Hercules (LSE:HERC) — FY Results

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the HERCULES PLC FY twenty twenty five Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and they can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Bruce Korkmaz. Good morning to you. Good morning, Alex. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for being here today. We really appreciate your time, your support, and your patience over the last year. Myself and Paul, I would like to give you a quick summary for 2025 financial year before starting our presentation. Last year was a year of strong progress in HERCULES.

0:50 Our revenue grew 19% to a £121,200,000, and our underlying EBITDA increased to £6,400,000. That was a 35% increase. We also completed three strategic acquisitions. That's Advantage NRG, QTT, and Lines Power Services. And these acquisitions are helping us to build a stronger platform for our long term growth. At the same time, we also disposed of one business that was suction excavator business. As you might remember, we we went through a significant amount of corporate activity during 2025 financial year. As you are aware, we are a high growth company. When HERCULES is on the AIM just four years ago, we were turning over around £25,000,000.

1:43 Now we are we have grown to more than £120,000,000 in revenue. During that rapid growth, some of our internal controls did not keep pace. As you might have seen from the from the RNS and our end of year results, post year end post year end audit identified gaps mainly linked to the onboarding and documentation process around a small number of training providers. We dealt with this thoroughly and professionally by bringing in specialist accountants and lawyers while carrying out full remediation program internally across the business. Combined with the level of acquisition and disposal activity during the year and as well as the growth, this process took time, delayed our accounts, and we fully understand the the frustration that caused.

2:38 Before we start the the presentation, I'm just gonna pass to Paul, to say a quick hi to you all. Hi, everybody, and thank you, again, for your patience. When we got the accounts finalized, it was just as frustrating for us, believe you me, as it was for you, and we apologize for that. We have no intention of anything like that happening again. But it's worth putting it into perspective. You know, the the qualification the auditors issued was on a very, very minor area. It's a very specific and defined area as Bruce has just explained, had nothing to do with the numbers or our normal performance. The remediation plan, again, that we Bruce just mentioned is virtually complete. The last few bits will be done in in a couple of months time.

3:28 And we're making big headway in terms of development. We've got two major IT implementations, pay and bill, which goes live in July this year, and a new ERP for those who are interested in Microsoft Dynamics in April of next year. This really will set us up for the next ten to fifteen years. As well as that, we're we ended the year in a very, very good financial position. We ended up with a £7,200,000 in cash in the bank, which was up naught 800,000 on the previous year. And we have a great working capital facility of 16,000,000. At the time of the end of the year, we'd only we're only using £6,000,000 of it. Underlying profit after tax increased from 2.2 to 3,800,000, which is a very, very good trading result.

4:16 And that generated cash, operating cash of, £7,600,000. So as you can see, it was it was a good year. There's no argument about it, financially. But we're not standing still. We're not sitting here and saying, we're not doing anything more. Crikey. We've got loads going on. So recent acquisitions and business development has given us broader capability than ever, whether it be in power and energy or in water or in rail or even with the Scottish office opening. And don't forget, the backdrop market backdrop we have is still very, very significant. The government's £725,000,000,000 infrastructure commitment over the next ten years is unchanged. It's still there. Russ, back to you.

5:01 Thank you, Paul. Just to mention couple of other things before starting presentation as we move forward. In HERCULES, we welcome the questions. Whether it's around the audit, project delays, or the pace of the acquisitions, we are here to answer them openly and transparently. The key message us from today is that we identified issues, we addressed them properly, and now we had a we have a clear plan and much stronger controls in place going forward. As you're already as you already know that every growth company sometime, you know, in their sort of lifespan goes through the growing pains, and and we went through it last year. So we were we we have been very ambitious pushing, still growing as well as acquisitions and and this sort of sort of delay happened. But we learned our lessons, so it's not gonna happen again. Most importantly, the opportunity ahead of ahead of us is very exciting.

5:57 The long term pipeline across power, water, nuclear infrastructure, and rail remains really strong, and we are well positioned to capture that growth. So after the initial few words from me and Paul, I will start our presentation if that is okay. Paul, if you wouldn't mind putting the the next slide, I would appreciate that. Just to give you a brief introduction for our company HERCULES PLC is a leading UK based construction and infrastructure services group. As as I've mentioned before, we had a record 2025, our revenue, underlying EBITDA, underlying profit before tax, and underlying earnings per share all increased comparison to year ending 2024.

6:46 We have achieved these strong results through record demand in our labor supply division across the group. We also have our additional growth initiatives are progressing really well. Our labor supply real client base has increased and diversified. As you might have remember, we have opened our HERCULES construction academy over a couple of years ago. There's a huge skill shortage in The UK and ambitious plans to build spend £725,000,000,000 in infrastructure. So we have opened up our HERCULES ACADEMY, and we have trained over 2,000 people in our academy so far. We also had our size of IT operators grown to over 50 people. Our targeted m and a strategy is going well.

7:35 Also, Advantage Energy is being the biggest out of the three companies we acquired this year. Advantage Energy, they are doing really well. They are overhead linesman supply company in the overhead transmission lines, and they are doing amazingly well. We are already establishing cross selling opportunities between our divisions and acquisitions. We have already secured contracts with National Grid, SSC, and Balfour Beatty Power and Energy. We entered the financial year 2026 with strong growth opportunities as you might have seen from our one of our RNS' post end period.

8:21 We acquired Lines Power Services as their specialist company supplying commissioning and electrical engineers to high voltage and low voltage substations. Great company again. We we we have already started seeing them growing over the last few months that we have we have acquired. We also opened up our regional office in Scotland as there are few big projects starting in the North Part Of The UK. So we wanna take we wanna make sure that we are involved on those projects. The next slide is about our our financial performance. Now I will take you through figures that represent our financial performance for for 2025.

9:07 As you can see, our revenue grew 19%, hundred and twenty two hundred and twenty one point two million pounds. Our underlying EBITDA grew to £6,400,000, which is a 35% increase. Underlying PBT grew again to £4,000,000. That's a 55% growth. And our underlying EPS also grew 36% to 4.74. Again, really successful year. Very, very so record numbers. We haven't had those numbers, you know, before. So so we managed to grow last year also. We also cash generated cash around £7,600,000.

9:54 This slide is about our business overview. At the bottom of this slide, you can see some of our blue chip clients we work for in the infrastructure sector. As I mentioned before, we are mainly a labor supply company working for the blue chip infrastructure companies and complemented by our construction services division. Our labor supply division is our core business, and it's a significant part of our company, which currently contributes to 86% of our turnover, and this percentage is still growing. We have been supplying labor into UK's highways, rail, nuclear energy, utilities, power and energy in the transmission lines, as well as other infrastructure projects.

10:41 Under the construction services division, we carry out our civil projects in the water industry, and we also operate our HERCULES Construction Academy and our lines power services divisions. The biggest USP we have got is that we can supply all of these services by cross selling opportunities to our clients under the same umbrella. Our cross selling has built a strong client loyalty with some staying with us over eighteen years, and we continue to grow our client base every year. The next slide is about our sorry. Just cut cut. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Yes. No problem now. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Sorry about it. Just cut off and then came back on again. As you can see from this slide, we've got a very strong growth history. I set up HERCULES in 2008 from a set family's spare bedroom, and since then, we've been growing every year.

11:40 You can also see from this slide that there are several milestones we've achieved over the last eighteen years. Just to mention some of the significant milestones, winning the HS two labor supply framework in 2021 for the Birmingham section with Balfour Beatty and Vinci joint venture. At the beginning of February twenty twenty two, we listed HERCULES on the AIM market, and this is major milestone for us. And another milestone is the future build recruitment. As you might remember, we completed our first acquisition over two years ago, and FutureBuild Recruitment, they are a great white collar company specialized in supplying personnel white collar personnel in the construction sites, making them a great addition to our existing blue collar labor supply division.

12:28 Just to mention something here that as you can see from this slide, our revenue has been growing since we started in 2008. So every year, apart from the COVID year, every year we managed to grow including last year also. So our aim is to grow. Obviously, we are going to concentrate on the margins, and specialist acquisitions are gonna help us with that. And we are going to increase our profit margins accordingly. I just wanted to bring your attention to our compound annual growth rates cover for the last three years being 23%. So we are growing in the right direction. As you can see from the top right corner of this slide, some of the government's investment programs in rail, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and water sectors. We believe that we are well positioned to grow up even further for the next ten plus years.

13:20 Paul, I think the next slides are yours. Thanks, Bruce. Yeah. So this is the some of the numbers have just been up on previous slides, but let's just have a quick look at them. So revenue increased to a 121,000,000, up from a 101.9. That's a 19% increase. The underlying EBITDA has increased 35 from 4.7 to 6,400,000. And profit before tax, underlying, had grown 55% from 2.6 to 4,000,000. So all in all, a year of progression. This growth is some of this growth is organic, but as well some of it came from the acquisitions that we have. Bruce just talked about Lions and talked about Advantage NRG.

14:18 The ones that affected 2025 is Advantage NRG and to a smaller extent, the QPP acquisition, which is in the training academy space. They've contributed, as you can see, to some of the overheads increase, but as well, they contributed more in terms of gross profit helping us achieve that the result that we that we did. This is all about labor supply. So labor supply had increased from 84,000,000 to almost a 107,000,000. That's 27% growth in revenue, and a healthy increase in underlying operating profit at the same time. Part of that good increase there was down to higher margin levels within the NRG business even though we only had them for four months of that, of the '25 financial year.

15:19 But we, as I said before, we did get, some continued organic growth, through some through a nice strong project pipeline that helped us in 2025. Those new clients keep rolling in, Balfour Beatty Power and Energy, preferred supplier, list National Grid and SSC. We've now got around 1,700 operatives across all sites. You'll be aware from when we spoke before about our recruitment app, which is one of the cornerstones of how we run our business. Up to 20,000 people or more now have have downloaded the app. At the same time last year, was 15,000. And the academy is a very, very important part of our labor supply operation, upskilling or cross selling our operatives through the academy.

16:04 We've now done over 2,000 operatives. And the more we can do through our academy, the less, we have to do, through external training suppliers. Civil projects, mostly, what's happening in the water sector. For those of you who are familiar with the AMP program, asset management program that stands for, AMP seven finished in March 2025, and AMP eight started then. Now that's a each one of these AMP periods is five year program. And as usual, very, very slow start to the in the first year. And you can see that in in the revenues going down to 13.5. The good news is is that already for the financial year that of '26, we've won projects which will have an impact in the twenty sixth financial year of 14,000,000, and that's changing by the day at the moment.

17:03 The way the AMP program normally works is the first year is slow, picks up in the second year, and the last three years are crazy. So, that and you can see that is is showing in the in the 26 element there with project one. We are working with all of the water companies pretty much or certainly these, Thames, Anglian, Seven Trent, Southern Water, and Affinity. And the bottom right hand corner is really worth pointing out. That's 46 projects that were completed by the civil projects team in that year, which I I think is a record in terms of of of what they've done. This is talking about m and a activity. Brisk has already mentioned some of the companies that that we've done. It's just worthwhile focusing on this. You'll see on the right hand side, that's a lovely picture of some of the team at Advantage NRG and a great big pile on behind them with the cables that they no doubt put together.

18:02 When we bought the business, in June 2025, we inherited a 170, employees. They're the leading provider of overhead linesmen, in The UK's power transmission and distribution network. This sector for us is really, really important. It's a high growth sector over the next ten to twenty years, we believe. We need to get into what is clearly a rapidly growing sector. This is really the first stride that we made into that sector. And, it's worthwhile pointing out, as I've said before, they are a high margin business. Demand and supply coming together to deliver that high margins those those high margins.

18:48 Lions Power Services may be a smaller business, but it's got great opportunities, and it's in the right space that that that power and energy sector over the next over the next ten to fifteen years. And we there will be some cross selling opportunities with with Lions and with NRG and with other parts of of the group as as the years progress. QTT, we didn't buy the company. We bought the assets, and we we cheapened the employees over. But what that does to us for us is it enables the delivery of more courses at the academy, boosted that team, and and will no doubt, increase what we can deliver as the years progress. Finally, I I don't wanna forget them. We we the the acquisition was done in twenty four financial year, but, future build have had some great growth in the last two years and are moving forward in a very, very positive way.

19:48 So what else has been going on? Well, most of you, I think, will notice that we did a rebrand. Why? Well, we were no longer just a site services business nor nor would we stay a site services business. So we made it easy for everybody, simple brand allowing for structural change, HERCULES PLC. We needed to make investments for the future. We can't just sit with some of the systems that we had and expect to deliver continued growth. The systems that we had were had been put in place in 2016 when the business was quite a small private company. So much has changed in terms of growth, and those systems weren't exactly state of the art at that point either.

20:40 So we had to make a change. We've been planning for it for two years. The culmination of that is going live on the pay and bill system in, July of this year. We're in parallel running at the moment, so it's a very exciting time. And we're also going for a new ERP system, as I mentioned earlier, Microsoft Dynamics used all over the world by thousands and thousands of large companies. That we intend to implement live running in April of next year. That will set us up, for the future. We also, hired a new business development director, and he formed a little bit of a team around him. This is a very much a strategic hire to help with the growth into new markets and new clients.

21:27 We do very well. Bruce was talking about the clients relationships that we've built earlier on. Well, you know, there are some clients we've not yet done that, been able to do that with, so it's very, very important that we start to build those relationships and to get into new markets, whether that be Scotland, whether that be, as we've been talking about, power and energy, etcetera, etcetera. There's more markets that we can get into, and we need a team to do that. We want to have more influence on the sorts of things we do in the future given that labor supply projects start when the clients are ready to start. And, you know, we have to work with them when they start and when they finish, the more we can get involved in and and pull our own levers for the future. It's a better thing to be able to do.

22:14 And, yeah, we launched into Scotland. So we've always wanted to set up in Scotland. It was a very strategic move, and it will provide opportunities across the whole group, but in particular, power transmission and distribution, water as well, and labor. And we've got a team a small team up there to to to move things forward, but we will grow that business in Scotland. Bruce, back to you now, think. Thank you, Paul. This slide is about our current trading and our industry outlook. As you might be already aware that there are delays in some of the infrastructure projects in The UK. But the water sector is getting busier as AMP eight is starting to ramp up.

22:59 We've got over 1,700 people employed by us, which is a record number for for for our company. That means things are going in the right direction. Infrastructure remains buoyant with £750,000,000,000 investment earmarked across our main sectors, and they are nuclear, power, energy, rail, and highways, as well as the the the water sector. The next AMP, which is AMP eight in the water sector, has a committed investment of £104,000,000,000 over the next five years, more than doubled £51,000,000,000 investment in comparison to AMP seven. So we believe that we are going to be minimum twice as busy over the next four to five years com comparison to the last AMP.

23:50 Network rail c p seven investment plans representing a £44,000,000,000 investment into the rail network is is from April 2024 over the next five years. And in the in the rail sector, we are well positioned to maximize our revenue and profits, and our rail numbers are are growing growing up also. As you might have already aware that UK government committed to major infrastructure projects throughout 2026 and beyond, including initial investment of £14,000,000,000, £14,200,000,000 in nuclear energy such as as well as CNIPS, which along with numerous SMRs and cap carbon capture projects such as net zero t side as well as major power and energy transmission and distribution projects in various parts of The UK.

24:46 As you can see from the list of these investments, we are well positioned in the market to further grow over the next ten years. Next slide is about our growth strategy. As you can see from this slide, we have multiple growth opportunities for our future. With regards to the m and a activity, as I mentioned previously, that we acquired four companies so far contributing to the overall group. They are doing well, and they will be growing over the next few years. We have we have a targeted acquisition approach, and we are searching for other potential acquisition opportunities, which is going to enhance our margins and and our capabilities. With regards to growth between our divisions, we have got strong pipeline of projects into financial year 2026 and beyond.

25:41 As I mentioned previously, there are billions of pounds being invested for the m eight. We are the biggest labor supply company in The UK supplying labor to Thames Water, Southern Water, Anglin Water, Seven Trent Water, Wessex Water, and Yorkshire Water. And we wanna take advantage of this this spend and train our people in our academies and put them to work. Regarding the power and energy distribution projects, the UK government is committed to ensuring energy security across the country. Major power and energy transmission and distribution projects are starting in Scotland, England, and Wales, and we are already a framework supplier for our blue chip clients in these regions. So we are ready to go when this kick off properly, and and we are we are expecting that's gonna start from 2026, you know, the second part onwards, potentially pushing to 2027.

26:43 But when it starts, it's gonna be quite busy and over the next five to ten plus years. This is the end of our presentation. Thank you so much for listening to us today, and we are we really appreciate your feedback, and please feel free to ask any questions. Thank you. Thank you so much. That's great, Bruce. Paul, thank you very much indeed for your presentation. I will now turn on your cameras. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the top right corner of your screen. While the company take a few moments to read those questions submitted today, I would like to remind you the recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via investor dashboard. And, Bruce, Paul, at this point, if I may now hand back to you to take us through the questions, and I'll pick up from you both at the end. Thank you.

27:32 Thank you, Alex. Okay. So the first one we've got is, do you intend to expand further south in The UK? Bruce, can you take this one? Yes. No problem. Yes. Potentially, at the moment, most of the infrastructure opportunities are in the North, which is why we recently expanded to Scotland. We are also looking at Ireland as well. This is Southern projects like Lower Thames Crossing and Heathrow 3rd Runway are definitely on our radar. We'll continue to follow the opportunities and client demand rather than expanding just for the sake of it. So when clients project starting on in these in these regions, Southern, so part of The UK, we are ready to go. So, yeah, no problem.

28:24 Okay. Next one. Why are projects being delayed, and how materially will half two of twenty twenty six revenues be affected? Bruce, you'll do this one? Yeah. No problem. We have seen some delays in the key projects starting during the first half of this financial year, and we are, you know, being very open about this. A lot of is a lot of a lot of this is due to major frameworks in the water and energy taking longer to move into live delivery phase. Importantly, these delays are error cancellations. They are just delays. It's something that we are seeing across the the sector, not just at at HERCULES.

29:14 But long term infrastructure pipeline remains still very strong and supported by the government's £725,000,000,000 infrastructure commitments. Overall, we still expect revenue growth to continue this year and beyond, and we'll keep the market updated when we start these projects. Thank you. Okay. So next question. Has have the Advantage Energy and Lions acquisitions both been accretive? Well, I'll cover this one off. The simple answer is yes. Obviously, NOG was completed in June of last year, so we only had four months, of, yeah, contribution into the business accounts for that year. But that that was circa £2,000,000 in terms of post tax profit, about about £9,000,000 worth of revenue.

30:11 And that obviously has continued, into this financial year. The first half year because it's the the the what we would call the winter half is is lower, but we expect to be seriously higher in the second, half of the year. Lions, again, we only, purchase them on the October 1. So having an impact in '26, but not in '25. Again, they are they're delivering at the moment more than what they were doing before before we bought them. And that's before we really started to do a a great deal more of the cross selling, and and we've helped them with a number of things. So, yes, they're they're very accretive to the overall, the overall group position as well. Okay. Right. Let's move on to the next one. Was the £2,500,000 dividend paid by Advantage to HERCULES PLC in January indicative of Advantage profits? Well, I think I mostly answered that with the previous question.

31:09 But, yes. Yes. We only bought them because we thought they were a great buy and, great buy for the future, and they make profit. They make money. So, yes, that's the the simple answer to that question. Okay. So the next one right. I'll Bruce, this might be one for you. Is HS 2 work arriving in line with management expectations? Yes. Great question. Yes. It is going really well. We are one of the five labor supplies on the HS 2 northern section in Birmingham, which remains one of the largest construction projects in Europe, and it continues to provide a strong and and stable stream of work for us.

32:01 As with any major infrastructure project, activity levels can move up and down depending on the stage of the program. But you might have seen from the news that the program has been extended. So we are expecting to stay there longer. That is also why we have diversified into power and energy as well because of the levels are moving up and down. And we also move move to Scotland as well. So HS2 is very important part of our business, but it is no longer the only driver of growth. So we got other opportunities to to pursue and and and grow. Thank you. Okay. So the next one. Could you please explain the HMRC settlement figure of a 157 k? Of course, we can. So in 2022, we made a voluntary submission to the inland revenue, after advice from a BDO who have helped us with this.

33:01 And it was looking at that year and years before it in terms of, certain types of, employee tax issues. And, basically, we we the voluntary submission that we identified, we paid we paid virtually all of that pretty quickly after that, but they had to go through a process. That process took three years for HMRC to come to the end of it, and we came to the end of it, towards was about a year ago from now, actually, when they they basically contacted the a lot of the individuals concerned to see what they've done, look at their tax returns. And the final figure, including interest, there was no penalties. It was just interest and differences between, of what the individuals have paid. That came to a 157 k. We paid it immediately.

33:52 That, that issue is now resolved. That won't be a continuing cost. Hence, we treated it as exceptional. Next question. Is it prudent to continue to explore acquisition opportunities when, when cash may be lower in half two twenty twenty six? Well, it's a fair and important question. And the board, as you would expect, washes cash, quite religiously. But we also have to look at opportunities as well. What what I can say is that we will not do anything, acquisition wise that would compromise, the group's financial stability.

34:38 However, we're in a pretty good position, at the moment and subject to how things progress, in the next in the next months. We will keep our eye on acquisition opportunities If they're they're a strategic fit, if they're profitable, they're fairly easy to integrate and have got reasonable governance, then we will have a look at them. We've done funding before for these acquisitions. The advantage energy was funded with a with a loan, a related party loan, but we managed to do alliance without any funding at all because it's a comparatively small acquisition. I think we're in a good place financially. But to be clear, we will keep our eye on it, but we will keep our eye on acquisitions in a very sensible, planned, prudent way.

35:30 What's the next one? Can you elaborate on the auditor's note regarding the risk of financial penalties and litigation? Okay. So the auditors did what you'd expect them to do. They they they put they they they disclosed what they would see as possible risk. It doesn't mean to say that there is any risk at all. It it just said that they they it was a possible risk. It's not a statement. This is this is really important. It is not a statement for penalties or litigation are expected or underway. Absolutely not. And I'll remind everybody what we do. What do we do about this? We employed specialist accountants and independent lawyers to go through all of this, and the whole board was satisfied at the end of the process. And it was a lengthy process as we've said, that no, item of expenditure was in any way inappropriate.

36:25 They were all properly incurred bits of expenditure. And as soon as as soon as that process started and some of these things came to light, we started to build a remediation plan, I e, how do we correct, elements of of processes so that, you know, these sorts of perceptions because it it was just perceptions. So to stop them happening again in the future to make us watertight and bring us up to a higher level of corporate governance. That remediation plan is virtually complete, but I can see another question coming up. So, on the remediation plan, so I'll wait on and and and say more of it, at that point. Okay. The next one is, will the next and future AGMs be streamed stroke hybrid events to maximize the shareholder engagement, as recommended by the QCA, governance code? Well, I think first things first, we we recognize how important the QCA, governance code is, to us being an aim listed PLC, and we keep that under constant review.

37:30 We've updated it in the light of of recent events, and we will monitor it regularly with the rest of the board. In terms of of AGMs, we there will be an AGM notice coming up very shortly of the next one, but we will absolutely review whether or not we can stream or have hybrid AGMs in the future. We we'll definitely do that. I would also, it's worthwhile pointing out that Bruce and I spend a lot of time during the year whenever we can actually. What we do, we we do lots of presentations, seminars, and webinars, throughout the year for potential shareholders and existing shareholders. And, you know, if you're able to come to any of those, please do and come and chat to us. We're always happy and ready to do that.

38:18 Okay. Right. Next one is how can you claim the investigation is almost complete and then say it won't complete until September? Sorry. You've got the facts slightly wrong there. The investigation was completed a while ago. It's the remediation plan, I e, the points of what we're going to correct, is is what I'm saying is virtually complete, but there's a couple of points that it might take us a few months to put into place. That's that really is the answer to that one. This one isn't really a question from what I could Paul Paul, there is there there are two I don't know if maybe we can read from from from David. It says, what are your thoughts on buybacks?

39:04 Oh, yes. That's at the top now. Yeah. Okay. And and and what EBIT multiplies are you looking to acquire it? So let's answer that one. Yeah. Yeah. So what are our thoughts on buybacks? And I mean Well, we really at this stage, we we haven't had any thoughts on buybacks. Yeah. We put a good shareholder base, and we want to encourage people more people to invest in HERCULES PLC. And, you know, the the question's never been raised with us up to now. So being brutally honest why David is asking because our share price is is, you know, undervalued at the moment. I I totally understand David's you know? But, yeah, we can maybe have a chat with the with the with the board. But currently, we are not you know, we we haven't sort of thought about this yet.

39:54 Yeah. Absolutely. Also, there's another question as well about the EBIT multiplies. Yeah. Yeah. They're on the screen. Okay. So what EBIT multiples are are we looking to acquire? Well, we don't actually look at EBIT multiples, to be honest. We mainly look at EBITDA multiples, but we have an eye to what else is going on in each of the potential acquisitions, as as we go through any due diligence. But that's a commercial, a commercial point in terms of what multiples are might be, but, it's probably fair to say without without giving too much away that, we would, be looking at anything between, three and five, perhaps more than that for something that was exceptional. That sort of range.

40:41 Is Christopher H's Yeah. So Christopher H. Yeah. Are the business development requirements in software, etcetera, budgeted and covered by companies' internal cash flow? Would hate to see dilution with share price at all times. Can I answer the second part, please? So just to just to, you know, we don't wanna dilute when the share price is low. I mean, I'm I'm the biggest shareholder as well. We don't wanna undervalue our company. We wanna grow the share price now. I think we sort of sold the dip a bit because of our suspension even though we have got we had a really good year. So let's concentrate on that. Let's, you know, get our news out, our success plan out as well. We we are a better and and and a more stronger company than before with the things that we went through. Sometimes you go through pain to to come out, you know, stronger in the end and and we have done that as well as growing, as well as acquiring three companies and disposing one. So we had a really really really busy year and that is that comes from being over ambitious and and that's the whole point of being on the AIM market. What's the point otherwise? You know, we could have be be in a private company and grow a little bit, but we don't wanna do that. We wanna, you know, grow and give our share shareholders a really good value in the medium to long term?

42:07 Okay. I'll just cover the first part of that question. As you say, Bruce, you've covered the second part. So yes is the is the easy answer. The the software, etcetera, costs really will be coming to an end in March of next year, all those spend that we've done in the in '25 and '26, and it will continue into the first half of twenty seven. But then it will be completed. And, yes, it has been covered by, internal the company's internal cash flow. Okay. This is an interesting one. Bruce, you can I'm sure you'll look twice this one. Have you run out of new applicants? The app is the app doing the job? Record placements mentioned. And then it says margin potential question mark. Not sure how to interpret that. First, do you wanna have a go? So sure. Yes.

42:56 We we haven't run out of applicants. We have got lots of applicants. We we target an area normally. So when we are we don't we don't, know, advertise everywhere through our sort of apps. We we target an area, say, if there's a job coming up in, you know, I'm just gonna choose a bit of a location, say, you know, Scotland, Glasgow, if there's a project coming up there, and we would target that area and and and get the local people interested and and look at their skills and what they have got, and we can upgrade them as well to kind of better skills, give them more more opportunities, qualifications to give opportunity to The UK workforce to be able to to to work on these projects. So local employment is key for us because we believe that if you are working locally, you are happier at the end of the day going back to your your family, and you'll be safer as well on-site.

43:55 You don't have to travel a lot. So that is our aim and yeah. No. We haven't run out of applicants. Actually, our our app is working really well. We can target an area and and target the project where the projects are and get the local workforce involved in these projects. K. So I think Christopher h is asking a question for We've got another one. Yeah. Yeah. Can can I answer this? Oh, so you asked the question. Sorry. No. No. No. You asked the question, but that's I'll read I'll read it out. This is from Christopher h. What is the company's number one priority for the rest of the year other than employee safety? Yeah. Employee safety is the most important one as as as Chris mentioned. The most important for us is the profit margin as well as the the compliance and the governance. So those are the two important things, and we are going to be making sure our profit margins grow as well as as well as our you know, we do we do things, you know, high level, you know, high standards as well as, you know, pushing for the for the growth.

45:06 Thank you. Okay. Couple of questions left. I'll you do the first one. I'll do the last one, Bruce. So this is from Gavin. How big could the Scottish stroke Glasgow office get? T and d work in Inverness stroke at Northeast situated. How big a client is SSC at present? Yes. So SSC, we got the first contract recently. So I think we'll be just starting with them. Probably, will trial us and and a huge opportunities as you can imagine because SSC is one of the big t and d transmission and distribution operator in The UK. And Glasgow office, we are very, very positive about that's why we have done the investment there. And and Glasgow office will be pushing, you know, that will be sort of our base in Scotland.

45:53 And with the Scottish workforce, we wanna, you know, upscale the wherever required to be able to operate from from our our Glasgow office to push people into the into, you know, remote parts of the Scotland. Great opportunities and we are very very positive about about Scottish, you know, the expansion plans and the opportunities coming up because huge amount of work coming up. As as you are already aware, the, you know, the wind turbines on the in the sea, they they come to the, you know, to the sort of to Scotland and it doesn't get distributed. So you don't use the full capacity. So and and t and d work is all about that, putting that electricity, the energy into the grid, bring them over to overhead linesman.

46:46 There are thousands of kilometers of overhead lines overheads, you know, transmission network to be established, and we are the biggest supplier on that with with advantage energy, and and we are gonna grow. We believe that we can probably double energy within couple of years, the size of it. So, yeah, great great opportunities in in Scotland and beyond and to England and Wales as well. Thank you. Okay. So last question. This is from AIK, I think it says. What happened with the share price in recent times? Well, I don't think Bruce or myself would would claim to to have a a complete understanding of what what happens with the share price on different days, but, you know, you'll all be aware of the global events.

47:34 There's a certain American gentleman whose actions do have an impact on on the share price, not just our share price, but everybody's share price. We've been, again, sort of winning a number of jobs recently. And every time we put an announcement out of this, which is very, very positive news. We've done quite a few in the last six months. They do tend to have a a a good a good movement on the share price. But it's all about how people interpret information. Clearly, the suspension that we had to go through, we're now back on, took the share price off, and it's now we're now back, and everybody's now reacting to that. But we've got more good announcements to come, more good news to come in in the months ahead, no doubt. So, we're hoping that, you know, that that that that the market sees that, and we will see change in that share price in a in a very positive direction.

48:24 But, yeah, unfortunately, we we can't say a great deal more than that. Rusty, I think you wanna add to that? No. I think you you you answered it well, Paul. It's not it's not in our sort of power to do that. But you know what? What is in our power to make sure that we grow profitably as well as we make sure that the compliance and governance is placed so this sort of suspension doesn't happen again. As a CEO, personally, you know, I'm very embarrassed about the situation, and this will not happen again. I won't let it happen again. That's great, Bruce. Paul, if I may just jump back in there, and thank you for addressing all those questions for investors today. But, Bruce, before I direct redirect investors to provide you with a feedback question that's particularly important to yourself and the company. Could I just please ask you for a few closing comments?

49:10 Yes. No problem. Thank you so much, Alex, for making this happen today. I just wanna thank everyone. It was as I mentioned from the beginning, it it has been a bit of a learning lessons as well for for us 2025, but in a in a positive way because you wanna learn these lessons. So when you wanna be we are a bigger company, we grow strongly. So we got the we we put the remediation plan in place. We are investing in our IT plans as Paul explained, ERP projects as Paul explained. We have grown, so it was a positive year again. We don't wanna sort of, you know, develop on the the the mistakes mistakes that that we we have have done. Done. You know? It unfortunately, this happened in a in a in a high, you know, growing company, and we'll make sure that this will not happen again.

49:59 That is our plan. And future is bright for us. Huge investments coming up, so we got a good base now. Let's build on, and we got ambitious team. We got a great team working with us, and I'm very confident we are gonna grow. Thank you. Fantastic. Bruce, good morning. Thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as you know, we'll automatically redirected to provide you feedback, which will help the company better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.