Next 15 Group plc (NFG) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning all. Thank you all for coming along. Agenda is fairly straightforward. I'm going to give you the numbers that you've already read. Peter's going to go through the numbers that you've already read. I'll then come and talk a little bit about the color behind that and hopefully give you a better sense of how the business is doing behind those numbers and what you can expect going forward. The numbers that you've already read are on the left. I think the number that probably stands out the most to me is the margin performance. It is quite difficult running a business through the kind of cycle that we've just been through. And the fact that we've actually improved the margin, I think should give you quite a good amount of confidence in the way that the organization is run. It's one of those where, as you can see on this slide, our tech spend dropped 17%, which means some parts of our business must have gone backwards. And trying to run a business with a solid margin when revenues are not moving in a good direction is actually very, very difficult. It's quite easy to expand the margin as you're growing because you typically can't hire people quickly enough, so your margin actually benefits. When the opposite is happening, it's actually very hard to do because it's usually harder to get the costs out of the business at the same pace that the revenue might be dropping out. The good news on the revenue side is obviously that non-tech was up 11%. That's a good counterbalance. And of course, a fairly obvious question is, When do we think tech is going to reverse from that position? I think the good news is for us is that we think that in the first half of this year, tech is going to be pretty stable. I think we expect it to improve in the second half. Assuming that...