GBP 7.2 million in cash in the bank, which was up GBP 0.8 million on the previous year. We have a great working capital facility of GBP 16 million. At the time of the end of the year, we're only using GBP 6 million of it. Underlying profit after tax increased from GBP 2.2 million to GBP 3.8 million, which is a very, very good trading result. And that generated cash -- operating cash of GBP 7.6 million. So as you can see, it was a good year. There's no [indiscernible] about it financially. But we're not standing still. We're not sitting here and saying, we're not doing anything more, cracky. We've got loads going on. So recent acquisitions and business development has given us broader capability than ever, whether it be in power and energy or in water or in rail or even with the Scottish office opening. And don't forget, the backdrop, the market backdrop we have is still very, very significant. The government's GBP 725 billion infrastructure commitment over the next 10 years is unchanged. It's still there. Brusk, back to you.

Thank you, Paul. Just to mention a couple of other things before starting the presentation as we move forward in Hercules, we welcome the questions, whether it's around the audit, project delays or the pace of the acquisitions, we are here to answer them openly and transparently. The key message from today is that we identified the issues, we addressed them properly, and now we have a clear plan and much stronger controls in place going forward. As you already know that every growth company sometime in their sort of lifespan goes through the growing pains, and we went through it last year. So we have been very ambitious pushing -- still growing as well as acquisitions and this sort of delay happened. But we learned our lessons, so it's not going to happen again. Most importantly, the opportunity ahead of us is very exciting. The long-term pipeline across power, water, nuclear infrastructure and rail remains really strong, and we are well positioned to capture that growth. So after the initial few words from me and Paul, I will start our presentation, if that is okay. Paul, if you wouldn't mind putting the next slide, I would appreciate that. Just to give you a brief introduction for our company, Hercules Plc is a leading U.K.-based construction and infrastructure services group. As I've mentioned before, we had a record 2025. Our revenue, underlying EBITDA, underlying profit before tax and underlying earnings per share all increased comparison to year ending 2024. We have achieved these strong results through record demand in our labor supply division across the group. We also have our additional growth initiatives are progressing really well. Our labor supply rail client base has increased and diversified. As you might have remember, we have opened our Hercules Construction Academy over a couple of years ago. There's a huge skill shortage in the U.K. and ambitious plans to build, spend GBP 725 billion in infrastructure. So we have opened up our Hercules Academy, and we have trained over 2,000 people in our academy so far. We also had our size operatives grown to over 50 people. Our targeted M&A strategy is going well. Also, Advantage NRG is being the biggest out of the 3 companies we acquired this year. Advantage NRG, they are doing really well. They are overhead linesman supply company in the overhead transmission lines, and they are doing amazingly well. We are already establishing cross-selling opportunities between our divisions and acquisitions. We have already secured contracts with National Grid, SSE and Balfour Beatty Power and Energy. We entered the financial year 2026 with strong growth opportunities, as you might have seen from our -- one of our [indiscernible] earning's -- post period. We acquired Lyons Power Services as they're a specialist company supplying commissioning and electrical engineers for high voltage and low-voltage substations. Great company. Again, we have already started seeing them growing over the last few months that we have acquired. We also opened up our regional office in Scotland as there are a few big projects starting in the north part of the U.K. So we want to take -- we want to make sure that we are involved on those projects. The next slide is about our financial performance. Now I will take you through the figures that represent our financial performance for 2025. As you can see, our revenue grew 19%, GBP 121.2 million. Our underlying EBITDA grew to GBP 6.4 million, which is a 35% increase. Underlying PBT grew again to GBP 4 million. That's a 55% growth and our underlying EPS also grew 36% to 4.74p. Again, really successful year, very, very strong record numbers. We haven't had those numbers before. So we managed to grow last year also. We also generated cash around GBP 7.6 million. This slide is about our business overview. At the bottom of this slide, you can see some of our blue chip clients we work for in the infrastructure sector. As I mentioned before, we are mainly a labor supply company, working for the blue-chip infrastructure companies and complemented by our Construction Services division. Our Labor Supply division is our core business, and it's a significant part of our company, which currently contributes to 86% of our turnover, and this percentage is still growing. We have been supplying labor into U.K.'s highways, rail, nuclear energy, utilities, power and energy in the transmission lines as well as other infrastructure projects. Under the Construction Services division, we carry out our civil projects in the water industry, and we also operate our Hercules Construction Academy and our Lyons Power Services divisions. The biggest USP we have got is that we can supply all of these services by cross-selling opportunities to our clients under the same umbrella. Our cross-selling has built a strong client loyalty with some staying with us over 18 years, and we continue to grow our client base every year. The next slide is about our -- sorry, can you hear me? Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Sorry about just cut off and I came back on again. As you can see from this slide, we've had a very strong growth history. I set up Hercules in 2008 from a family care bedroom. And since then, we've been growing every year. You can also see from this slide that there are several milestones we achieved over the last 18 years. Just to mention some of the significant milestones winning the HS2 labor supply framework in 2021 for the Birmingham section for Beatty and VINCI joint venture. At the beginning of February 2022, we listed Hercules on the AIM market, and this is a major milestone for us. And another milestone is the Future Build Recruitment. As you might remember, we completed our first acquisition over 2 years ago and Future Build Recruitment. They are a great white collar company specialized in supplying personnel -- white collar personnel in the construction side, making them a great addition to our existing blue collar labor supply division. Just to mention something here that as you can see from this slide, our revenue has been growing since we started in 2008. So every year, apart from the COVID year, every year, we managed to grow, including last year also. So our aim is to grow. Obviously, we are going to concentrate on the margins and specialist acquisitions are going to help us with that. And we are going to increase our profit margins accordingly. I just wanted to bring your attention to our compound annual growth rate CAGR for the last 3 years being 23%. So we are growing in the right direction. As you can see from the top right corner of this slide, some of the government's investment programs in rail, nuclear energy, renewable energy and water sectors. We believe that we are well positioned to grow even further for the next 10-plus years. Paul, I think the next slides are yours.

Thanks, Brusk. Yes. So this is -- some of the numbers have just been up on previous slides, but let's just have a quick look at them. So revenue increased to GBP 121 million, up from GBP 101.9 million. That's a 19% increase. The underlying EBITDA has increased 35% from GBP 4.7 million to GBP 6.4 million and profit before tax underlying grown 55% from GBP 2.6 million to GBP 4.0 million. So all in all, a year of progression. This growth is -- some of this growth is organic, but as well some of it came from the acquisitions that we have. Brusk just talked about Lyons and talked about Advantage NRG. The ones that affected 2025 is Advantage NRG and to a smaller extent, the QTT acquisition, which is in the Training Academy space. They've contributed, as you can see, to some of the overheads increase, but as well, they've contributed more in terms of gross profit, helping us achieve that -- the result that we did. This is all about Labor Supply. So Labor Supply has increased from GBP 84 million to almost GBP 107 million. That's 27% growth in revenue and a healthy increase in underlying operating profit at the same time. Part of that good increase there was down to higher margin levels within the NRG business, even though we only had them for 4 months of that -- of the '25 financial year. But we -- as I said before, we did get some continued organic growth through some -- through a nice strong project pipeline that helped us in 2025. Those new clients keep rolling in, Beatty Power and Energy, preferred supplier, List National Grid and SSE. We've now got around 1,700 operatives across all sites. You'll be aware from when we've spoken before about our recruitment app, which is one of the cornerstones of how we run our business. Up to 20,000 people or more now have downloaded the app. At the same time last year, it was 15,000. And the Academy is a very, very important part of our Labor Supply operation, upskilling and cross-skilling our operatives through the academy. We've now done over 2,000 operatives. And the more we can do through our academy, the less we have to do through external training suppliers. Civil projects, mostly what's happening in the water sector. For those of you who are familiar with the AMP program, asset management program that stands for, AMP7 finished in March of 2025 and AMP8 started then. That's -- each one of these AMP period is a 5-year program. And as usual, a very, very slow start in the first year and you can see that in the revenues going down to GBP 13.5 million. The good news is that already for the financial year of '26, we've won projects, which will have an impact in the '26 financial year of GBP 14 million, and that's changing by the day at the moment. The way the AMP program normally works is the first year is slow, picks up in the second year and the last 3 years are crazy. So -- and you can see that is showing in the '26 element there of project won. We are working with all of the water companies pretty much of certainly these Thames, Anglian, Severn Trent, Southern Water and Affinity. And the bottom right [indiscernible] really worth pointing out that's 46 projects that were completed by the civil projects team in that year, which I think is a record in terms of what they've done. This is talking about M&A activity. Brusk has already mentioned some of the companies that we've done. Just worthwhile focusing on this. You'll see on the right-hand side, that's a lovely picture of some of the team at Advantage NRG and a great big pylon behind them with the cables that they no doubt put together. When we bought the business in June of 2025, we inherited 170 employees. They're the leading provider of overhead linesman in the U.K.'s power transmission and distribution network. This sector for us is really, really important. It's a high-growth sector over the next 10 to 20 years, we believe. And we need to get into what is clearly a rapidly growing sector. This is really the first stride that we made into that sector. And it's worthwhile pointing out, as I've said before, they are a high-margin business. Demand and supply coming together to deliver that high margins -- those high margins. Lyons Power Services may be a smaller business, but it's got great opportunities, and it's in the right space that power and energy sector over the next 10 to 15 years. And there will be some cross-selling opportunities with Lyons and with NRG and with other parts of the group as the years progress. QTT, we didn't buy the company. We bought the assets, and we -- [indiscernible] the employees over. But what that does to us -- for us is it enables the delivery of more courses at the academy, boosted that team and will no doubt increase what we can deliver as the years progress. Finally, I don't want to forget them. The acquisition was done in '24 financial year, but Future Build have had some great growth in the last 2 years and are moving forward in a very, very positive way. So what else has been going on? Well, most of you, I think, will notice that we did a rebrand. Why? Well, we were no longer just a site services business nor would we stay a site services business. So we made it easier for everybody, simple brand, allowing for structural change, Hercules Plc. We needed to make investments for the future. We can't just sit with some of the systems that we had and expect to deliver continued growth. The systems that we had -- have been put in place in 2016 when the business was quite a small private company. So much has changed in terms of growth. And those systems weren't exactly state-of-the-art at that point either. So we had to make a change. We've been planning for it for 2 years. The culmination of that is going live on the Pay and Bill system in July of this year. We're in parallel running at the moment. So it's a very exciting time. And we're also going for a new ERP system. As I mentioned earlier, Microsoft Dynamics used all over the world by thousands and thousands of large companies. That we intend to implement live running in April of next year. That will set us up for the future. We also hired a new Business Development Director, and he formed a little bit of a team around him. This is very much a strategic client to help with the growth into new markets and new clients. We do very well. Brusk was talking about the client relationships that we built earlier on. Well, there are some clients we've not yet done that -- been able to do that with. So it's very, very important that we start to build those relationships and to get into new markets, whether that be Scotland, whether that be as we've been talking about power and energy, et cetera, et cetera, there's more markets that we can get into, and we need a team to do that. We want to have more influence on the sorts of things we do in the future, given that labor supply projects start when the clients are ready to start, and we have to work with them when they start and when they finish, the more we can get involved in and pull our own levers for the future, it's a better thing to be able to do. And yes, we launched into Scotland. So we've always wanted to set up in Scotland. It was a very strategic move, and it will provide opportunities across the whole group, but in particular, power transmission and distribution, water as well and labor. And we've got a small team up there to move things forward, but we will grow that business in Scotland. Brusk, back to you now, I think.

Thank you, Paul. This slide is about our current trading and our industry outlook. As you might be already aware that there are delays in some of the infrastructure projects in the U.K. But the water sector is getting busier as AMP8 is starting to ramp up. We've got over 1,700 people employed by us, which is a record number for our company. That means things are going in the right direction. Infrastructure remains buoyant with GBP 750 billion investment earmarked across our main sectors, and they are nuclear, power and energy, rail and highways as well as the water sector. The next AMP, which is AMP8 in the water sector has a committed investment of GBP 104 billion over the next 5 years, more than double the GBP 51 billion investment in comparison to AMP7. So we believe that we are going to be minimum twice as busy over the next 4 to 5 years in comparison to the last AMP. Network Rail CP7 investment plans representing a GBP 44 billion investment into the rail network is from April 2024 over the next 5 years. And in the rail sector, we are well positioned to maximize our revenue and profit and our rail numbers are growing up also. As you might have already aware that the U.K. government committed to major infrastructure projects throughout 2026 and beyond, including initial investment of GBP 14 billion, GBP 14.2 billion in nuclear energy such as [indiscernible], along with numerous SMRs and carbon capture projects such as Net Zero Teesside as well as major power and energy transmission and distribution projects in various parts of the U.K. As you can see from the list of these investments, we are well positioned in the market to further grow over the next 10 years. Next slide is about our growth strategy. As you can see from this slide, we have multiple growth opportunities for our future. With regards to the M&A activity, as I mentioned previously, that we acquired 4 companies so far contributing to the overall group. They are doing well, and they will be growing over the next few years. We have a targeted acquisition approach, and we are searching for other potential acquisition opportunities, which is going to enhance our margins and our capabilities. With regards to growth between our divisions, we have got strong pipeline of projects into financial year 2026 and beyond. As I mentioned previously, there are billions of pounds being invested for the AMP8. We are the biggest labor supply company in the U.K., supplying labor to Thames Water, Southern Water, Anglian Water, Severn Trent Water, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water. And we want to take advantage of this spend and train our people in our academies and put them to work. Regarding the power and energy distribution projects, the U.K. government is committed to ensuring energy security across the country. Major power and energy transmission and distribution projects are starting in Scotland, England and Wales, and we are already a framework supplier for our blue-chip clients in these regions. So we are ready to go when this kick off properly. And we are expecting that it's going to start from 2026, second part onwards, potentially pushing to 2027. But when it starts, it's going to be quite busy over the next 5 to 10-plus years. This is the end of our presentation. Thank you so much for listening to us today, and we really appreciate your feedback. And please feel free to ask any questions. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Operator Instructions] I would like to remind you that recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via dashboard. And Brusk, Paul, at this point, if I may now hand back to you to take us through the questions, and I'll pick up from you both at the end. Thank you.

Thank you, Alex. Okay. So the first one we've got is do you intend to expand further south in the U.K.? Brusk, can you take this one?

Yes, no problem. Yes, potentially, at the moment, most of the infrastructure opportunities are in the North, which is why we recently expanded to Scotland. We are also looking at Ireland as well. That southern projects like the Lower Thames Crossing and Heathrow third runway are definitely on our radar. We'll continue to follow the opportunities and client demand rather than expanding just for the sake of it. So when clients projects starting in this region, southern part of the U.K., we are ready to go. So yes, no problem.

Okay. Next one. Why are projects being delayed? And how materially will half 2 of 2026 revenues be affected? Brusk, do you want to do this one?

Yes, no problem. We have seen some delays in the key projects starting during the first half of this financial year, and we are being very open about this. A lot of this is due to major frameworks in the water and energy taking longer to move into live delivery phase. Importantly, these delays are not cancellations. They are just delays. It's something that we are seeing across the sector, not just at Hercules. But long-term infrastructure pipeline remains still very strong and supported by the government's GBP 725 billion infrastructure commitments. Overall, we still expect revenue growth to continue this year and beyond, and we'll keep the market updated when we start these projects.

Okay. So next question. Have the Advantage NRG and Lyons acquisitions both been accretive? Well, I'll cover this one off. The simple answer is yes. Obviously, NRG was completed in June of last year. So we only had 4 months of contribution into the business accounts for that year. But that was circa GBP 2 million in terms of post-tax profit, about GBP 9 million worth of revenue. And that obviously has continued into this financial year. The first half year because it's the -- what we would call the winter half is lower, but we expect to be seriously higher in the second half of the year. Lyons, again, we only purchased them on the 1st of October. So having an impact in '26, but not in '25. Again, they're delivering at the moment more than what they were doing before, before we bought them. And that's before we really start to do a great deal more of the cross-selling. And we've helped them with a number of things. So yes, they're very accretive to the overall group position as well. Okay. Right. Let's move on to the next one. Was the GBP 2.5 million dividend paid by Advantage to Hercules Plc in January indicative of Advantage profits? Well, I think I mostly answered that with the previous question. But yes, yes, we only bought them because we thought they were a great buy for the future, and they make profit, they make money. So yes, that's the simple answer to that question. Okay. So the next one. Right, Brusk, this maybe one for you. Is HS2 work arriving in line with management expectations?

Yes, great question. Yes, it is going really well. We have 1 of the 5 labor supplies on the HS2 Northern section in Birmingham, which remains one of the largest construction projects in Europe, and it continues to provide a strong and stable stream of work for us. As with any major infrastructure project, activity levels can move up and down depending on the stage of the program. But you might have seen from the news that the program has been extended. So we are expecting to stay there longer. That is also why we have diversified into power and energy as well because of the levels are moving up and down. And we also moved to Scotland as well. So HS2 is a very important part of our business, but it is no longer the only driver of growth. So we have other opportunities to pursue and grow. Thank you.

Okay. So the next one. Could you please explain the HMRC settlement figure of GBP 157,000? Of course, we can. So in 2022, we made a voluntary submission to the inland revenue after advice from a BDO who have helped us with this. And it was looking at that year and years before it in terms of certain types of employee tax issues. And basically, we -- the voluntary submission that we identified, we paid virtually all of that pretty quickly after that, but they had to go through a process. And that process took 3 years for HMRC to come to the end of it, and we came to the end of it towards it was about a year ago from now, actually, when they basically contacted a lot of the individuals concerned to see what they've done, look at their tax returns. And the final figure, including interest, there was no penalties, it was just interest and differences between what the individuals have paid. That came to GBP 157,000. We paid it immediately. That issue is now resolved. That won't be a continuing cost. Hence, we treated it as exceptional. Next question. Is it prudent to continue to explore acquisition opportunities when cash may be lower in half 2 2026? Well, it's a fair and important question. And the Board, as you would expect, watches cash quite religiously, but we also have to look at opportunities as well. What I can say is that we will not do anything acquisition-wise that would compromise the group's financial stability. However, we're in a pretty good position at the moment and subject to how things progress in the next months, we will keep our eye on acquisition opportunities. If they're a strategic fit, if they're profitable, they're fairly easy to integrate and have got reasonable governance, then we will have a look at them. We've done funding before for these acquisitions. The Advantage NRG was funded with a loan -- a related party loan, but we managed to do Lyons without any funding at all because it's a comparatively small acquisition. I think we're in a good place financially. But to be clear, we will keep our eye on it, but we will keep our eye on acquisitions in a very sensible, planned, prudent way. What's the next one? Can you elaborate on the auditor's note regarding the risk of financial penalties and litigation? Okay. So the auditors did what you'd expect them to do. They put -- they disclosed what they would see as possible risk. It doesn't mean to say that there is any risk at all. It just said that they -- it was a possible risk. It's not a statement. It is really important. It is not a statement that penalties or litigation are expected or underway. Absolutely not. And I'll remind everybody what we do. What do we do about this? We employed specialist accountants and independent lawyers to go through all of this. And the whole Board was satisfied at the end of the process. And it was a lengthy process, as we've said, that no item of expenditure was in any way inappropriate. They were all properly incurred bits of expenditure. And as soon as that process started and some of these things came to light, we started to build a remediation plan, i.e., how do we correct elements of processes so that these sorts of perceptions because it was just perceptions to stop them happening again in the future to make us water tight and bring us up to a higher level of corporate governance. That remediation plan is virtually complete, but I can see another question coming up. So on the remediation plan. So I'll wait on and say more of it at that point. Okay. The next one is, will the next and future AGMs be streamed stroke hybrid events to maximize the shareholder engagement as recommended by the QCA Governance Code. Well, I think first thing first, we recognize how important the QCA Governance Code is to us being an AIM-listed plc, and we keep that under constant review. We've updated it in the light of recent events, and we will monitor it regularly with the rest of the Board. In terms of AGMs, there will be an AGM notice coming out very shortly of the next one. But we will absolutely review whether or not we can stream or have hybrid AGMs in the future. We will definitely do that. I would also -- it's worthwhile pointing out that Brusk and I spend a lot of time during the year whenever we can actually, what we do, we do lots of presentations, seminars and webinars throughout the year for potential shareholders and existing shareholders. And if you're able to come to any of those, please do and come and chat to us. We're always happy and ready to do that. Okay. Right. Next one is, how can you claim the investigation is almost complete and then say it won't complete until September? Sorry, you've got the fact slightly wrong there. The investigation was completed a while ago. It's the remediation plan, i.e., the points of what we're going to correct is what I'm saying is virtually complete, but there's a couple of points that it might take us a few months to put into place. That really is the answer to that one. This one isn't really a question from what I can see.

Paul, there are two, I don't know if maybe we can read from David. It says what are your thoughts on buybacks?

Yes, that's at the top now. Yes.

And what EBIT multiplies are you looking to acquire? So let's answer that one. Yes.

Yes. So what are our thoughts on buybacks? I mean, we really -- at this stage, we haven't had any thoughts on buybacks. We've got a good shareholder base, and we want to encourage people -- more people to invest in Hercules Plc. And the question has never been raised with us up to now. So being [indiscernible]

I know why David is asking because our share price is undervalued at the moment. I totally understand, David, but we can chat with the Board. But currently, we are not -- we haven't sort of thought about this yet.

Yes, absolutely.

So there's another question as well about EBIT multiplies, yes.

Yes. They're on the screen. Okay. So what EBIT multiples are we looking to acquire? Well, we don't actually look at EBIT multiples, to be honest. We mainly look at EBITDA multiples, but we have an eye to what else is going on in each of the potential acquisitions as we go through any due diligence. But that's a commercial point in terms of what multiples might be. But it's probably fair to say without giving too much away that we would be looking at anything between 3 and 5, perhaps more than that for something that was exceptional. That's sort of range.

Christopher H...

Yes. All the business development requirements in software, et cetera, budgeted and covered by company's internal cash flow, would hate to see dilution with share price at all times.

Can I answer the second part? So just we don't want to dilute when the share price is low. I mean I'm the biggest shareholder as well. We don't want to undervalue our company. We want to grow the share price now. I think we sort of saw the dip a bit because of our suspension, even though we had a really good year. So let's concentrate on that. Let's get our news out, our success plan out as well. We are a better and more stronger company than before with the things that we went through. Sometimes you go through pain to come out stronger in the end, and we have done that as well as growing as well as acquiring 3 companies and disposing more. So we had a really, really, really busy year. And that comes from being overambitious. And that's the whole point of being on the AIM market. What's the point otherwise? We could have been a private company and grow a little bit, but we don't want to do that. We want to grow and give our shareholders a really good value in the medium to long term.

Okay. I'll just cover the first part of that question. You say, Brusk, you cover the second part. So yes, is the easy answer. The software, et cetera, costs really will be coming to an end in March of next year, all the spend that we've done in '25 and '26, and it will continue into the first half of '27, but then it will be completed. And yes, it has been covered by internal -- the company's internal cash flow. Okay. This is an interesting one. Brusk, I'm sure you'll look to this one. Have you run out of new applicants? Is the app doing the job, record placements mentioned. And then its margin potential question mark. I'm not sure how to interpret that. Brusk, do you want to have a go?

Sure, sure, yes. We haven't run out of applicants. We have got a lot of applicants. We target an area normally. So when we are -- we don't advertise everywhere through our sort of apps. We target an area, say, if there's a job coming up in -- I'm just going to choose a bit of location, say, Scotland, Glasgow, if there's a project coming up there, and we would target that area and get the local people interested and look at their skills and what they have got and we can upgrade them as well to kind of better skills, give them more opportunities, qualifications to give opportunity to the U.K. workforce, to be able to work on these projects. So local employment is key for us because we believe that if you are working locally, you are happier at the end of the day, going back to your family and you'll be safer as well on site. You don't have to travel a lot. So that is our aim. And yes, no, we haven't run out of applicants. Actually, our app is working really well. We can target an area and target a project where the projects are and get the local workforce involved in these projects. So I think Christopher H. has asked a question...

Yes. Can I answer this?

So you asked the question. No, no, you asked the question...

I really have. Yes, Christopher H. What is the company's #1 priority for the rest of the year other than employee safety?

Yes. Employee safety is the most important one, as Chris mentioned. The most important for us is the profit margin as well as the compliance and the governance. So those are the two important things, and we are going to be making sure our profit margins grow as well as our -- we do things high level, high standards as well as pushing for the growth. Thank you.

Okay. A couple of questions left. You do the first one. I'll do the last one, Brusk. So this is from Gavin. How big could the Scottish Stroke Glasgow office get? T&D work in [indiscernible] Stroke Northeast situated. How big a client is SSE at present?

Yes. So SSE, we got the first contract recently. So we will be just starting with them. Probably they will trial us and huge opportunities, as you can imagine, because SSE is one of the big T&D transmission and distribution operator in the U.K. And Glasgow office, we are very positive about. That's why we have done the investment there. And Glasgow office will be pushing -- that will be sort of our base in Scotland. And with the Scottish workforce, we want to upskill wherever required to be able to operate from our Glasgow office to push people into remote parts of Scotland. Great opportunities, and we are very, very positive about Scottish, the expansion plans and the opportunities coming up because huge amount of work coming up. As you are already aware, the wind turbines on the -- in the sea, they come to the sort of to Scotland, and it doesn't get distributed. So you don't use the full capacity. So -- and T&D work is all about that, putting that electricity, the energy into the grid, bring them over the overhead linesman. There are thousands of kilometers of overhead lines -- overhead transmission network to be established, and we are the biggest supplier on that with Advantage NRG, and we are going to grow. We believe that we can probably double NRG within a couple of years, the size of it. So yes, great opportunities in Scotland and beyond and England and Wales as well. Thank you.

Okay. So last question. This is from [ AIK ], I think it says. What happened with the share price in recent times? Well, I don't think Brusk or myself would claim to have a complete understanding of what happens with the share price on different days. But you'll all be aware of the global events. There's a certain American gentleman whose actions do have an impact on the share price, not just our share price, but everybody's share price. We've been, again, sort of winning a number of jobs recently. And every time we put an announcement out of this, which is very, very positive news. We've done quite a few in the last 6 months. They do tend to have a good movement on the share price. But it's all about how people interpret information. Clearly, the suspension that we have to go through, we're now back on, took the share price off and it's now -- we're now back and everybody is now reacting to that. But we've got more good announcements to come, more good news to come in the months ahead, no doubt. So we're hoping that the market sees that, and we will see change in that share price in a very positive direction. But yes, unfortunately, we can't say a great deal more than that. Brusk, anything you want to add to that?

No, I think you answered it well, Paul. It's not in our sort of power to do that. But what is in our power to make sure that we grow profitably as well as we make sure that the compliance and governance is in place. So this sort of suspension doesn't happen again. As a CEO personally, I'm very embarrassed about the situation, and this will not happen again. I won't let it happen.

That's great, Brusk, Paul, if I may just jump back in there. Thank you for addressing all those questions for investors today. But Brusk, if I redirect investors to provide you with a feedback, which is particularly important to yourself and the company. Could I just please ask you for a few closing comments?

Yes. No problem. Thank you so much, Alex, for making this happen today. I just want to thank everyone. It was -- as I mentioned from the beginning, it has been a bit of a learning lesson as well for us 2025. But in a positive way because we want to learn these lessons. So when we are a bigger company, we grow strongly. So we got -- we put the remediation plan in place. We are investing in our IT plans, as Paul explained, ERP projects, as Paul explained. We have grown. So it was a positive year again. We don't want to sort of dwell on the mistakes that we have done. Unfortunately, this happened in a high growing company, and we'll make sure that this will not happen again. That is our plan. And the future is bright for us, huge investments coming up. So we've got a good base now. Let's build on and we've got an ambitious team. We've got a great team working with us, and I'm very confident we are going to grow. Thank you.

Fantastic. Brusk, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you now be automatically directed to provide your feedback, which will help the company better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.