Perenti Limited (PRN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Perenti Limited HY '25 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to the company. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our results call for the first half of FY '25. My name is Mark Norwell, and I am the Managing Director and CEO of Perenti. Presenting alongside me today is Michael Ellis, our CFO. Starting on Slide 3. I'd first like to provide a quick overview of our purpose, our businesses, and our overall objective. At Perenti, our purpose is to create enduring value and certainty. We are focused on offering rewarding careers for our people and empowering them to make a difference in a safe and respectful workplace. We care and support the communities in which our people live and work, and we look to collaborate with our clients to deliver smarter solutions for a better future. Ultimately, our focus on our people, communities, and clients delivers value for our shareholders. With almost 40 years of experience in Australia, over 3 decades of experience in Africa, 15 years in North America, and a decade in Europe, we have a global footprint and critical experience competing in these markets. On to Slide 4. Our strategy has been to build a diversified and global portfolio of mining services. We have 3 operating divisions, each with several client-facing brands will deliver a wide range of mining-related services. Contract Mining contains Barminco, AUMS, and AMS, each with industry-leading expertise in hard rock underground and surface mining. Barminco is our most widely recognized brand in contract mining with its global footprint and almost 40 years of operating expertise. AUMS and AMS are leaders in African mining with a proud history of operating both at the surface and underground. In addition, we have the AG business, which is a technical services and study business that adds value internally and externally. The Drilling Services division was created from the combination of Ausdrill and the acquired DDH brands of DDH1 Drilling, Ranger, Strike, and Swick. Each brand has unmatched expertise in particular areas of drilling specialization and the combined scale of the business, now #2 globally, is delivering identified cost synergies. Mining Services contains a portfolio of businesses, delivering value-adding mining and technology services. The previous idoba division has been incorporated into this structure with a targeted product development focus and a lower cost profile. In total, we have over 10,000 people working in 12 countries. By revenue, we remain predominantly exposed to gold and underground operations. Underground operations are complex, requiring specialist operators and technical capabilities, which take time to develop but provide a high barrier to entry from competitors. And given the current and forecast gold price, along with our scale and increasing shift towards underground mining, we are positioned to capitalize on further upside. By our people delivering on our purpose and through effective management of our portfolio of businesses, our objective is to safely generate consistent and strong cash flows through economic cycles to create superior shareholder returns and enable long-term growth. Slide 5, financial summary. Our financial results are highlighted by record revenue of $1.73 billion, EBITDA of $323 million, EBIT(A) of $155 million, and NPAT A of $82 million. These results are in line with our internal forecast in support of our full-year guidance. Leverage has increased from 30 June 2024 to 0.9x, but remains flat when compared to the prior half-year result, which again was expected with full-year guidance still between 0.6x and 0.7x. Our Board has authorized the payment of a $0.03 interim dividend compared to $0.02 in the previous first half. This is consistent with the dividend policy established at the end of FY '24, targeting a payout ratio of 30% to 40% of underlying NPAT A, and demonstrates the positive outlook by the Board and management. We are also pleased to reaffirm all elements of our guidance with tailwinds expected to benefit each division in the second half. In particular, it is worth highlighting our free cash flow, defined as net operating cash inflow after interest, tax, and net CapEx, including stay in business and growth capital. On 31 December 2024, free cash flow was negative $11.8 million compared to negative $8 million in H1 FY '24. However, in the early days of January 2025, we received several late debtors that were due in December. In total, $42.4 million was received, demonstrating our strong free cash flow guidance of greater than $150 million for FY '25 remains on track. This confidence is evident in the declaration of the dividend for the first half. The first and second-half skew is similar to what we saw in FY '24 and aligns with our internal forecasts, supporting our confirmation of guidance. On to Slide 6, operational highlights. I'd like to note some of the important operational highlights delivered by our hard-working and committed people during the first half. Across the business, we are making positive progress on key safety initiatives, although, with safety, we can never get complacent. We want all our people to return safely at the end of every shift. So our focus on critical risks, assurance, and training of our people is front of mind across the entire leadership team from the group executive to our frontline leaders. The Drilling Services division delivered strong results, particularly the operational performance of Swick and Ausdrill. Across the division, we have consistently seen high utilization in production drilling, but exploration activity remains low. While this appears to be improving, the sector is still below historical averages. We continue to believe exploration activity will increase during the second half of FY '25. Despite the lower exploration activity, the DDH1 drilling and Strike businesses still managed to remain profitable at the divisional level, demonstrating excellent cost control discipline and the synergies that have been unlocked from the increased scale of the division. In combination, the Perenti Drilling Services division is now the second largest in the world when measured by meters drilled. Consequently, this division is positioned very well to benefit from the forecast increase in activity. Our largest division, Contract Mining, has produced another typically dependable half-year result. Contract Mining represents 72% of our group revenue and is an incredibly reliable business. The scale of the business means that it is not dependent on any single project. As projects naturally roll off due to commodity price fluctuations or the end of mine life, people and equipment can be readily transferred to other projects. Some recent contract announcements, such as Barminco's first project in the U.S.A. demonstrate the growth opportunity ahead. More than $2 billion worth of contracts are currently in late-stage negotiations and are expected to be announced during FY '25. Slide 7, group performance. This slide illustrates the key financial metrics across the group. Overall, group performance delivered record revenue for a half year of $1.73 billion. EBITDA and EBIT(A) were in line with our expectations for the first half, and our full-year guidance remains unchanged. EBIT(A)margin decreased slightly compared to the first half of last year, but as guided, the retraction in the first half was anticipated and is not unusual due to the timing of contract repricing. The sustainable growth trajectory of the group illustrates the benefits of our strategy to diversify our portfolio. The combined group has built sufficient scale and diversity in revenue streams to support consistent group performance through commodity prices and market cycles. An acceleration of earnings in the second half is expected to come in each division. Contract Mining will see contractual margin growth. Drilling Services is expected to see increased utilization in exploration activities and Mining Services will deliver an increase in fleet utilization for BTP. On to each of the divisions, starting with Contract Mining on Slide 8. As mentioned earlier, Contract Mining remains our largest division, generating 72% of group revenue and delivering 75% of the group's underlying EBIT(A) before corporate costs. While the result shows a slight decrease in the previous corresponding period, the underlying business remains strong. The resilience of contract mining is made clear when this result was achieved despite 3 underground nickel mines ceasing operations in calendar year '24 and Zone 5 in Botswana delivering financial performance below expectations. Despite these challenges, the contract mining team continued to deliver strong results. Several contracts are in the final stage of negotiations, including Agnew in West Australia, Obuasi in Ghana, and Mana in Burkina Faso, totaling more than $2 billion, delivering a step change in our work in hand. In addition, we continue to negotiate Zone 5 in Botswana. Beyond these near-term opportunities, the pipeline for contract mining remains strong with many additional opportunities in Australia, Africa, Canada, and the U.S.A. On Slide 9, we can see that Drilling Services is demonstrating the value of the acquisition made in October 2023. The delivery of $43 million of EBITA is a good result, especially considering that the exploration market continues to exhibit historically low levels of activity. The production-related drilling performed by Swick, Ausdrill, and Ranger has continued to experience strong utilization. These results demonstrate that Drilling Services has further potential for growth when the exploration market returns to historical levels of utilization. We expect an increase in exploration activity towards the end of FY '25, and as many market commentators have already noted, there has been a small increase in equity capital market raisings amongst exploration companies already. It is important to note that the quality of the team within Drilling Services is best-in-class. The brands have strong reputations for delivering for their clients, and I have been incredibly impressed with the quality of the leaders within each business. On to Slide 10. The Mining Services and idoba division has had a challenged half. The decrease in performance was from the largest business unit in this division, BTP, which was impacted by an unexpected idle fleet during the period. The fleet was idle for longer than anticipated in the first half of '25, but the team is focused on returning the fleet to a utilization level in line with the historical average. This target will deliver a stronger result for BTP in the second half. Supply Direct and Logistics Direct continue to perform in line with expectations and the strategic review of idoba has been completed and revised business plans implemented. This change has focused the idoba team on product development and lower costs. Mike will expand on idoba financials and the go-forward approach. Slide 11, people. As mentioned earlier in the operational highlights slide, our people are the foundation of our business. Our most important responsibility is to ensure the safety of our people. We are continuing to build a culture of safety and respect and enhance our management of critical risk that supports our objective of nil adverse life-changing events to our people. Some areas that progressed during the first half in support of keeping our people safe include increased critical control checks by mine leaders, up 23%; installation of multiple safety systems or trials of new systems, including the rollout of more fatigue monitoring systems in vehicles, a trial automated rod handler truck within drilling services and real-time atmospheric monitoring of gases underground at Sunrise Dam. Dedicated safety coaches are now working in the field in support of our frontline leaders across all regions in contract mining. Beyond these initiatives, we continue to progress our assurance activities, training and development of our people, and working closely with our clients. Continuously improving our safety systems to deliver improvements is not a task that we can ever say we have completed. This is an ongoing effort of continual learning and improvement across the group. I'll now hand over to Mike, who will take you through the financial results.

Thank you, Mark, and thank you to those who dialed in on the call today. Great to be here on my first results call as the CFO of Perenti, a company I've been very proud to work for over the last 11 years. Moving to Slide 12, which details the underlying profit and loss for the half. Mark has already touched on the key drivers to reach the record revenue, together with the EBITDA and EBITA results in the previous divisional slides. So I'll provide some more context on the interest and tax movements in the half. Net interest costs were $35.8 million, up $2.4 million on the prior comparative period. This increase was primarily driven by the new U.S. notes being issued in FY '24 at a very competitive 7.5% interest rate, however, slightly higher than the 2025 U.S. notes. It's important to note the spread on the new notes tightened considerably, reflecting the improved credit and scale of Perenti. With our focus on gross debt reduction, as evidenced this half, all things equal, you can expect our interest expense to reduce into future reporting periods. Moving on to income tax expense. Underlying income tax expense for the half was $37.6 million, up $1.1 million on the PCP. The key driver of this was our profit before income tax increasing by 3.7% to $119 million in the half. Our underlying effective tax rate reduced to 31.5%, which is pleasingly slightly down on the prior period. It is worth noting with the hard work of our tax team that the current effective tax rate is more than 3% lower than prior to the DDH1 acquisition. As called out at the time of the acquisition, significant tax synergies were available with the inclusion of the profitable DDH1 businesses and have been realized. The increased Australian earnings have enabled faster realization of the historical tax losses, therefore, putting downward pressure on the effective tax rate. For those new to the Perenti story, we have just over $500 million of Australian gross tax losses available as at 31 December 2024. This will provide a cash tax shelter for our Australian businesses for some years to come. Moving on to Slide 13, we outline the reconciliation of our statutory results to the underlying results. Although pretty straightforward during the half, I'll provide some further context on the items. Firstly, we had $2.3 million of restructuring and other one-off costs, primarily these related to redundancy costs as a result of our continued focus on overhead optimization. The next item is the adjustment of net foreign exchange gains of $5.3 million, predominantly due to unrealized gains on intercompany loans and tax receivables. Idoba product development costs were down 8% on the prior comparative period with expenditure of $6.7 million in the half. A strategic review of Idoba has been completed with revised business plans agreed, resulting in a narrow focus to delivering priority products, thus reducing spend profiles into the future. The team is making very solid progress on the underground simulation product that will be released into the market this calendar year. We are expecting $5 million of product development expenditure in the second half of FY '25, reflecting a circa 33% reduction to the FY '24 run rate. Consistent with prior periods, we have noncash amortization of the customer-related intangibles of $22.6 million for the half. As the majority of this amortization relates to the Barminco transaction that occurred in 2018, from FY '26 onwards, you can expect the amortization to continue to reduce. This will benefit our statutory NPAT. The last point to this slide, we have net tax effects of all the adjustments of $8.9 million to reconcile to the $63.5 million of statutory NPAT for the half, which is slightly down on the prior corresponding period, which had a statutory NPAT of $69.8 million. To help you better understand the reduction, the statutory results for the first half of FY '24 included a one-off noncash accounting gain on the DDH1 acquisition of $29 million, which accordingly had a material impact on the previous corresponding period. Moving on to Slide 14, the statutory cash flow for the half year. The business delivered $229 million of operating cash flows before interest and tax. Cash conversion of 71%, resulting in free cash flow after all capital expenditure of negative 11.8% in the half. As Mark discussed earlier and as highlighted on this slide, we received $42 million of debtor receipts in early January '25 with some of our clients paying a few days late. As shown on the slide, adjusting for the $42 million of late debtor receipts, our adjusted free cash flow was $30.6 million with adjusted cash conversion of 84% in the half. Other callouts on this slide, net interest paid is $34.2 million, up $3.8 million, of which $2.2 million relates to accrued interest paid on the U.S. notes redeemed in December 2024 that would normally be paid in the second half. Cash tax of $43.5 million was up on the PCP, predominantly due to the timing of international tax payments with cash tax in the second half of FY '25 expected to be slightly up. On to capital expenditure. We continue to invest into our fleet with a net capital expenditure of $163 million, in line with our depreciation. Moving into our financing activities. We had net debt repayments of $134 million, which reflects the USD 100 million partial redemption of the 2025 U.S. notes, reducing our gross debt and lowering interest in future periods. As called out in our FY '24 results call, as this redemption occurred after October 2024, there is no premium payable on this redemption. On-market share buyback activities for the half totaled $17.2 million and $37.7 million was paid in relation to the $0.04 final dividend declared in August 2024. In summary, the $30.6 million of adjusted free cash flow in H1 is in line with our internal forecasts. The second half weighting for the earnings profile and the expected year-end cash conversion has us on track to deliver our guidance of greater than $150 million of free cash flow for FY '25. This free cash flow guidance represents a very healthy free cash flow yield on the current trading price and builds on the $117 million of free cash flow in FY '23 and our record free cash flow delivery of $184 million in FY '24. Now on to Slide 15, liquidity and capital management. Our balance sheet remains very strong and well-positioned for the future. At 31 December 2024, the group had circa $600 million of available liquidity. The strength of the balance sheet, combined with the increased scale of the business with the inclusion of the DDH1 acquisition, resulted in Perenti receiving rating upgrades from both S&P and Moody's during the half. Across all 3 global credit rating agencies, S&P, Moody's and Fitch, Perenti is now only one notch below investment grade, which is a strong testament to the fundamental strength of the business and the scale that has been built. One feature that has been highlighted during the conversations with the rating agencies is the favorable outlook for the underground mining market, our robust contract structures used in contract mining and the high rate of contract rollover success. The long-term nature of this contracting model and the combined group revenue greater than $3 billion provided the rating agencies with confidence to upgrade their ratings. Moving on to the debt structure. The USD $100 million redemption of the 2025 notes in December last year has reduced our gross debt to $863 million at the reporting date, noting there is more than $60 million of FX impact on our debt balance period-on-period with the revaluation of the U.S. notes. Remaining 2025 U.S. note stub amount, which is USD $103 million is now current on the balance sheet and payable October 2025. This is consistent with our strategy as this is our cheapest debt with interest at 6.5%. Over the next 8 months, these 2025 U.S. notes will be repaid with a combination of free cash flow and existing USD credit lines within our syndicated debt facility. The timing of this redemption will ultimately be a treasury call based on what is best for the balance sheet and best for our shareholders. As a result of the debt repayments, our cash balances reduced during the half to be $265 million. As previously flagged, the 30 June '24 cash balance was elevated pending the U.S. note redemption premium falling away, which occurred in October '24. Our leverage is 0.9x, consistent with the prior corresponding period, however, is up from 30 June '24. There are some points to note on this. Firstly, we expected our leverage to increase during the first half in line with our expected cash flow profile. Secondly, if we normalize the net debt for the $42 million of late debtor receipts, our adjusted net leverage is circa 0.8x. We are confident in our FY '25 free cash flow delivery, and the second half weighting is in line with our free cash flow delivered in the second half of FY '24. Consequently, we remain confident in the delivery of our guidance range of 0.6x to 0.7x leverage at the end of FY '25. Now on to Slide 16. During FY '23, we successfully brought leverage under 1x, meeting the threshold that we set to recommence dividends. On our FY '24 results call, we announced our updated dividend policy of 30% to 40% of underlying NPAT A. This policy is one part of our capital management framework, which seeks to enhance shareholder value by paying down debt, distributing dividends and when appropriate, buying back shares on market. I'm proud to note that during the last 12 months, the collective value of payments allocated in these categories adds up to just under $0.25 billion. The management team of Perenti remained focused on strengthening the balance sheet and driving tangible returns to shareholders through this capital management framework. Thanks all. I'll now hand back to Mark.

Thank you, Mike. On Slide 17, our work in hand and pipeline. As of the 5th of February 2025, we retained $4.7 billion of work in hand. This includes the recent work won with Nevada Gold Mines and extension with Regis Resources at Duketon. As mentioned previously, it does not include over $2 billion of near-term contract extensions. These contracts still sit as part of the pipeline and will only convert to work in hand once a fully executed contract is signed. In contract mining, which covers surface mining and underground mining on this chart, we have a pipeline of $16 billion, which is the majority of the pipeline for the group. The $16 billion pipeline for contract mining is due to the long-term nature of contracts as the opportunities linked to operating mines or mines in development, thereby providing greater visibility of the pipeline. Typically, drilling services and mining services have shorter-term contractual arrangements, resulting in less visibility over both work in hand and the pipeline. Overall, though, the outlook for the mining industry is very positive, which positions our diversified service offering extremely well to capitalize on future upside. In particular, we believe the recent win of the Goldrush Underground project for Nevada Gold Mines in the U.S.A. offers Barminco an excellent opportunity to prove the capability and efficiency of the team directly to U.S.A. clients. North America is the largest underground hard rock mining jurisdiction in the world, and this new market has huge potential for Barminco with limited upside currently factored into the pipeline. Lastly, on Slide 18, I'll repeat what I said at the outset, we confirm our guidance for FY '25. A diversified portfolio of mining services is a resilient and sustainable business model with clear advantages that come from scale in both contract mining and drilling services. Our strong free cash flow generation is supporting our capital management framework, allowing a reduction in gross debt, providing CapEx funds to drive sustainable growth and supporting our ongoing ability to pay dividends and buy back shares. We expect revenue between $3.4 billion and $3.6 billion and EBITA of between $325 million and $345 million with greater pull-through in the second half. CapEx is still forecast to be approximately $330 million, and we expect to exceed $150 million of free cash flow in FY '25, which will see cash flow strengthening to reduce leverage to 0.6x to 0.7x by 30th June 2025. We will deliver these results by maintaining our approach that we outlined at the end of FY '24. Our first objective is the safety of our people who deliver our services. Without them, none of these results would be possible, so safety must remain at the forefront of everything we do. We must continue to win and extend projects that deliver sustainable growth. There is no point taking on projects to earn greater revenue if they do not return an appropriate profit margin. Free cash flow remains a priority. While the adjusted free cash flow demonstrates that the business remains in a strong position, greater cash conversion at the end of the full year reporting period will be a particular focus during the second half as we demonstrated in the second half of FY '24. The disciplined approach to capital allocation will continue in the future as will the approach to seeking efficiencies across all divisions. On to our last slide. On behalf of the Board and Group Executive, thank you to our clients and everyone at Perenti for their efforts during the first half. We have a fantastic team of dedicated individuals who make our company great. I remain honored to lead this team, and I look forward to delivering on the second half of the year alongside them all. I'd also like to thank our existing shareholders and potential investors for your time today. We are pleased that you have supported our journey so far, and we look forward to continuing to deliver in the future. I'll now hand back to the operator to facilitate any Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from William Park with Citi.

Just on idoba, can I just clarify your comments, Mike? You said you're expecting the development cost to sort of step down in this year. I think previously, you called out around $50 million for FY '25. My apologies if I have missed it, but what should be the number that you guys are expecting to spend this year, please?

Thanks, Will, for the question. The expected spend in the second half is $5 million on the product development costs. Therefore, the annual spend for FY '25 will be just under $12 million. But importantly, I think the run rate represents a 33% reduction on the FY '24 spend.

And just in terms of the late debtors that you called out that's impacted, I guess, cash conversion for the half. Is that something that's kind of one-off? Or should we be kind of expecting some, I guess, movements to cash conversion going forward, i.e., are you seeing more and more customers being more flexible with their payments of their invoices?

No. Thanks, Will. Yes. No, it is a one-off. And as outlined in the deck, $42 million was received early in January. And I think potentially some of our AP offices had a good Christmas break, but we did receive quite a few invoices on the 2nd of January as well. So it was a very short-term timing. And importantly, if you look at our cash conversion for the first half of last year, it was quite similar. And around Christmas time, we do occasionally see a slightly less EBITDA cash conversion. So no long-term issues there.

And I would just add, Will, as well that certainly our contracting discipline around sort of payment terms absolutely is front and center with every tender, and it's very much ingrained sort of through the team. So yes, no change in terms of how we approach contracts and how we approach getting paid. And Mike just outlined the one-offs and the sort of timing at 31 December.

And then just one last question I had was around sort of first half and second half SKU, particularly with respect to contract mining, mining services and drilling services. You touched on second half SKU in contract mining. How much of a SKU should we be expecting? Is this sort of similar kind of SKU that we've seen in FY '24? And for Mining Services, can you just step through your expectations around BTP fleet utilization improvement sequentially in second half versus first half? And obviously, with Drilling Services, is majority of that improvement going to come from exploration? And do you see a lot of that being driven by production?

Yes. Thanks, Will. Certainly, the SKU in the second half is what we've seen historically. It's also what we've called out previously. I would note where we landed in terms of the EBIT in the first half is very much in line with our own internal forecast that we then use to build our guidance and therefore, having the reinstatement or reconfirmation of guidance for the full year. As far as the second half is concerned in terms of drivers around the step-up, certainly from a drilling services perspective, the production side of drilling with Swick, Ausdrill and Strike has been strong, and we're still seeing some sort of upside coming through there. Exploration, as we called out on the call and everyone on the call also knows that exploration has been soft. We are seeing some early sort of signs of some improvement there into calendar year '25. And we are hoping for a slight step-up towards the end of the financial year. So that gives us the confidence around Drilling Services. As far as Mining Services, which is predominantly BTP, as you called out, that will be around fleet utilization. We did see some fleet come off just at the start of the financial year, and that was the main sort of drive around the softer first half for Mining Services on the back of BTP. We've seen some of that fleet getting back to work, and we've got some more fleet to get back to work throughout the half. So that will really drive the step-up. Supply Direct, whilst it's a smaller part of the business in mining services, that is a strong business for us that we're continuing to see some uptick. So that will also contribute into the second half. As for contract mining, a number of items there in terms of improvements, just some of the commercial contracts we have in place regarding alliance-style contracts. We generally have adjustments in the second half as we sort of work through that brings into a stronger second half, which is, again, one of the drivers to historically having a stronger second half. So that combination will is what's positioned us for delivering on our guidance for the full year with a stronger second half compared to first.

Your next question comes from Matthew Chen with Moelis.

Just a query about how you guys are thinking about your pipeline and your opportunities in North America given the recent win with Goldrush, either a bit of color around kind of other opportunities that might exist there or further afield.

Yes. Thanks, Matthew. In terms of, firstly, Goldrush, the first job for Barminco in the U.S., and we do see hopefully some upside with that job into the future, given it's the world's largest gold mining complex, we see that as positive. I would also note that one of our drilling businesses, Swick has operated in the U.S. since 2009. So certainly some good knowledge sharing between the 2 businesses, which is positive. As far as North America more broadly, we still got the 2 Barminco jobs in Canada at Hemlo and Red Chris. Red Chris a Newmont job is under study for expansion in the future. So given we're on site and operating at Red Chris, we do see potential upside if that expansion gets approved by Newmont in due course. As far as the U.S. is concerned, we do call out the U.S. in our pipeline, although I would say that at this point in time, we haven't really factored in the full set of opportunities for a pipeline in the U.S., mainly because we're still assessing the priority jobs that we want to go for and our approach to North America, which has always been the case is we're going to be pretty steady with our growth there. So we want to make sure that we deliver at Nevada Gold and then expand in due course. So that pipeline will build out in time, Matt, as we go through our filtering process and look to increase the number of targets in North America for Barminco.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Marcus Barnard with Bell Potter.

Just one quick question on the guidance. I can sort of see you're expecting a recovery in exploration drilling and in the BTP fleet. Is the guidance dependent on that recovery coming through? Or do you have enough flex elsewhere in the business to make that up if that recovery doesn't come through?

Yes, Marcus, in terms of your point on exploration, look, it's a pretty small sort of uptick that we'd be anticipating into FY '25. So I'd certainly say that our guidance is not dependent upon the uptick. One of the benefits of our scale and also diversification in our portfolio is that we do have a lot of different sort of levers and a lot of different areas where we can see an uptick. But specifically to exploration, then our expectation is very modest into FY '25.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Cameron Bell with Canaccord Genuity.

Just following on from that last question. Just maybe if you could I know you can't allocate the individual dollars to each segment, et cetera, but you've got guidance out there that basically says at the midpoint, you're going to get an incremental uptick in EBIT from, I'd say, about $25 million. Could you just help us maybe understand where most of that comes from? How much is currency, et cetera?

Yes. Thanks, Cam. So in terms of, I guess, asking us to sort of allocate that delta into the second half across the 3 divisions. So I won't be quite as precise as you'd hope. But given the scale of contract mining, certainly, we see a sizable step-up in terms of proportion of that uptick in the second half from contract mining. BCP, we see a moderate sort of step-up there given the utilization lower in the first half and looking to get fleet back to work into the second half. And then thirdly, in terms of exploration drilling, pretty moderate. So I guess, Cam, in summary, the allocation of the EBIT step-up would predominantly be from contract mining.

Sorry. Just in relation to the FX query, we've assumed in the second half sort of mid-60s. So it's obviously been a little bit volatile over the last month, but we've taken our approach to the mid-60s.

Okay. Sure. You used to actually give there was a rule of thumb back in the day around what your FX actually did. And it was a $0.01 I think it was $2 million EBIT, $4 million EBITDA. Is that still the same in the current structure?

It's very similar, but for the second-half impact, it will obviously be less.

Your next question comes from Gavin Allen with [indiscernible].

Just a quick one for me. I'm asking the same question that's been asked already a couple of different ways. But just in the interest of clarity, when we're thinking about that full-year guidance and the SKU that you've got in mind and just bearing in mind that it's been sort of called out for some time now that you are expecting a skew and the guidance is unchanged, that things like BCW or BCP utilization, Zone 5 financial performance, these sorts of things were as you sort of planned them to be when you entered into fiscal '25? Or have things sort of are there other swings around abouts we should be thinking about?

Yes. Thanks, Gavin. I guess the nature of our business and scale these days, selling there's always swings around abouts in the scale of the business. And we do have areas of the business that are performing very, very strongly, and they do counter some of the downside. So selling swings around abouts balance out to hit our internal half year forecast. Zone 5, as called out in the call and in the presentation deck, down where we want it to be. But the second half isn't based on seeing a massive turnaround there at all. In fact, we're factoring that to be sort of relatively consistent in the second half and anything that comes through will be upside. But we're not seeing a huge sort of expectation in the second half turnaround of Zone 5, a little bit with the fleet utilization down, as you say. But certainly, the skew is in line with our internal forecast.

Yes. Yes, that makes sense. And then by definition, I think you've talked about exploration and you haven't got a lot of exploration factored into your numbers. If that really came on strong into May and June and who knows where it does or not. But just to be clear, you've got plenty of leverage still there in DDH in particular.

Yes, absolutely, Gavin. Certainly, we clearly hope it comes in May and June, but what we do know is that it will come into play at some point. And that will be significant upside for the business when that comes on. The Drilling Services division is going really well. The team are performing extremely well. And even DDH, as you mentioned, with that being a bit down, the teams that are managing the cost base, they're doing a fantastic job. So it's really well positioned to capitalize when we see the market come back strongly in exploration.

Your next question comes from Stephen Jen with Eurizon SLJ Capital Limited

Lots of good numbers there. I noticed in your announcement to the market, though, you've reported earnings per share. You haven't mentioned earnings per share at all in the presentation, but on the report of the market, it drops 25% from $0.08 to $0.06. I'm assuming that's because of the onetime adjustment in the acquisition in the previous year. And the second part of the question is still on a per share. Very nice to see a 50% increase in the dividend per share in the first half. Just trying to do the calculations for your full year guidance. If you achieve guidance, are you likely to maintain the second half dividend from last year or increase it or decrease it?

Yes. So thanks for the question. I'll lead off first. Thanks, Stephen, and cover off dividend and briefly touch on the other point, and Mike will add a bit of color to that. Firstly, in terms of dividend, I think and thanks for calling out the increase in the interim dividend from $0.02 to $0.03, certainly a demonstration from the Board and the company about the confidence of the outlook for the business and also the financial performance of the business. So we're very confident about the outlook. In terms of dividend for the full year, certainly delivering on our guidance of cash generation north of $150 million positions us extremely well with leverage target to be between 0.6x and 0.7x which fits into our policy regarding paying the dividend. So that will continue to improve the balance sheet and the ability to pay. As to what that will look like, I won't make any sort of speculation. It will be a full Board decision at our August Board meeting in terms of what we do to pay. So we'll touch on that when we do the full year results. But the outlook is strong. So I'll leave it at that in terms of the dividend. As far as the point regarding the EPS, Mike will talk to that and call out the point you raised about the acquisition accounting from prior periods.

Thanks, Stephen. So in relation to the statutory EPS, you are correct. It has dropped from the prior corresponding period. The main driver of that is in last year, there was a $29 million noncash accounting gain in relation to the good acquisition that we did in relation to DDH1. So clearly, that is impacting the statutory EPS numbers as you disclosed.

Okay. What was the $29 million as an earnings per share figure? What would that be the $0.08? I assume it's..

It will be $0.29 over circa $900 million. So it will be just under $0.03. $0.03, right.

So really, the comparison is $0.05 to $0.06 rather than $0.08 to $0.06.

Correct.

Your next question comes from Mitchell Sonogan with Macquarie.

Just a quick one on Drilling Services. Just looking at the EBITDA margins up 11.1% there. Is that largely what we should expect going forward, not expecting a broader uptick in exploration drilling? Or is there still further synergies to come through from DBH?

Yes. In terms of the margin moving forward, Mitch, as exploration comes back on, we will see an uptick into that margin into the future. I would also add that the team, whilst exploration is still off, they continue, as I mentioned before, regarding cost management. So we are looking at ways to try and sort of push that a little bit higher, but that will predominantly come through as we see exploration improve hopefully, the back end of this financial year into FY '26. So we are looking to push that up higher in time, Mitch.

Yes. And just on Zone 5 being called out a specific headwind. Are you able to provide any further color on approximately what impact that had on the result and also any time frame for your negotiations?

Thanks, Mitchell. In terms of specific numbers, I won't talk to exact numbers with the EBIT of Zone 5. But fair to say that it's not to the level we want. And I think an important part about that is it demonstrates the benefit of scale within our business these days, that we're not beholden to any one project. And if one project doesn't quite meet our expectations, we've got a lot of other projects that are performing either in line with expectations or above. So definitely the benefit of the scale that we have in our business now and also the diversification. As for timing, the 12-month extension that we executed last year takes us through to 30th of June this year. The team are in negotiations with the client there to look to extend into further contract at Zone 5 in Botswana. If we do extend that contract, it will be on the financial terms that do make sense for us in terms of generating the right returns. If we don't actually extend the contract, the benefit we have with that contract is that will then allow us to recycle the capital that is at Zone 5, and we have that as part of the contract with the client and then we'd be looking to allocate that cash that we get from Zone 5 into more value-accretive returns for shareholders. So either way, Mitch, we either extend the contract on terms that generate better financial results for us or we take the capital that's allocated to Zone 5 and allocate that to better returns. So ideally, we extend and stay there. But if not, we're in a good position to be able to extract the capital we've invested there. We expect to know the outcome certainly by 30th of June, but ideally over the next 3 months.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to the company for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join the call this morning, particularly those in Perth for an early start. As per a couple of the questions and comments regarding the outlook and the skew, first half in line with forecast, supports our full guidance number, $0.03 dividend, an uptick from the $0.02 in the prior period, really does demonstrate the confidence of the outlook into the future. And we look forward to having discussions with investors post the call. Thanks for your time, and have a good day.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.