Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome. Thank you for joining us for our full year results presentation. I'm Ric Traynor, I'm joined by Nick Taylor, our FD, we have a presentation we'll run through. Swiftly going past the disclaimer, moving on to the presentation. By the way, welcome to everybody who's joining us, dialing into this, as well as those in the room. For those of you who don't know us, we'll quickly go through this slide with a bit of background. We are a leading professional services consultancy with a differentiated and complementary service offering. 60% of what we do is insolvency, and the vast majority of that is corporate insolvency, both SME and mid-market. We have a network of offices around the country and some offshore locations.
In terms of our other services, the other 40%, advisory and transactional services. Effectively, that's everything which isn't insolvency, and they sit across both of our reporting segments. It includes financial advisory, transaction support, funding, valuations, project and development support, asset management, and insurance. Overall, 80% of our 20 fee revenues came from insolvency and defensive activities from a common network of clients and professionals. Moving on to the next slide, the highlights of the year. We're very pleased with these results, which were ahead of original expectations. Double-digit revenue and profit growth across both divisions, increased insolvency appointments and an enhanced mid-market reputation, acquisitions in finance broking and property advisory, organic growth in property, reflecting resilient nature of services, a further improvement in operating margins. We continue to generate substantial free cash flow, funding our dividends and acquisition payments.
We've recommended a 9% increase in the dividend for the year, which is the sixth year in a row of increased dividends. The group is in a strong position and confident of a further year of growth. In summary, a further successful year, continuing to build on our strong track record of growth, having doubled revenues and tripled profits in five years since 2019. I'll now hand over to Nick Taylor to go through the financial and operating review.
Okay. Thank you, Ric. We start on slide five with the financial highlights. We have revenue growth of 11%, which has come through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, giving us revenue for the year of GBP 121.8 million. We've improved our operating margins, 17.9% in the year. That's a 1% uplift on the 2022 position. That's come from improvement in both divisions, and that's building on our history of margin progression. If you go back to 2019, those margins were 13.3%, so we've made real progress in the last few years of improving the margins of the business.
Over the course of the last year, central costs as a percentage of revenue have been maintained at 6.5%, and that's whilst we've invested in our IT and HR capability in the group. Adjusted pre-tax profits up by 16%, that's having absorbed a GBP 300,000 increase in interest costs over the course of the year, giving us adjusted pretax of GBP 20.7 million this year. Tax rate nudged up slightly to 21%. That's reflecting the increase in corporation tax rates that came in for the final month of our financial year, giving us a growth in EPS of 15% to GBP 0.105. With our increase in dividend of 9%, we're doing that whilst increasing our dividend cover to 2.8x from 2.6x last year.
Our net cash of GBP 3 million is having paid GBP 10.6 million of acquisition payments and GBP 5.4 million of dividends. In the next two slides, we'll look at performance by our two operating segments, starting with insolvency and advisory. The non-insolvency activities in this division include financial advisory. These are activities that are very closely allied with insolvency, the likes of restructuring, debt advisory and forensics, our newly formed funding business, following two acquisitions over the course of the last two years, and our corporate finance team. In terms of the numbers, we've seen revenue growth of 10%, the organic growth of 6%, principally coming from an increase in insolvency activity, and we saw the benefit come through from the Mantra acquisition towards the end of the first quarter.
Our margins are up to 26.8%, a 1% increase, and that's given us a profit growth of 14% in the year. You can see the charts on the bottom right of the slide, showing the profit growth that we've delivered in this division over the course of the last three years. Looking at the movements in revenue, the revenue from formal insolvency appointments increased to GBP 70.6 million. That increase in insolvency appointments benefited both in-year revenue, which was up by 10%, and also our order book, which positions us well going forwards. That order book number of GBP 35.2 million we're quoting, tends to increase as cases progress. As we realize more assets or we're successful in litigation, there'll be more value in the case, more value to creditors, and our fees will also increase.
The prior year performance was enhanced by an exceptionally high level of personal insolvency activity, which gave a pretty tough comparative for financial year 2022, where there was an extra GBP 1.8 million of revenue in that year. What we're seeing this year is personal insolvency normalized to GBP 5.5 million, so that's about 8% of revenue, and it's typically been under 10% of insolvency fees across the years. Within advisory, our revenue increased by GBP 4.4 million to GBP 19.1 million. That's a record level of revenues from advisory within this division. That's 20% of divisional revenue, that was principally driven by the acquisition of Mantra. A reminder, that's an FCA-regulated finance and insurance brokerage, which has performed well in the year and in line with expectations.
Our headcount in this division at the end of the year is up to 664 from 590. If we move on to property advisory and transactional services, this is our chartered surveyors practice. Revenue growth of 12%, principally driven by acquisitions, both acquisitions in-year and the full year impact of last year's deals. We've also seen 3% organic growth, which reflects our resilient service lines in what's been a pretty challenging marketplace over the course of the last year. Margins up in this division as well to 18% from 16.8% last year, and that's given a profit increase of 19%. As you can see from the chart at the top, in this division as well, we've made good profit progression over the last three years.
Looking in a bit more detail at the various services we provide in this division, starting with transactions, which accounts for about 35% of the revenue. We've had a good year. Our mix of activities and clients has proved resilient against the many headwinds that have been around the marketplace. Within auctions, we saw an increase in activity, and that's principally driven through insolvency-related sales of plant and machinery and other assets, which more than offsets the decrease we saw in property sales in the first half. We've invested in our property auction team with an acquisition in the second half, a team from Mark Jenkinson & Son , the Sheffield auctioneers, which complements our existing team, which is very much based across Manchester and Leeds, and increases our coverage down into South Yorkshire.
You would typically expect in the current economic cycle that we'd see more properties sold through auction, so we should see this team getting busier over the course of the next couple of years. Our property, commercial properties, that says, team increased from acquisitions and organic growth. The adverse impacts of the mini budget, which saw quite a lot of transactions stall, in the autumn, saw those pick up and come back through over the course of the second half. Our client mix, which tends to be SMEs, independent landlords, property sizes, which are relatively small, so capital values up to GBP 2.5 million, and the fact that half of our agency fees come from lettings, does tend to mitigate the market volatility you would see elsewhere for agency services.
Within business sales, which is our estate agency for small businesses, transaction levels were robust, and we saw that absorbing the market impact of higher interest rates. Our projects and development team, which is about 25% of income, a range of consulting services in here, which includes project management, building surveying, transport planning. We saw continued growth in the building consultancy work we do from the public sector, principally relating to schools, and over the course of the last year, we've seen an increased focus on sustainability projects. Moving to the right-hand side of the slide. Valuations, about 25% of income. This is typically valuing assets for lenders, but we also do valuations for insolvency purposes and where loans are challenged, they're in some distress.
The revenue increased over the course of the year, resulting from the full year impact of the acquisition we did towards the back end of last year. On an organic basis, performance has been robust despite the short-term disruption that we saw following the Mini-Budget, when lots of transactions just froze. What we have seen pleasingly is activity levels return to normal in spite of the further rate rises we've seen over the course of the year, the second half. The final area of asset management and insurance, which is about 15%, we've seen insurance and property protection increase over the year 'cause of increased insolvency workflow.
Our commercial property management team, these tend to be long-term contractual relationships, so organic income pretty much in line with the prior year, and we have increased the number of properties that we have under management following acquisitions. At the year-end, we've got 345 people working in this division, up from 326. Move to the next slide, looking at the cash flow. The group remains in a strong financial position. We generated significant levels of free cash flow. If we look at the free cash flow, net of dividends and prior earn-outs, which was just over GBP 3 million in this year, just over GBP 4 million last year, and that provides us funding for in-year acquisitions, and that's combined with the liquidity that we have within our bank facilities, which can fund larger acquisition opportunities.
Reminder of those, there's a GBP 25 million RCF, there's a GBP 5 million growth line on top. We extended those facilities in the year through to August 25. The final slide on numbers, on slide nine. We're confident of our outlook of delivering a further year of growth in line with the current market expectations. Over the course of the next year, we'd expect cost increases from both inflation and continuing investment in the business to be offset by revenue growth, meaning we'd like to see margins maintained over the course of the next year. Within insolvency, we're well placed to continue growing that service line. The benefit from insolvency appointments that we've taken recently, together with an increase in the order book, and also an anticipation of growth within the mid-market, so that's including the administrations.
With our advisory and transactional teams, they have multiple organic and acquired growth opportunities. We completed the acquisition of Banks Long at the start of the financial year in May. That's a GBP 2.5 million revenue chartered surveyors practice. With our cash generation, strong balance sheets, and facility headroom, we've got plenty of ability to invest further in acquisitions and organic growth initiatives, and we will do an update at the AGM in September 2023. It's been another good year, good set of numbers, and I'll hand back to Ric.
Thank you, Nick. Moving on now, we're gonna look at the insolvency market and look at the opportunities for growing our business across all service lines. Slide 11. U.K. insolvencies continue to increase. We're now in a higher level of insolvencies than we were pre-pandemic, as you can see from the top chart on that particular slide. Insolvencies, as you may be aware, dipped down during the pandemic and have now increased to a level which, as I say, is above the 2019 level. A lot of that increase is in the smaller cases, liquidations. The larger cases, which are typically done as administrations and are the larger, more complex insolvencies, still below pre-pandemic levels.
If you look at the chart, on the right at the bottom, you can see the current run rate of 1,300, above the low of 2021, but still below pre-pandemic levels, but is rising. Also for comparison there's the peak in 2008, which shows the level of administrations at that time. It's worth bearing in mind also that at that time, that peak was probably kept down by low interest rates and bank forbearance, so it could well have been a higher number. We anticipate that administrations will increase over the course of this year and next year. We will see levels getting back to pre-pandemic levels and above.
Overall, we've increased our insolvency practitioner capacity to 93 at the moment from 55 in the last recession. We have a lot more capacity to cope with this level of work as and when it comes. Moving on to the next slide, just a quick look at the market in terms of who does what. We're very pleased to say that overall, we have the largest share of the market by volume, with 13%. In terms of administrations, those more complex assignments, we now have an 11% share, which is an improvement from fourth place over the last five years. Very much come up on the rails, and that's a much more important part of our business overall.
In terms of who does what, the very largest jobs are done by the Big 4 and ex-Big 4 players, and a number of American-based boutiques, which have an international footprint. In terms of mid-market, it's the national accountancy firms like Grant Thornton, BDO, RSM, ourselves, and a number of other specialist players. The local boutiques deal with some 70% by volume, of the market. Still very fragmented at the lower end, which gives us the opportunity to continue to grow our business and take market share. Moving on to slide 13. Looking at our own performance over the last year in insolvency, significant growth and well-placed as market leader. Insolvency revenues have doubled to GBP 71 million since 2019, compared with market volumes up 37%.
We have an extensive network of over 4,000 professionals and institutions that refer work into us. Half of those refer work on a regular basis. That well-established route to market is 70% of work generated from recurring work providers, 10% comes from digital marketing, and the balance is new sources of work and one-off assignments. Income has grown across all case sizes. The larger, more complex appointments represents over 50% of our revenue now. We have an increased reputation for mid-market insolvency. That follows very much the acquisitions we did in 2021 of the two sizable London-based insolvency boutiques, which gives us a significant London presence now. There's plenty of room for growth there.
As we've seen, administrations are at a low level still, and are rising, and are likely to rise significantly over the next 18 months. In terms of our regional network and digital marketing expertise, that provides the volume of cases and the scope to increase our market share there. We've commenced a project with one of the major banks to look at recovering Bounce Back Loans on insolvencies, where it appears that those loans have been inappropriately used. If that pilot proves successful, then there's a significant additional flow of work which should come from that particular source. In terms of administrations over the year, the larger ones with some profile, Paperchase, of course, most people will have heard of. Avonside Group in the construction arena, Worcester Warriors in sports and leisure, and Cox & Cox, an online furniture retailer.
All sizable jobs, which were commenced during the year and will run into next year, and some of them beyond that. Moving on to the next slide. Advisory and transactional services now represent 40% of our revenue, so that includes all of the property services and those non-insolvency services across both of our operating divisions. This has been developed from standing start in 2014 with the Eddisons acquisition, and we've doubled revenue since 2019 to GBP 51 million. It's a balanced mix of services across both operating divisions, giving counter-cyclical, defensive, and pro-cyclical services. 75% of income is derived from recurring sources, established clients, that's corporates and investors, banks and public sector panels, fellow professionals and institutions. Our increased scale enhances the opportunities for cross-selling between our various services.
An example of which is that we've seen over GBP 3 million worth of property and property insurance-related services sold within the group to different clients. There are growth opportunities in all of our service lines, both organic growth and the ability to acquire businesses in fragmented marketplaces, and overall, that's giving us the ability to add scale and increase margins. Moving on to slide 15, this is an example of a case study where a number of our service lines have come together. This was a large, ultimately, an insolvency case, but it started live as an advisory case, looking at a business which was struggling. We looked at the possibility of restructuring its debts without the need for a formal insolvency and getting additional cash injected into the business.
Ultimately, that was not possible, and as a result, we were appointed administrators to freeze the creditor's position and allow us more time to try and sort out the business problems. It was a complex trading company, requiring group service lines to deliver the enhanced outcome, including our property services, to value the property, number of properties, and also to look at the opportunities for enhancing the value of those properties, particularly if there wasn't a going concern sale. Our property security and insurance teams were involved to make sure the property was secure, well-insured, and we could keep operating. Our debt collection teams assisted in the book debt collection for the trading business, and our forensic team are investigating the prior insolvency periods to ensure that all assets have been identified to maximize realizations. Ultimately, overall, a successful outcome for all stakeholders.
A going concern was maintained. The business is bought by new owners in a new corporate. There was a significant return to secure creditors and preferential creditors, predominantly HMRC, on the preferential creditor side, and total group fees of over GBP 2 million. Most mid-market jobs we get involved with will include a number of different service lines. Almost invariably, property will be involved, but some of the other service lines, like forensic, also. Indeed, on some of the smaller cases, property services, such as the valuation and disposal of plant and machinery, is involved in the vast majority of our cases. Moving on to slide 16. Looking here at, again, the interaction of the various services that we now offer and who of our client base actually takes those on board.
As we've seen in the first bullet point here, that in terms of insolvency expertise, various different sectors can come into play and enhance the outcome for stakeholders. Looking at our various individual sources of work, financial services, we do lots with banks, insolvency and recovery, of course, but also business and lending reviews, valuations, project consultancy, and this is complemented by the funding place through brokerages. The brokerage we now have on board are on the broker referral panels to the bank, and we pass work to them. Approximately GBP 800 million worth of work was passed in the last year, and that means it's a very good two-way working relationship with banks, which means that we can generate more work from them, as well as giving work to them.
In terms of property owners, they use our funding expertise, asset management and insurance, building consultancy, acquisition and disposal, and lettings, and for corporates, insolvency and restructuring advice, funding and debt advisory, M&A, property, and insurance. All our services are operating from a common IT platform. Many operate from the same offices. There's a group-wide support team, including regulated compliance and a shared network of clients and introducers. There's an integration between our services, both in terms of back offices and also in terms of our route to market. Moving on to slide 18. Looking to strategy. 17, I apologize. A proven growth strategy, enhancing shareholder value. We intend to do more of the same. It's been very successful for us over the last five years, as we've said.
In terms of organic growth, retention and development of our existing partners and employees, extremely important. Recruitment of new talent, enhanced cross-selling of our service lines and expertise to a wider client base, as we've discussed, and investment in technology and process to enhance working practices and improve the services to our clients. In terms of our acquisition strategy, we're looking for value-accretive acquisitions in any of the following segments: insolvency to increase our market share, advisory and transactional services to enhance expertise and geographical coverage, and complementary professional services businesses to continue the development of the group and its service offering. Moving on to the next slide. Acquisitions accelerating growth. As we can see from this chart, that doubling of turnover from GBP 60 million to 22, approximately 60% of that came from acquired growth and approximately 40% from organic growth.
We're well established in terms of the process we have for identifying, valuing, and acquiring businesses, and most importantly, then integrating them into our business, sharing that common platform and working with our existing colleagues. We've made 12 value-enhancing acquisitions over this period, delivering revenue and operating synergies. Cash generation, strong balance sheet, and facility headroom underpin this capacity for further acquisitions. We anticipate more of the same happening in this current year and beyond. Moving on to the next slide. We can see here our five-year record, 26% annual increase in average growth rate, moving from GBP 60 million to over GBP 120 million of turnover. Adjusted profit from GBP 7 million to just under GBP 21 million.
Increasing the adjusted basic EPS from GBP 4.8- GBP 10.5, and a 10% cumulative increase in the dividend to GBP 3.8, for the year that's just gone. Over that time, the share price has also doubled. We're looking to continue this overall track record moving forward. To summarize, we've got a strong platform to continue delivering our strategy of organic and acquired growth. Given the increased scale of the group and a broadened base of expertise and enhanced client base and professional referral network, we're well positioned in the current macroeconomic climate, with 80% of our income from countercyclical and defensive activities. Significant financial capacity to deliver our strategy with organic growth opportunities across the group and a good pipeline of acquisition opportunities across fragmented marketplaces.
We're confident in delivering current market expectations for future growth, and just to summarize, ultimately, we're extremely pleased with the year's performance, and we're looking forward to more of the same moving forward. If there are any questions in the room, we'll.
For those remotely, to verbally ask your question, click the Raise Hand button or type it using the Q&A button.
Thank you very much for the presentation. A few questions for me, please. Firstly, on near-term M&A, is there any sense of where that's more likely to be? Is that on the property side, or where do you think?
Well, it's across the board. We're actively looking at opportunities in insolvency, although they will only be small because that is the nature of the fragmented marketplace now. On property, it could be small, or there are opportunities for some more medium-sized acquisitions. It's a much bigger marketplace. There's lots more to go out there. We're also actively looking at our other existing service lines where we think there's M&A opportunities.
Cool. Then on the five-year view, I think you had access to 60% of growth.
Yes.
Do you think that's how the trend will be in the next five years? Is that how you foresee things playing out?
I think it's likely it will be, yes.
Cool. Finally, on the Bounce Back Loan opportunity, can you give a sense of how that's progressing? I think one of your listed funding peers mentioned it now and again. Is that, do you get a sense, is this the year you'll know if that's a bigger opportunity or?
Yes, I think so. Yes, yeah. It's early days with that. We are starting to see some success.
Mm-hmm.
I think by the end of this year, hopefully by the end of this calendar year, we'll be able to assess whether it's something that really the banks will want to push, both in terms of the existing bank we're working with, and other banks will see that as an opportunity to get a better recovery.
Is your fee for that attractive, essentially?
yes, it is. Yes. Yeah. Yes. We've... In that particular instance, we've agreed at a minimum fee per case, and then obviously, there's a share of any success that would be in actually achieving recoveries.
Thank you. Yeah, two questions for me. Just to follow up, one on the M&A point. You're comment about the insolvency market and these kind of small opportunities there now. You're not seeing those slightly bigger opportunities like CVR, DR, DRP. Are they, are they kind of not available in the market anymore?
Um-
has changed then?
Well, well, there were relatively few of them, so they were pretty uncommon, and they've almost all gone now. There are one or two, but at the moment, they're firmly, remaining independent...
Mm.
despite having been approached by us and no doubt one or two other people, I suspect.
Yeah.
it is literally one or two.
Mm.
Below that, it's a fairly significant jump down to. There's probably a few businesses which are up to GBP 5 million turnover.
Mm-hmm.
The vast majority will be GBP 1 million and GBP 2 million turnover businesses.
Thank you. The other one was on retention. How easy or difficult are you finding that? Is that one of the kind of key things to think about with respect to wage inflation?
Yes, it's very important. In terms of senior people, I'm pleased to say we've been very successful in retaining senior people. We're definitely seeing more movement now in typically two or three years experienced, junior members of staff. The insolvency profession, which has been quiet for some time, is starting to gear up again, for obvious reasons, and that means junior staff with some experience are hot property.
Yeah. Thanks.
Pleasure.
Good day.
Hi.
Good morning, thanks. I just wonder, when you think about your M&A outlook, how you think about debt versus equity, given what's happened to rates and the cost you're paying, but just how you think about that. I just wanted to explore a little bit the margin improvement, so very healthy margin improvement year-on-year, 2022- 2023. You're signaling, kind of maintaining the margin this year. What are the various sort of pushes and pulls out of that?
Okay. Well, if we start with how we fund M&A, clearly, we have a significant facility which is unused at the moment. It's obviously become more expensive to use as interest rates have gone up. We certainly would want to keep a significant element of that available working capital if insolvencies rise rapidly. Equally, we're comfortable using some of that for our M&A, in addition to the cash that we're naturally generating in the business, which will go towards our M&A acquisitions. If there are any sizable opportunities, it may well be that we look at some sort of mixture of using our debt facilities and equity raise.
At the moment, given what we're looking at over the short term, we feel very comfortable our cash generation and available facilities will cover any of the M&A that's likely to happen over the course of certainly between now and Christmas, and probably now, the end of the financial year. In terms of the margin question, Nick, do you want to deal with that?
Yeah. If you look back at where the margin enhancements come over a period, it's come from partly leveraging sort of the group's fixed costs. As the top line has grown, the finance, IT, HR teams haven't grown proportionately with that. That's been a big driver. That's flattened out over the course of the last year because we put a bit of investment in and scaled those teams up. When you look at the segmental margin, insolvency's grown pretty much year-on-year over the course of the last few years, and that's really just as we've been growing the top line. A lot of the fixed costs in the division haven't grown with it. Similarly, within property, as you'll be aware.
The property cost, the sort of the fixed real estate costs of operating the business and things have stayed where they are. I think as we look forwards over the course of the next year, because of the combination of salary inflation that we'll see in the new year, and also some of organic investments where we're bringing new people in, and there's clearly a period of time where they need to settle in and deliver their return, so we'd expect that the margins will probably be pretty flat over the course of the next 12 months.
Any more questions in the room? No. Anybody listening in?
Yes. We've got a question from Peter Renton at Cenkos. How do you see your market share in volume of administrations progressing over the coming years? Do you expect to reach the number one position, and if so, what gives you the confidence in reaching that milestone? If not, why not?
Well, we haven't set a goal to be number one in administrations. I think that certainly we will increase the number that we do, and we'd like to think we'll increase our market share. There are other people who are very active in that marketplace and very successful at it, and we'll be happy if overall, we do improve our share, but we improve the increase the absolute number that we get, but also we increase the volume side of the business as well.
Great, thank you very much. We've got a question from Andy Edmond from Equity Development. Andy, do you want to unmute yourself?
Thanks, Tamzin. Am I loud and clear?
You are.
You are, Andy.
Sorry, I couldn't be with you guys, but thanks for a very, very thorough presentation of a very good set of results. Just a couple of questions from me, maybe for you, Ric, first, just on the environment for acquisitions. As you've just been talking about, they're probably more likely to be smaller, bolt-on, perhaps, you know, mama, papa, family groups. Do you think the current difficult climate is a positive or a negative for you to pick up businesses that fit in with your strategic ambitions? In that, perhaps people might want to hold off for better times to get top dollar, or they may be realizing that being part of a larger group and the cross-selling opportunities is a better safe haven.
Yeah, well, I suspect, Andy, both of those are true. There will be businesses who will look at it and say, "Now is not the right time," and there will be others who think that getting something now, and as you say, the safe haven of being part of a larger organization and no longer taking the risk of running a business, means it's time to do something. If we can structure our acquisitions that we have in the past, where there's a strong element of the consideration, which is based on earn-out over a prolonged period of time, that can often give the confidence, even for those businesses which think maybe now isn't the right time, that actually, if they have confidence in their market returning, they'll see the value in the deal come through to them in due course.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Nick, just interested in what you're saying about this property transaction market and the problems in the sort of rate prices are now in the rearview mirror with Truss's mini budget. Of course, now rates are materially higher, and it's not your market, but mortgage rates are up at a sort of 14, 15-year high. Short-term gilts are well above the yield levels that were reached last autumn. Right at the moment, there's clearly been a recovery, but are you still reasonably happy with what you're seeing in the transaction and the advisory side of property?
Yeah, I think we're happy. We're obviously cautious about what might happen going forward, but, I mean, just the points I made on my slide, Andy, that the average value of properties that we're dealing with is relatively modest compared to what.
Mm-hmm
... some of our larger competitors would be dealing with. Very often it's commercial units being used for business purposes that's being acquired, so the actual increase in finance cost is relatively modest compared to what they're using the business for and the returns they're gonna get from it.
Yeah. Good, sensible northern conservatism.
Thanks very much!
Thanks, Andy.
Now, you might have answered George Devereux from Hanover Investors question, which is: How sensitive is the property segment to a slowdown in commercial real estate? He goes on to ask: What do you see as the impact on the property segment of what's currently occurring in the commercial real estate, i.e., reduced utilization, reduced valuations, potential insolvencies?
Well, I think, Neil, that's just a continuation of your, of previous answer, isn't it?
It is, yeah. What I would just bring out is it's the mix of things that we do in that segment that gives it its resilience. It's managed to grow organically over the course of the last 12 months against some pretty major headwinds, the ones that Andy was referring to. There's a fair amount of insolvency-related work that goes through there. The sales that we do through auction of both property and plant machinery, the insurance work that we're doing, the valuation work, a lot of that is distressed, such as the case study that Ric gave, where the valuations team would have been involved on that. There's a very broad range of work that we're doing in there, which gives it its resilience, which makes us feel comfortable with it as we look forwards.
Great. Thank you very much. A couple of questions from Jeff Jones, who asks: What are the main factors which determine fees in the insolvency market, and how are inflationary costs passed on? He goes on to ask: Please, could you comment on the productivity and other benefits from IT investment? Does this tend to use bespoke software or software that's available to smaller competitors?
To answer the first question, in terms of how do we charge for insolvencies, we charge predominantly on a time basis. On smaller cases, we are limited by the realizations of the assets, because that's ultimately how we're paid, on the asset realizations. On larger cases, it is very much based on time and agreeing those costs overall with either typically the banks on the larger cases or the body of creditors on smaller cases. In terms of being able to increase those charge-out rates and pass our cost increases internally on to our customers, there is some opportunity on the larger cases. On the smaller cases, where it's effectively a fixed fee, it is all about that trying to work more efficiently, which is the second part of the question.
There is very limited bespoke software available to the insolvency profession. Because it's so small, it's not really in the interests of many organizations to invest the time and effort to try and compete for a limited market. We develop some opportunities and systems ourselves, sometimes on the back of readily available Microsoft-type products, but in-house, developing those to make sure they work for us. They're not things which are readily available to everybody, and ultimately, we think the investment that we will make in it will benefit us compared with our competitors.
Many thanks. A question from Gavin Laidlaw from Stockwatch: How bad could things get for the economy?
Well, that's a real difficult one. I mean, if you looked on a worst-case basis, you would say that the last peak in insolvencies in what was termed the Great Recession, was about 26,000. As I mentioned in the presentation, that was kept down by low interest rates and low inflation. We now have high inflation and increasing interest rates, so we could well see numbers go up to a much higher number. They were up to almost 30,000 in the 1990s recession, when the population of businesses was significantly smaller than it is now. We could easily see the numbers go up to the high 20s and possibly beyond.
Thank you very much. That's the end of remote questions.
Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you to everybody, both in the room and joining us dialing in. I'd just like to reiterate, we're very pleased with our year's results. We're looking forward very much to the coming year, which we've already made a good start on. Thank you for joining us. I hope you all have a wonderful summer. Thank you.