VP (LSE:VP.) — Interim Results

0:10 The establishment of VP Rail with the sectors that we're dealing with and the and the the skill sets that we bring forward with that sets us apart from our competitors because of the breadth of service that we can supply, the decades of experience and knowledge that we have within the industry. The backup service, we're twenty fourseven, three sixty five days a year. Any customer in in any activity within the rail sector, be it trap renewals or buildings and civils, can send an email, make a phone call to one center, and they were given the services of the VP businesses through that portal. The vision of VP Rail is to give our customers access to the VP group of companies from a single point of contact.

1:10 We'll still be using the expertise of the people that we've got within within our businesses, and we see this as a game changer within our within our sector. The skills that we can provide, not only the plant, but the services, the dedication and experience provided within our business is totally unparalleled. We can supply operatives throughout The UK, be it in the North Of Scotland to the South of the country, into into South Wales and into into Yorkshire and anywhere that there's a railway we have got the capabilities to supply to. Through the two thousands, VP Rail was engaged with the West Coast route modernization upgrade, which at the time was the biggest project in Europe, covering over £8,000,000,000 of spend at the time.

2:09 VP Rail have been working on the TransPennan project across east and west, linking Manchester with York. VP Rail have worked on some really big projects in in the capital, particularly Crossrail where we worked at Abbey Wood and Maidenhead. We worked at Stocklay. We're also working on the HS two program between London and Birmingham.

2:40 Our compliance and assurance teams have been in the industry for several years, very experienced in what they do. They understand what it takes to work on the rail environment. VP of Rail were very easy to transact with because you'll get all your communication, survey, track renewal or maintenance equipment from one solution and get the expertise of the VP group of businesses from one place.

3:16 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the VP PLC Interim Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab that's just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we would just like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from VP PLC. Anna, good morning. Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the VP interim results.

4:02 I'm Anna Bealby. I'm the CEO, and I'm joined today by our CFO, Keith Winstanley. I'll kick off with a brief summary and then update on our strategy. Keith will then cover the financial review, and then I'll talk through our operational performance. And at the end, there will be time to answer any questions that you might have. So I'm sure many of you are familiar with our business. But to summarize, we are leaders in equipment rental with a key focus on being specialist. We operate in niche sectors and our end market are infrastructure, construction, house building, and energy. We have a resilient operating model and diverse revenue streams. And we have a strong track record of high returns and uninterrupted dividend track record going back over thirty years.

4:51 Our divisions are listed on the bottom of this slide, but we increasingly talk about our business in relation to the end markets that we serve.

5:01 So moving on to the half one performance. Overall, our performance in the first half was robust with revenue and profit broadly in line with last year. Our return on average capital employed ROCE remained strong at 14.7% demonstrating earnings quality. From a market perspective, infrastructure was strong with particular demand from the water and transmission sectors with a slower start to rail. Energy also performed well, but construction and house building continued to be challenging. We remain committed to investing in our asset base and fleet in the period was GBP 39,000,000 with a focus on growth areas and a transition towards cleaner, greener solutions. We continue to have a strong balance sheet, which allows us to invest and positions us well for the future.

5:51 Despite some headwinds in the first half, we are declaring interim dividend of 11.5p per share consistent with last year. We've made good progress on our refresh strategy, which I'll talk about in a bit more detail, and that includes the early October acquisition of CPH. And overall, we expect full year performance to be in line with market expectations.

6:15 So moving on to our investment case. I've covered some of these points already, so I'll just pick out the highlights. The main thing for me is the fact that we are specialists. That's what differentiates us from others in our industry. It served us well over the years, and it provides us with resilience. We also have exciting growth prospects. That's both our alignment to markets with good growth opportunity, particularly in infrastructure, but also a number of self help opportunities, which are, there to improve our performance, which I'll touch on later. And as I mentioned, our financial profile is strong, and overall as a business, we are well positioned. So moving on to our strategy. We set out our refresh strategy in June.

7:01 I'm not proposing to go through all of the detail again, but the key theme is around ensuring that the VP is a more straightforward business and it's greater than the sum of its parts. The main areas of our strategy relate to delivering growth, where we see key opportunities for our businesses to work better together, and also driving operational excellence to do things in a more straightforward way. And all of this is enabled by having the right team in place, investing in our digital road map alongside a continued focus on ESG. One of the things that we've done in the first half of the year is commissioned some independent customer feedback, and that feedback showed there's lots of positives around our specialism, our people, and our agility. But it also highlighted what we already know, which is that we need to be more joined up in terms of how our divisions work with one another and also how we best serve and approach our work with our largest, most strategic customers.

7:59 And continuing and listening to that feedback, what we've been doing in the first half is focus on focusing on our divisions working more closely together, and I'll update you on some of the progress that we've made. Firstly, from a divisional collaboration perspective, our senior teams are now working more closely together, and the work we're doing on our on our digital road map will facilitate this and make us easier to do business with. We're also increasingly thinking about opportunities from an end market perspective, And this is particularly important given the large spending commitments and increases in spending commitments in major infrastructure projects. And to facilitate this, and as you've already seen from the video at the start of the presentation, we have appointed our first end sector specialist, a director of VP Rail to lead our rail offering across the group.

8:48 Continuing the growth agenda, we explained in June that M and A will be a key part of our growth story, and we were pleased to complete the acquisition of CPH in early September. This is a specialist powered access business in The Republic Of Ireland, which Keith will talk about in a bit more detail shortly. And sorry, that was early October, not early September.

9:07 Another important part of our progress is, work on our operating model, making sure that we are set up in the right way that best supports our customers and allows us to operate as simply and efficiently as possible. In the period, we've continued to make progress and we are now transitioning certain functions to the center of the group. For example, our rehire activities, the management of our major customers, alongside property and procurements. And to do all these things, we need to ensure we have the right team. And I'm really pleased that we have new leadership in IT, health, safety and sustainability, and also procurement. I mentioned our refreshed operating model on the last slide, and I think it's worth explaining this in a bit more detail.

9:56 The changes that we're making are to ensure that we are set up in the best way to support our customers and operate efficiently. Our specialist divisions are in the center of this diagram, and they are at the heart of our business, and we have no plans to lose our divisional structure or the agile teams that support our customers. But we do know we can unlock opportunities if we think about our business in a slightly different way and listen to some of the feedback we've heard from our customers. As I mentioned, we're also increasingly thinking about the group from the perspective of end markets to ensure that we're well positioned to take advantage of significant projects where we know that billion pound spending commitments exist. And our appointment of a director of VP Rail facilitates this. Our specialist divisions and our group wide offering are then supported by efficient group functions using our scale and our technology through our digital roadmap to do things in a simple and consistent way.

10:53 Some of these changes can be made immediately. Some of these changes will take a bit more time. Some of these changes are about driving revenue, and some of the these changes are around either reducing costs or responding to some of the cost headwinds that are coming our way. But overall, we see a big self help opportunity from refreshing the way that we work. I'm now gonna hand over to Keith who will cover our financial review. Thanks, Anna, and good morning, everybody. We'll get straight into our financial highlights. So as you can see, our key financial metrics are all broadly in line with h one last year. As Anna has already mentioned, the picture across our end markets is similar to that at the year end with infrastructure and energy being generally supportive, but challenges remaining in general construction and house building.

11:42 The main change has been in rail. And whilst we remain optimistic about the opportunities in rail, the slower than anticipated start to CP seven has impacted the half. And therefore, to produce results in line with last year's h one, I think demonstrates a robust nature of our diversified business model. Return on average capital employed or ROCE has improved slightly from the year end at 14.7%. Although this figure does include a roundabout naught point 6% relating to the goodwill impairment we recorded at the end of last year. We haven't recognized any exceptional items in the half. We do expect some in h two, though, relating to corporate development and operating model changes, both of which we'll touch on later in the presentation.

12:31 So moving on to the balance sheet. Our balance sheet remains strong and robust, which positions us well for future opportunities and investment. In fact, we increased the investment in our rental fleet from 28,000,000 to 39,000,000 in the period. The credit environment remains challenging, but I'm pleased to say that our focus in this area resulted both resulted in both an improvement to DSO and lower bad debt write off levels. Net debt increased by around about 15,000,000, and I'll cover that in a bit more detail over the next few slides. So this slide shows the movement in net debt over the period. In terms of inflows, cash generation remained strong and consistent with the comparative period.

13:19 In terms of outflows, we continue to be disciplined in how we allocate our capital. We continue to invest for growth by investing back into our fleet. We pay interest and we pay our taxes, and we return funds to shareholders via our dividend, which is uninterrupted for over thirty years. The working capital outflow that you can see includes an element of seasonality. It also contains cash outflows relating to previously recorded exceptional costs and also a return of a large customer overpayment from the prior year. I expect some working capital improvement over h two. I wanted to choose the opportunity just to remind everybody of our finance facilities. So including our overdraft, we have around about a 190,000,000 of facilities.

14:07 And these facilities include two fixed rate low cost private placements, the first of which matures in 2027. We also have a £90,000,000 revolving credit facility, which we've just extended for a further year. This facility now matures in November 27. Our facilities are subject to two financial covenants around interest cover and a net debt to EBITDA gearing ratio. We are operating well within these covenants and currently expect our net debt to EBITDA gearing to be around about 1.5 times at the year end. We continue to operate with significant headroom and well within our covenants. We have the funds available, and we will continue to allocate them with discipline.

14:54 We're committed to maintaining a young and well invested rental fleet. We increased the investment in the period either on a gross basis or considering an investment net of disposals. We allocate capital in areas we believe will maximize our growth. Currently, the German transmission market represents a significant opportunity for the group. Between now and 2045, the German grid is being expanded and transitioned towards renewable energy sources. During the period in Germany, we invested about 7,500,000 in steel panels to provide temporary access solutions to network locations. This investment is expected to be ROCE accretive and is relatively low risk given the long lifespan and high residual values of residual values of the panels.

15:45 We continue to consider environmental factors as part of our investment decisions, and that was no different here. From a logistical perspective, these panels were transported as close as possible to customer sites using boats and barges rather than the more typical and environmentally unfriendly road networks. And to do this, we had to do things like create a temporary preparation station at Hanover Docks.

16:09 More broadly, across the group, more than 50% of our h one fleet purchases with zero emissions at point of use. Moving on to our returns and dividends. If you joined us at the at the year end, I presented this chart then, but I think it does a really good job of summarizing the financial strength of VP. The top graph shows our ability to deliver remarkably consistent and strong returns over several years. The bottom graph shows our dividend story. And as I said already, our dividend is uninterrupted for over thirty years. And despite some headwinds in the first half, we are declaring an interim dividend of 11.5 p consistent with last year.

16:57 Our growth strategy is a combination of organic investment and m and a. We've already touched on organic investment, and now I just wanna spend a minute focusing in on m and a. When we presented our refresh strategy in the summer, we set out the criteria for acquisitions and also that we'd be considering selective disposals in order to best deliver our strategy. From an acquisitions perspective, we said that we were looking for businesses which were specialists with growth potential, provided access or extensions to geographies, assets, or sectors. They needed to meet strict financial hurdles, and they needed to fall within risk appetite. Just after the period end, we are really pleased to acquire CPH for an initial consideration of €12,000,000.

17:46 CPH is a business that falls right in our sweet spot as it does one thing very well and focusing on very specific end markets, typically clean rooms within pharma, technology, and food and beverage. CPH has immediate growth opportunities for growth with its existing customers, and we're also looking forward to taking advantage of the buoyant Republic Of Ireland market, which has strong growth potential both for CPH and also the wider group. Eight weeks in and the integration has been going very much to plan. Existing management remain with the business, and both CPH and our other divisions are exploring ways to maximize the opportunity of having CPH as part of the group. This is likely to be the only acquisition that we make this year that represents a new division. Any other activity in h two is more likely to be smaller bolt ons to existing divisions.

18:41 Just quickly turning to divestment. We continue to look at options to rebalance the group's offerings, including opportunities for divestment. We continue to look at our businesses in terms of their returns, their growth potential, and their alignment with the strategy. And that strategy is becoming increasingly focused on divisional cross collaboration and end market specialism. So just to summarize this little section, we've seen robust financial performance in the first half. We've seen that we operate well within our finance facilities, but we've target investment where we see growth opportunities. And we've just seen progress against our strategy with the post period end acquisition acquisition of CPH. And with that, I'll hand you back over to Anna.

19:30 Thanks, Keith. I'm now gonna run through our operating performance in half one, which will be focused on the end markets that we serve. I'm gonna start with infrastructure, which is our largest end market, and it's also the area where performance has been stronger and where we probably see most potential. We categorize infrastructure as rail, water and transmission. In rail, there is a significant market opportunity with £45,000,000,000 of spend in CP seven and a number of major projects ongoing. Crucially, the government didn't cancel any significant projects as part of the recent budget. And as I mentioned, we have appointed our first N sector specialists to provide leadership and coordination across the business in this important area.

20:16 As well as supporting our major projects, we also work closely with Network Rail on the scheduled maintenance of the rail infrastructure. Our performance in half one on rail was lower than the equivalent period last year due to the change from control period six to control period seven, and a level of further delay caused by the, governmental change in the summer. Despite this, we remain optimistic about opportunities in this important sector over a five year control period. In water, at £88,000,000,000 AMP eight represents a significant spending commitment and an over 70% increase on AMP seven. And we believe we are well placed to take advantage of that with the focus on sustainability in ESG serving our specialist business as well.

21:04 Our work on water supports a number of areas from pipeline construction, enhancements, and possible roadways through to highly specialized assets to perform surveys and testing. In the first half of the year, our performance on water was strong and we saw an increase in revenue over the equivalent period last year. In transmission, there has been a significant investment in both The UK and also, in in Europe, and Keith referred to Germany earlier on. And we and we expect momentum to continue, positively both in the second half of the year and into the medium term. Our work in transmission is focused principally on portable roadways, but we also do work around groundworks and test and measurements.

21:49 In the first half of the year, we have seen good momentum and growth in this area, and we've been able to take advantage of the favorable market conditions. And as Keith mentioned, a significant part of our CapEx in the first half was to support the transmission market. The next couple of slides showcase that is demonstrating the work that we're doing within rail and also within water. So this case study is a multimillion pound rail track enhancement project we started last month, where five of our divisions are working closely together to offer a true group wide solution to our customers. Our specialist divisions will provide all plant solutions for the project supported by our people who include an operational team, a central hire desk, and central management.

22:36 We're also working closely with the customer to ensure that our approach uses innovation and where where possible uses battery technology in order to be more sustainable. We expect to be involved in more of these group wide projects, and we believe our new operating model and director of VP Rail will position us well to deliver. So moving on to water, this case study shows some of the work that we do in this important sector, which also represents a strong opportunity for us. Our ground force division was involved in this project with Scottish Water that was focused on the continuous supply of fresh drinking water in Aberdeen. Our work in this area involve both the technical design and also the assets needed for a modular propping solution.

23:22 As we move towards AMP8 with a significant increase in funding, we see opportunities across the group and like in rail, we expect our divisions to be increasingly working more closely together to support our major projects.

23:38 So moving on to construction where market conditions have been more varied. We categorize construction activities as general and specialist. In general construction, conditions have continued to be tough, largely caused by wider economic headwinds. Our activities in this area relate to the higher small plant tools and equipment over a jet over over a broad customer base. And from a divisional perspective, this mainly relates to our brand and hire station business. In the first half of the year, we've seen a reduction in revenue compared to half one of twenty twenty four. And in Brandon hire station, improvements in business performance have been slower than anticipated. Despite this, we are optimistic that things are moving in the right direction and the actions that we have taken position us well to take advantage of the market recovery when it comes.

24:30 And just as a reminder, the actions we're taking in Brandonhire Station are around back to basics and focus, essentially ensuring that we have the optimal physical footprint and that we're focusing our efforts on customers that sit within our sweet spot. We're also making control and process improvements helped by data and systems as part of our digital roadmap. Alongside this, and as I've already mentioned when I spoke about our operating model, we're moving certain activities such as our rehire and management of strategic customers from Brandon Hire station into the group center. This will both better support the wider group and it will also allow Brandon Hire station to concentrate on its core business and its recovery plan. And as Keith mentioned, we expect some exceptional items in the second half of the year in relation to this.

25:21 Within specialist construction, the position is more positive with good levels of activity in areas such as refurbishments and refits. In specialist construction, we have a more focused offering where we have specialist niche products or we focus on more specialist end markets. And in this area, we've seen year on year growth with redevelopment projects particularly strong.

25:45 It's worth mentioning that our recently acquired business, CPH, also operates within specialist construction, serving the clean room, pharma and data center market. The other point to briefly mention on construction is the continuing challenging credit conditions. We're pleased that our debt write off in the period has improved on last year, but we have felt the impact both directly and indirectly of administrations in the sector. I'm now gonna run through a case study of one of the major redevelopment projects that we are currently working on. This case study showcases some of the work that our MEP division is doing in office redevelopment. The Canary Wharf project is one of the biggest refit projects in Europe with over a thousand contractors on-site. And our work here is all around access and providing safe, innovative, and environmentally solutions environmentally friendly solutions.

26:37 We have over 500 assets on hire in this location, and we can provide access to our entire fleet through our on-site hire center. And we expect refits to continue to be

26:47 an area of growth for the group in half two and moving into the next financial year. In house building, where we supply telehandlers alongside small plant and equipment, conditions remain challenging with a contraction in house building anticipated across 2024. We note the government's focus on house building, including targets and measures around planning reform, but we're yet to see improvements in activity levels. So moving on to energy. Within this end market, the majority of our activities relate to oil and gas, and conditions continue to be favorable led by supportive oil prices. We note the shift to cleaner fuels and our own environmental roadmap, but we expect a continued high demand for oil in the short to medium term.

27:37 And within energy, we support a number of upstream and downstream projects, both in The UK and also overseas. And in the first half of the year, performance has been strong with a good level of growth that's been supported by, our work on industrial shutdown projects. And I'm now gonna cover a brief case study on energy.

27:57 This case study is another example of where our divisions have worked together on a major project. Five of our divisions have supported a major industrial shutdown with an on-site facility. This was twenty four seven and included day to day operation and maintenance activities. And we've used this model of bringing together our capabilities on a number of UK industrial sites. That's the end of our operating review. I think that significant market opportunity exists and alongside our self help measures, I think we're well positioned for the future. So in summary, we've reported a robust first half performance despite challenges in some of our end markets. We're continuing to progress our strategy, including improving divisional collaboration and end sector focus, refreshing our operating model, and progressing our m and a strategy, which included the acquisition of CPH shortly after the period end.

28:52 We have a strong track record of navigating difficult markets, and we have confidence in the future despite some of the headwinds, including the cost increases set out in the government's autumn budget. And we expect full year performance to be in line with market expectations. That concludes the formal part of our presentation, and we'll now hand over for any q and a you may have.

29:15 Perfect. Anna, Keith, if I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can all be accessed via your investor dashboard. And, O'Keefe, we have received a number of questions throughout presentation this morning, and thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But, guys, perhaps if we dive straight into it, the, the first question that we have here reads as follows. With leverage expected to remain at 1.5 times, are there any plans to further deleverage the balance sheet, or is the focus on reinvestment and growth?

30:03 K. I will I will I will take that one. So we we we offer we often talk about 1.5 times being roughly our our sweet spot. It's a it's a it's a position that we are we we are very comfortable with. If if the right opportunity came along,

30:26 we would be willing to to to kinda go higher than that temporarily. I'm trying to kinda drop back down to to 1.5. I get I guess, you know, in terms of our wider facilities, we I touched on those during the presentation. And the the first kind of tranche of of those facilities to mature is in is in 2027. So so up until up until those those those facilities start to mature, which is a a a little way off, we we are we are pretty comfortable around about 1.5 times.

31:03 Perfect. Thanks, Keith. The next question that we have here asks, the introduction of VP Rail is a significant development. What is the expected timeline for achieving meaningful revenue growth, from this initiative? Thank you. I'll take that one. The announcement has only been made recently, and we are still working through, all of the details of how we provide that information. We expect, meaningful growth to happen as we enter the new financial year, but much of that will be caused by the the size of the opportunity within within within CP seven, which has been a bit slower, in the in this financial year. But we expect performance to improve in the next in the next financial year. We think that the end sector focus is the best

31:48 way for us to drive growth in important markets, and rail is our first step into that. But we are looking at other areas, particularly water, where significant spending commitments exist to to to see how we might follow the the the changes and the and the and the and the moves that we've made within within rail. But we're very excited about the area of rail, and that's why we have have made the change, to focus all our efforts under the leadership of the director of VP Rail. Perfect. Thanks, Anna. You've referenced rail, water, and transmission as strong performing areas. What percentage of the group's revenue currently comes from these sectors, and how do you plan to scale these opportunities further? Yeah. So we don't we don't provide, all of the detailed information on our on our end market sec segments or or sub segments. But, from a revenue perspective, around 40% of our revenue comes from infrastructure and probably around three quarters of that comes from those important end markets in rail, transmission and and water. I think you've seen the work we're doing in rail in order to approach the opportunity with your partner VP Rail. As I mentioned, we'll be looking at to see whether or not that model also works for water. I think if I take the transmission

33:01 opportunity, Keith referred to the significant investment that we are making in that end market, particularly in Germany, where we've accelerated some of our our spend to take advantage of the opportunity. So, we are we are very much focused on the markets where the growth opportunities exist, and wherever possible, we'll be investing our effort as a management team, but also our capital in those areas to drive business performance. Thanks, Anna. And just sticking with, growth opportunities, another question, which we have here asks, how long has VP been operating in Germany? And do you see Mainland Europe as a faster growth area for VP than its traditional home market? I think the answer is it depends. So VP has been operating in Germany for, I believe, sort of five five five years plus, and the activities over there relate to our ground force business and also, the TPA business. The German economy is interesting.

34:01 I don't think it's any more buoyant than The UK economy, but we do believe that in transmission in particular, there is a real sweet spot at the moment, which we are which we're able to exploit. I think when it comes to opportunities for growth, I am always more comfortable with things that are closer to home because they feel lower risk because, we are more familiar with, with the markets, the laws and regulations, etcetera. So I think our approach on on on investment is if there are gaps in our current offering in The UK market, that would probably be our first priority. But I think where where there are things that we currently do well in The UK that we think we can translate to adjacent markets such as Germany, then we'll we will be open to opportunities like that. And we're very pleased to be, able to capitalize on the German transmission opportunity at the moment. I think the other market that particularly interests us is the Irish market where we've made this acquisition.

34:52 I think in going through that process and certainly getting due diligence on the Irish market, we do believe that the fundamentals there are quite different to The UK, and there is certainly a more optimistic outlook for construction. We operate in Ireland, through our ground force business and now CPH, and we will be, looking to see if there are other opportunities for our businesses to, to take advantage of favorable market conditions there. Thanks, Anna. VP has a long term record of dividend growth. What are the chances of it continuing in the current year? Should I take, that one? I guess I guess we you you'll have you'll you'll have seen that we we held it flat for for for the first half despite despite headwinds.

35:44 I mean, I I I I I cannot tell you what what it will be, the what the final dividend will be. That will be a a decision that that we as the board make towards the the the end of the year. It's it's it's a balance. We we we we talk about two two aims when we when we are looking at our dividend. We would we would very much like to to pay a progressive dividend, but we also we also seek two times two times cover over over the cycle. So I I I I I I cannot give you an answer or or or a probability, but but those those are the factors that we will consider when setting our final dividend.

36:34 I think we absolutely acknowledge that the dividend is an important part of of the VP story, and we're very proud of that thirty year uninterrupted dividend track record. Perfect. Thank you both for that. And and thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in for investors this morning. And, of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended just for you to review and to then add any additional responses where it's appropriate to do so. We'll publish all those responses out on the platform. But, Anna, perhaps before really just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that'd be great. Yeah. Thank you. So overall, we we think the first half, has been a a good, strong, robust performance.

37:23 We're aligned to markets that have good growth opportunity, particularly particularly in construction. And we think alongside some of the self help measures that we've talked about, we're well possessed we're well positioned for the future. So thank you very much everybody for joining us today and for your questions. Perfect. That's great. And, Keith, thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can really better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of VP PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good morning to you all.