Good morning and welcome to the AB Dynamics PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab, situated in the right corner of your screen. 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 the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to CEO James Routh. Good morning to you, sir.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the AB Dynamics 2024 full-year results presentation. I'm James Routh, the CEO, and I'm joined today by Sarah Matthews-DeMers, our CFO. I'm going to be taking you through some highlights before Sarah takes you through the detailed financial performance, followed by a summary of ABD's transformation since 2020, demonstrating our track record. Following this, I'm excited to provide an illustration of our medium-term growth ambitions and the details of our value creation roadmap before wrapping up with a summary of 2024 and the outlook. Starting with the highlights. During the year, and in line with our performance model, we delivered strong financial results with 10% growth in revenue and 22% growth in operating profit. Activity levels within our markets and customers have remained positive, with strong activity across all three of our sectors.
As a core element of our strategy, new product development continues at pace and in line with the technology roadmap for our testing products and simulation markets, and we launched multiple new products to market. I'm very pleased to announce an initial contract win for ABD Solutions for GBP 2 million for an automated mileage accumulation solution for delivery during FY 2025, with potential for further follow-on orders, demonstrating the value of our investment in this technology accelerator. During the second half, we completed the acquisition of VTS, providing testing services in the U.S., with integration progressing as planned. And after the period end, we acquired BOLAB Systems, a German supplier of testing products, continuing our track record of successful inorganic growth. And finally, for the highlights, we were particularly pleased to achieve MSCI AAA rating, reflecting excellent progress on our sustainability strategy and strong governance.
I'll now hand over to Sarah to take you through our detailed financial performance.
Thanks, James. I'm delighted to be able to present results that show the impact of the effort and investment put in over the last five years. We now have a strong and stable platform that has enabled us to deliver consistent revenue and profit growth, backed up by cash conversion. Revenue increased by 10%, with strong growth across testing products and services. Operating profit increased by 22% to GBP 20.3 million. We've delivered operating margin expansion up 170 basis points to 18.2%, a significant step towards our target of 20% plus margins. Despite an increase in the tax rate to 18.7% due to the increase in the U.K. rate, EPS has increased by 15% to GBP 0.70. We're increasing the dividend by 20%, reflecting our confidence in the business.
Cash conversion of 115% and our rolling three-year average cash conversion of 116% demonstrates that we are consistently able to turn these growing profits into cash. The order book of £30.3 million covers approximately 25% of FY 2025 expected revenue, reflecting the standard lead time for testing products of around three months. This, combined with additional sources of recurring revenue, such as renewal of licenses, gives good visibility into the first half of FY 2025. Revenue increased across all three sectors. Testing products, the group's largest sector, increased by 10%, or £8.4 million, with growth in robots and ADAS platforms supported by the increasing volume and complexity of testing on new vehicle models. Testing services saw a significant increase, with revenue up 29%, following a relaxation of 2023's pandemic restrictions and improved access to vehicles for testing. The acquisition of VTS contributed £1 million of revenue in the second half.
Simulation revenue increased by 1%, with growth in simulation software offset by lower revenue from simulator motion platforms due to the timing of order intake for these large capital items. The three simulators that were in build at the half-year were delivered during the second half. Currency provided a small headwind but had no material impact. Turning to profit, the volume increase dropped through to a GBP 6.2 million increase in gross profit. Gross margin remained consistent with the previous year, with operational improvements in testing products and increased utilization in U.S. testing services offset by a changing mix in simulation. The overhead increase reflects the impact of high levels of inflation seen at the beginning of the year. Delivery of GBP 20 million of profit represents a step forward in operating margin to 18.2%, demonstrating continued margin progression.
Our continued operating cash generation enabled us to invest GBP 22 million in the future of the business through CapEx and acquisitions. The acquisition of VTS was funded through in-year cash generation, as was the final Ansible Motion payment. After returning cash to shareholders in the form of dividends, we had a significant net cash balance at the year-end of GBP 28.6 million available to support strategic priorities. GBP 4.2 million of this was used to fund the acquisition of BOLAB after the year-end. Moving on to the performance of each segment and starting with testing products, this segment includes driving robots and ADAS platforms and the large SPMM machines. The revenue growth was driven by the increased regulation and the increased complexity of testing, along with new product launches of the LaunchPad Spin and additional soft targets.
The increase in margin demonstrates the benefit of the investment in the business infrastructure and capability made in previous years, with operating leverage of higher volumes dropping through. Testing services includes our proving ground in California, which benefits from the same increases in regulation as testing products, and on-road testing in China, as well as mileage accumulation and environmental testing in Michigan. As I mentioned, we saw strong recovery in U.S. activity levels, with better availability of customer vehicles and new contract awards from the U.S. regulator NHTSA. The Chinese market returned to the pre-pandemic operating environment. The acquisition of VTS in H2 performed in line with expectations, with the integration progressing as planned. Margin improvement was driven by the increase in volume. Simulation includes our simulation software, rFpro, and driving simulator motion platforms.
Following the 2023 acquisition of Ansible Motion, the simulator product range is now fully aligned across the group's portfolio, and we saw strong growth in simulation software across the motorsport and OEM markets. We've also established agreements with technical partners in both software and motion platforms to deliver advanced simulation and testing capabilities. High-value simulator sales are individually material, and revenue recognition continues to be impacted by the timing of delivery, as does margin. The prior year benefited from a significant high-margin contract, which was not repeated in the current year. We thought it would be useful to set out how we've developed the business we inherited to bring it to the point where we have a solid platform for the next period of growth, more of which from James later. As a reminder, here are the objectives we set out in 2019 and achievements against them.
We've invested in R&D to enhance our product range, invested in people, infrastructure, skills, and capabilities to right-size the business for the next phase of growth, and invested in geographical coverage to improve our support capability, which, along with the expansion of testing services, has led to an increase in recurring revenue to 45%. This, along with six acquisitions, has built out our customer offering. We've also built out our governance framework. The share price performance and key valuation metrics reflect the improvement in maturity and quality of the group. In short, we've done what we said we were going to do. As a result, we now have a business which has coverage, recurring revenue, resilience, and strong financial fundamentals of organic growth, improving margins, and strong cash generation. The graphs show our strong track record of improvement in our key metrics.
Our ability to turn our profits into cash is demonstrated by the rolling three-year average cash conversion of 116%. We've delivered this while investing in our operating capability and capacity to build robust foundations for further profitable growth. All of this puts us in a great place to continue to grow revenue, expand margins, and invest in further acquisitions. The key financial enablers behind this include our capital allocation policy, which is unchanged. Our first priority is to invest in organic R&D and CapEx and in ABD Solutions, then M&A and finally dividends. We aim to continue our cash conversion record at 100% through the cycle. Our strong balance sheet gives us flexibility, with GBP 30 million of cash and a GBP 15 million RCF facility.
While we prefer to remain debt-free, our debt capacity at two times EBITDA is now approximately GBP 50 million, which, for the right acquisition, we could use for a short period, then pay down from cash generation. All this is underpinned by our great people, with 200 qualified engineers and technicians supported by an experienced team of professionals across sales, operations, and finance. I'll now hand over to James to set out the next phase of growth and our medium-term objectives.
Thank you, Sarah. So, having done the hard work over the last five years to position the business for further growth and put strong foundations in place, as Sarah described, I'm really excited to present our value creation plan for the medium term. So, the graph demonstrates the compounding effect of delivering 10% organic revenue growth each year, expanding our operating margins to 20% plus, and investment in acquisitions, continuing our disciplined approach against well-defined acquisition criteria. This will deliver our medium-term aspiration of doubling revenue and tripling operating profit. And it's really important to note this can be achieved without any contribution from ABD Solutions, which provides an opportunity for cream on top, driving further incremental revenue and profit growth. So, I'll now describe each of these elements in turn on the next slides. So, firstly, how are we going to continue to deliver 10% organic growth each year?
Our growth is supported by very long-term structural and regulatory growth drivers in four main areas. Firstly, consumer ratings, which are typically driven by NCAP, or the New Car Assessment Program, with different regions at differing stages of implementation, but Euro NCAP leads the way and is most stringent. Improving safety technology means more complex equipment on cars to test, and this leads to an increasing number and complexity of tests, particularly with an expanded range of test scenarios. This was previously mainly applied to passenger cars, but has now been expanded to trucks and other vehicle categories. Increased complexity and volume of testing leads to increased demand for our products and services.
The second area is regulation, which includes NHTSA, the U.S. regulator, where they've now issued a new federal standard for 2029, which is actually more stringent than the EU standards, affecting not only U.S. automotive OEMs but global OEMs selling into the U.S. market. This was driven by an increasing number of injuries and fatalities in recent years in the U.S. Next is the UN ECE General Safety Regulation, which mandates active safety equipment that must be included on all new cars sold into relevant countries, all of which need extensive development and certification testing. Japan also implements a similar regulation to UN ECE, but also includes mandating the use of certain safety equipment for older drivers. China is now also introducing standards for vehicle safety certification. The third area is the launch of new vehicle models, which in turn drives growth.
In 2023, there are around 150 new model launches, all of which need development testing, type approval, and certification in each region in which they're sold. Our testing products are used in the development process by R&D engineers and also in the certification process by technicians at the OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and the test labs themselves. Speed to market and cost effectiveness is becoming increasingly important as OEMs race to either acquire or maintain market share, which leads to increased use of simulation, which allows for faster, cheaper iteration of designs. New sensor technology and increasing automation of driving functions also increases demand for both testing and simulation products and services. The fourth area, new powertrains. The emergence of new powertrains, such as EVs, hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells, and reduced emission fuels, is a positive driver for our business.
We are broadly powertrain agnostic, with our products being used to test all types of vehicles. The emergence of new powertrains drives new models, which all need testing and simulation. So, regarding recent news coverage about falling production volumes, particularly for EVs, this has limited impact on our volumes, as we don't sell anything that goes into a production vehicle. We're selling into the R&D teams and the organizations independently conducting testing. Therefore, the number of new models and complexity of tests has a far greater impact on our performance. And as well as being powertrain agnostic, we're also OEM agnostic in the sense we supply all major automotive OEMs, therefore providing protection against the current competitive environment between conventional manufacturers and Chinese EV makers. So, in summary, all of these market drivers are moving in the right direction to support sustainable double-digit revenue growth across our business.
Our ongoing organic growth is also supported by high-quality, long-term customer relationships across all major automotive OEMs and many new entrants, as well as Tier 1 suppliers to the OEMs and service providers running proving grounds and NCAP test labs. This slide shows the multiple touchpoints with categories of customers across the ABD group through the development cycle from concept design to vehicle launch. So, at the concept design phase, OEMs use our simulators, human factor studies, and SPMM machines to benchmark the ride, handling, and safety systems of the new model. At the subsystem design phase, we support both OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers simulating and testing subsystems early in the design cycle to optimize the design and minimize downstream risk of product failure.
Once a prototype has been built, we provide track testing products and services for the OEMs and Tier 1s, as well as providing products for durability testing and conducting on-road testing services. Our products and services are also used by regulators and ratings bodies for type approval and NCAP consumer testing. A key part of our medium-term plan is to expand our operating margin. And the improvements we've made in the business in terms of culture and underlying systems and processes mean we have a solid base to build from. To expand margin from the current 18% to above 20%, we'll focus on three areas: delivering operational gearing as we scale the business. The investment we've put in over the last five years means we have the capacity to deliver the next phase of growth without a corresponding step change in overheads.
Simplifying the business, we are focusing on improving our supply chain, rationalizing the number and quality of suppliers to obtain discounts and improve quality and efficiency, as well as rationalizing the number of product variations and combinations in the market, and finally, standardizing our processes and procedures. We've already made many improvements in this area, but there's also significant opportunity to streamline our manufacturing, improve design for manufacture, and drive the benefits from our ERP system. Coming to M&A, we have demonstrated a strong track record in delivering and implementing value-enhancing acquisitions. The market is fragmented and consists of a high number of small to medium-sized businesses, which we screen against well-defined strategic and financial criteria. These are then filtered down into targeted approaches, which are usually off-market opportunities with vendors with whom we've built a relationship over a period of time, but are sometimes structured M&A transactions.
Our sweet spot is bolt-on acquisitions with high gross margins in areas that we can add to our existing product and service capabilities and that can be sold through our existing international sales channels. We're looking for profitable cash-generative businesses at reasonable multiples, which are EPS accretive, and we typically have several acquisition opportunities in various phases of the transaction process at any one time. Our approach to deal execution is highly disciplined and well-structured, allowing us to deliver acquisitions that are modeled and assessed on an acceptable level of return on investment. Our team is experienced in executing transactions and integrating the acquired businesses, as demonstrated by the six acquisitions we've completed in the last five years, the most recent being BOLAB completed shortly after the year-end.
We have an established approach to integration, and our organization is structured so that acquired businesses can be integrated into the appropriate segment. And we have many examples of cross-selling post-acquisition. For example, VTS, acquired in April, has recently made its first sale into a major U.S. OEM as a result of an introduction from the wider ABD sales team. Ansible Motion had never sold into China pre-acquisition and has since been awarded two large simulator sales. And most recently, BOLAB have sold systems into new customers in China through our existing routes to market. Moving on to ABD Solutions. So, if you recall, ABD Solutions was set up as the group's technology accelerator to leverage our core technologies and expand into adjacent markets.
During the year, we've delivered the initial units of a product for construction vehicles, which you can see on the screen, with a follow-on order placed by the customer for delivery during FY 2025. We've successfully won a new GBP 2 million contract for a mileage accumulation solution with a potential for further follow-on orders, and the ABD Solutions technology has opened up a new area of the automotive market that we could not previously access. We have several phase one feasibility contracts for mining customers across several geographies. As expected, market penetration in this industry is slow, but we're making commercial progress, and it has significant potential once we start to gain traction. The mining pipeline has expanded during the year, and with the appointment of a new MD for ABD Solutions, who has extensive mining automation experience, we're gaining more commercial traction.
As the product development is now largely complete and the future focus is on applications and commercialization, the engineering team from ABD Solutions is being merged into the wider group R&D function to benefit from our established processes for applications engineering and allow more flexibility. To wrap up, we were very pleased with the FY 2024 performance, having delivered strong strategic, financial, and operational progress, double-digit revenue and profit growth, and operating margin improvement. We increased returns to shareholders and continued our track record of strong cash conversion. Our outlook for 2025 and beyond is positive. The long-term structural and regulatory growth drivers remain supportive of continued growth, underpinning our medium-term value creation plan. This, along with our operational improvement initiatives, supports continued future margin expansion. Looking forward, we have a good pipeline of acquisition opportunities supporting continued inorganic growth alongside our compelling organic growth plans.
We've made a positive start to the new financial year with strong order intake momentum during Q1, a positive book-to-bill ratio, and visibility now extends into the second half of the year. While we recognize that the current disruption to production volumes may slow OEM decision-making and potentially impact timing of order placement, particularly for large capital equipment, OEMs remain committed to R&D and hence continue to need our products and services. The board therefore expects FY 2025 to be slightly ahead of current expectations, further demonstrating our replicable model of investment returns.
Just to summarize our growth strategy and value creation plan, our ambition is to double revenue and triple operating profit over the medium term through the compounding effect of 10% organic revenue growth, improving margins to 20% and beyond, converting these profits into cash with 100% cash conversion through the cycle, and a self-funded acquisition spend of between GBP 30-50 million per year. That concludes the presentation. Thank you for listening, and I'd now like to open up for any questions.
Okay, and Sarah, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions. You can do that just by using the Q&A tab, which is situated on the top right-hand corner of your screen.
But just while the company takes a few moments to review the questions that have been submitted today, I'd like to remind you that the recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And James, Sarah, if I could just hand back to you to read out those questions and give responses where it is appropriate to do so, I'll pick up from you at the end.
Thanks. Question from Ben. Recurring revenue now represents 45% of total revenue. What level do you see this growing to? We see that being broadly stable. We do aim to expand that as we go forward.
We expect to see that incrementally moving upwards as we get further penetration with support contracts to get a significant step change in that. That would depend on what acquisitions that we do in the future. Question from James. You've highlighted a promising pipeline of acquisition opportunities. What types of businesses are you targeting, and how do these align with your long-term strategy?
Okay, I'll take that one. So, the types of companies we're looking for, as I described in the presentation, have certain financial and strategic criteria that we screen against. We're looking to add technology products or capabilities that we don't currently have to expand and broaden our range of products and services that we offer. Geographic coverage isn't a particularly important area we're looking at. We look at all markets, but naturally, we focus on Europe and North America as primary targets for acquisitions.
We ideally want organizations that will align with the overall strategic direction we're going in in terms of where the market is going. So, our strategy is aligned to market trends, drivers, and needs, and companies will align to what's going on in the market in that sense. So, earnings, EPS accretive organizations, good financial performance, strong track record, strong management. Typically, we operate a hybrid model, so they maintain their brands and they operate independently, but with the benefits of working as part of a wider group in terms of things like cross-selling and having central support on areas such as sort of IT, HR, finance, and so on.
Next question from James B. Do you expect a further increase in the tax rate in FY 2025 following the increase in FY 2024, and what impact will this have on EPS? We do expect an increase in the FY 2025 tax rate.
2024 was nearly 19%. We do expect that to tick up as the U.K. reliefs that we get become a smaller proportion of a larger group. However, we do still expect to see EPS improving on 24. Question from David. Do you think AI can or will displace any of the established testing processes, and if so, how?
Simple answer to that is no. We've done some extensive work on the risks and opportunities around AI. We continue to monitor opportunities for us to use it internally to make us more efficient. In terms of how it can be deployed, there are certain areas where it can automate software development. It can also be used potentially to automate large volumes of simulations that are required for assessing autonomous and automated systems. So, we see opportunity for us to actually embrace AI as part of that process.
We've just released a new product with rFpro, our simulation software business called AV Elevate, which allows us to simulate complex autonomous systems, and we are looking at AI and whether that can be used in conjunction with that software to automate some of those functions, but in terms of ultimately, you need to physically test. You need to do simulation to de-risk, and you can take some of the volume away through simulation and software, but ultimately, you still need to physically test because, obviously, a simulation is an idealization, so AI can be used to help with processing some of that data, but it certainly won't negate the need for any of our equipment or software.
Question on our new products. Can you provide more details on the commercial potential of new products like the Soft Pedestrian 360 and the Launchpad Spin?
So, we've released a number of new target products this year, including we have the Soft Motorcycle, the Soft Pedestrian, both adult and child, and also very recently, the Soft Bicycle. There is only one other competitor, really, in that space, an Austrian company. We know they do circa EUR 10 million a year approximately in revenue in those targets. And of course, we are attempting to take market share. So, that's the scale of the opportunity around the target side of things. In terms of the platforms, all new products coming to market are aligned to particular testing requirements and test protocols, so new NCAP requirements and new regulations. And the Launchpad Spin is an example of that where we need to better replicate how pedestrians, particularly, and cyclists behave. So, this is a lower-speed platform and is used to be more maneuverable.
It's called Spin because it can turn on the spot. So, that's used for some of the future requirements that are coming down the track, and that's gaining quite a lot of good commercial traction.
And final question, what do you mean by medium term? So, generally looking at three to five years and some of the things that we've set out we'll achieve earlier in that time scale at the three-year, for example, getting towards the operating margin. Some of those may well be towards the end of the five years, getting to the triple operating profit, for example. And that concludes the questions.
Perfect. James, Sarah, thank you very much for answering those questions from investors. Of course, the company can review all the questions submitted today, and we will publish the responses on the Investor Meet Company platform.
But just before redirecting investors to provide with their feedback, which is particularly important to the company, James, could I just ask you for a few closing comments?
Thank you. Yes, thank you for everyone for attending this morning. Really appreciate your time and attention. We're really excited about this next phase of growth for the organization after laying out our value creation roadmap. So, thank you once again for attending.
James, Sarah, thank you for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session? As you know, we automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can 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 for AB Dynamics PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.