REACT Group PLC (REAT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

June 10, 2024

London Stock Exchange GB Industrials Commercial Services and Supplies special 39 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

David Stredder

attendee
#1

Okay. Now we move on to our next company presentation, we've got REACT Group who had results out recently and will be joined by also recently we'll be joined by Mark, Shaun and Spencer.

Mark Braund

executive
#2

Hi there.

David Stredder

attendee
#3

There we go.

Mark Braund

executive
#4

Just trying to get my camera on, sorry, will come on in a second.

David Stredder

attendee
#5

Can't be having Mark and Spencer on the show.

Spencer Dredge

executive
#6

It was only going to be a matter of time before someone said that.

Mark Braund

executive
#7

I'll get the slide deck up. Shaun, if you want to just jump into -- we've got a slide deck. We've obviously seen hopefully this audience many times before. But, Shaun, do you want to kick start while I...

David Stredder

attendee
#8

Just to let you know, we've got quite a lot of new to the Mello virtual investors tonight because we had a show in Chiswick and quite a few who went physically have now come to join us virtually, which is great.

Shaun Doak

executive
#9

Right. And I'll kick things off. [indiscernible] Okay. So my name is Shaun Doak, I am the Group CEO. I was appointed back in February 2020, having joined the group 11 months earlier. I've got a strong track record of growing businesses, both in the specialist cleaning, the facilities management and the hedges sectors. My background is business management completely from a sales and operational background. And I've been leading the turnaround story alongside Mark and Andrea before Spencer replaced Andrea on the main board since starting the business.

Spencer Dredge

executive
#10

My name is Spencer Dredge, I'm the CFO. I just joined the Board in February this year. My background is, as you would expect, from a qualified accountant in the last 20 years plus supporting AIM-listed businesses. Short-standing corporate finance and running a portfolio. Yes, very pleased to be here at REACT and looking forward to the next phase of the growth story.

Mark Braund

executive
#11

I'm Mark Braund, I'm Chair. I've been involved with this story for about 5 years now. I came into the company when it was about GBP 4 million of turnover, losing quite a lot of money. And Shaun and the team ever since getting it to where we are now. And of course, we're full of ambition for the future. So let me get the slide deck up, gents, and I can leave you to it. If I can find it. There it is. Let's get it on full screen. Here we go.

Spencer Dredge

executive
#12

Right, interim results. So some of you have seen us before, no doubt, whether it's sort of publications or may have followed the story. For those that haven't, the back story here is of a successful turnaround. And if you look at this slide, you will see, if you look at the last 4 years, both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, the trajectory is up to -- is now a profitable group. And the profile of which is growing topline and bottom line, got strong margins. It's profitable and it generates cash. And what we've got here in our interim results, which is the 6-month period to 31st of March this year, is effectively a continuation of the momentum that we had in last full year ending September 2023, which was a record year. We flagged this at the year-end when we announced those results. We've seen the momentum carry over into this period. And to dive into the detail then, we've seen revenue up 13% at GBP 10.6 million for the 6 months. Over 85% of which is recurring in nature. So a very strong, robust revenues. Not dissimilarly, gross profit is up 15% at GBP 2.9 million. We've got blended services across the group that generate a gross margin of over 27% which is slightly stronger than this time last year. We're a very margin-focused business. And that's generated adjusted EBITDA up 35% at GBP 1.3 million for the period. And strong cash conversion from that EBITDA profitability, again, up 35% over GBP 900,000. Adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow, key metrics for us as a business. Some of you will be aware that we're acquisitive in nature. And as a result, there is some amortization associated with intangible assets are recognized on those acquisitions. So we pick a profit measure that drops out noncash and one-off items, and that closer profiles to our free cash. The profitables for the period, and we've got basic earnings per share of 0.41p versus a loss of a similar measure last year. And adjusted EBITDA earnings per share were over 6p versus 4.5p of the previous period. So what we've got here is a solid set of results. And like I said, the momentum is carried over from the last 4 years. And it's been a great start to this current financial year.

Shaun Doak

executive
#13

Okay. So just a little bit about the group. So we had a specialist contract cleaning and soft FM services across the U.K. We've focused on markets with the nondiscretionary requirements, typically complex demands and quite often over a nationwide development specification. We continue to increase or establish our increasingly unique proposition in terms of scale, range of services and our geographical delivery. Obviously, we've had some 2 bits of M&A and we've grown the business very aggressively organically, which I'll touch on a little later in the presentation. We believe we've got huge scope to continue our expansion in what is a very sizable and fragmented specialist cleaner market here in the U.K.. And our strategy is focused on building a business with class leading performance, achieving GBP 5 million of both free cash flow per year within the next 3 to 5 years. Just looking at the 3 divisions within the business, you've got REACT Specialist Cleaning, which is the call business. Predominantly looks at the merger C&D contamination work. So it can be anything from an unfortunate event when we have to clear up the fatality on the rads, on the rails. All of it leads to a specialist high-level clean with the health care session. So quite optimally to be on site within that space within 4 to 6 hours, and that is U.K.-wide. Fidelis is our maiden acquisition we completed that just on 3 years ago. That's what we call our hygiene and maintenance work. Typical commitments from the customers within that business are anything from 3 to 5 years. But there are some exceptions where we have 7-year commitment from the customer. Very strong in industry, very strong in health care and education. And we are on site all year around doing the cleaning and some of the soft FM services on site. And then the final component is the LaddersFree business, which is our most recent acquisition completed just over 2 years ago. That's commercial windows and cladding cleans, again, nationwide. In fact, we do have some sites in Ireland. We very much work with who's who of customers and typical commitment from the customer within this space is anything from 12 months through to generally 36 months. Moving on, please, Mark. Thank you. So just to look at our customers, we work with a whole host of blue-chip customers and some large facilities management companies in the U.K. Clearly, operate in a very diverse and resilient range of market sectors. Where, as I said, the refiner for our services is nondiscretionary. It's got very low the concentration, some 1,200 customers [indiscernible] of them are deemed to be material and the top 10 is less than 43% of revenue. That's just handful of some logos that you'll be fully aware of, ranges from health care all the way through to supermarkets. Just to give you an idea to some of the customers that we work with here in the U.K. Just looking at role. Now let me go through every one of these individually, but I will tease out the most pertinent ones. That strong organic growth has been underpinned by both large deals and lots of smaller successes that we've not been able to announce due to the size of the business as we stand today. I just want to focus on the first one. So we've got renew -- sorry, for the second one. We reviewed a material 3-year contract with a large university over at Birmingham, almost doubled the scope and size of the previous commitment from that customer. So that contract now is worth GBP 1.3 million per year. So we're just basically landing and expanding, cross-selling that the whole host of services across the group. That's -- I said that is a contract, but we're now delivering the LaddersFree glass and cleans, cladding cleans and we're also delivering some REACT Specialist Cleaning services to that client. We've had 2 large incremental specialists cleaning contracts each worth GBP 0.5 million. One is with a very large well-known FM business who we worked with in the past. This is an incremental piece of work that's being tapped into an existing agreement that we had with the customer. And the second one is with a midsized U.K. and FM business and that relationship started with the LaddersFree business. We've taken that commitment from that customer from around about GBP 30,000, GBP 50,000 spend to the dizzying heights that we're having now. So again, another example of us cross-selling and working with customers to eke out incremental growth. Quick one tease on the LaddersFree is not success. With a serious contract worth GBP 0.5 million, it's for a well-known variety store here in the U.K. with 700 locations nationwide. And that's been a fantastic win for all the team across group, but in particular, those operating with the LaddersFree business. And we've had some cost period contract wins as well. So we've got 3 significant multiyear specialist staining contracts with GBP 0.5 million and they've been renewed in the health care sector with over lift in score and revenue, again, by cross-selling across the group. So in summary, we've had growth underpinned by strong customer retention and some great contract wins and cross-selling success.

Spencer Dredge

executive
#14

So transitioning to the next phase of growth. You've heard Shaun talk about LaddersFree, most recent acquisition made in 2022. It's a great business. It's very profitable. It's contracted revenues, very strong margins that makes a significant contribution to the group. It's a [indiscernible], you could argue is the fact that it is crying out for automation. It's very manual businesses. And so to scale it efficiently and effectively, we have commissioned a project to build a platform. As an MVP, we're investing GBP 300,000 in the build of this product. It's been built in the Microsoft tool set, being built by a third party that's done this before for a very similar business as ours. We're halfway through the project, mid project. And we plan to be in user acceptance testing in the summer. And so the summer months are crucial, following which successful UAT, we will go launch which we planned for later this year. There are some other initiatives in the group. We've got some other rationalization projects. A good example is the move to a single banking provider. Obviously, it creates efficiencies with treasury management and it's always good to have a strong banking relationship. There are other back-office rationalization projects all of which will give growth efficiencies and other benefits, and we'll continue to look for further enhancements.

Shaun Doak

executive
#15

Thanks, Spencer. So yes, just continued on from that. We are going to continue strengthening our management team, both functional and executive. Spencer coming into the business is a primary example of that. Well versed in this space, having held that role at some various different businesses. I've also crossed in Justin Fleming. So Justin Fleming has been with us about 11 months now. He's our great financial controller, working very well with the whole management team. And we've also promoted 2 key individuals within the business. So the first one is Dave Rudge. Dave Rudge was our operations manager of REACT Specialist Cleaning. He's now heading all the business at LaddersFree. And we've got Chris Ryan, who originally joined the Fidelis business as sales manager. But is now heading that business ass the Divisional Director, and that is going incredibly well. Sales continues to be led by Sam Haywood, our group sales director, who's doing a fantastic job. And we've also got some new recruits in this team. We've got a dedicated business development manager at LaddersFree. So that's completely new. We've never had a dedicated salesperson in that business prior to us acquiring it, and Hadleigh is doing a fantastic job. And we've also just added another BDM who is very well versed in this space, having worked for various competitors. [indiscernible] joins us to really push the LaddersFree and the REACT Specialist Cleaning opportunities to the forefront. Like I said, we're going to continue to invest in the sales and marketing. We could do with some cladding cleanings in the background with our fractional market company, looking at ways of tying in some AI to understand that when we build our campaigns and we build up sequences depending on how either exists and our potential customers interact with those e-mails. It triggers different some sequences and that gets fed straight into our CRM system [indiscernible] and it gives the BDMs some head with our group sales at the right level of information to really go after new opportunities and close them and cross-sell across the group. And the final component is reignite our M&A activity, and I'm going to pass it over to Mark as someone he's leading the charge on the moment.

Mark Braund

executive
#16

Yes. Thank you, Shaun. So we have been focusing on bedding in LaddersFree and making certain that we can -- like we have done with Fidelis make the most of that opportunity. I guess it's the last 6 or 7 weeks, we've started to think that we're ready for M&A activity again. As Shaun mentioned, I'm the one that's burning the midnight oil on M&A. So it's not distracting us from our operational function, and we want to make sure that this continues to be an organic story. And one data point I would just share as there is a new audience here is that we have grown our revenue organically for the last 4 years at an average of 24% each year, organically, like-for-like. So whilst we are looking at M&A, we're going to maintain or continue to grow organically as well. So first point to be made is that we have got a track record. We've made 2 acquisitions that has been mentioned already. Fidelis in '21 and LaddersFree in '22. Fidelis is a business that we've more than doubled in revenue. When we bought it, it was about GBP 4.8 million of revenue and now it's closer to GBP 12 million. And that's not just about us being able to sell more to new customers. That's been about us also doing the cross-sell. We've got multiple products here that are specialists that customers want to buy. We have a compelling proposition and the guys have just done very, very well to convince customers to buy those products from us and our share of wallet has gone up dramatically. So Fidelis is one piece of the jigsaw. LaddersFree growth are currently about 30% of where we started. And what's perhaps more interesting is the fact that we've added 7 new nationwide customers. After 21 years of adding 1 a year, we've spent the last 1.5 years, and we've added 7 new nationwide customers. So our -- we don't just acquire businesses just to bolt on revenue. We acquire businesses as to improve our platform, to consolidate in the market and also to drive future revenue growth. So -- in terms of our approach, we're very disciplined. The opportunities that we've taken in the past, we've taken as a result of turning up an awful lot of rocks. I remember with Fidelis, we went through about 40 different opportunities before we actually found the right one. And with LaddersFree we're slightly lucky with that in that it was an off-market opportunity that came to us, but we have been looking at probably at least a dozen or more opportunities at the time. So we're very disciplined. The key thing is that we will always make sure that they're accretive and earnings enhancing in their first year. Most importantly are the other 2 things we put on the sheet here. The first one is they will be strategically relevant. The specialist cleaning market is hugely fragmented, and we are now becoming one of the bigger players, and we're still quite a modest-sized company. But we are becoming one of the biggest players, and we're one of the very few, if not the only ones, that can deploy all of our services nationwide, which is actually quite attractive to buyers that want to buy that way. So whatever we acquire, we'll be strategically relevant. It will be something that we can sell to the same buyers as we're servicing today. And then finally, cultural fit. We want to buy businesses where they are best at what they do in their segments. And the employees are excited to come to work every day. So we want people that are actually passionate about delivering this quality of service and compelling proposition that we do today when we're acquiring something. So that's the approach. I guess, funding is also critical here. Three components here really to recognize. One is every deal we've done so far and every deal we do in the future will be structured. Meaning we won't be handing the owners of a business that we buy a suitcase of cash so they can drop into the hills. There will be some deferred elements and some structure around the actual proposition. The second thing is that we are now extremely cash generative. We've made our final payments to the vendors of LaddersFree and to Fidelis in the last -- well, last few weeks to LaddersFree and to Fidelis back in the end of March. So every pound that we generate in cash now is going into our bank account for use. So we've got the cash generation, operational cash to deploy should we wish to. And then finally, the point that Spencer made earlier, which is we've now consolidated our banking arrangements, we are developing a very strong working relationship with HSBC. And we intend to leverage that relationship should the opportunity exist. And then only in the final situation where the circumstances are right, if we need to use a bit of equity, we will, but it will be part of a deal rather than the whole deal. So that's it basically. We have an organic growth strategy. We're very excited about it. We feel that the momentum we've built in terms of organic growth, the track record we've built in terms of acquiring assets that we've then evolved, developed and created value from is something we can continue to do moving forward. Back to you Shaun.

Shaun Doak

executive
#17

Thanks, Mark. Yes. So just in summary of our outlook, I think Mark just touched on it, but a record performance in H1. Momentum continues and served in the full year of '24. We've got a strong track record double-digit organic growth Mark just touched on there. Over 85% of our revenue is recurring, high margin, strong [ math ] conversion in a nondiscretionary specialist market. I think it's a good point just to pause. But Mark and I got involved in this business, we had about 35% -- 32%, I think, recurring revenue. The business then has got GBP 3.8 million turnover. We were lost. We're just north of GBP 20 million non incentive revenue and were profitable. So as Mark said, we got a strong track record of aggressively growing business organically and we've got 2 very good leases of M&A behind us. And we believe also that we're well positioned to achieve that 3- to 5-year goal of that GBP 5 million plus per year of free cash flow. Thank you.

Mark Braund

executive
#18

That's it, David. Are there any questions?

David Stredder

attendee
#19

Excellent. Thank you to all 3 of you. [Operator Instructions] First none is from Alex. How much of your business is data center cleaning? Are you planning on acquiring any specialist cleaning businesses maybe in this area?

Shaun Doak

executive
#20

Okay. Great question. I need to be clever how I answer this, not give any bottoms away. Is it an area that we're in, Yes, it is, we do data center cleaning. I can't divulge how much business that gives us for obvious reasons. And are we planning then on buying any specialist cleaning business? Look, I think Mark touched on it earlier, we're looking at our either bolt-ons in 2 segments or the Fidelis like businesses, some software and services or a more specialist business. So as Mark said, we look under a lot of rocks when we looked at LaddersFree and Fidelis. So I unfortunately don't have a crystal ball.

Mark Braund

executive
#21

Just to add to that, I mean, we can't acquire anything -- everything. We can only acquire one at a time. And it will be what's the best opportunity that we've been able to find that meets the strategy, and that may well be in data center cleaning, but it might not be.

David Stredder

attendee
#22

Okay. Well, another one here, excellent presentation, solid business. But what would you say the risks for the business and which areas keep you up at night?

Shaun Doak

executive
#23

There's no native risks that other than Mark and Spencer's lack of IT knowledge. I guess we need to have an eye firmly on AI, what's going on there and the developments with cobotics and robotics. I don't think that will have a negative impact on the industry. If we do go down that route, I think it will have a positive impact. But we're always going to need boots on the ground. We are always going to have to have specialist operators carry out whether that's contract cleaning or specialist cleaning. So I just -- very much for me, it's around the culture. Mark touched on it earlier. We're only as good as the people that we've got inside the business. And I think as we continue to scale up and grow the business, that cultural fit is key for me. So we just need to ensure that we continue to get that right.

Mark Braund

executive
#24

I think I would add to that. It's not us being complacent to say that we don't really see many risks. We've lived through the last 4 or 5 years where we've had COVID, we've had the invasion of Ukraine. We've had cost of living crisis et cetera, et cetera. And what I think is really wonderful about this business, very defensive, is that we deliver services that must be bought. They are nondiscretionary. If you don't keep your property clean, people don't want to come to work in it or travel with it or eat in it or whatever. At the end of the day, the cleaning has to be done. And what's really interesting is it was the very, very large players out there. They become all things to all men in terms of FM like the Mighties of the world or the ISSs or the OCSs with Italian Sebesta, it's one of my favorite. What they don't do themselves to deliver the kind of services we deliver, they sub contract with people like us. And when you look at the people like us, there are literally thousands of them, but most -- I mean, 99.9% are very good at what they do, but they only do one thing and they only do it in one geography. We are very, very good at what we do, and we do it in every geography in the U.K. for most of the items. And we can deliver it with a great standard of service and actually some price advantage. So even when the market is going backwards, which it has been, we've been growing. It's more difficult to grow when it's going backwards. But I think that we mitigate the risk because of the nature of the business we're in and focusing on delivering very much the best quality service and also on staff, we have very, very low turnover of staff. We pay well compared to our industry. And that's because we deliver a great service so we charge the right money for it. So sorry to be a bit sort of unitizing but I think it's really important that you understand, we don't take risks in terms of -- in terms of complacently. We just happen to feel very strongly in the business and it has a great growth pattern associated with it.

David Stredder

attendee
#25

Great. Well, I would like to say we've got lots of questions, but I'm happy to take them all as we've only got the Bash to follow. So no more company presentation is -- let's give it a go, getting through all these are some good questions. Martin wants to know how much does the target of GBP 5 million free cash flow rely on M&A.?

Spencer Dredge

executive
#26

Well, I think Mark's comment about the topline organic growth over the last 4 years at 24 points. I think we can do some math from where we are today. But I think we're keen to look at investing the cash that we can generate off this business wisely, and it will get us to where we want to go quicker, faster. And possibly, if we added services, say, you could say that it's a more compelling story to what we have. So there's lots of opportunities for buying stuff that can accelerate. But the organic story here is very solid and it will get us there in -- with enough time yes.

David Stredder

attendee
#27

Okay. Now Jeff wants to know, how did you achieve such a significant improvement in recurring revenue?

Shaun Doak

executive
#28

Okay. I'll get this one, David. Thank you. So we -- I think we've said it before, for anyone that's new to the story. We approach existing customers and new customers differently to the rest of the industry. We don't lock our bid team aware in a room and don't ever see the day light. We are very much present with our customers, understand their needs, constantly looking to upsell and cross-sell. And the team have become very good as we continue to become more sophisticated as we've grown out and become bigger. So turning those small ad hoc opportunities through the REACT Specialist Cleaning business, the sharp end of the spear, into contracted pieces that have a recurring revenue. Now do I think it will stay where it is? I don't know. I haven't got the answer to that question. I think around about 85% is about the right number, if I am honest. The reason for that will always depend on the mix of the opportunities. We may get an opportunity that lands at our desk tomorrow that is classified as ad hoc but it's a large piece of work. Or conversely, we might have something that's deemed to be contract maintenance and it's a large opportunity. It depends on what's in the opportunity pipeline and what we can close.

David Stredder

attendee
#29

Okay. Now Paul says, are you in a chicken and egg situation, i.e., your equity is lowly rated. So you can't use it to make more acquisitions as EPS doesn't increase, pity as the core business looks really quite promising.

Shaun Doak

executive
#30

Spencer.

Spencer Dredge

executive
#31

Well, yes. I mean, look, we talked about some of our financial metrics in this business, and we do look at adjusted EBITDA because we are acquisitive. It does generate intangible assets on the IFRS, which is the accounting framework we use. And that actually puts a big hole in our P&L for reasons that are noncash based and it does impact EPS. So I think a strong banking relationship is useful to us. I think everyone can see that. Equally, understanding profitable measures or profitability measures is equally important. So you can kind of get around some of these one-off noncash items.

Mark Braund

executive
#32

I think the other thing, by the way, is that we have a rating at the moment, which we feel is undervalued. But we also feel that we can buy at prices below our own value because we're buying smaller components. And again, if you look at Fidelis as an example, we've acquired a GBP 4.8 million revenue business. And we've more than doubled it in size, and we doubled it with more margin-rich business. So at the end of the day, our goal is clear, and we'll get there with a mix of acquisitions and -- we'll get beyond it actually with a mix of acquisitions and organic growth.

David Stredder

attendee
#33

Yes. Now Richard makes a good point here. Presumably, you're heavily reliant on labor for intensive cleaning. How difficult is it to get reliable labor? And has the minimum wage affected your margin significantly?

Shaun Doak

executive
#34

Okay. So I'll take this one. So I'll answer the latter part of the question, has the minimum wage affected our margin significantly? No, it hasn't. simply because when we take on new work, we always have that built in. The uplift to any national linear wage or minimum wage into the contracts. We have pretty much all our contracts and majority of them are on national minimum wage. There are 1 or 2 stragglers, small ones. So that's not affected it. We are pretty reliant on labor in terms of cleaning. We have not any issues recruiting labor. And I think Mark hit it earlier when he was on the M&A side, we do pay higher than the industry average, especially on the specialist side of the business. But in terms of new contracts for the Fidelis like business on the contract and maintenance work, unless it's a new site, we'll always cheap you over an existing team. So an existing team of operators and sometimes a supervisor. So again, that will always be covered and baked into the contracts.

David Stredder

attendee
#35

Yes. Now I suppose in a sense a follow-on from the other question about acquisitions. Do you have any plans to raise more equity?

Mark Braund

executive
#36

No. We don't need it. We've got cash that we're generating to run the business. Spencer can qualify that again if necessary. The only situation that I could see us needing to raise capital is if there is such a compelling opportunity for us to acquire something that we can't quite cover with the cash we have or the debt we are able to raise sensibly. So it will be a thin pop slice rather than raising money just to do an acquisition. But there's no other reason that I can foresee at the moment that we have any requirement to raise capital.

David Stredder

attendee
#37

Okay. I'll add on to that, Spencer, you're fine with that?

Spencer Dredge

executive
#38

Yes, absolutely. I think Mark touched on it earlier. I mean the balance sheet we reported at the end of March had some deferred consideration payments to making it. We've made those now. I mean we stated that they will be made in the second half year. So we have a term loan with HSBC for GBP 0.75 million. And outside of that, we've got no debt on the balance sheet. We've got a business that's strong contractual revenues. It's profitable. It generates cash, and it's got a regular beat to it. So it's a very predictable, profitable business, which obviously helps us plan for the future. So if we can do a deal without needing to go back to market, I think that would be great. Obviously, depending on the size of the deal, the value of the deal, and Mark touched on that, if there's need to then possibly, we will consider it. But that's our intentions at this moment in time.

David Stredder

attendee
#39

Okay. Well, the final one from Jonathon and probably fairly easy for you this one. Does management expect the growth rate in Q1 to continue into Q2?

Shaun Doak

executive
#40

I'll say take this one, Mark, if you want to add anything to it. But all I'm going to say is that momentum has continued into the H2. We've got a very healthy pipeline of opportunities. And again, as I said earlier, we've become more and more sophisticated as the years have gone on. We bootstrap this business until probably about 18 months ago, 24 months ago, we have our big boys on that. We constantly review on a weekly basis the opportunity pipeline across the board group. And back to back with our marketing capability and our outbound campaign. So we clearly need to get those opportunities across the line. But where we sit right now, we are a very healthy pipeline.

Mark Braund

executive
#41

Supporting a healthy pipeline.

David Stredder

attendee
#42

Yes. Actually, maybe a final one from me. Cleaning always seems like an on the ground thing to be doing. But do tell me, are you using AI in any way?

Shaun Doak

executive
#43

So we use a little bit AI, David, in our marketing campaigns. That goes straight into our CRM system. So that's in play right now and the project expenses driving at the moment, digitalization piece for the LaddersFree business that also incorporates AI as well. So it's something that we're all very keen on. We're always keeping that into the ground, there's any seminars that we think we can learn something from, I often jump on. I know Spencer I think last week and Mark's heavily invested in this. So yes, we'll continue to monitor the space, and we'll see where it takes us.

Mark Braund

executive
#44

Yes. My sort of closing comment on that, David, is twofold. One is that there are obviously robotics and stuff that can be used to physically do the work. Shaun can expand on this. But basically, I think that the cost efficiency element of that is just doesn't make it viable. And where it is viable, it's in fairly routine cleaning, not in specialist cleaning. You can't imagine sending a robot under a train to clear off unfortunate body parts and whatever from the bottom of the train. So robotics at the moment isn't something we're turning a blind eye to. We do watch and monitor, but we don't see that having influence. What I think is going to be the biggest influence is in AI or automation helping us run our business much more efficiently. Being able to match work with people in certain areas and certain types of work and do that very, very much more quickly and transparently. That's where we're looking. And that project that Spencer referred to is very much MVP, minimum viable project. We're getting the basics right and then we'll look to fold automation over the top of it.

Shaun Doak

executive
#45

Yes. Mark's spot on, David. We do get asked quite a bit for robotics on the Fidelis business to include it into the mix. But it's almost a standard line now when they built together specification. It's only when you sit down and expense on the costs, you never want to pay for it. We do have some sites, but we've got cobotics working with the operator and to carry out the work. But in terms of robotics, there's a reason that you see them really on the [indiscernible] and Kings Cross and Waterloo is generally by one of the big boys because they're generally the spaces that they can actually do the work effectively and efficiently. Otherwise, you do need an operator or operators to carry out the work to get in corners or any tricky areas. So Mark's spot on.

David Stredder

attendee
#46

Great. Okay. Well, thank you to all 3 of you. Good to get through all the questions and amazing what we can fit into 36 minutes.

Mark Braund

executive
#47

Thank you very much for the time and for everybody. listening.

David Stredder

attendee
#48

Always good to have you guys on Mello, that's for sure. Thank you.

Mark Braund

executive
#49

Thank you.

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