Kier Group plc (KIE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our full year results presentation, both here in person and also I'd like to extend a warm welcome to those of you joining us by webcast and audio. I'm Andrew Davies. I'm Chief Exec of Kier Group, and I'm joined today by Simon Kesterton, our Chief Financial Officer. I'd firstly wish to pay tribute to our late Monarch, her Majesty the Queen, and express our thoughts for her family, the nation and the Commonwealth. This morning, I'll walk you through the highlights from the last 12 months to June 30, 2022. And then I'll hand you over to Simon to talk through the group's financial performance. This will be followed by an operational review, an update on ESG, and we'll finish off with our outlook. There will be an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. And we'll be taking questions from the room first, if I may. And then those of you who are on the conference call will have an opportunity to ask questions after that if you have any. So Kier has been on the journey over the last 3 years. There's been significant work done to turn around the business and address the legacy issues of the old Kier business, the culture, the cost control, contracts and the balance sheet problems. These were addressed with decisive management actions that I set out in the June 2019 strategic review, targeting 3 areas: Firstly, to simplify the business. Secondly, to generate cash. And finally, to strengthen the balance sheet. Just to go through the disclaimer. And now we'll go through the results summary on Slide 4. This year, we've delivered a strong set of results in the financial year. Simon will talk through our financial performance in a moment. But in short, we've achieved adjusted operating profit of GBP 121 million, a year-over-year increase of 20% on the prior year. We delivered an industry-leading adjusted operating margin of 3.7%, outperforming our medium-term target of 3.5%. All our divisions, Infrastructure Services, Construction and Property performed well during the year, and I'm very proud of my Kier team. Our focus is now firmly on delivering the medium-term plan through growth in our core markets and supported by U.K. government spending commitments. Therefore to deliver a 3.7% adjusted operating profit margin in year 1 of our 3 to 5 year plan increases my confidence in the business to continue delivering for shareholders. The group's net cash position at June 30 was GBP 3 million. We continue to work with our supply chain partners during the year to reduce average payment days and pay in line with terms and therefore, GBP 3 million was a great achievement given this context. An average month-end debt for the year was GBP 216 million compared with GBP 432 million in the prior year. The significantly improved year-over-year is -- sorry, the significant improvement year-over-year is primarily due to the equity raise and the sale of the group's house building business, Kier Living. Simon will talk through the details of this shortly. But we spent a large portion of our underlying free cash flow generation in paying down debt and debt-like instruments throughout the year. This includes the repayment of HMRC COVID-19 debt and eliminating our KEPS facility, which stood at GBP 79 million at the start of the year. With these debt-like items removed, our future cash -- free cash flow can go towards further deleveraging the balance sheet, and this continues to be a key priority for us. Our order book sets us up well for the medium-term plan and demonstrates that we continue to benefit from U.K. government spending. The order book has increased by 27% from GBP 7.7 billion to GBP 9.8 billion, reflecting a large number of contract wins across all divisions and providing multiyear revenue visibility. The underlying momentum in the business is now strong. We're now finding that customers are returning to their natural home and placing orders again with Kier and that the balance sheet has been strengthened, and it's a great position for us to be in. We've secured 85% of FY '23 revenue, which provides a high degree of certainty against the backdrop of wider market uncertainty and significant effort has been made to improve the quality of our order book as well. Over the last 3 years, we've exited low and loss-making contracts, and we're focused on winning work within U.K. Government and regulated authorities, and we spent a lot of time derisking the portfolio. Our order book is supported by long-term framework positions. Frameworks are our route to market. We've maintained and grown our central and local framework positions. However, unlike our peer group, we exclude long-term framework positions as well as pipeline opportunities and fees from our Property division from our order book. Therefore these represent an additional opportunity. And talking about Property division. The business has performed well during the year and delivered a return on capital of 14%. We've taken advantage of market opportunities in terms of timing of acquiring, building and selling sites. And the Property team have done an excellent job this year and have done so in a controlled and disciplined way, in line with our strategy. We're committed to sustainability framework and the ESG targets, which we'll talk about later in the presentations. But before I hand you over to Simon, I just want to talk briefly about cost inflation. We have seen inflationary pressure in the business related to materials, wages and other costs. At present we have not experienced supply chain problems in the business. However we are seeing certain projects having to be reappraised and therefore delayed due to cost pressures, and particularly in the construction business. There are a number of mitigations we've deployed given the circumstances. In terms of protection against cost inflation, approximately 60% of our order book is under target cost or cost reimbursable contracts such as HS2. The remainder of our contracts are negotiated contracts, including those on fixed prices. Those fixed price contracts are often fixed at a point in the project cycle and procurement risk has passed, thereby protecting against inflation risk on the project. Another mitigation is the average order size in our construction business of GBP 13 million. They tend to be relatively short in duration, over 12 months, so therefore tend to be renegotiated and repriced regularly. We also look to pass through any cost inflationary pressures up to our customers under the long-term frameworks, but also down to the supply chain partners, where we are best able to do so, and they are best able to manage and mitigate that risk. So this gives me a lot of confidence that we are able to effectively manage inflation and continue to deliver on our medium-term plan as we progress through the year. And with that, I'll hand over to Simon, who will take us through the detailed financial results.

Thank you, Andrew. Good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 6. This slide sets out a high-level income statement for continuing operations. Revenue, as Andrew mentioned, is flat as expected. That reflects volume growth in Infrastructure Services, offset by the anticipated revenue declines in construction as a result of the inflationary environment that Andrew mentioned, and I'll walk through this slot on the next slide. We delivered adjusting operating profit of GBP 121 million in the year, driven by increased activity in our Property business and management actions. Our Group is 20 basis points ahead of its medium-term plan margin target of 3.5%. The business has made a statutory operating -- a statutory profit before tax of GBP 16 million. This is after adjusting items and amortization. Last year's tax number was flattered by GBP 25 million deferred tax credit. We achieved adjusted EPS of 16.8p, this compared to 25p last year. As a reminder, EPS was impacted by the increased number of shares issued as part of last year's capital raise. On a like-for-like basis, adjusted EPS would have been 46.8p. Net cash consistent with last year was GBP 3 million and reflects free cash flow, including a working capital inflow, a reduction in our supply chain finance facility, KEPS and the final repayment of the HMRC COVID-19 debt. Average month-end debt was significantly lower than last year, reducing from GBP 432 million to GBP 216 million, and I'll explain these items in more detail in later slides. Turning to Slide 7. Starting on the left-hand side, we start with GBP 3.3 billion revenue. Infrastructure Services revenue increased by GBP 245 million, primarily due to the ramp-up of Capital Works on HS2. Construction decreased by GBP 328 million as a result of anticipated lower volume from procurement delays driven by cost inflation. We've seen customer budget approvals being delayed or value engineering to bring projects back in line with budgets. We also saw the completion of HMP 5 Wells prison in Wellingborough. As a reminder, the average size of the construction contract is typically GBP 13 million, whereas the HMP 5 wells was approximately GBP 215 million. You'll hear more from Andrew later on this, but we're pleased to see that our new prison in East Yorkshire, HMP Full Sutton is beginning to ramp up production. Property revenue increased by GBP 11 million as we took advantage of favorable market conditions, particularly in the industrial sector. Our property business typically operates through joint ventures. The revenue from our share of nonconsolidated joint ventures increased by 66%. Moving now to the adjusted operating profit bridge. We start with adjusted operating profit of GBP 100 million. Volume mix and price changes have resulted in the increase of GBP 1 million. The Property business was up by almost GBP 12 million as a result of several property completions. As you've heard from Andrew, this was a strong performance by the Property business and demonstrates what we can achieve. Over time, we expect this to become a sustainable performance as we increase the capital deployed in the business to between GBP 140 million and GBP 170 million. This has already commenced with a GBP 20 million investment in July. Looking at the current portfolio and where the investments are in that cycle, we expect that next year there will be less developments ready for disposal. And the focus will be on taking advantage of market buying opportunities. Cost inflation over the period amounted to GBP 8 million. We continue to see inflationary pressure given the macroeconomic environment, but also continue to mitigate the majority of this. Over 60% of our order book is made up of target cost or cost reimbursable contracts. And if we do choose to give price certainty to our customers, it will generally be done after ground and inflation risks are fully known. Also our average order size in construction, as you've heard, is only GBP 13 million, resulting in regular repricing of our contracts. Lastly we have management actions of GBP 15 million. Management actions predominantly relate to the cost savings from the regional construction -- the restructuring of our regional construction business. That restructuring is now complete. The result is an increase in adjusted operating profit to GBP 120 million. Adjusted items amounted to GBP 78 million in the period. Firstly, nearly half of these items are noncash. These being amortization related to historical acquisitions, impairment charges for real estate as we continue our office -- to consolidate our office footprint and a write-down of our recycling facility Pure due to an earlier fire. Next restructuring costs. Approximately GBP 22 million of the GBP 40 million restructuring cost relates to the regional restructuring and cost reduction in our construction business. As I said, that restructuring is now complete and no future charges are anticipated. The single largest item in the remaining GBP 18 million related to our office footprint rationalization. Other items of GBP 16 million include GBP 18 million related to -- GBP 8 million, sorry, related to fire cladding costs. Given the nature of construction projects we typically engage in, are following regulation change, our exposure has increased, but we estimate this could be a worst case between GBP 10 million and GBP 20 million. Moving on to free cash flow. We saw another year of strong free cash flow generation with conversion of our 90% medium-term target. The group generated adjusted EBITDA of GBP 165 million in the year. CapEx was GBP 47 million. However, GBP 34 million of this relates to payments made under leases now capitalized under IFRS 16. We have a GBP 4 million working capital inflow despite lower construction volumes, which will have resulted in a working capital outflow. As we flagged, there's been a reversal of the GBP 143 million working capital outflow we saw in the first half of the financial year, predominantly due to the traditional seasonality of construction activity. Working capital is driven by seasonality in the business. Some amounts tend to be a higher period of activity for Kier compared to the winter months. We also continue to reduce the time taken to pay our supply chain partners with payments reduced from 34 days to 33 days on average. We've repaid the final GBP 21 million of HMRC COVID-19 debt, and there was a GBP 29 million reduction of KEPS during the year, leaving GBP 50 million of KEPS outstanding at the end of the year. And as we announced at the time of our trading update in mid-July, the group repaid the remainder of this KEPS facility. These items will increase next year's average month end reported net debt by circa GBP 70 million, that means that our free cash flow is now available to pay down reported debt. If we take full year '21 and full year '22 together, we have repaid GBP 82 million of HMRC COVID-19 debt and GBP 76 million in KEPS, deleveraging the balance sheet by GBP 158 million. By the end of July 2022, we've reduced KEPS by GBP 170 million since full year '19. Turning over the page to Page 11, we have the net cash bridge. We start on the left-hand side with FY '21 closing cash of GBP 3 million. We then see the free cash flow generation of GBP 75 million I've just talked about and also the final HMRC COVID-19 debt repayment of GBP 21 million. Adjusting items of GBP 41 million, largely related to the regional construction restructuring, pension deficit payment and fees of GBP 15 million and a final payment of capital raise fees of GBP 6 million. And then there was a small other cash benefit of GBP 8 million. We ended the year in a net cash position of GBP 3 million. To elaborate on pensions, the pension payment is circa GBP 10 million, and the admin costs of GBP 5 million. The group started its triennial valuation in March 2022, and we would anticipate a material improvement in its funding position. Moving to Slide 12. This slide highlights the progress made towards our medium-term plan and the route to achieving a sustainable net cash position. In full year '21, we had GBP 582 million of debt and debt-like items, which include our reported debt, KEPS facility and HMRC 19 -- HMRC COVID-19 debt. In full year '22, the GBP 582 million of debt and debt-like items were significantly reduced to GBP 286 million, with the proceeds from the capital raise, sale of Kier Living as well as from the use of free cash flow generation. We achieved an average month-end net debt of GBP 216 million. In FY '23, notwithstanding positive free cash flow, we expect an increase in average month end net debt attributable to the HMRC COVID-19 debt repayment and the repayment of the KEPS facility as well as the impact of lower activity in our construction business until the fourth quarter of that year. In FY '24, we expect the reported net debt to decrease with free cash flow generation given the group's increased order book, expected revenue conversion and associated working capital inflow. The group also expects a significant reduction in adjusting items. Moving to financing and liquidity. The slide shows the current debt structure of the business following the refinancing last year. As a reminder, the majority of our facilities were extended as part of last year's refinancing are due to mature in January 2025. We also have considerable headroom. Slide 14 sets out our order book position. As you've heard from Andrew, our order book is high quality and significantly increased by 27% to GBP 9.8 billion compared to the June 30, 2021. We secured 85% of our full year '23 revenue as we continue to win work in our chosen markets. Significant effort has been made to improve the quality of the order book. We've exited low and loss making contracts, and we're focused on winning work with U.K. Government and regulated authorities. We continue to focus on managing risk and reward. Approximately 60% of our order book is under target cost or cost reimbursable contracts. And within the construction business, our average order size, as you've heard, is circa GBP 13 million. As mentioned earlier, having a relatively small average order size resulting as a regularly repricing contracts, this is beneficial to the group in terms of managing risks such as inflation. The order book continues to be underpinned by significant long-term framework agreements. Our long-term framework positions are currently excluded from the order book, as is the pipeline for our Property business. And of course, these represent further opportunities for the group. Moving to capital allocation. We are focused on optimizing shareholder returns accordingly as we generate cash from operations; we expect to deploy that in a number of ways. CapEx is expected to be minimal, but we do plan to invest further in our property business in order to generate consistent returns over time. We will continue to do this in a disciplined and controlled manner. Further deleveraging. As you're aware, we're targeting a sustainable net cash position in the medium term. We're targeting a dividend cover of around 3x earnings through the cycle. And once we have sight of our medium-term sustainable net cash position, we can begin that. With regard to mergers and acquisitions, the group will continue to consider value-accretive acquisitions in core markets where there's potential to accelerate the medium-term plan. And now I'll hand back to Andrew for the operating review.

So many thanks, Simon. Turning to Slide '17. Here we go. I'll give some color on some of the operational updates over the last financial year, and we'll start with Infrastructure Services business. As a reminder, this includes our highways, infrastructure projects and utilities business. And Mark Pengelly is here today, who runs the Infrastructure Projects business. We've seen impressive growth with a revenue increase of 17%. This is largely driven by the ramp-up of high-speed 2 capital works and our Infrastructure Projects business. As part of the Eiffage Kier Ferrovial and BAM or EKFB joint venture, Kier is delivering the longer section of earthworks, which is 80 kilometers from the Chilterns just -- to just south of Warwick. We have the lead on the project management and the program integrator in the joint venture. In the sector, our adjusted operating profit increased 7% to GBP 70 million. Adjusted operating margin remained strong for Infrastructure Services at 4.2%. And we've seen some of the volume benefits of HS2 being partially offset by increased contract mobilization costs in our utilities business. Our Utilities business has seen higher activity in the telecom sector with the U.K.'s Government's commitment to rolling out 5G connectivity across the country. And we're heavily involved in the maintenance activity on this with our telecoms team delivering approximately 5,000 new homes a month as part of the broadband rollout. We have positive momentum in the order book with an increase of GBP 1.2 billion. We've been awarded a significant amount of work across all of our businesses. So starting with highways. Our Highways business designs, builds and maintains roads across the U.K. We carry out a whole range of improvement, enhancements and upgrades to the highway network that we work on. And we've been awarded contracts worth GBP 560 million of both North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire Councils for 7 years. And we see our highways business is like an annuity business with multiyear contracts resulting in a steady revenue work stream. We've also won a number of other awards. We're on the Birmingham Highways contract extension, the National Highway scheme delivery framework and the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine scheme, the M6 Lune Gorge Structures and the A417 Missing Link. We're proud to be awarded this work and continue to leverage our expertise as an integrator, bringing together our clients, supply chain and our capability to deliver vital infrastructure to the U.K. Next to infrastructure projects. We talked about earlier, our infrastructure project business delivers major and complex infrastructure and civil engineering projects. During the year, Kier was appointed on Devonport 10-doc facility project. In terms of background to that, Kier has been down at the Royal Devonport dockyard since 1972, and we're currently carrying out works on 12 dock and 14 dock. The E10 dock project that we've been awarded involves a refit of the 10 dock to take the class of submarines that are coming in, in 2025 for refit and for refuel. And I was over in Devonport recently to see how our infrastructure team are managing this sizable project, which is expected to run for 10 years. We're also appointed to the GBP 1.6 billion Pagabo's civils and infrastructure framework for 4 years. In Utilities, as a reminder, our utilities business delivers long-term contracts providing construction and maintenance services to the water, energy and telecom sector. The utilities business has continued to win work, including a place on Northern Islands Water -- Northern Island Waters, GBP 1.2 billion major projects partnership framework in conjunction with BAM over 4 years. With 83% of our revenue secured for FY '23. And with our recent wins, this gives me continued visibility and confidence in the infrastructure services business. Moving to construction. Our Construction business comprises regional building, where we construct schools, hospitals, prisons and defense projects to the U.K. Government. It also includes our strategic projects business and Kier Places, which is our housing maintenance and facilities management business. As Simon as said construction volumes were lower as anticipated with revenue down 19% in the year. This resulted from procurement delays previously driven by COVID-19 and then more recently driven by the cost inflation, as previously highlighted. Construction revenue is also impacted by the ramp down of activity following successful completion as Simon has said of the HMP 5 Wells Prison project in Wellingborough. The 5 Wells was a sizable project for us, but I am delighted to say this has been replaced by the award of the new prison, as Simon said, Full Sutton in East Yorkshire, which I'll talk about in a minute, but there is a timing impact between the ramp-down of 5 Wells and the ramp-up of Full Sutton. As we have visibility over the anticipated reduced activity in our construction business, we proactively realigned the cost base to protect margins. And as a result, our adjusted operating profit increased by 7% to GBP 61 million and adjusting operating margin increased from 3.2% to 4.2% in the year. The order book momentum has continued in our construction business where we have maximized value and opportunities, and our order book has increased by GBP 900 million. We're recently awarded the design and construction of HMP Full Sutton, as we've said in East Yorkshire by the Ministry of Justice, and that's valued at GBP 400 million. The project prioritizes modern methods of construction and standardized components and delivery. It's also aligned to the government's construction playbook and 2050 net carbon -- net zero carbon targets. And I'm pleased to say that we've commenced work in the project and I was there last week and saw the great progress the team has made to date, and this is definitely one of our flagship sites. We've also won a GBP 500 million contract to deliver new house blocks across 6 prisons in conjunction with weights. We were appointed on a GBP 33 million refurbishment contract for Manchester Aquatics Center and selected by Bearing and LBS properties to design and construct a GBP 69 million mixed-use sustainable building in London. Our Kier Places business continues to benefit from increased work opportunities from existing customers such as housing associations, local authorities and U.K. Government clients. We recently appointed to the GBP 35 billion CCS facilities management and workplace services framework for 4 years. And similar to other parts of the business, we see Kier Places as an annuity type business with steady streams of revenue over multiple years. And to conclude, our construction business is 86% revenue secured for FY '23. And I'm proud to say the construction team has won new high quality and profitable work in its markets, reflecting the bidding discipline and risk management embedded in the business. And as these orders convert to spades in the ground, we expect the associated revenue generation and working capital flow opportunities to follow on. And lastly, through our property business. Our property business invests and develops primarily mixed-use commercial and residential schemes and sites across the U.K. The business is well established in the Urban Regeneration and property development sector, and we largely operate through joint ventures to manage risk and opportunities. Strong performance from our property business with revenue up 8% to GBP 144 million. However, this does exclude joint ventures where most of the revenue is generated and joint venture revenue increased by 66%. Adjusted operating profit significantly improved to GBP 17.6 million from GBP 5.7 million in the year, driven by industrial sector divestments. And we continue to take advantage of market opportunities in terms of land acquisition, timing of build and selling, but again, within our disciplined approach to the use of capital. At June 30, we had GBP 122 million invested in our property business, generating a return on capital employed of 14%. We're targeting to increase this within a range of GBP 140 million to GBP 170 million over time, and we believe this to be a consistent rate of capital investment at a level expected to help smooth out the returns profile of the business, and it does take time to selectively invest in sites, season that capital and then to transact. And over the medium term, we expect to deliver a sustainable performance from our property business. And similar to the rest of Kier, the property business has performed well in work winning. We're appointed on an GBP 80 million equity residential joint venture with housing growth partnerships to develop urban brownfield sites. And we're also selected as a joint venture partner to Mole Valley District Council for their GBP 350 million regeneration of Leatherhead Town Center. So a slight change attack and we move to sustainability. So turning to our ESG update. Hopefully, this slide is now familiar to most of you, but I thought I'd remind you of the key focus areas for Kier. Our purpose is to sustainably deliver infrastructure, which is vital to the U.K. And as the strategic supplier to the U.K. Government, ESG is fundamental to our ability to win work and secure positions on long-term frameworks. For example, U.K. Government contracts above GBP 5 million require net zero carbon and social value commitments. Last year, we launched our new sustainability framework building for a sustainable world, which covers sustainability from both an environmental and social perspective. We genuinely believe that to be a responsible business and to play a leading role in our industry, we must address both the impact of climate change and leave a lasting legacy in the communities in which we operate. So if you look at environmental progress. As a reminder, we have set out a pathway to become net zero carbon for business operations by 2039 in terms of Scope 1, 2 and including the value chain by 2045, Scope 3. And I'm pleased to say that in the financial year, we achieved a 69% reduction in carbon intensity against the prior year. We've implemented a number of initiatives through the year, including rolling out the electrification of our fleet, exploring alternative fuel sources as well as exploring carbon reduction opportunities with our supply chain partners. We started reporting in our Scope 3 emissions for the first time too. For waste, we've committed to being single-use plastic free by 2030 and eliminating avoidable waste by 2035, and we've achieved a 29% reduction in the year and 90% of our material and packaging waste was diverted from landfill in FY '22. And for water, we've committed to reducing our water usage. We delivered a 67% reduction in the cost of water as a percentage of operational spend through the year. Turning to the social value. We made commitments on social value too. We promised to create GBP 5 billion of social value by 2030. In order to record this, we've moved to a new social value calculator Thrive, during the year. This is over 100 social value metrics and has the ability to track social value targets across our bidding activity and live projects. It links back to the U.K. Government's social value model. Kier generated almost GBP 300 million of social value in the year, and we expect this to increase as we continue to roll out and embed thrive in our business. And next to safety. The group's 12-month rolling accident instant rate or AIR was 115 in FY '22. That is an increase of 9% compared to FY '21, albeit the absolute number of AIRs has reduced year-on-year. We are nonetheless still disappointed with the volume-adjusted AIR trend given our high standards, and this continues to be an area of focus for us. However, we do retain a solid safety record that is circa 45% better than the industry benchmark. Turning to supplier payment days. Our supply chain partners are highly valued by us. They help us deliver solutions to benefit our clients. And at 33 days, we continue to reduce the time we take to pay them. Kier is a people-based business, and our performance depends on our ability to attract and retain a dedicated workforce. During the year, over 590 apprentices participating in programs representing 6% of our workforce. The graduate intake comprising 38% women and we developed and implemented a new health, safety and well-being strategy as well as launching a new behavioral program. We also continue to focus on making Kier a diverse and inclusive place to work. So finally, if I could summarize and provide the outlook to you. The business is performing well. We have strong momentum in the business, and we outperformed our medium-term margin target in FY '22. Our Property business delivered a return on capital employed of 14%. We continue to win profitable work across our divisions and our order book has grown to GBP 9.8 billion. And we're currently trading in line with expectations despite continued inflationary pressures. And our continued current year -- our current year outlook remains unchanged. We're focusing on the delivery of a sustainable net cash position and sustainable dividend policy in line with our medium-term value creation plan, and I'm confident that we are on track to achieve this. And with that, I would be very happy to open it up to questions. Firstly, in the room, and then we'll take questions from the conference call, which Victoria is adjudicating. So are there any questions in the room first.

Adrian Kearsey from Panmure Gordon. Over the last 6 months, you've been talking about investing in head count and bringing sort of skills into the business with quite an ambitious recruitment program over the next few years. Could you perhaps sort of give an update on how that's progressing?

Helen Redfern, who is our CPO. But what Helen and the team have been doing is trying to embrace all facets of what attracts people to join the company. So the basic level, I talked about the apprentice 6% of our population coming in. We're feeding through the apprentice schemes, through the graduate scheme. But you've got to do more than that. You've got to make sure that you're attracting and being attractive to the right people. So that's why we've implemented the whole range of new policies or family-friendly policies across the company. That's why we are addressing diversity and inclusivity in the business in that sort of sense. That's why we are putting sort of health and well-being at the forefront of everything we do. So we're trying to address all aspects of what attracts a person to the company and then what retains a person in the company as well. And we're trying to attract it from all facets of society. We are gold standard on the armed forces covenant. We do have prisoners on [indiscernible] coming out, and we use them on the sites in Wellingborough we have, and we fully intend to use them on the new Full Sutton Prison, which is a category C prison being built next to a category A prison. They won't come from the category A prison, but they will be able to work on the category C prison. So there's a whole range of activities we've got to address in the organization to attract and retain the very best people. And then we've got to be competitive in remuneration. And we believe we are being competitive in remuneration as well and paying people a fair rate for the job and making sure that all sections of our population are paid fairly and that's why we do and have committed and do implement the real living wage and have accreditation around that as well. So it's not just one thing, Adrian. It's a whole raft of things we're addressing to make sure that we've got the very best chance of getting the very best people and holding on to them.

Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. A couple of questions on Construction please. I think, first of all, you've sort of guided to an expectation of a fourth quarter ramp-up in terms of activity. Recognizing you have visibility on Sutton. Can you just give us a feel for what the risk is to that ramp-up from continuing inflation and how you've sort of backed that into your assumptions? And secondly, in terms of construction margin, obviously, a very strong performance because of the cost actions. I imagine we should assume that start to normalize this year as cost goes back in to deliver your ramp-up in Q4. Can you just give us any more insight on margin expectations?

So I answer that.

Yes. Sure.

So margin expectations, I think you're absolutely right, Andrew. That would fall back into normalized as the new volume kicks in. And with regard to Full Sutton, I think the inflation risk is all -- we're over that risk there. So the contract is fully signed. So we don't anticipate inflation delaying that any further.

If I can just build on that point. Full Sutton was a negotiated contract, a fully negotiated 2-stage contract. So we entered into it with the inflation risk allocated appropriately.

And in terms of the other projects, which you expect to develop over up to that fourth quarter point, are they fairly immune now to inflation risk or it.

Well, they're not immune from inflation risk, but what you do is you negotiate the allocation of that inflation risk to that person who's best able to manage it and maybe a supply chain partner, it may be the client. And I think the point Simon has made in his -- the way you do that is through the 2-stage negotiation, that's the point we're making before we get to get into a fixed price contract, it's usually through a negotiated phase of it. We do, do the allocations.

I suppose it's more the risk of delay to what you're anticipating?

And that potentially is the issue. And I think we've always said that in construction is the negotiation or the value engineering you may have to do or the reallocation or reappraisal of the funding case on the client side has caused delays in construction, and that's what we have flagged up in the past.

Joe Brent from Liberum. 3 questions, if I may. Firstly, you've got a new government sort of, I'll be interested to see if you've seen any delays on the ground or any change of tack on policy? Secondly, on construction, noting a ramp-up in Q4 we just talked about. Could you give us an indication of what the working capital impacts might be in '23 and '24? And then finally, sticking with construction. You say the regional construction restructuring is complete. Is there any further annualization benefit in FY '23? So it's actually complete but presume didn't get a full year benefit in '22. So is there an ongoing impact in '23?

So I'll just take the first of those questions, and maybe, Simon, you want to think about the second 2. But the first one on the government, the Prime Minister in her opening address outside #10 said that she was very committed to the national infrastructure strategy and particularly in the areas of schools, hospitals, roads and broadband rollout, all of areas where we're quite a dominant player in those. So we think that this new government will continue the policies of the previous government, and we hope to fully participate in those.

Okay. Yes. So in terms of working capital, Joe, if you look at the revenue decline and sort of estimate what that impact would be in the second half of the reported financial year and the first half of this current financial year and you work on the sort of average 15% to 20% impact of revenue and negative working capital, you're probably looking at about a GBP 30 million impact from the construction business in 2023. I mean '24 should you bring back the other way, if you get that growth from that should come back as a benefit shouldn't it?

Like full?

Yes, fully. And then in terms of the savings, Joe, I mean, if you look at the first half, most of those are impacted. So there is a small annualization impact, but not that much.

[indiscernible].

It's not, I think it's even less than that.

Jonny Coubrough at Numis. 3 questions from me, please. Firstly, following on from those questions on construction, were the GBP 40 million restructuring costs in the year, was that fully due to lower volumes -- and looking at the shape of revenue going forward, it looks like construction revenue should be getting back to where it was in 2021, kind of by 2024. So should we expect all of those costs going back in? Or will some of those savings remain? The second one is on the new Prisons program. I think HMP 5 Wells was the second of 6 and you're going to be building the third at Full Sutton. Do you have any visibility on when the fourth might be coming to market? And would Kier have capability of doing that alongside Full Sutton in terms of timing. And the third question is around seasonality of working capital. Having fully paid down KEPS, should we expect working capital this year to be as seasonal as it was last year?

You try the first Simon and then the third, and I'll take the middle one.

Okay. Yes. So in terms of the costs going back in, I think the majority of the costs would go back in Jonny. However, there was an adjustment to the amount of regions. So in terms of that the aspect of the overhead reduction that won't go back in. And then in terms of the seasonality impact of KEPS, I don't see much of that impact really hitting the seasonality between H1 and H2, where it will impact is the sort of intra-month working capital where it will improve that because it did have a big impact on interment working capital.

So Jonny to the second question you asked about the new prisons program, the second of 6 being Wellingborough, there isn't a Prions alliance being put together with 4 companies and there's 4 new projects to go. Full Sutton is the first one that's been let. The others are obviously subject to negotiation of regulatory requirements like planning, et cetera, et cetera. So the moment is only the first, but there is an alliance in place with 4 companies to build those 4 prisons. And that's obviously a government decision and the timing of that and whether we go ahead or not, that's not our decision. Any further questions in the room? Yes, Joe?

I don't want to let you off too easily. So actually, if I could just ask 3 more actually. Firstly, do you have any indication of the non-underlying cash impact in '23 and '24? Secondly, looking back to '21 or '22, could you just remind us of the average KEPS and average HMRC impact? And then thirdly, could you give us an indication of the HS2 trajectory for revenues and profits.

Okay.

'21 and '22.

Yes. So non-underlying first of all, Joe, and I think we've got about GBP 10 million provision at the end of the year. So I'd expect that to cash flow next year. We've then got this Chester West and Cheshire, which is about GBP 5 million per year, which would flow through and goes until 2025. And in addition to that, you've got any sort of fire cladding activity as well. So that could range from 0 up to 10 to 20 for that sort of period '23, '24, '25.

And on HS2, is that the question to you asked? I mean I can't give you a sort of forecast as to all the way out, but the whole program will go out, I think looking at market another 4, 5 years on the existing phase, which we're building, as we said, the longer stretch of 80 kilometers. And it is a cost reimbursable contract with a cap and a collar around the margin. So it will continue on that basis.

Do you think it sort of peaks in '26, something like that?

Revenue will peak in '24.

'24.

So just the final question was on the average KEPS impacts and HMRC impacts looking back for '21-'22?

Yes. So the HMRC was the result of COVID, wasn't it? So I think that was delays to [indiscernible] National Insurance and VAT that was available to every company in the country during COVID lockdowns, so that accumulated during that time. So the full benefit would be in there. And then KEPS has been coming down since 2019 to GBP 170 million. I haven't got those numbers right in front of me. I can easily provide to you sort of after the meeting. Any more questions in the room. In which case, I think it's Victoria, if you could adjudicate any questions on the conference call, please.

[Operator Instructions] At this time, there are no questions. So I'll pass back over to the room.

Okay. Thank you, Victoria, for that. So just a couple of closing remarks to repeat the summary and the outlook. The business, as I said, is performing well. Strong momentum in the business. We've outperformed our medium-term margin target in FY '22, and our Property business delivered, as I said, 14% return on capital employed. We are continuing to win profitable work across the divisions. Our order book has grown to GBP 9.8 billion, and we're trading in line with expectations despite, as we've talked about, the inflationary pressures. And our current year outlook remains unchanged. And we're focused on the delivery of a sustainable net cash position and a sustainable dividend policy in line with our medium-term value creation plan. And I'm confident that, as I said, we are on track to achieve this. So ladies and gentlemen, in the room and on the line, thank you very much. That ends this presentation.