Kier Group plc (KIE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Full Year Results Presentation, both here in person and also, I'd like to extend a warm welcome for those joining on the webcast and the audio. I'm Andrew Davies. I'm the Chief Executive of Kier Group, and I'm joined today by Simon Kesterton, who's our Chief Financial Officer. So this morning, I will walk you through the highlights from the last 12 months to the 30th of June 2023 and then hand you over to Simon, who will talk you through the group's financial performance. This will be followed by an operational review and update on ESG, and we'll finish off with our outlook, and then there'll be an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. So if we work through the disclaimer and the title. So the FY '23 highlights on here, Slide 4. We've delivered a strong set of results in the year. We had a positive momentum in the business. Infrastructure Services, revenue grew by 3%, and Construction grew by 15% with significant volume growth in the final quarter of the financial year. We continue to see inflationary pressures, which we're successfully mitigating. We achieved revenue growth overall of 5%. We achieved an adjusted operating profit of GBP 132 million, a year-on-year increase of 9%, and we delivered an industry-leading adjusted operating margin of 3.9%, continuing to outperform our medium-term target of circa 3.5%. Our focus was and continues to be firmly on delivering the medium-term plan through growth in our core markets, supported by U.K. government spending commitments and the strong operational and financial performance in the year increases my confidence in our ability to consistently deliver for all of our shareholders. So the group's net cash position at the 30th of June was GBP 64 million, significantly improved on a year ago and above where we expected it to be, especially as the net cash position was delivered despite having repaid our supply chain finance facility called KEPS of GBP 50 million. We delivered strong cash generation, allowing the reduction of our debt and debt-like items. Average month-end net debt for the year was GBP 232 million compared with GBP 216 million in the prior year. And given our confidence in the cash generation of the business and our belief this momentum will be sustained, I'm pleased to say we intend to commence dividends to shareholders in financial year FY '24. We plan to start with a dividend, which can be progressed over time and is covered 3x by earnings. And we intend to declare the first dividend alongside our interim results. 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 been maintained at GBP 10.1 billion, reflecting contract wins across our business and providing multiyear revenue visibility. The underlying momentum in the business is strong. We've secured 85% of our FY '24 anticipated revenue, which provides a high degree of certainty against the backdrop of wider economic and political market uncertainty. And significant effort has been made to improve the quality of our order book. As a reminder, over the last 3 years, we've exited low and loss-making contracts. We spent a lot of time derisking the portfolio. We're focused on winning work with U.K. government and regulated authorities with negotiated terms and appropriate risk profiles. Our order book is supported by long-term framework positions and frameworks, as I've said before, are our route to market, and we've maintained and grown our central and local framework positions. However, we exclude long-term framework positions from our order book, and therefore, these represent an additional pipeline of opportunity. The medium-term plan also noted that we would consider value-accretive acquisitions if the opportunity presented itself. And earlier this month, we completed the acquisition of substantially all of the rail assets of Buckingham Group and their HS2 contract, supplying Kier's HS2 joint venture, EKFB, for a consideration of up to GBP 9.6 million. And this acquisition provides an excellent cultural fit for our organization and importantly, accelerates Kier's rail strategy. We also agreed our pension scheme triennial valuation, resulting in decreased deficit payments. And lastly, we refreshed our sustainability framework and introduced and reinforced our commitment to ESG targets, and I'll talk more about that later on in the presentation. So I'll just talk about the medium-term value creation plan. So the group announced and committed to a medium-term value creation plan in FY '23. And our focus has been very much to deliver against the targets we set. Medium-term plan focused on an increased revenue, increasing margin and increasing operating cash generation, thus enabling debt reduction and providing a stronger balance sheet with a commitment to reintroducing the dividends at an appropriate time. And this slide sets out how we're doing against each target. You see we're tracking well against the revenue target of GBP 4 billion to GBP 4.5 billion. We delivered GBP 3.4 billion in the year with a growth of 5% over the prior year. We've exceeded both the margin target of 3.5% and the cash flow conversion of 90%. We achieved an adjusted operating profit margin of 3.9% and cash flow conversion of 130% in the year. We said we would target a sustainable net cash position with a capacity to invest. We're performing better than initially expected on average month-end net debt with an FY '23 average balance of GBP 232 million. And the group's strong underlying operational and financial performance and repayment of debt and debt-like items gives us confidence over further progress in the short term. And we also set out a sustainable dividend policy of 3x earnings cover through the cycle. And as I said, we intend to return to the dividend list in the current financial year. So at this point, I will hand over to Simon to take us through the financial highlights. Simon?

Thank you, Andrew. Good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 7. This slide sets out a high-level income statement. Revenue in the year, as Andrew mentioned, is higher than the prior year and reflects volume growth in both Infrastructure Services and Construction, which more than offset the anticipated reduction in Property transactions. I'll walk through this on the next slide. We delivered adjusted operating profit of GBP 132 million in the year despite continued inflationary pressure. The group achieved an adjusted operating margin of 3.9%, 40 basis points ahead of our medium-term plan margin target. Statutory profit before and after tax has more than doubled compared to the full year 2022 and demonstrates our continued improvement and how the business continues to progress towards its medium-term value creation plan. We achieved adjusted EPS of 19.2p. This represents a 14% growth when compared to 16.8p last year. Net cash is significantly better than the prior year at GBP 64 million compared to GBP 2.9 million due to strong cash flow conversion, which is enhanced by volume growth translated into working capital inflows, reductions in adjusting items and pension scheme payments. This is also, as Andrew mentioned, following the GBP 50 million full repayment of our supply chain facility, KEPS, back in July 2022 and was above our initial expectations. Average month-end debt was GBP 232 million. This is adverse to the prior period, but better than our initial expectations despite the repayment of KEPS and other debt-like items of GBP 62 million. Turning to Slide 8. Starting on the left-hand side, we start with revenue of GBP 3.3 billion. Infrastructure Services revenue increased by 3%, primarily due to the continued ramp-up of capital works on HS2. Construction revenue increased by 15% as the strong order book we ended the year with converted to revenue. The growth was second half weighted and gives us comfort over anticipated 2024 revenue growth. Property revenue fell by GBP 109 million as we saw the expected reduction in property transactions. This partly reflects current market conditions, but is primarily driven by us taking advantage of favorable market conditions at the end of our last financial year, knowing it would subdue property transactions for the next couple of years. Moving now to the adjusted operating profit bridge. We start with the previous year's adjusted operating profit of GBP 121 million. Volume mix and price changes have resulted in an increase of GBP 9 million. The reduction in property transactions resulted in property profits being GBP 5 million lower than the previous period. We've achieved management actions of GBP 14 million during the year. These relate to ongoing performance excellence initiatives undertaken as we more than mitigate cost inflation of GBP 7 million. We continue to see inflationary pressure, given the macroeconomic environment, but also continue to manage and mitigate 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 key risks and opportunities are understood. Also, our average order size in Construction is only GBP 16 million, resulting in regular repricing of our contracts. The result is an increase in operating profit to GBP 132 million. Adjusting items exclude cash -- adjusting items, excluding noncash amortization and interest amounted to GBP 31 million in the year and are much lower than the GBP 56 million incurred last year. We have seen restructuring costs materially reduce as expected. Going forward, we do not expect any further restructuring or related costs. As a reminder, the amortization of GBP 19 million relates to historical acquisitions and the interest relates to IFRS 16, where leased office space has been exited. Other items of GBP 18 million include GBP 13 million of fire cladding costs. Given the nature of construction projects we typically engage in, following regulation change, we estimate our exposure to this could be at worst case a further GBP 10 million to GBP 20 million. We also incurred GBP 5 million on insurance-related matters. This is made up of a noncash provision of GBP 8 million against the insurance receivable, partly offset by GBP 3 million of insurance proceeds related to a claim for a fire at one of our facilities. Moving on to free cash flow. This year saw a considerable improvement in operating cash flow conversion as construction revenue growth, particularly in the final quarter of the year drove a working capital inflow. This was considerably improved on last year. Adjusted EBITDA in the period grew from GBP 165 million to GBP 196 million. We then have a GBP 80 million of working capital improvement, a significant improvement when compared to the FY '22 inflow of only GBP 4 million. As previously mentioned, we repaid the final GBP 50 million of KEPS in July 2022, meaning our total operating cash generation, together with proceeds from the equity raise and the sale of Kier Living has allowed us to reduce KEPS by GBP 201 million since the 31st of December 2018 and GBP 79 million since the equity raise, which demonstrates the strong operating cash flows of the business over recent years. Repayment of this and other debt-like items amounted to an average of GBP 62 million compared to the prior year. CapEx in the year amounted to GBP 51 million. However, GBP 46 million of this relates to payments made under leases now capitalized under IFRS 16. The majority of this increase relates to additional plant and equipment to support the ramp-up of HS2. Net interest and tax increased by GBP 6 million in the year, primarily due to increased interest rates. We maintained supplier payments of 34 days on average, consistent with the half year. This results in the group improving its operating cash conversion from 90% to 130%, well above our medium-term plan target of 90%, demonstrating that the plan is delivering meaningful improvement in the cash position of the group. Turning over to Slide 12. We have the net cash bridge. We start on the left-hand side with closing cash of GBP 3 million at the end of June 2022. We then see free cash inflow of GBP 132 million that I've just talked about. We had adjusting items of GBP 27 million. This includes the payment of items accrued for in the previous financial year and pension payments of GBP 13 million, made up of GBP 10 million of pension deficit repayments and GBP 3 million of expenses. This payment will reduce in the future years due to the recent valuation and [indiscernible] reduced deficit repayment plan. We then have the purchase of Kier Group shares. This is in respect of the group's employee benefit trust, which requires Kier shares from the market for use in settling the long-term incentive plan share schemes when they vest. The net cost of this was GBP 12 million. The other GBP 19 million relates to deploying capital to the Property segment. This will help drive future returns as the current market is affording us some great opportunities. This results in a net cash position of GBP 64 million at the end of the year. Moving to Slide 13. This slide highlights the progress made towards our medium-term plan and the route to achieving a sustainable net cash position. In FY '21, our average month-end net debt was GBP 432. And when you added on the debt-like items of supply chain finance, the KEPS program, and HMRC COVID-19 debt, the total was GBP 582 million. In FY '22, the GBP 582 million of debt and debt-like items were significantly reduced to GBP 286 million, driven by the proceeds from the capital raise, sale of Kier Living as well as from free cash flow generation. The net debt element of that figure was GBP 216 million. In FY '23, we expected the average net debt to increase, driven by the final repayment of those debt-like items with the GBP 232 million achieved better than our initial expectations after paying down the GBP 62 million of debt-like items. In FY '24, we expect the reported average net debt to decrease materially with free cash flow generation continuing to be almost entirely devoted to debt reduction. During the year, in addition to KEPS, we paid GBP 44 million in total on our U.S. private placement notes and the year saw us fully repay all the short-signed notes. The RCF also reduced by GBP 40 million. These were repaid from cash flow generation from operating cash flow, and we continue to maintain considerable headroom under our facilities. Slide 14 sets out our order book position. Our order book is high-quality and has further increased by 3% to GBP 10.1 billion compared to June 2022. We have secured 85% of our FY '24 revenue, in line with that at the start of FY '23 as we continue to win work in our chosen markets. Significant effort has been made to improve the quality of the order book. We are focused on winning work with U.K. government and regulated authorities. We continue to focus on managing risk and reward when bidding, negotiating and delivering work. As mentioned earlier, 60% of our order book is under target cost or cost reimbursable contracts. Our Infrastructure business has nearly 100% of its contracts agreed as target cost or cost reimbursable. And it's important to balancing our risk and reward profile. Within Construction, the majority of our contracts are fixed. About 95% of these are fixed following a 2-stage process to identify and mitigate the risks involved. Our average order size, as mentioned earlier, is only circa GBP 16 million, and this is relatively small average order size, which results in us regularly repricing contracts. The order book continues to be underpinned by significant long-term framework agreements. Our long-term framework positions are excluded from the order book, these represent further opportunities for the group. Moving to capital allocation. We're 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 continue to be minimal. We plan to invest further in our Property business in order to generate consistent returns over time. We'll 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. 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. Slide 16 shows the current accounting position of the group's pension schemes. The combined schemes under an accounting basis are currently in a surplus of GBP 105 million. More importantly, the recently agreed triannual actuarial valuations were concluded with the trustees at the end of the current -- of this financial year. This position reflects the payments made to the pension schemes and the improved covenant provided by Kier's improved financial position. We do have some smaller schemes still in deficit, and therefore, we do still have to make some deficit repayments. These repayments for the next few years will decrease from GBP 10 million in FY '23 to GBP 9 million in FY '24; GBP 8 million in FY '25; GBP 5 million in FY '26; GBP 4 million in FY '27; and finishing with GBP 1 million in FY '28. We have also agreed that once each of the pension schemes are in surplus, they will cover their own administration expenses. We paid GBP 3 million in the current year, and therefore, this represents a material drop in cash payments over the next few years. Slide 17. As Andrew mentioned, it's our intention to reinstate a dividend. As we've just discussed, the group's strong operational performance has resulted in a spot net cash position, and this, combined with the order book, affords us line of sight to an average net cash position. The dividend is anticipated to be paid as a 1/3 interim dividend as part of the half year results and 2/3 final dividend with the full year results. Our dividend policy is 3x cover, and we intend to progress to this over time. It's very pleasing that the results of everyone's hard work at the company can now be shared with our shareholders who have been extremely supportive over recent years. And now I'll hand back to Andrew for the operational review.

So thank you, Simon, for that. And turning now to Slide 19, where we'll talk about Infrastructure Services. I'll give some color on some of the operational updates over the year. Starting with the, as I said, Infrastructure Services business. As a reminder, in May this year, we announced the realignment of the segment to support our growth ambitions. So from 1st of July 2023, Kier's 3 current business streams of highways, utilities and infrastructure projects became 2 to align to our clients and markets. The business streams have been renamed and the first business stream is called Transportation. This provides design, engineering, delivery and maintenance to support the movements of people, goods and equipment by land, sea and air. It includes our existing highways business as well as Kier's rail, airports, infrastructure and port sectors. Our EKFB joint venture on HS2 program will sit under this business stream. And the rail acquisition is currently being integrated into this business. The second business stream is called Natural Resources, Nuclear and Networks, and this includes our existing utilities business and the infrastructure business relating to capital work supporting water, energy and networks. As the U.K. infrastructure asset owners continue to invest in their businesses, we believe Kier's realigned business will be well placed to support our clients in those key markets. And for instance, recently, the U.K. water companies announced their intention to invest GBP 10 billion to modernize water and sewage systems. So this realignment simplifies our business structure and is another step towards executing the medium-term value creation plan. And importantly, there's been no change to the external business unit reporting, which will remain under the overarching headings of Infrastructure Services, Construction and Property. In the year, our Infrastructure Services segment saw a revenue growth of 3%. And as Simon has said, this was largely driven by the ramp-up of HS2 capital works. And as a reminder, as part of the Eiffage Kier Ferrovial and BAM or EKFB joint venture, Kier is delivering the longest section of civil works, 80 kilometers from the Chiltern to just south of Warrick. And we have the lead on project management and program integration in the joint venture. Our adjusted operating profit increased 14% to GBP 80 million, and adjusted operating margin remained strong for Infrastructure Services at 4.7%. The operating profit benefited from the HS2 volume increase, but was partially offset by utilities. And the utilities business experienced a slower rollout of the 5G connectivity in the telecom sector and the market conditions resulted in reduced activity and therefore, led to an adverse impact on margin. Turning to the order book. We have a positive momentum on the order book with an increase of 3.6% to GBP 5.8 billion. Transportation business was appointed by National Highways to carry out essential maintenance program on 8 viaducts at Lune Gorge, spanning the M6 in Lancashire. Our Natural Resources, Nuclear and Networks division was reappointed on a 3-year extension to the Network Service Alliance Framework by both South West Water and Bournemouth Water, which we estimate will be worth GBP 55 million per annum to us. And the framework allows an existing contract -- follows an existing contract, which was agreed in April 2020 under the AMP7 cycle. And with 76% of our revenue secured for FY '24 with our recent wins, this underpins our revenue in the Infrastructure Services business for FY '24 and beyond. If I just talk about the rail asset acquisition here on this slide, on the 4th of September 2023 after the year-end -- our year-end, we acquired substantially all of the rail assets of Buckingham Group as well as their HS2 contract supplying Kier's HS2 joint venture EKFB, for a consideration, as I said earlier, of GBP 9.6 million. So this acquisition provides Kier with new rail clients and increases our capability across the U.K. The acquisition also brings a very welcome 180 employees with expertise in the rail sector, further enhancing Kier's talent pool. The rail assets consisted of design, build and project integration contracts for a range of customers, including Network Rail, and the acquisition very much accelerates Kier's broader rail strategy. Given Kier's risk management processes, historic contractual liabilities prior to the completion date were not acquired as the rail assets were purchased out of administration. And the acquisition was also defensive and it provided operational stability to Kier's HS2 joint venture, EKFB. We're currently integrating the business, and I'm delighted to welcome all of those 180 new employees as well as the new clients and suppliers to the Kier Group. Moving on to Construction. Our Construction business comprises the regional build where we construct schools, hospitals, prisons and defense projects for the U.K. government. It also includes our strategic projects business and Kier Places, our housing maintenance and facilities management business. Construction volumes grew 15% to over GBP 1.7 billion, which reflects the ramp-up of work in East Yorkshire to construct a new prison, HMP Millsike, for the Ministry of Justice, the U.K.'s first net zero carbon prison. Kier Places saw volume growth across facilities management and housing maintenance, and the facilities management work is predominantly for the Ministry of Justice and Home Office, demonstrating the synergies of these 2 businesses. The adjusted operating profit grew 14% to GBP 70 million, with margins of 4.2%, achieved as the benefit from the volume growth and previously realigned cost base started to drop through to the operating profit level. The order book momentum has been maintained in our Construction business with an order book increasing 2% to GBP 4.3 billion. We were recently appointed to the GBP 5.1 billion Strategic Alliance Contract in relation to the Defense Estate Optimization, or [ DEOP ], by the Ministry of Defense. And Kier's award consists of 1 major project and 1 regional package. And the major project is the delivery of a training center, RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire, and the regional package is for the South of England Army bases. Within [ DEOP ], this strategic alliance program will drive collaboration across core themes, including social environmental sustainability and digitalization. And the alliancing approach will embrace and enable modern methods of construction and design for manufacturing assembly, building on the approach we've had -- that we've taken with the Ministry of Justice, again, most tellingly, HMP Wellingborough and also Millsike. Kier was also appointed to the GBP 4.5 billion Southern Construction Framework, construction solutions framework. The new framework was launched in May and we're, last 4 years, providing procurement routes for public sector buildings, including educational, health care and leisure facilities. We've been appointed to all 5 lots, which includes new GBP 1 million to GBP 5 million lots for the Southwest region. As part of the tender process, contractors had to demonstrate carbon benchmarking assessments for all builds and emphasize their carbon retrofit capabilities. Kier's has historically completed over 60 projects through the framework worth over GBP 530 million. This is including public buildings in the Southeast London and the Southwest, including St. Sidwell's Point, the U.K.'s first Passivhaus leisure center in Exeter. Completed in April 2022, the state-of-the-art leisure center was modeled to withstand predicted changes in climate conditions up to 2080. The Southern Construction Framework has operated under evolving identity since 2006 and was the first regional framework for construction in local government. In Kier Places, we were appointed by L&Q for its Major Works Investment Program to deliver housing maintenance across its estate. And Kier is 1 of 10 contractors selected to deliver the program expected to be worth up to GBP 300 million per annum and which will include a range of services, including estate and environmental improvements, planned mechanical and engineering works and internal decorations for L&Q residents, and the works will span East London, including Waltham, Tower Hamlets, Stratford, Newham, Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham. Our Construction business has 95% revenue secured for FY '24. And I'm proud to say the Construction team has won new, high-quality and profitable work in our markets, reflecting the bidding discipline and risk management embedded in that business. As these orders convert to spades in the ground, we expect the associated revenue generation and working capital flow opportunities to follow on in the business. If we move to Property -- our Property business. It invests and develops primarily mixed-use commercial and residential schemes and sites across the U.K. Business is well established in the urban regeneration and property development sector. And we largely operate through joint ventures to manage both risks and opportunities. As we expected, operating profit fell due to a reduction in property transactions driven by current market conditions. And again, as we anticipated a slowdown in the market conditions, we were able to increase our completions and transact at the back end of FY '22 to maximize returns for our shareholders. We continue to take advantage of those market opportunities, however, and where possible in terms of land acquisition, timing of build and selling and doing so within our disciplined approach to the use of capital, which Simon referred to. At year-end, Kier's capital employed in the Property segment was GBP 175 million, including third-party debt and fair value gains. If you exclude these items, it would have been GBP 150 million. In order to make the reported capital employed measure meaningful, we've amended the definition to exclude these items going forward, and we believe this better reflects the group's cash investment in the Property segment. In addition, due to the group's increased operating cash flows, benefit of building out projects such as 19 Cornwall Street in Birmingham and market conditions, we're reviewing the upper end of capital employed in our Property segment. We previously said we were looking to invest up to GBP 170 million. The current market conditions could present attractive buying opportunities. As a reminder, we're aiming to achieve a level of capital employed that helps smooth out the returns profiles of the business. We believe it takes time to selectively invest in sites to season that capital in those sites and then after to transact. And over the medium-term, we expect to deliver more consistent performance from our Property business -- Property segment benefiting from that increased deployed capital. And similar to the rest of Kier, the Property segment has performed well in securing new work. Highlights include entering a joint venture partnership with Countryside to deliver housing developments in South Wokingham. The commencement of redevelopment work, as I said, on 19 Cornwall Street in Birmingham to transform the building into an office operating at a net zero carbon level, and we've achieved planning consent for a wind farm to be developed on the former Greenburn mine site as well. And picking up that theme, if I move now to sustainability on Slide 24. So our ESG update. 3 years ago, we launched our first sustainability framework. And this year, we've reinforced our commitment by issuing a refreshed framework. To better align our activity to major customers such as the U.K. government, this evolved version of the framework focuses on 3 key pillars of people, places and the planet. As a reminder, our purpose as a company is to deliver sustainable -- deliver infrastructure, which is vital to the U.K. And as a strategic supplier to the U.K. government, ESG is fundamental to our ability to both win work and secure positions on long-term frameworks. So for example, U.K. government contracts above GBP 5 million require net zero carbon and social value commitments. In order to help achieve these goals, we are targeting our work to firstly build a workforce, which has the relevant skills and capabilities to deliver these goals, ensuring where possible that everyone receives equitable treatment and our people reflect the communities in which we serve. And secondly, we want to leave a positive legacy to those communities through the projects we deliver and the people we employ on them. Alongside this, we have at our disposal, tools to further tackle inequality. And thirdly, as the stewardship of the planet is vital to all of us, we're planning to reduce our carbon usage and support our customers with their infrastructure requirements as they manage climate-related change events. At sites, we're aiming to protect biodiversity and look to efficient use of resources on our projects. If we turn to environmental, as a reminder, we've set a pathway to become a net zero carbon for business operations in relation to Scope 1 and 2 by 2039 and including value chain, i.e., Scope 3 by 2045. And I'm pleased to say that in the financial year, we achieved a 19% reduction in carbon intensity against the prior year. For Scope 1 and 2, we're rolling out initiatives to ensure our fleet comprises ultra-low emissions and electric vehicles. We've also been working on ensuring our sites and facilities use energy-efficient technology. And we're looking at opportunities we have to self-deliver electricity across our estate. Scope 3 predominantly relates to the emissions from the materials we buy and the supply chain partners we rely on to deliver our projects. And this is our second year of reporting our Scope 3 emissions, and we're working collaboratively with our supply chain partners to target our most carbon-intensive materials and activities such as steel, concrete and diesel consumption. We've also enhanced our sustainable design capability to reduce whole-life carbon, including embodied and operational emissions. In respect to waste, we've committed to eliminating avoidable waste by 2035. We achieved a 33% reduction in the year, and 92% of our construction material and packaging waste was diverted from landfill in FY '23. And finally, for water, we've committed to reducing our water usage. We delivered an 8% reduction in the cost of water as a percentage of operational spend during the last financial year. And moving on to social commitments. So safety is our license to operate. The group's 12-month rolling accident incident rate or AIR was 88 in FY '23. And that's a fall of 23% compared with FY '22 as the actions taken last year delivered improvements this year. Kier is very much a people-based business. And our performance depends on the ability to attract and retain a dedicated workforce. During the year, we had 646 apprentices participating in programs representing 6% of our workforce, a graduate intake of comprising 43% of women. We also continue to focus on making Kier a diverse and inclusive place to work to ensure we better reflect the communities we work within and serve. And as people are at the heart of Kier, we like to ensure we pay them a competitive wage as well as offering them support through the cost of living crisis. Since April 2021, Kier has been an accredited Real Living Wage employer. As a result of the cost of living crisis, we accelerated our planned increase in wages and extended the Real Living Wage to our contingent workforce. We also provided welfare and support to our people, including inflation support and payments, enhanced sick pay, financial support and mortgage advice to those most affected by the cost of living crisis. And we're continuing to monitor the situation. We'll consider taking further steps as appropriate. Turning to suppliers. Our supply chain partners are highly valued by us and a part of our team. They deliver solutions to benefit our clients. In FY '23, 69% of our subcontractor spend was with the small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, we ensure -- we continue to ensure our suppliers are paid on time. We adhere to the prompt payment code and suppliers were paid on 34 days during the year. And finally, if I move to the summary and the outlook. So before I do that, I wanted to highlight the journey the group has been on since I joined in April 2019. Kier has undergone a transformation, rationalization and a recapitalization. After a strategic view in 2019, we went through a cost-reduction program, introduced a new management team, rationalized the portfolio and exited loss-making contracts. Following the operational turnaround, we recapitalized the group by disposing our housebuilding business, Kier Living, which was noncore. And alongside that, we launched an equity raise. We used the proceeds from the sale and equity raise to significantly deleverage the group. At the same time, we extended the majority of our debt facilities to January 2025. As part of the equity raise, we announced and committed to a medium-term value creation plan in June 2021, which involves leveraging Kier's capabilities to drive disciplined growth and cash generation. And since then, our focus has been to deliver against that medium-term plan targets. The group has made considerable operational and financial progress over the last 2 years since the plan was launched, and this is a testament to the hard work and commitment of our people who have enhanced our resilience and strengthened our balance sheet. And I'd like to thank the entire Kier team for all of their efforts over that period. And with that, I'd like to move on to the summary and the outlook. Our order book has remained strong at GBP 10.1 billion and provides us with good multiyear revenue visibility. The contracts within our order book reflect the bidding discipline and risk management now embedded within the business. This year also saw the group significantly improve our year on net cash position. And looking ahead, the new financial year started well, and we are trading in line with our expectations. The group is well positioned to continue benefiting from U.K. government infrastructure spending commitments, and we have confidence in the continuation of further strong cash generation evidenced this year. And this, combined with our focus on delivery, gives the group a clear line of sight to materially deleverage. As a result, the group intends to resume dividend payments to shareholders for the first dividend to be declared alongside our interim results. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to open up the meeting to questions and answers, and perhaps we could start with any questions in the room first.

Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. A couple of questions from me, please. First of all, when I look at the Property business, just one of definition, when you look at that GBP 170 million ceiling, is that on the old or new basis in terms of how you're going to allocate the definition of capital? And over the medium term, is the sort of a 15% return on capital objective still pretty much intact?

Yes. So good question, Andrew. Yes, so that would be on the new basis. And of course, we still intend to achieve 15%, although I think it will be slightly enhanced if we're looking at it on the new basis.

And second question in terms of the supply chain, there's obviously a lot of noise out there about some smaller businesses and insolvencies. [ I think if I picked up ], you said 6% to 9% of your spend is with SMEs. Just how can you reassure us around how you're managing the supply chain? And is there a risk that actual payment days are going to have to change in order to support that supply chain?

So yes, look, firstly, the supply chain is a national supply chain. So it's not just a single supply chain operating nationally. It's all over the country and the relationships are held quite locally. So the nature of those relationships mean that we are very close to that supply chain, and we can monitor their health and their performance, and we work very closely with them. And we have worked with them very, very closely over a number of years, in particular in our regional build business. So the proximity means that there's both early warning and close liaison to manage any situations that may arise in that sort of sense. Second point I'd make is we pay on time. We are a good payer. We pay in 34 days. And that's why the supply team wants to work with us as well as the quality of our order book and also the quality of our sites, which are very, very important as well, the way we lay out our sites, our welfare facilities, et cetera, et cetera. So we do have very good close working relationships with our supply chain. But as you've seen, where there are difficulties and they do arise, we're quite prepared to move very quickly with great flexibility to step in to preserve program positions. And that's what we did on the Buckingham Group to the benefit predominantly of the clients, Network Rail, predominantly in that case, but also HS2 and the preservation of those programs was in the forefront of our mind as well as saving then 180 key skilled jobs in Buckingham that came across to us. So it's a combination of factors, how you manage the supply chain, but the overarching thing is just remain very close to them and work very closely with them.

Jonny Coubrough from Numis. Can I ask, firstly, following recent press coverage, the underinvested nature of schools and hospitals across the country, have you seen a change in the pipeline or the timing of your work with those sectors?

So I guess you're referring, in particular, to RAAC, the concrete issue. I mean, there's a number of issues going on in government. You think of the estate they have, both the schools and hospitals, et cetera, it's inevitable you are going to get issues as they come along. We've always taken the view with the government. We'll always work with whatever government it is or whatever issue it is. They are a key clients of us, we try and help them resolve and build solutions in for this. In respect of the actual RAAC, at the moment, I mean, DfE are actually evaluating what their options are. They've come out with 150 schools they've identified as a problem. We're not yet clear what those problems are, the magnitude of those problems, what the resolutions could be, and nor are they. They have to work through those types of issues. I think the government has also sort of come out and said they have to be solved within the existing financial budget. So there may have to be a rephasing of their priorities, et cetera. But we work with them to provide solutions, provide them options, et cetera, et cetera, and then they'll come to us and say, "Okay, well, how do we now execute against those?" And that's the relationship we have with them. We're very much inside the tent helping them on all of these issues. It's exactly the same with the hospitals and trusts as well. The issues they have on RAAC, there'll probably have to be a reprioritization. But again, we work with them to get the programs, to get the planning, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a question of just liaison. We do know these people very, very well, having been on these frameworks for a long time. That's why how we see our role is just supporting and helping them at this point in time.

Second question would be within the highways market that there is, again, some rephasing of programs earlier in the calendar year. Have you seen any impact of that on your business and perhaps any change to the short-term outlook within highways?

No, no change. I mean all departments will have to operate within an affordability constraint that's ever here with us. There's nothing new about that. So you're always veering and hauling slightly around programs. But we haven't seen any -- most of our programs on the large capital side are currently in the design phase. So we'll work that through, and we're beginning to get spades into the ground on certain of those programs. A417 is one such example. We do all the ecology work at the moment. So we are seeing good progress in all of these programs. But you always have a degree of veering and haulings. They manage it through. But at the moment, to your core question, no, we haven't, not on -- no, we haven't seen it on highways -- in our highways programs.

And third question for me would be on working capital phasing for FY '24. Would you expect the seasonality of working capital to be similar in FY '24 as it was in FY '23 and the magnitude of that phasing between H1 and H2?

Yes. I mean, yes, it's driven by activity periods really, Jonny, and the activity period is driven by the weather. So -- and of course, the Christmas period. So for sure, activity periods in November and December will be lower than they have been for May and June.

Alex O'Hanlon from Liberum. Just 1 question for me, I think it's probably for Simon. But it's on the debt facility. So they mature in about -- well, January 2025, so the next 15 months. I'm just wondering whether you'd look to reduce the size of the facility, given the strength of the balance sheet now going forward?

Yes, it's a good question. I think every day, we're going to reduce the size of the facility absolutely as we generate cash. So yes, I would anticipate that when we refinance, there'll be smaller facilities.

It's Stephen Rawlinson from Applied Value. Just 2 for me, if I may. I'm just trying to work out the effects of inflation on both your longer-term ambition of GBP 4 billion to GBP 4.5 billion revenues and what's happening in terms of how you see that playing out. Because if you look at the 10% inflation last year, GBP 7 million impact of failure to cover cost increases on the earnings. But how is that playing out in terms of the total revenue? I can understand you can reprice contracts and frameworks, but also with regards to the longer-term issues, you've referred to fixed price contracts. So I'm sort of thinking, maybe actually the revenue increase last year, accepting the reduction in Property earnings -- sorry, Property revenues was probably actually much higher than the math recorded in the numbers here. So can you just talk a little bit about how that's playing out, how that's affecting what's going on in the [ sub ] failures on subcontractor environment? But also what we [ all saw that ] annual revenue for the Buckingham assets you bought were about GBP 150 million, you're talking about GBP 50 million to GBP 75 million next year. Is that just a reallocation? Or is that a restructure or what's going on there?

Okay. So look, inflation is not simple. It's not just one figure that goes up 10% and your revenues go up 10% because you then have within that -- and we said this last year very much so, you have the delays caused by inflation when you get into 2-stage negotiations. You enter into a 2-stage negotiation with the budgetary assumption, which is perfectly valid. There's nothing wrong with it. But it's just based on an assumption which has changed because of the inflationary pressures. And it was very fast how it changed as well. So you've got to be sympathetic with people who actually have to set these budgets. But at the same time, we have to get to a position which we can actually build the program out and be disciplined to meet all of our bid requirements and all that sort of stuff. So inflation is going to be -- on the one hand, you can say, yes, you should just be 10%, it should be your friend arguably. And with 60% of your cost reimbursable contracts, it could be your friend. You could argue in that sort of sense. And on the other contracts, the construction ones, you negotiate it out. So it's a net increase on the one hand, but it's also a net delay on the other hand as you get into these contracts through the 2-stage negotiation. So you sort of got to net it all out, and that's what the figures do sort of show. I mean the figures Simon has put in for the inflation number, you'll always have an inflationary wage, inflationary costs, which you have to put in, which has to reflect the market. We have to pay the market rate. We're in a fight for talent. We do many, many things to deal with that. But ultimately, you have to pay the going rate and that has to be accounted for somewhere in the cost. So inflation, we can talk about how we protect ourselves from inflation from cost reimbursable contracts. We can talk about how we protect ourselves from going into 2-stage negotiations and getting the right answer. But time is the variable there, which means you don't get the spades in the ground, you don't get the revenue, you don't get the cash flows, which is what has happened, I'd say, to this and many other companies, and you get to the net figure, which is what we've sort of described today. Do I think inflation is a problem going forward? Inflation is always a problem. Any uncertainty is always a difficulty. But I think it's on both the client side and on the supply side and the supply chain side and certainly our supply chain. To slightly answer your second question or second half of your first question is, I think we're okay on that because we've got good proximity with them, as I said to Andrew, that answer to his question a little earlier. So I think inflation pressures will alleviate as we go forward. And of course, if you then have fixed out a contract, which your client wants to get fixed out to give them certainty, it may provide opportunities for you in that de-inflationary environment, may provide opportunities for de-inflationary environment as well. So it's a complex web, inflation, but generally, it provides uncertainty. And what we have had to do is get certainty through the 2-stage negotiations in particular into that situation. Final comment on the fixed price contracts. Yes, okay, you do inflate yourself to growth, but ultimately, someone has to pay. And therefore, you get into affordability discussions with your clients. And something has to give eventually, and we've all seen examples of that over the last sort of couple of years with government budgets having to be reorientated not just within an outturn cost but within -- in your affordability cost. And I guess that's HS2 as an example, where they took their decisions around [ Easter ] in the north of Birmingham. They had to get within affordability. It didn't impact on us because we're on the critical path of the center for the rail systems testing. But it did impact the whole program. We've obviously worked very closely with that client to try and mitigate those issues and make sure there's a [ best program ] solution going on. So inflation is a mix sort of things. I don't know if you want to add any facts.

I'm a bit disappointed, actually, that was the right answer. I think in the short term, it's actually really hurt our top line because we haven't been able to get these projects secured and start the turnover. So in the short term, it's been quite a large drag on our turnover. Longer term, we'll have to see how it plays out, especially with budgetary constraints that Andrew mentioned.

Your second question, Stephen, on Buckingham, the differential. We bought 15 contracts. We didn't buy the whole assets, contractual assets. And that was just in discussions with the clients. Some of them decided they were at a particular point of their program, they would just retain it and complete it themselves, in that sort of sense rather than evade the contracts. So there's a differential there. And there's also then a view we've taken on those contracts we bought because literally we bought contracts and the capabilities to develop those contracts. So it's just a view we have taken. But naturally, we'll be taking that business, the 180 people, which includes a lot of the bid community, the technical people, et cetera, the preconstruction people. And we'll be pitching really hard for more work on CP7 with Network Rail and try to deliver out CP6 -- try to deliver out programs they got on CP6. So it gives us a great footprint. So it's a combination of conservative and also a different basis from which Buckingham would have reported.

The answer on inflation is clearly thought to be complex an issue for analysts to work out. So it does need some help from you. Can I just ask one more question and it's probably also related a little bit to inflation, but also to interest costs. How do you see the interest cost line playing out during the course of this year and next? It's quite clear, there are other forces at work, potential for the debt to come down, but potential also for interest rates to be sustained at higher levels and probably was in your medium-term plan 2, 3 years ago. Could you just talk about how that might play out in the next year or 2, Simon, please, if possible?

I'll do my best. So yes, so if you look at the announcement, Page 27 has got the finance income and costs line. First of all, finance income. So you've got a little bit of bank deposits and interest receivables, not material, but the biggest item there is the interest on the defined benefit scheme, GBP 7.8 million this year. We've actually -- it's difficult, that number, so we've given it in the deck. So if you read through, you'll actually find it. So we give it that this year we're expected to be circa GBP 5.5 million. So obviously, on the income side, there's a bit of a reduction there. And then if you look at the rest of the interest, you've got the big items are effectively the interest payable on leases, so that's IFRS 16, it's worth noting the GBP 9.5 million there contains GBP 2.9 million of adjusting items which is the lease, the IFRS 16 lease interest charge. So I wouldn't expect that to materially change, I mean although, unless we get -- if we get some contracts where there's a long leased assets, it might increase just a little bit. And then finally bank interest at GBP 29 million last financial year. We've seen base rates increase on average by about 2.2%. So if you just apply that to GBP 232 million, our previous average net debt, that'd be a GBP 5.1 million hit, wouldn't it, just from that. But then of course, you're absolutely right, we're deleveraging, so I mean if you just use approximate deleveraging GBP 100 million. So by now our interest rates are going to be about 7.5% incrementally. So there you've got a GBP 7.5 million reduction. And that'd be sort of how you work through the moving parts. I think foreign exchange gains and losses, I'd leave to you to work that out and also sort of the fair value increases and gains. And then you've got small other, seems to run at around GBP 2 million per year. So Okay?

Any further questions in the room? Could I just ask if there are any questions online? No? Okay. Good. So at that point, I'd like to thank you all for coming and I'd just like to sort of thank all my colleagues in Kier for all the very hard work and the great momentum this company now has behind it. So thank you all very much. Thank you.

Thanks.