Kier Group plc (KIE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's Kier Half Year '25 Results Bondholder Call. My name is Seb, and I'll be the operator for your call today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the floor to Andrew Davies to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Andrew Davies. I'm Chief Executive of Kier. Just I'll give you a quick highlights of the half year '25 results. I mean we have made significant operational and financial progress in the 6 months up to 31st of December last year. We delivered revenue growth of 5% and adjusted operating profit growth of 3%. And our margin is maintained at about 3.4%, which is commensurate with prior periods. Balance sheet remains strong. We have net cash reported of GBP 58 million and month-end average net debt has been materially reduced by circa GBP 99 million to GBP 38 million. And on top of that, we've got a record order book, which increased 2% to GBP 11 billion, a well-bid and disciplined order book. And I'm delighted to say that we are 98% secured for the full year '25 as well. So a strong order position supporting this year's revenues. And all of this performance has allowed us to have a disciplined approach to capital allocation. So we've declared a 20% increase in our dividend to 2.00 pence as an interim dividend. We've announced an initial share buyback program, which we did in our trading update back in January at GBP 20 million. And we continue to increase the investment in property targeting to get to a figure of GBP 225 million of Kier capital invested in the Kier Property business. So a very strong first half of the year. And Simon and I and Mark we'll be delighted to take any questions you may have on it.

[Operator Instructions] So Andrew, we do not have any questions on the call. So I'll hand back to you for any closing remarks.

Okay. Well, as I said, it's been a very strong first half of the year. We've improved pretty much our metrics across the board. We've got a very strong balance sheet now, as I said, materially reducing our average month-end net debt to that GBP 38 million figure, and that's allowing us now to have choices in our capital allocations by increasing dividends, the share buyback program and increasing investment in property. So if there's no further questions, thank you for calling in, and we'll catch you up at full year. Thank you.

Thank you very much... Sorry, go ahead.

Sorry Seb, sorry, it's Mark. I just thought I'd cut in, sorry. Look, we're just conscious we make this time available for bondholders to ask questions, and we will continue to do so as we are required under the indenture. But obviously, if you have questions outside of these calls, then please use our Investor Relations e-mail address that you can find on our website, and we'll endeavor to try and answer questions that we are able to answer in line with our, obviously, our own regulatory requirements around closed and open markets. So please take the opportunity to ask the Group questions, and we will endeavor to give you those responses. Thank you very much for your time.

Yes. Thanks a lot, everyone. Great day.

Thank you all. This now concludes today's Kier Half year '25 results call, and you may disconnect your lines.