Ventia Services Group Limited (VNT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Thank you for joining Ventia's Half Year Results for 2023. A warm welcome to everyone on the call. I am Dean Banks, proud and privileged to be the Group CEO of Ventia. I'm joined today by Stuart Hooper, Ventia's CFO. Following the presentation, Stuart and I will be happy to take questions. I trust the presentation will demonstrate a successful half year, we have delivered upon what we said we would do, providing a solid platform for growth. I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we present to you today, the Cammeraygal people of the Eora Nation. We acknowledge and respect their ancient and ongoing connection to the lands, waters and communities on all lands in which Ventia operates across Australia and New Zealand. I want to pay my respects to the traditional custodians and their Elders, past and present. We also recognize and celebrate the heritage and culture of New Zealand, where our team is engaged with the local Iwi and communities across the country. I'd like to start with safety. The safety of our people is our highest priority. It is our license to operate. And I'm incredibly proud of the continuing trajectory of our key safety performance indicators. This period, our total recordable injury frequency rate improved by 11% through our heightened focus on frontline safety, supported by progressive employee engagement in our training and development courses. Our serious injury frequency rate also improved by 39%, through a greater focus on managing critical risk controls. I am really pleased our collective efforts to shape positive behaviors are driving an overall improvement in our results. I now want to take you through the 3 headline objectives we set ourselves in 2023. Namely, to deliver on market financial and operational expectations, to realize sustainable growth, and to continue to create long-term value for our shareholders. We have delivered on these goals. We have achieved solid financial performance and growth across all sectors, generating greater than 10% growth in revenue, EBITDA and NPATA. We are realizing sustainable growth, evidenced by a 90% renewal rate. We've also secured almost $750 million in contract value from new projects, including continued success in adjacent markets. This strong performance is creating long-term value for shareholders, illustrated by our $0.0831 interim dividend, delivering growth of 11.2%. This half year result gives us the confidence to confirm we are on track to deliver upon our previous NPATA guidance, with an outcome towards the top end of the range in the full year. Now I'd like to take a closer look at the half year '23 statutory results. We delivered revenue of $2.8 billion, an increase of 11% on half year '22. EBITDA reached $225.1 million, an increase of 10.7%, with a stable margin of 8.1%. NPATA was $94.8 million, an increase of 11.3%. Cash flow conversion remains high at 88.9%, an increase of 1.6 percentage points. Our work in hand reached $17.5 billion, which I will talk about in more detail on the next slide. These are excellent results in any market, but especially when you consider the challenging macroeconomic landscape that the businesses are operating in today. We have been able to strategically navigate these conditions with minimal business impact, and this is predominantly due to the essential services nature of our business, alongside our strategy to redefine service excellence. Now moving on to work in hand. The first half saw a steady flow of opportunities. We secured large strategic wins across all sectors. As at 30th of June, our work in hand was $17.5 billion, growing 1% compared to this time last year, and we are targeting an achievement of above $18 billion for the full year. Historically, work-winning is seasonally lower in the first half, largely driven by government budgetary cycles. That said, it is clear that a number of procurement activities previously anticipated to take place in 2023 are now likely to move into 2024. This will offer short-term contract extension opportunities where we are the incumbent. For example, there is a revision across the defense portfolio of their key procurement activity timings. Pleasingly, Ventia has been short-listed by defense in each and every category where we promoted an initial bid. You can see on the right-hand side of the slide, we have already seen solid revenue coverage across the remainder of 2023 to 2025. This profile also demonstrates the long-term nature of our contracts with an average tenure of 5 years or 7 years if you include options. In addition, Ventia has a pipeline of more than $30 billion of qualified opportunities identified. Through the lens of client focus, we continue to broaden and strengthen our client relationships. As I've said before, our major contract renewals are the ultimate measure of success. Let's go through some of these. During the first half, we renewed our defense equipment maintenance contract with the Australian Defense Force, valued at $393 million over 5 years. This contract includes repair and maintenance of some of Australia's newest and most advanced equipment. We also renewed our contract with Yallourn Power Station to provide maintenance services generating $150 million in revenue over the next 6 years. This will take the station through to his expected closure point when remediation services will commence. The Auckland Council contract extension is a great story. This was a contract where we needed to demonstrate a number of improvements. We focused on understanding the voice of the customer and recalibrated our services accordingly. In recognition of the step change in our performance, the client issued us with a 2-year contract extension in May of this year. For me, this really illustrates the strategy to redefine service excellence in action. Our telecommunications sector won a new pipeline of work with NBN for N2P with $280 million over 2.5 years. Year-to-date, Ventia has secured over $650 million in contracts awards with core telco carriers. In transport, we secured a new contract award with Transurban in Queensland, valued at $210 million over 6 years. And Ventia has also been awarded a new 5-year maintenance contract with the Hauraki District Council, another example of our developing capability in New Zealand. These wins reaffirm for me the breadth and depth of our capabilities, our reach across geographies, and the compelling value proposition that we seek to offer to our clients. Our strategy to redefine service excellence is central to our success. The first pillar of our strategy is client focus. It is important we are consistently listening to our customers in our pursuit to meet, if not exceed their expectations. Repeat customers are the ultimate business measure and our objective is clearly to achieve a high client renewal rate. I'm really pleased to report our client renewal rate increased by 10 percentage points to 90% this half, a really excellent achievement. This is validation of the need to remain client focused, and hopefully, an illustration our strategy is gaining momentum. The second pillar is innovation. In today's world, innovation in all its forms underpins how businesses need to operate and think. At Ventia, we are seeking to create a culture where our people are curious and constantly evolving how we innovate and introduce best practice. An example of innovation at Ventia is our projects on a page. This delivers a single source of truth across projects and demonstrates how we are using data to offer insights for more informed decision making. Our common reporting platform offers much broader transparency in respect to accessing data, namely safety, financial, operational and risk scores. This is further supported by commentary captured directly from the project directors and managers. In a nutshell, it provides insightful operational data that flows upwards from the project to offer business unit and sector analysis any time and anywhere. This allows our leadership team to make better informed decisions with appropriate governance and control wrapped around our standard reporting process. We continue to evolve our best-in-class reporting framework, but is already driving positive business interactions and outcomes. The final pillar of our business strategy is sustainability. Our sustainability strategy is clear. We are constantly striving to pursue opportunities to provide sustainable solutions for our clients. We are committed to creating a healthier planet, as well as being community focused and accountable for everything we do. During this period, I'm also pleased to announce that in partnership with Transurban, Ventia delivered Australia's first fully electric TMA. This custom built vehicle protects our workers and motorists from potential accidents by acting as a mobile barrier. The conversion to electric will save 50 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year. This removes one of our most carbon intensive vehicles from the road and in future periods we will see the benefits flow through to our Scope 1 emissions. We remain committed to our targets across ESG, and I look forward to updating you on progress across all targets at the full year. Our strong financial performance allows us to declare today an interim dividend of $0.0831 per share, reflecting growth of 11.2%. The dividend is 80% franked and payable on 6th of October 2023. Pleasingly, Ventia's performance has resulted in an increase in trajectory of company dividends for shareholders, since the company first listed in 2021. This is in line with our ongoing value proposition. Just before we take a deeper dive into our financial results, I wanted to talk about and emphasize that people are at the heart of our success. We have a workforce of over 35,000 full-time, part-time and casual staff alongside subcontractors who all are critical components of the Ventia family. Our business is diverse and supports many regional and remote locations. We help contribute to these economies through our relationships with local subcontractors and small businesses, who again, are critical to our success. We were a net hire of people in this half. Labor dynamics are still a challenge, but we are seeing signs of the labor market stabilizing with our attrition plateauing. The time to fill roles has reduced, and we are seeing more applications for each role. However, I reiterate, it is still a very competitive market and we would benefit from attrition declining to more historic levels. To drive this change, we've refocused our efforts on employee engagement, connection and retention. We are investing heavily in additional in-house training and career succession planning. We have opened new offices in Melbourne and Auckland, which accommodate around 900 employees and in effort to entice our staff back to an environment that facilitates and promotes collaboration. We have further plans to upgrade their office space in additional locations and we are certainly seeing the benefits of more people coming into the office, creating greater employee engagement and connectivity. Another key component of our people strategy is our focus on diversity and inclusion. This half, I'm proud to report that Ventia won the Banksia Award for our work in the disability employment arena. This award celebrates Ventia's commitment to championing diversity and inclusion in all facets of our business. Most recently, we're also humbled to be recognized for our contribution to social procurement winning 2 awards from Supply Nation. One of these awards was for outstanding impact, which recognizes how we have used corporate influence to grow and engage local, aboriginal and Torres Strait Island businesses. This is particularly important to our organization given our commitment to regional and remote communities. I will now hand over to Ventia's CFO, Stuart Hooper to take you through the numbers in more detail.

Thanks Dean, and welcome everyone. In short, it's been another solid half of Ventia, as we continue to deliver sustained performance period-over-period since our IPO back in 2021. The business has momentum, with growth across each of the operating sectors, and importantly, resilience in margins, as we have successfully navigated a period of inflationary pressure. These are clean statutory results, consistent with the back half of last year, we are not proposing any adjustments. It is what it is. Let's dig into the sectors. Defense and Social Infrastructure grew 5.5% at the top line. Pleasingly, this flowed through to EBITDA growth of 4% contributing $78 million for the half. It's been a massive couple of years for D&SI delivering year-on-year growth of 23% in 2022. This half has been a period of consolidating our existing contracts with new work opportunities weighted towards the outturn and then into next year. It's a consistent story for work in hand, down 9.5% due to the timing of renewals and new work coming through. Turning to Infrastructure Services. As we discussed at the '22 results, the business stepped up in H2 '22 in the back half and continues to run rate this level into 2023, showing 13% growth on the prior comparable period. EBITDA margin percentage has eased slightly by 70 basis points to 8.9%. And this reflects a small shifting contract mix towards longer-term maintenance contracts. These carry a slightly lower margin, but also a favorable risk profile. Telco continues to perform strongly, with revenue up 12.7% to $654 million. Pleasingly, there is a mix of new work and volume growth in existing contracts underpinning the half. EBITDA margins remain robust, increasing slightly to 12.9%, delivering $84 million of EBITDA. Transport is outperformed. New contract wins including the Sydney Harbour Tunnel combined with strong volumes has delivered a 27% increase in revenues. EBITDA is up 23%, following the top line as margins remain steady. Moving to Slide 13. Look, from my perspective, it's been a strong start to the year. We continue to deliver what we say we will deliver and put ourselves in a great place for the balance of the year. Overall revenue growth of 11% has pleasingly been underpinned by the performance of all 4 sectors. Growth in our total addressable market is around 6.6% per annum, so we're continuing to take share. Workforce mix has remained relatively consistent. A small shift to subcontractors is really driven by underlying contract mix. However, my view is that the workforce split will remain relatively consistent into the medium term. We use materials to complete various short-term minor capital work upgrades. And during the half, we saw a 24% increase, which primarily relates to network upgrades in the telco wireless and electricity and gas business units. Inventory is not a major feature of our business model and remains low at $48 million. EBITDA has increased 10.7% to $225 million, and margins remain steady at 8.1%, which is a testament to the resilience of the business in an inflationary environment. Cash conversion remains consistent in the high 80s at 89%, and the teams continue to use tools like Project on a Page to manage cash on a daily basis at the project level. The cash back profits mantra runs deep. Net finance costs increased along with the underlying increase in the BBSY base rates. Our hedging profile continues to provide an offset. However, this will roll off further as we head into 2024. Moving to capital considerations on Slide 14. Look, not much has changed here. Our conservative capital structure continues to serve the business well. We have an investment-grade balance sheet. Cash on hand is $321 million and when combined with our $400 million undrawn revolver, our total liquidity is $721 million. We have material headroom on both covenants and the fundamentals of the business remain in great shape. So we are well positioned for future growth. We've included Slide 15, as I'm assured by Chantelle, that investors are keen to understand the PPA provisions, which were put in place at the completion of the Broadspectrum acquisition back in June of 2020. A few key takeaways. The unwind of both the unfavorable and the onerous provisions remains in line with our original forecasts. As a result, we expect margins to remain consistent as the unwind completes. There will be some upwards pressure on cash conversion, however, we expect to stay in the range of 85% to 95% over the medium-term. Onerous contract provisions are almost done. Importantly, we have not written any further onerous contracts, which is a testament to our rigorous work winning practices. In summary, 80% of PPA will have rolled off by 2025, and then we will head into a small, but long tail. On to labor. Dean has talked broadly about the labor market conditions that we're currently experiencing, and now I'll focus on some of the key data. Attrition remains in the mid-20s and is steady. Attrition is higher than pre-COVID averages, which were in the high teens. We are confident we can achieve a downwards trajectory and unlock potential productivity gains. Over the half, Ventia has achieved an average increase of 3.6% per annum over an average of 2.5 year terms on the renegotiation of EAs and collective agreements. There is good symmetry between the price escalations, we have achieved with clients and the underlying increase in wage rates. Workforce mix has remained consistent in the half at 56 subcontractor, 44 employee. We continue to use our subcontractor workforce to enable a variable cost base and to service a large and diverse regional and remote network. Overtime hours is something we monitor closely. First and foremost, we are focused on employee health and safety. We want to ensure our people have time to recharge, so they can work safely and effectively. During the half, overtime has remained consistent with no material change from this time last year or the historical average. As Dean mentioned previously, people are at the heart of our success. And pleasingly, our workforce is stable during what has been a challenging labor market. I'll now hand back to Dean to discuss the outlook.

Thank you, Stuart. Before I take questions, I want to discuss how the business is positioned for the balance of 2023 and beyond. Our long-term investment proposition has not changed. We are forecasting a gain in market share with revenue growing between 7% and 10%. We'll continue to drive a diligent focus on cash-backed profits, aiming for 80% to 95% cash flow conversion. While our policy is to pay out between 60% and 80% of NPATA, since the IPO, we've paid out at our target of 75%, reflecting a high conversion of profits into dividends. Let's have a deeper look at sustainability. Sustainability is crucial for our future ambition, integral to our strategy and future investment proposition. We are progressing through the task of setting our long-term carbon targets, taking the appropriate time to consider where we are now and how we can positively make an impact on our emissions. This slide neatly summarizes the quantum of our emissions in each scope, and thus, where we must priorities our efforts to gain the maximum benefit. In the first half, we reduced our scope 1 and 2 emissions by a further 9% compared to half year '22, predominantly driven by fleet transition and the divestment of Parklea. To help address our scope 1 emissions, we continue our fleet electrification journey and have so far transitioned 272 vehicles to hybrid, EV or hydrogen. We have a further 110 vehicles currently on back order, which will mean around 8% of our fleet will have been converted by 2024. Regarding scope 2 emissions, I'd like to illustrate a couple of examples of activities undertaken. We have been installing behind the meter solutions, predominantly solar. We are swapping a portion of our grid purchased energy for renewable, solar and wind, purchased through the GreenPower initiative. To reduce scope 3 emissions, which is, as you can see, is our biggest task, making up approximately 90% of our total emissions, we need to work closely with our supply chain partners and motivate and incentivize them to collectively help us address this challenge. One great example of this is where we're using Rhinophalt, an innovative pavement solution. The new application is expected to substantially reduce the use of materials and carbon emissions. This is the largest trial of its kind in Australia, but we are dealing with pride as this product has been used successfully overseas. As I always say, it is easier to copy best practice than invent a new idea or solution. As one of the largest essential infrastructure services business in Australia and New Zealand, we have an opportunity and an obligation to lead the way. I'm proud of our achievements to-date, but our sustainability journey needs to evolve and accelerate. I'm sure we will build momentum in this regard as our business matures. The business is actively working towards the submission and verification of our science-based targets. We are on target to submit our proposal, as planned, by the end of 2023. Looking ahead, Ventia is well-positioned to meet strong demand across all our sectors, and we have identified significant growth opportunities. D&SI is well-positioned to leverage our existing client base. There is significant scope to cross-sell our capability and expand our footprint with current clients. That said, our priority and short-term focus is on the significant renewals in this sector, now likely to occur next year. In the infrastructure services sector, there is a growing demand for Australia's resources, which is creating tailwinds for each of our business units, demonstrated by the performance of rigs and wells in the half. The demand for renewable infrastructure is also driving opportunities for our energy networks and renewables business. For telecommunications, our core carrier market continues to provide significant revenue opportunity and a strong platform for the business. That said, we have developed a clear diversification strategy, extending our expert capability to a broader range of new telecommunications clients, with initial contract awards to support defense, space and energy solutions. Our transport business is well positioned to support our clients with emerging opportunities that link urban and regional corridors to support anticipated population growth. Looking ahead, our breadth and depth of capability, as well as our geographic coverage and diversified business model, are all key competitive advantages. Within each of the 4 sectors, there are traditional and adjacent market opportunities, cross-selling potential and demand drivers from megatrends, which we must capitalize upon. Finally, I want to recap the strong foundations we have in place to meet future expectations. We have delivered solid financial performance of more than 10% growth in revenue, EBITDA and NPATA for the half. Our business is resilient and diversified. Our focus on our strategy to redefine service excellence is evidenced by our strong renewal rates, which delivers confidence in our future growth ambitions. Our performance is creating long-term value for shareholders by delivering stable and growing returns. Our business benefits from our robust governance control framework, which underpins our risk management process. All of this gives us confidence today to confirm we are tracking towards the top end of our guidance range of 7% to 10% NPATA growth compared to full year '22 pro forma. I would like to close by offering my appreciation to all our stakeholders, our employees, subcontractors, suppliers, clients, the Ventia Board, our shareholders and the numerous other stakeholders for your continued help and support. That concludes our presentation. Thank you for your attention. And I'll now open the line for questions, please.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from John Purtell from Macquarie.

Well done on a solid result. Just had a few questions. Thanks for the update on the sectors as well there. But just in terms of defense, obviously, that's got a fair bit of focus recently given the Defense Strategic Review. How do you see the defense outlook as it applies to your business?

I would say, first of all, I was very pleased we were awarded in the first half of the year the defense equipment maintenance contract for $393 million. I think that illustrates that we are delivering successfully today for defense and they trust us to be a partner for the future. We have a very positive outlook for defense on the basis we believe we are already a proven strategic partner. Some of the defense contracts we probably expected to be renewed in 2023 are now likely to move into 2024 with their recent announcements of how they're now going to procure tranches of the defense portfolio over the next 12 months or so. That, however, does offer us significant opportunities for renewals. And indeed, I'm really pleased to say where the procurement process has already progressed. We've been shortlisted in all of the categories where we promoted a bid. So we look at it very positively. We also earlier this year had the Defense Strategic Review. That did impact a little bit of slowing down of minor capital works, but we're now seeing those coming back to the market and generally we see additional expenditure on a go-forward basis, which is to our advantage.

Second question on telco there. So a strong earnings uplift there and particularly strong versus the sequential second half. Was there much contribution from the SKAO contract there and also those recent awards, presumably the main impact of those is still to come. And probably the second part to that is do you see telco firmly on a growth footing from this higher base level given it did obviously drop down a fair bit if we go back post-NBN?

Yes. John, in a way there you answered your own question, I think, which illustrates your knowledge of our business. I think the SKAO and other contracts awards we've announced recently are largely in mobilization, so we anticipate good revenue from those going forward. And I'm pleased to report they have mobilized well, but a lot of the improvement is in us looking with, if you like the traditional carrier partners. And we are the #1 supplier to them in both Australia and New Zealand, as we have been for a number of years. You quite rightly say in sort of the back end of 2021, the NBN build program come to an end, and we started to see a decline in revenue. We were always confident that would revert as the drive to change copper in the ground to fiber and more wireless connectivity would drive opportunity. But I think the 1 great thing we've also done in our telecommunications business is looked how we can diversify the business into adjacent markets and use the expert capability we've got more broadly in both Australia and New Zealand. And we are seeing some benefits from that in that business going forward. Therefore, we have a very positive outlook for telecommunications in the broader sense moving forward.

And just a final question for Stuart there. The gearing has come down slightly to 1.3x. Can you remind us sort of what your sort of target gearing is and in terms of options to utilize some of that capacity? How do you think about potential acquisitions and other growth initiatives within that?

Yes, sure. Look, as far as target gearing, we probably have a reasonably broad range, so sort of in that 1 to 2x range. I think as it relates to a few factors, if you think about our investment grade balance sheet the support we have around our ratings that was put in place at around 2x, so clearly there is scope in the business to have slightly higher leverage. That said, I think, as it relates to any available surplus cash at the moment, there clearly is opportunity for us. I think we've demonstrated over the last couple of years to use M&A, other strategic initiatives to grow the business. And so that small amount of surplus cash I think is appropriate to be left in the business and really for management to continue to look for those opportunities.

Yes, John, if I may I'll probably just add as well that as we look forward, we're in a really good place with circa $5 billion revenue last year and looking forward to growing that in 2023. But the market is circa $70 billion, so lots of headroom for us to grow the business. I think, secondly, then I've already said about adjacent market opportunities. And then thirdly, M&A opportunities which Stuart mentioned. And then there's potentially other geographies and I think it is in that order. I'm very heavily weighted in that order. So we still believe there's lots of opportunity in traditional markets, but Stuart and the team have done a fantastic job where M&A opportunities have come along about qualifying the opportunity, so we don't bring bad opportunities into the business, but the ones that have been transformational.

Your next question comes from Scott Ryall from Rimor Equity Research.

I might just follow on to Johnny's question just then in terms of the use of gearing please. So leaving aside M&A where it's obvious what you use the money for. If you're successful at building organically through adjacencies or with new customers in the same verticals you're already in. What do you use the capital for up front please?

Look, there's a couple of things. So to grow the business, as you know the business is very capital-light overall. Some of our business units would carry slightly higher levels of CapEx. And so if we're growing in those verticals then there would be some up front CapEx required. That said, I'd just call out that overall the business is extremely capital-light. So, less than 1% of CapEx, of revenue rather, being utilizing CapEx. As it relates to working capital, which I suppose is the other draw as you grow the business, it probably comes down to mix. Certainly, in the telco space, we see really strong kind of negative working capital positions. But then again, depending on the other parts of the business, it might use a bit of working capital. On balance though, Scott, I don't think the mix in the business is going to change massively. So I think we can continue to grow the business in a capital-light way.

Yes, okay. All right. That makes sense. And then my second question is probably to Dean I think on -- I'm referring to Slide 8, but also what you said about your own emissions footprint later on. And I should say, Stuart, just while you're on, Chantelle's a very smart lady. She's right that the extra detail on the provisions is very much appreciated. The -- so sorry, I got off my question. So Dean, on Slide 8. I'm wondering if you can talk to how innovation, which to me the way you described it was more for your internal management of projects, which is great, but how that and your sustainability performance can translate into the client focus please? And I was hoping you could link them up a little bit more. With the statistics you put around your emissions footprint, it's actually fairly low in terms of what's defined in your control in scope 1 and 2. So it strikes me that in the industries you're in, the ability to actually reduce your customers' emissions footprint is probably the bigger one. So I was wondering if you can just talk to how innovation and sustainability actually win your business.

Yes. I think you make a really, really good point. I think in terms of innovation first of all, for me, it comes in 2 manners. The first one is innovation in terms of allowing us to have better data to make better informed decisions, which is what projects and a page is doing to try and reduce the risk in our organization, but also share best practice more transparently. I think the second part of innovation is new ways of working that allow us to do things safer, more sustainably or more productively. And linking the 2 together, I think is the piece around transparency and collaboration. We want to be a strategic partner with our supply chain as well as our client base. And therefore, what we want to try and leverage is the collective capability. So not all ideas will be born in our business. We give you a good example hopefully today in the presentation of Rhinophalt. Rhinophalt is something we found by being curious overseas, and we've imported that idea and brought it to our client's benefit and our benefits from a sustainability perspective into the Australian market. So I think all these things link together and connect. And from our business, clearly there are things where we will invent the idea, but there'll be lots of things where we still we pride to move forward. So I hope as we go forward, actually we can bring to life that story more and more for you and give you even more examples of where we're doing exactly the things you alluded to.

Your next question comes from Roy Harrison from Bank of America.

Hey guys, congrats on a really strong result. Just wondering if you could provide some more detail around the 24% step up in material costs, and whether you were able to price those cost increases into your contracts. Cheers.

Yes. Absolutely. So pricing that into the contracts, I mean, the key thing about the minor capital works projects we do is probably the timeframes that we do them in. They tend to be on a lookout basis probably 3 to 6 months out. That you're tendering the work, you then do the work, which is probably only, again, some of that 3 months, maximum 6. And as a result, I suppose, from an inflationary perspective, you've already built any material considerations into those prices and then it rolls through quite quickly. The other feature is on the subcontractor side, it's also live in the market. So you're back to backing your pricing with subcontractors, as you're actually potentially tendering the work. The 24% as a result then really is just volume driven, and it relates more specifically to, as I mentioned on the call, the telco wireless business, but also the energy and gas business, and that's where we've just had increased volumes in the half. The other thing I mentioned which I'd call out again is that if you look at the balance sheet, there's not a lot of inventory this business holds. It's not a real feature of our business and it's sort of $48 million, it's pretty small, and we'd expect it to remain about those types of levels.

And just one on the defense contracts coming up for tender. Are you able to give any more detail on the EMOS contract that's coming up for tender? Previously when Spotless won that, it was quite a chunky contract and you mentioned something earlier on the call about these contracts being tended in separate tranches. Is that contract therefore going to be a little bit smaller in size and kind of in a few different tranches, or just any more details on that process would be great?

Yes, Roy, I think the first thing to say is that the original plan for the procurement was to align a lot of these contracts. And of course, what we didn't know at the outset was how they were going to procure them in terms of would it be based on the same type of work activity that the suppliers are providing today. The way they are moving forward is likely to cover all of the activities that they've required in the past. I think that's good news. I think secondly, the thing that they've decided to do is stagger the procurement activity which I'm probably guessing is more twofold. #1, there's no rush for a change, which I think illustrates the current incumbents are doing a good job. But secondly, it's probably about capacity and resource from a procurement process. So they're splitting that contract into tranches. I don't think they're any different to where they were before, so the scale overall will be the same, and it's very similar to how they've procured previously. It's just a change from what was probably the initial proposal. And I'd just like to reiterate from our perspective, we're very pleased on all the categories within there where we've put forward or promoted a bid, we've been successful in being shortlisted. And I think that shortlisted entity is in the public domain, so somebody can go and look at that but it is, I think, largely what you would expect to see there as competitors for those particular aspects of work.

Got you. And maybe just one for Stuart. How are you thinking about -- are you thinking at all about further debt hedging given the volatility in the BBSY recently?

Yes, look, absolutely. I mean, we do from a policy standpoint continue to hedge out per that policy. I suppose what's happened with the significant increase in underlying base rates has been, I suppose, the effectiveness or the gap between what we're paying at the moment versus those hedging positions will start to close and it will close further into 2024 and then probably really become quite close in 2025. So there is that upwards pressure on finance costs overall. That said, I think if you think about this year and what we've done in the half, I'd actually just look at that on an annualized basis, which pretty much give you a good read on where the full year will come out.

Your next question comes from Piers Flanagan from Barrenjoey.

Thanks for your time. Can I just ask on the uptick in renewal rates? I think sort of historically sort of Ventia's renewal rate was ahead of Broadspectrum and I know it's all sort of fully integrated and under the 1 umbrella now, but can we think about sort of that uptick as an improvement in the broad spectrum renewal of contracts?

Yes. Piers, thank you for the question. I think when we acquired Broadspectrum, their renewal rate was averaging nearer to 65% to 70%, whereas the Ventia renewal rate was that 85% to 90%. I think that illustrated a couple of differences in the business. The first probably in commercial governance control; and the second, drive for growth that was there within that business previously. So we've always said that what we want to do is bring that solid commercial acumen that sat within Ventia and the governance control in our gated work-winning lifecycle to bear to try and improve our renewal rate. Obviously, that's aligned with our strategy to redefine service excellence on all the contracts we've got. So we can demonstrate the differentiation that Ventia can bring, so we can build strategic partnerships. So, yes, we've certainly seen an increase. We're really pleased with where we are. You have to work very hard to win contracts in our sector. And, of course, given the fact that our average contract tenure after extensions is 7 years, it's also you're locked out for a long time if you don't win. So we're very pleased to see 90%, and we would hope to try and retain our percentages in that sort of 85% to 90% on a go-forward basis.

And do a lot of the defense contracts, did they sit within the Broadspectrum business? Just thinking about some of the improvement that you've had within those existing contracts over the last few years?

They were originally, yes, that's correct. But I would also just reiterate that the ones that have come up for renewal, we've won. So we've had a very high success rate in renewing those defense contracts.

That's helpful. And then just maybe on the sector splits in half and sort of expectations around full year weightings around those 4 sectors. I mean, is there anything to call out? You talked about sort of minor capital works within defense, but anything else to call out would see it materially different half on half?

Hey, Peter, it's Stuart. Yes, I don't think so. So I think that the baseline from this first half will pretty much run rate through the second half. It's certainly what we see where we sit here today over the balance of the outturns. So you're not expecting any significant shift between the sectors as we look through the balance of the year.

I mean the only thing to probably add to that is not sector specific, but in 2022, our split in the first half was about 45% of the revenue, second half was 55%. As Stuart just said there we're probably expecting 2023 to be more balanced.

And then just a final one on the cash conversion. So towards the top end of your target range, and you mentioned in the report that May and June typically have higher volumes, there's a bit of a working capital build. So maybe just expectations over the second half around cash conversion?

So I think definitely for the full year or for the balance of the year still around those sort of high 80s low 90s peers. The business is pretty consistent really through the months and through the quarters. So our expectation is that that would continue through the balance of the year and then we'll look beyond that. But I'd just call out, I think it's actually a really, really interesting part of the business over many, many years is that cash conversion, high 80s, low 90s period in, period out. It's a real hallmark of the business.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Sam Waldron from ASR Wealth Advisers.

Regarding your contract profiles broken down by revenue, cost reimbursable contracts have increased from around 15.7% to 18.4% of revenue. I was just wondering is this something you guys are looking to continue to increase, if you believe these are better for passing on costs?

Look I think we've always said what we probably don't want to see is a high percentage of fixed price contracts that you would see in somewhere like a construction business. So obviously, from our perspective, that means we want to try and increase both cost reimbursable unscheduled rates because it gives you more stability. With all these things though, Sam you also need to look at all the commercial conditions that go with them and that's very important to us as well. But I'm pleased that you've seen the increase and we're obviously pleased with the business because it helps us to have stability and therefore be able to offer to you very refined guidance about how the business is going to perform going forward.

And just quickly, do you have like any outlook for subcontractor cost going forward, which approximately makes up around half of your non-interest and DNA expenses?

So the question I think is, look, where we are is, we're at 55% this year subcontractor costs. So it's increased a little bit. It also increased last year a little bit. But I think we're agnostic in terms of the way we offer to the clients. So we don't prescribe a methodology, we listen to the voice of the call line and then find a solution. And there have been some contracts recently that we've won where the contractor says, we want you to be the project management layer, so you bring your core capability and systems, but then you use local employees as subcontractors. So that's driven it up. I think you could probably see something around the severe of 40% to 60% and it will switch each way depending on that contract mix. But we don't really target anything. As I said, we apply common sense to the best solution to the client.

Your next question comes from Richard Amland from CLSA.

Just a couple quick questions. Regarding the growth rates across some of the businesses, they're pretty strong. Can you give a comment regarding the competitive environment and what sort of tailwind having a really sick competitor in terms of Downer is providing and how long you might expect such a benefit to continue?

Look, I think from our perspective, we want our competitors to be successful. And clearly, we have to focus on our business as well. I mean, it's in your gift to decide who our competitors are. From our perspective, we said that we can see the market growing at 6.6% CAGR and we believe we can outgrow the market in that sort of high single-digit to early double-digits, and we've achieved that in this period. And if you look at defense, which is a little bit down, they've actually achieved double-digit when you take a 2-year analysis. So there was a little bit of slowing down in the first half of '23, but we'd expect that to start to grow in line with that 6.6% CAGR or above moving forward. So we again have a positive outlook. I think I'll just reiterate, we've got a really good platform with a number of contracts on long-term basis that give us that platform. And then, of course, associated to the renewal rate of 90% we've achieved in the period. So we can use cross-selling as an example to expand capability into those clients that we've already got. But there are also new opportunities to the markets and the demand drivers, Richard, that you referenced and we referenced in our presentation like population growth across Australia, which drives new infrastructure. And indeed, where there's not new infrastructure, we win as well because old infrastructure needs more maintenance. So that drives, if you like, the essential services nature of our business and the reliability and stability. There's always going to be some deviation to that, but hopefully the deviation is quite small.

So there's not really any material change in the overall competitive environment in the industry that's impacted your business?

No, Richard, I think if you look at the competitive landscape, it's pretty much the same players we would have seen before. I think if I do reference Downer, they're a good example of somebody who's now assessing their risk profile and probably going to be very sensible in terms of risk they take on a go-forward basis. I think that illustrates a mature market. And certainly, from our perspective, we could win more work, but we'd probably have to take on more risk. So what we want is quality of revenue in our work in hand rather than quantity. Clearly, there's a balance there. But from our perspective, we see the competitive landscape being very consistent in this period.

Just a very quick question, and it's not a big deal. Net working capital increased at $30 million, which is pretty small in the scheme of things. Just wanted to ask a question with a rebound in telco specifically in terms of the revenue growth picked up and maybe on some of the other businesses, perhaps it should have stayed a little bit flat or maybe gone down, just a quick observation on to balance date and what was going on in working cap?

Yes. Thanks, Richard. And I think the last bit of your question is sort of the answer. I think that the balance states do make a difference. So when you look over longer periods of time, it tends to stay pretty consistent. So the net exposure or the balance of net working capital is pretty consistent. And by that, your contract assets as they grow, your contract liabilities tend to grow with them. For this particular half, if you look at just actually -- it's probably only about a week or so past the balance date. So into July, we had about a $50 million payment or thereabouts to come through, which went into contract liabilities, so that can pretty quickly then swing that balance back as you say, given the $30 million delta. So definitely, long term, see it as a structural piece of the business and pretty consistent.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Banks for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much. First of all, for everybody who's been on the call thank you for affording us your time to all the stakeholders who enabled us to put forward and communicate these results today, a massive thank you. We look forward to updating you as we continue to progress through the full year. And I'll just reiterate that we see guidance at 7% to 10% NPATA growth towards the top end of the range in the full year. So, please stay safe, and I wish everybody a good weekend on the basis Friday. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.