IPD Group Limited (IPG) Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the IPD Group FY '26 Results Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Michael Sainsbury, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, and welcome, everybody, to our 2026 results call. If my voice sounds a little bit rusty this morning, I just want to apologize in advance. I was out at Parramatta Stadium last night cheering my beloved Roosters on. So a great result. And speaking of great results, we'll move straight into the presentation deck. So I will go through the deck slide by slide. I'll tell you when I'm advancing. So for those of you who've got a presentation in front of me can keep up with it. So with that, moving through to Slide 2, where we talk about the agenda. I will cover an overview. Well, obviously, I'll hand over to Jason to be able to cover off the 2026 financial performance in a little bit more depth. I'll come back to myself then. I'll then go into a market and business update, and then we'll close off with strategy and outlook and an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. Obviously, I've got Jason Boschetti with me, and I'll hand over to him at the appropriate time. Slide 3 is just a title slide about overview, moving straight to Slide 4, which talks about the Connected Group. And for those of you who aren't intimately familiar with IPD Group as a company, the group is the parent company, and it consists of 5 different businesses, each diversified but covering off across the key infrastructure markets. You've got IPD, which was the original founding part of our IPD Group business. It's very strong in electrical power control and automation solutions in a distribution model. CMI, one of our recent acquisitions, very strong in industrial cable and power connection solutions. Platinum, which is our most recent acquisition, very strong in mining and resources and specialization in mining and resources cable solutions. EX Engineering, hazardous area, a specialist around solutions and product supply. And then last but certainly not least, Addelec Power Services, an electrical services and testing business. Each of them have strong synergies across the group and the ability to be able to leverage off relationships across that group and a well-connected group, and we work very hard to embrace the synergies across those different businesses. Moving forward to Slide 5, is probably the most important slide in this deck, talking about the overview of our results, and I'm really pleased to say that continued growth above the top end of our guidance. And all of the boxes there showing positive momentum. I'll start with revenue there at $414 million, which is up 16.8% on the prior comparative period. EBITDA at $55.4 million, up 19.4% on the prior period. EBITDA as a percentage at 13.4%, up 30 basis points from 13.1% of the prior comparative period. Organic EBITDA, and this is important because there has been some rhetoric out there in the market that all of our growth has come from inorganic activity, but pleased to say that organic EBITDA up 11% on the prior comparative period, really reinforcing the value we're getting out of the operating leverage across the business and a strong result there. When I talk about EBIT at $47.2 million, up 20.4% on the prior comparative period. Our operating free cash flow at 46.8% (sic) [ $46.8 million ], representing a conversion of 84.4%. Net debt at $16.4 million, down from $24.4 million at December 31. Data center revenue growing at 27%, up from the prior comparative period of $56.5 million to $71.5 million. Really strong result around earnings per share at 29.7% (sic) [ $0.297 ] and up 17.4%. That result really reflects a strong organic story but inorganic story. And I want to just take a quick second to delve in on that. When we talk about our M&A strategy, and that's certainly been a big contributor to us, I do want to reinforce that since listing in 2021, we have only raised $60 million. So that inorganic opportunity and the growth you're seeing in that earnings per share has come with us not having to go to market to raise significant capital to be able to support that. It's supported through our own cash generation largely, and that earnings per share is something that we're really proud about. When I talk about dividends at $0.147, representing a dividend ratio of 50% payout, and that's obviously fully franked. So some good results. And those blue arrows, I'd prefer to show them in green next time, but it's a strong set of numbers across all of the key parameters for the business and again, exceeding the top end of our guidance, which we are very, very proud of and excited about for the future. Slide 6 is a title slide there around financial performance. And if we move straight into Slide 7, I will hand over to Jason Boschetti to cover off those numbers in more depth.

Fantastic. Thank you, Michael, and welcome, everyone. We're on to the financial overview, the FY '26 financial performance slide, starting on Slide 7. And I am pleased to finally release our FY '26 results, all exceeding the top end of our guidance range provided in May 2026. Group revenue increased 16.8% to a record $414.3 million with our data center revenue growing a strong 27% to $71.5 million in FY '26. EBITDA increased 19.4% to, again another record, $55.4 million EBITDA result, above the top end of the guidance range and reflecting clear operating leverage across the group. EBIT increased 20.4% to $47.2 million, again, also above the top end of the guidance range. Our EBITDA, EBIT and net PAT margins have all expanded and EPS increased 17.4% to $0.297 per share. Platinum Cables contributed 6 months of earnings from the 1st of January '26 to the 30th of June 2026. This complemented, as Michael mentioned, our strong organic gross revenue but also contributed to the total group revenue with a total group revenue growth of 16.8% versus the PCP. Moving on to Slide 8, sales and earnings growth. Revenue up 16.8%. IPD revenue increased 11%, CMI revenue increased 11%. EX Engineering revenue increased an incredible 35% and our data center revenue increased 27% to $71.5 million. Our group revenue has grown at a 28.5% CAGR over the past 5 financial years, as you can see on the graph to the right. This growth has been evenly split between organic growth and growth driven by our accretive acquisitions. Our underlying EBITDA is up 19.4% to $55.4 million. Revenue mix contributed to a shift towards larger margin-competitive projects. This resulted in some gross margin compression when looking at a year-on-year basis. And we've got a slide further in the deck to talk about the half-on-half year movements. But however, margins have subsequently remained stable and improved 33.1% in the second half of '25 to 33.4% in the second half of '26. Our underlying operating expenses as a percentage of revenue has improved 140 basis points on the prior comparative period, a shift from 21.4% to 20% despite inflationary cost pressures, particularly around our inbound freight and one-off costs, including opening our new Perth facility and our restructure of the Addelec business. The net impact was double-digit revenue growth accompanied by expanding EBITDA and EBIT margins, an incredible result. Moving on to Slide 9, organic financial performance. Now these results are excluding Platinum, and this illustrates the strong organic growth across the core IPD Group. Organic revenue growth of 9.7% and organic EBITDA growth of 11% across FY '26. Both EBITDA and EBIT exceeded the top end of our respective guidance ranges. IPD revenue increased 11% on market share expansion and strong data center revenue momentum. Our CMI business delivered a record result with revenue up 11% on an improved go-to-market and operating scale. Our CMI cable business actually grew 10% on FY '25 and our second half revenues accelerated on the first half of FY '26. CMI Minto plugs were up 17% on the prior comparative period. This is predominantly led by our strong performance in export markets. EX Engineering revenue grew 35% as the business expanded and across key relationships and supply partnerships. This growth was partly driven by a key oil and gas cable supply contract. Excluding this contract, EX Engineering's revenue still increased by an incredible 23% on the prior comparative period. Addelec revenue declined 7% when excluding the Kingsgrove Bus Depot project as the business repositioned around core electrical infrastructure and service opportunities. During the year, Addelec undertook a business restructure with an increased focus on testing and calibration services. The business enters next year with a more sustainable cost base to support improved profitability across FY '27. While our core group revenues grew 10% and data centers grew 27% on the PCP, it's important to point out that IPD Group's diverse product and end markets grew 7% on the prior comparative period, even if you excluded our growth from data center revenue. IPD Group's strong track record of closing accretive acquisitions is not often transparent to see with a strong organic growth profile across the group. As shown on the previous slide, IPD Group's total revenue has grown at a 28.5% CAGR over the past 5 financial years. Organic revenue has now grown at 14.3% CAGR over the past 5 financial years. This really demonstrates the balanced organic and inorganic growth since our listing on the ASX. I'll move forward on to Slide 10, matured margin profile. Over the past 4 financial years, as shown in the graphs above, group revenue has grown 134%, while EBITDA has grown 173%. This demonstrates IPD Group's strong operating model scalability and enhanced operating leverage over a number of years. Following our acquisition of CMI Electrical in the second half of '24, the group established a new gross margin profile, and you can see that halfway through the graph to the left. Whilst it's hard to see looking at year-on-year measures, gross profit margins have subsequently remained stable and actually improved from a 33.1% in the second half of '25 to 33.4% in the second half of '26 despite this continued growth in larger margin-competitive infrastructure and data center projects. This has contributed to our EBITDA margin expansion alongside scale, operating leverage and growing our revenue base. And I really want to emphasize our margins are stable and our earnings are growing. Our growth hasn't been bought off the -- through lower pricing, through lower-quality earnings or profit margin sacrifice. The business has become larger, diverse, our margin profile has changed and profitability has strengthened with profit margin expansion and increase in our operating base, increasing our operating leverage. Just moving on to Slide 11, our balance sheet. Our robust balance sheet provides significant strategic capacity. As of the 30th of June 2026, IPD Group has $181.8 million of net assets on its balance sheet. After securing $37.5 million of new debt to fund the acquisition of Platinum Cables, the group's net debt position has improved to $16.4 million, split between $48.6 million of debt and $32.2 million of cash. This strong deleveraging has resulted in a conservative leverage at approximately 0.3x net debt to underlying EBITDA. The IPD Group Board of Directors released its leverage policy back in 2024 and released a target to maintain net debt to EBITDA at less than 1x on a preceding 12-month basis, but up to a maximum of 1.5x. Back to our current leverage of 0.3x, IPD Group's balance sheet remains strongly placed to continue to support our strategic objectives. Moving through to Slide 12, capital management. Our operating free cash flow before interest and tax outflows of $46.8 million reflects a cash conversion of 84.4%. Our inventory increased by $13.2 million, and this reflects supporting the current project delivery and future growth opportunities, along with the acquisition of Platinum Cables. As Michael went over previously, management and the Board have demonstrated disciplined capital management over an extended period. Since listing on the ASX, IPD Group has only accessed equity markets once to fund the acquisition of CMI in 2024. This capital discipline, combined with strong cash conversion, robust balance sheet supported sustained earnings growth and driven growth in our EPS since listing on the ASX. As you can see to the right there, our EPS has more than doubled since our first reported results on the ASX. Our consistent growth in shareholder distributions, and today, the directors declared a final fully franked dividend of $0.079 per share payable on the 8th of October. This brings the total FY '26 dividends fully franked to $0.147 per share. This is up 16.7% on FY '25, representing a total payout of $15.3 million and a payout ratio of 50% for FY '26. Again, absolutely ecstatic to release another set of record financial results. Let me hand back to CEO, Michael Sainsbury, to take you through the business update section.

Thank you, Jason. Moving forward to Slide 13, just a title slide about moving into the market and business update. So we'll move forward to Slide 14. Slide 14 talks about the AI infrastructure investment from a market perspective. And the group remains very well positioned to be able to support this infrastructure investment. When I talk about AI, it spans data, it spans power and also the resources sector. When I talk specifically to data, the AI adoption is accelerating investment into data centers like we've never seen before, and we'll provide some more clarity around that, but also into connectivity, automation and related electrical infrastructure. When we move away from data centers, though, and we look at the more broader market, it also has a flow-on effect through to power with growing electricity demand and network constraints. That's driving investment into grid infrastructure, more electrification, energy management and power quality, power reliability and quality solutions, not just in data centers, in fact, in very, very diverse areas such as mining and water and wastewater as 2 specific areas. And that drive takes us through to the next point there. When we talk about resources, growth in AI infrastructure is also increasing the demand for water, for minerals and also for the electrical infrastructure spend required to be able to support both digital and energy systems. So the data center phenomenon is driven by AI investment, but there's a flow-on effect into parallel industries, which we're certainly seeing the benefit of. And the group is, as I say, well positioned to benefit from that. Over 60% of our revenue is aligned to this AI investment in adjacent markets when I talk mining, when I talk water and wastewater, and also into things like power utilities. Each of our businesses directly benefits from the long-term tailwinds created by this electrification, the upgrade of automation, connectivity. So we are certainly well placed from each of our businesses perspective to capitalize. Our distribution capability, our engineering expertise, these give us a really value add for our customers to support complex mission-critical infrastructure projects for our customers. Our data center revenue, as mentioned a number of times, grew 27%, representing one of the fastest-growing end markets for our business. Moving forward to Slide 15, giving some more context to our Australian data center investment. Obviously, what do we do in that space? And we supply the electrical equipment, which provides the backbone for data center pipeline. Data centers are entering a period of large-scale expansion. And as I say, it's being driven by AI cloud -- AI adoption, but also cloud computing and increased devices being connected. Currently, there's 162 facilities, which are colocation, enterprise, hyperscale and edge with a total capacity of 1.5 gigawatts. The forecast from between now and 2030 is for that to grow to 3.2 gigawatts, and if we look out a little bit further, by 2035 to somewhere between 4.7 and 7.4 gigawatts worth of requirements -- capacity. So a massive growth opportunity. There's $140 billion worth of investment in the pipeline in this data center space between now and 2035. The data centers, they are fewer -- there are fewer data centers going up, but they are much larger in capacity. And this is a great reflection of that. Currently, Sydney and Melbourne have been leading the hyperscale growth, but we are seeing diversity now into Tasmania and up into Queensland and other areas. At the moment, 47 of the 90 pipeline data centers exceed 100 megawatts versus only 3 of the 162 that operate today. This is validating the size and the scale of these data centers is increasing and increasing exponentially and the power requirements to go into these data centers and the spend is increasing proportionately. It's forecasted that electricity that is consumed by data centers will represent somewhere between 8% and 11% of the total grid supply by 2035, which is up from 1% today. And on top of the $140 billion in data centers, there's also $15 billion allocated to be invested into renewable and battery energy storage investment to support the rising data center electricity demand. So overall, $155 million spend directly in data centers and then on the peripherals with renewables and battery energy storage. So certainly, a tailwind like we haven't seen before and we're unlikely to see again in the future. So how does IPD Group benefit from data centers? And I've been asked the question so many times, can you give me some context to what you're actually putting into this space? So this graph on the right tends to give you -- hopes to give you a graphical representation of all of the products that we put into a data center. We're seeing the path from the grid connection down to the rack, including cables, connectors, switchboards, distribution, critical power, busways, cabling, monitoring and controls as well. As I said before, shifting to fewer and larger data centers reinforces this position: electrical content per project scales with the site density; smaller contract pool concentrates volume on distributors with a track record of quality and relationship engineering, which we have to be able to support our customers; spec-driven projects focus -- favors suppliers with presales engineering and full life cycle delivery capability; and growth is concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne, which is IPD Group's largest markets. It really reinforces how well attached we are to this space. While these projects typically carry lower gross margins, as Jason had mentioned before, with a lumpier order profile, it certainly comes with lower working capital and cost to serve, which supports overall attractive economics, and we're seeing that in improvement in our EBIT and EBITDA margins. We remain well placed, and I still believe that the growth opportunities are in line, if not better, than we've seen in previous years. And again, you can -- I'll leave you to read over that or look over that graph to be able to get a better understanding of the product portfolios we're putting into that space. We move on to Slide 17. We talk about revenue by end market and product, and we've shown this regularly. The left there talks about revenue by end market. And you can see there that commercial buildings at 29%, mining and resources at 27%, data centers now at 17%, certainly represent the biggest parts. The first one there, I'll talk to commercial and buildings. And again, it's a question we get asked regularly: what does that actually include? Now part of it is commercial buildings, but not exclusively. It includes things like hospital, retail, government buildings, education, offices, entertainment, hospitality and logistics facilities as well. We lump that into that one bucket. So it is quite a broad representation in its own right. If we move across to the right-hand side, we talk about revenue by product type, and you can see there that power distribution still remains the largest part of our portfolio at 37% industrial control and motor control at 9%, automation and industrial comms at 8%. Obviously, the big one there on the left-hand side at the top in cable because of our acquisition of Platinum and obviously, CMI, that continues to grow. And the hazardous area space at 12% now on the back of the growth coming from the EX business. Slide 18 talks about our product partners, and we talk about our technology offer, our vendors, our partnerships there we have with suppliers to be able to support the market. ABB continues to be a cornerstone supplier for us, and it represents -- still representing 31% of our revenue. One would think that with the acquisition of Platinum recently, we would have seen some dilution in that concentration. This is actually a really good story because we're quite open in the fact that in Australia, ABB only has sub 15% market share, where in every other geography in the world, it's somewhere between 30% and 40%. What this is actually saying is, despite the dilution, which would have been created by the acquisition of Platinum, that is being supported by organic growth in ABB, bringing it back or closer to those global market shares. So we continue to grow the ABB portfolio and take market share in that space. So it's continuing at 31%. We've onboarded a number of new partners to strengthen our portfolio to be able to attach to new revenue models and give us further diversification. And I talk about a company called Penguin Solutions, which operates in the automation space. Mennekes, which is a manufacturer, a global manufacturer in power connectors. So Penguin Solutions will be in addition to the IPD portfolio. Mennekes will be in addition to the CMI portfolio. RP Group will be in addition to the IPD portfolio. It is an emergency lighting portfolio manufactured out of Europe, a very strong offer, and it's been a gap that we've identified for a number of years. The IPD business has recently signed an agreement with a company called Circutor, which is a very, very strong global player in the power quality space, and we will certainly see a revenue stream for that in coming years. And CMI and EX have all signed up for new cable vendors to expand their capacity, their ability to be able to service the market as well. We maintain certainly a balanced supplier base. We're reducing concentration risk while preserving those strong strategic relationships. Just on ABB, just as a reminder as well, we did sign a new agreement with ABB in December last year for continuing for another 4 years, so a continuation of the really close partnership we have with ABB. Moving forward to Slide 19. Now I start to get into the individual businesses here, and there's a lot of information. I won't go into it in great depth just in the interest of time. The major projects there, what it does show that IPD is very focused in data centers. And in others, you're seeing hospitals, you're seeing renewables, you're seeing water and wastewater. So it does show the diversity in those major projects. On the left-hand side, the initiatives that we're embarking upon to support future growth in this business. Obviously, the continued expansion through the switchboard builder and electrical contractor channels, which are a key part of that IPD business and the products we're talking about there, seeing strong growth is in the techno modular switchboard systems, the ABB power protection, our busway offer and the Delta UPSs as well. We've rolled out a software tool, which is called IPD Build, which is an online configurator, to be able to easily, quickly and with no fuss, instantly get a price for a distribution board. It comes with a benefit -- a user experience benefit for our customers, but it also comes with efficiency savings where an estimating department no longer has to price this up. It's able to be able to be done online with a configurator. So it comes with efficiencies from an organization as well. We've delivered -- we've deployed a number of AI and automation programs or projects across customer service, supply chain, increasing our productivity and improving customer experience as well. We've also established a smart buildings division, which is broadening our offer with some of those vendors that we spoke about in the previous slide. And we've opened a new facility in Perth in July 2026, bringing together IPD, CMI and EX Engineering, but also giving us an expanded ability to be able to cover and hold more inventory. So a really strong and a fantastic year from the IPD business with the organic growth at 11%. CMI projects there, you can see predominantly mining and data centers, which is a strong focus. Mining is a big one for them in the Minto plugs. Data centers is a space that they hadn't played on traditionally with cable. But because of the synergies and the relationships with IPD, they're leveraging off that, and they are certainly getting a foothold in that space, and also in infrastructure, buildings and water environments. Some of the initiatives, we've expanded, and we've created a project tendering and delivery coordination team, which is important when we move upstream into these Tier 1 projects, and that's been created and working very well. We've leveraged the group purchasing. So we've been able to get some efficiencies in the purchasing, using the group logistics and procurement services for the CMI business. We've obviously, as mentioned, expanded new facilities in Perth, but also in Wetherill Park for the CMI business, giving us improved racking, more efficiency, portable cable-cutting machines. And again, a lot of efficiency improvement there. We've expanded the cable offer. We've got new partnerships with large-scale manufacturers across the world to be able to handle a larger capacity and also give us some margin realization opportunities with a lower commercial pricing model. And we've signed distribution agreements with ABB high-voltage department for their connectors, which is called separable connectors, which will be an addition to their portfolio, and as mentioned before, the Mennekes plugs and sockets. Slide 21 talks to Platinum Cables. Very, very, very focused, very strong attachment into mining, certainly growing in transport and certainly also working in that renewable section, and you can see the projects there. When we talk about initiatives and highlights, it's a continued expansion of that specialized cable for rail and transport customers. We've expanded engagement with several Tier 1 mining customers alongside strengthened supplier relationships. So not only are we strengthening on the supplier side, we're expanding our relationships on the customer side, and that's coming off leveraging from the group and the relationships throughout the group. New cable range to support coal. We've leveraged Platinum's engineering expertise, and we've grown that technical support capability in that project opportunity space and the investment there to be able to capitalize on that for the future. Expanded customer engagement through complementary offers across the wider group portfolio with a view to cross-selling and strong customer service and safety results in that organization underpin a really strong cadence in Platinum Cables as well. Very, very, pleased, 6 months under our ownership. The early signs are very good. The business is performing as expected and will be a strong contributor to the business for the long term. EX Engineering, predominantly focusing in that engineering and resources sector, but not exclusively, also in grain and in electrical infrastructure and the projects nominated there. What have we done? What are the initiatives to underpin future growth? Well, we've expanded the Stahl distribution agreement now that EX are the national distributor for Stahl across the country, which is a very, very highly regarded and recognized hazardous area manufacturer. We've put on dedicated key account managers to strengthen our customer coverage in that grain and industrial and resources sector, so to be able to strengthen our relationship and expand into new companies. We've increased the cross-selling opportunities across those relationships in the group. The engagement -- the increase in customer engagement has reflected in not just 35% revenue growth, but we've also seen an increase in quotation requests by 37%. So strong increase in quotation requests as well, and the growth is showing good conversion. And then implemented operational improvements across the inventory, manufacturing process as well to support future growth. And then the last one there, Addelec, which we have repositioned around the core electrical infrastructure and services opportunities. The projects there, very, very strong focus and cadence moving forward around utilities and testing and calibration. And you can see they're very strong in Victoria. In the e-mobility side, a couple of projects there, one in Sydney, one in Perth and then across numerous sites around low- and medium-voltage upgrades. When I talk about the initiatives, as I say, and Jason has touched on it and I have as well, we've simplified the operating structure. We've reduced the overheads to improve profitability and scalability, taking out $3 million of annualized cost reductions. And there's also $300,000 in the financials here, which were redundancy costs, which won't be replicated as well. We've refocused the go-to-market on core electrical infrastructure, workshop repairs, testing and a new partnership with ABB, where we are a value-added partner for their portfolios across a number of their products. We've strengthened relationships with key infrastructure utility customers, namely Sydney Airport, Star is a large contractor, which we're working in a subcontractor model. Grid is another one of those. Heyday is another one of those. Strong relationship with Powercor, Zinfra and Downer in the utilities and test and calibration. We've expanded our capability with ABB, as I talk about being service partner in motion, electrification and their EV charging offer as well. And we've increased utilization through a change in our work mantra and moving more to workshop stuff, which is more repeatable and more forecastable. And we're using a subcontractor model rather than having to flex up our staff to be able to accommodate increased activity. So I expect to see a big improvement in the Addelec business over the coming 12 months. Our strategy for -- moving forward to Slide 24, which is a title slide around strategy and outlook. Slide 25, you will have seen this slide before. You should take great comfort in that it looks exactly the same because when we're showing results like we have, it's clear what we're doing is working, and we're going to continue that into the future. It's business growth, it's organic growth. It's using strategic solutions to get specification and drive demand, and it's accelerating our growth by looking at strategic acquisitions, which there is a number of opportunities that we're working with at the moment. It's continuing to focus on operational efficiency, building scalable operations and leveraging off the synergies. And I'm pleased to say that our operating cost as a percentage of revenue had a substantial reduction as spoken to in a previous slide, so showing some real momentum in that operational efficiency. In sustainability, we'll continue to focus on reducing our environmental footprint impact through a number of different opportunities, and some of them are mentioned there. It's also making a lasting social impact by supporting charities, industry initiatives and education programs to support the industry. And as importantly as all of those, if not more, because at the end of the day, people are the key to our success, and our success depends on building a strong, engaged and diverse workforce, we're focusing on employee well-being and development, an extensive training program for a lot of our staff, both soft skills and hard skills, to be able to support them and build career with our organization, and really, really strong focus on talent attraction, new people, but as importantly, if not more, retention. And we've seen a significant reduction in our churn in the last 12 months, which means we're holding on to our people and our expertise and our skills. So strategy remains the same, and it's obviously a strategy that's working, and we're going to continue to build on that. What you've all been waiting for, I'm sure, is our outlook. Obviously, we have very, very diversified market exposure. We're across a whole wide range of different attachments in terms of verticals, and we've got a disciplined execution to support continued growth. We enter FY '27 with a very positive momentum following the results. It's underpinned by that diversified portfolio, but also exposure to growing sectors benefiting from long-term structural tailwinds and ongoing investment. We, as a management team, remain focused on executing the strategy, maximizing shareholder value through the operational excellence, disciplined capital allocation, strategic acquisitions, you can tell it's getting close to the end of the presentation, and investment in growth opportunities for the future. And the Board looks forward to providing a further update on our '25-'27 (sic) [ '27 ] performance at the company's AGM on the 24th of November. I'd like to thank everybody for your time. I'd like to thank everybody for your support. For those of you who are invested in the company, thank you, and I hope you're as pleased as we are in the results. And I will now hand over in case there are any questions with a view to providing clarity around those answers for you.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Philip Pepe with Shaw and Partners.

Mick, Jason, congratulations on a very strong result and, yes, hat tip to your Investor Relations guy for putting forward a great comprehensive presentation as well, apart from the blue versus green. Just on the tailwinds, obviously, data center is well articulated in your report. Your new facility in Perth, very impressive. Can you tell us more about the tailwinds in the Western Australian market, probably with less data center, more resources focused. What are the tailwinds you're on...

Yes. That's a really good segue for me, Phil. You're right. IPD Group obviously grew at a top line and data centers grew at 27%. But if we exclude data centers from that growth result, it's still 7% growth across all other areas. And WA is a key focus for that when we talk about mining. We have invested into a new facility, as mentioned, and it's significant in scale. The cost we negotiated well and the efficiencies we're getting by bringing all of the businesses together. But leveraging off that site now is a big focus for us in the near future. There's a big investment into mining over there in renewables, but also in the need to be able to mine raw materials to support all of the tailwinds that I spoke about before. For me, WA is our second biggest state. And with the growth opportunities there, I expect it to solidify that position and put pressure on New South Wales in the future for that #1 spot. But it's a great point and something that we're keen to see grow. And we have all of the, I guess, pieces of the puzzle in place. It's now executing, but it's a great point to talk about. We're not just a data center play and that WA market has obviously not seen any of data center growth, but still has grown strongly for us, but I think there's better to come in the future, Phil. So for me, double-digit growth will be an expectation in that West.

Excellent. And if I could sneak in another one. Just on the working capital, how much of it was Platinum Cables and how much was forward orders over the next 3 to 6 months?

Yes. The increase in working capital is split between the 2, Phil. A fair chunk of that, as you expect with a new acquisition, has come through from Platinum Cables with the balance coming through for future growth. So we're expanding that and obviously, with future growth expectations, continuing to invest into our net working capital for the year ahead. So we'll definitely see some investment back into inventory. We've seen a little bit of optimization, some challenges with inbound freight and timing. However, we'll see that normalize over the next little while with increased ordering and flow through to net working capital in the year ahead.

Your next question comes from Joseph House with Bell Potter.

Congrats on the good results. Mick, I hope you had a couple of sips of water after that presentation. On Platinum Cables, it looks like if we look at the first 6 months of ownership, you're run rating, revenue-wise, ahead of FY '25 levels. So just keen to get a better understanding of what's driving that revenue run rate growth? Is it early wins in tendering? Are you starting to see some revenue synergies come through with CMI? And just an extension to that question, just how you're seeing tender orders heading into FY '27?

Yes. Thank you. Good question. So for me, first thing I'll say there with Platinum, the first 6 months has been really good. The interaction, the collaboration, the spirit, they've certainly come on board and come on board with enthusiasm. What's positive, what's been going well there? There's certainly a strong mining attachment there with that business, and there's some really good quotation activity, which will underpin future growth in that mining space and particularly in the renewables area in mining. So that's good. But there's also a diversification moving into rail and the likes and communication cables rather than just being power cables, and they come with very strong gross margin realization. So it's not just a play around mining, while it's very strong in mining and the activity there is good and the future looks positive, it's also diversifying into rail, it's diversifying into traffic. And we're helping the business invest into those key areas with dedicated people to look after that for the future. So for me -- and your question around sales synergies, with only 6 months under our hat, I won't say there's a great deal of sales synergies coming through, but the interaction between the businesses is very strong, which will certainly flow through to revenue and profit synergies in the future. But at this stage, probably too early to say we're capitalizing on too many of those, but the interaction is very, very good. So I'm very excited, very pleased with how it's gone in the first 6 months, in line with expectations, but even more excited about the future there with that Platinum business.

Excellent. And just moving over to CMI. It's good to see the revenue growth reaccelerate for this business. I'd just like to get a better understanding of what's driving that reacceleration in revenue growth? Is it more market-driven? Or -- I understand you've also done a fair bit of work on the ground with this business in terms of introducing new clients into the mix of Tier 1s and Tier 2s. Is that also playing into that revenue growth as well?

So the first answer to that, and it's a great opportunity for me to highlight that CMI had a record revenue year. In the history of CMI, this is the highest revenue period or year they've had in their history. So everything that we've told the market in the last couple of -- last 18 months about turning that business around and investing and -- is certainly paying dividends, and we're seeing a remarkable result of 11% growth at the top line, but both Minto and the cable growing strongly. To answer your question, what is it coming from? You could say that it's come from market, and you would be partly right in saying that because certainly, data centers is having an impact on that. But I would say to you that, historically, CMI has not dealt with the customers that have been playing in that space. So more of the growth is coming off the relationships that we're providing, that we're leveraging off across particularly the IPD business, the ability to be able to offer a package solution into a data center across multiple offers and we are certainly seeing some successes already for CMI in the data center space and some significant quotations for cable into that space for the future, not only in cable, I mentioned there, Mennekes plugs, which go strongly into the data center space, and the ABB medium-voltage plugs will be an attachment to all of the medium-voltage switchgear. So positive momentum, great. We go into FY '27 with a really, really, really strong pipeline with a great order book, and I think another very strong year for CMI ahead, mate.

Some really strong management in that business, too, Joseph, and yes, really excited about what they can do in the year ahead.

Excellent. Great to hear, guys. And just lastly, I just want to get a better understanding around the margins for the data center business. So I see there's some gross margin compression as you kind of deliver more greater volume of data center orders. But I understand that this is a low cost-to-serve business. So just trying to understand that if you can provide more color around the movements in gross margin, but also OpEx as a percentage of revenue and how that plays into the EBITDA margin contribution of that business to the group.

Yes. Perfect, Joseph. Thanks for that. I think Slide 10 for us was really trying to break that down. When looking at our margin result year-on-year, it's [ certainly ] down, sort of compressed around 80 basis points. But that's only when you're looking at it on a year-on-year basis. What we've tried to show in Slide 10 is the gradual movement in our -- not just gross profit margins, but our EBIT and EBITDA margins over that same time period. We've actually seen an uplift in our gross margin despite -- I mean, well, contributing also from the growth in data centers at 27%, we've seen gross margin improvement. We've gone from 33.1% at the second half of '25 to 33.4%. We've also seen gross EBITDA margin expansion from that 12.9% to 13.5%. So yes, whilst these competitive -- large competitive projects, not just isolated to data centers, the data centers are a good example of large projects and competitive projects for us, they come with some gross profit margin compression. But they come with a significant lower cost to serve. There's a lot of efficiencies and operating cost leverage that we can get across the core group in servicing that type of revenue. And we're definitely seeing that flow through, not just half-on-half, but you can see that in the full year results where we've got expanding EBIT, EBITDA and net PAT margin. So I guess the message we want to get across is that margins are stable, and we have grown over the last 2 years, 30% data center growth last year, 27% this year, and we're seeing gross margins remain stable and EBIT and EBITDA margins expand. So we can manage our cost base, lower cost to serve means that we're confident that despite the gross profit compression, we're going to see some strong EBIT and EBITDA margin realization.

Your next question comes from Matthew Chen with Moelis.

Just -- you've spoken about a potential large project in the pipeline for Platinum business in the past. I was just wondering if you could give us an update on the status of that, please?

Yes. Thank you, mate. Yes. So we're talking with Platinum, we're talking about a project in a strategic mining company over there in Perth, FMG. There's been -- there's certainly a large quotation activity -- quotation pipeline attached to that project, and that's sort of around about $100 million in quantum. At the moment, around about 10% of that project has been let. And I'm pleased to say that we've got roughly 40% of that order pipeline, and that's been given to Platinum. So that's in line with our expectations, and we expect that there will be some diversities around that, not create some concentration around one vendor. But yes, 2 orders being let, sort of 10% of the project being let, and we're being successful in about 40% of that. It remains -- we remain strongly connected to that customer, both at a relationship perspective, value add, the technology offer that we have. So I think that's certainly one of the growth expectations for the future and one of the exciting opportunities in that business for the future, mate.

Great. And just a follow-on, one for you, Jason, maybe. But just on Addelec, that $300,000 of costs, that wasn't stripped out, was it? As far as I can see like the -- it was just the acquisition costs that were stripped out for the purposes of underlying. Is that right?