Welcome to Idox's full-year results presentation. I will now hand over to David Meaden.
Thanks, Rachel. Good morning, everyone. I hope you're all well. I'm Dave Meaden, CEO of Idox, and with me today I've got Anoop Kang, our CFO, and we're really pleased to be able to present to you the results for the full-year end of 31 October 2024 for Idox plc, so without further ado, I'm going to give you a few brief introductory slides. Anoop's then going to cover the financial results, and I'll come back on and talk a little bit about our forward strategy and the way forward, so without further ado, for those of you who are familiar with Idox, I apologize for those of you who aren't as familiar with the story. It's probably good just to give people a reminder of what we do, and we are a software company. We build value through significant market positions and scale in the markets that we serve.
We are solving very complex and challenging problems in the public sector, the built environment, and asset-intensive industries. We help our customers deliver world-class planning, land and property, and public protection services. We produce solutions that deliver reductions in operational risk and ensure regulatory compliance in complex build and operate environments such as oil and gas, energy, and utilities, and our software is helping to transform health and social care plans, giving better outcomes for those with SEND requirements, so really strong software platforms with really strong market positions, and as a result, our software is very sticky, and I think the difference for Idox is that we evolve our solutions with clients not just over their initial contract periods and subsequent renewals. We have very high retention rates, and our relationships with customers can be for over 20 years.
And that length of engagement presents a tremendous opportunity to partner with customers over that period of time and to move them along their technical journey, upselling and onselling to customers, several generations of products and associated services over that cycle. And I think that's unique to our business. It's a real telling differentiation for us when we talk to customers about how we can help them over significant periods of time to deal with the challenges and problems that they have from a technological perspective. So, with that clear focus, we've also added software and data capabilities to our Group that are attractive to our existing clients and that also take us into markets where our expertise in land and property is highly applicable. Next slide, please. So, with all of this supports a very strong performance in 2024.
Anoop will take you through the detail of that in the upcoming slides. But 2024 follows a very successful period for the Group where we continue to build on ARR, profitability, cash generation, as well as our revenue growth. Overall, our Group revenues are up almost 53% since 2020, and ARR during the same period is up 22%, with a 57% increase in the property space over the same period. Next slide, please. Now, Idox holds uniquely strong positions in its core public sector business, and this presents a unique opportunity, as I've said, to evolve with the customers. And there remains a great deal of potential for competitor replacement. In the past year, we've been very successful in the land and property area, once again with a retention rate and new business win rate above 100%.
In addition, the government's aim to digitize at pace and to further consolidate local authorities into larger units serving larger populations means we're well placed to be beneficiaries from these initiatives. Examples today to Buckinghamshire, North Yorkshire, Shropshire are clear examples of combined authorities, centering services and service delivery around the Idox portfolio, and in each case, we've expanded our revenue streams from these clients, absorbing competitors' footprint and providing new capability, either hosted, cloud, or adding new products to supplement that used by the client. Next slide, please. I think the evolving policy and product innovation continues to increase Idox's addressable market as governments seek to consolidate and digitize its public service delivery. N ext slide, please. Now, we believe that the next decade will bring significant opportunities for Idox for our geospatial software and data, allowing for extensive growth of our geospatial revenue.
Accordingly, we're bringing all of our geospatial assets together under a single banner of Idox Geospatial. This offers the ability to deliver transformation solutions or transformative solutions to customers in a range of markets, significantly improving customer outcomes and providing them with real data, software, and insight to their businesses, improving their own outcomes. Next slide, please. Now, in addition to the strong opportunities in our core software markets, we've identified significant growth opportunities in this area around geospatial. The application and integration and combination of complex mapping and data that delivers insights, efficiency, and raises productivity. Idox Geospatial brings real insight to customer challenges, combining mapping and curated data, allowing customers to increase the precision in their operations, improve their customer experiences, and be more efficient and ultimately improve their bottom lines.
We see the immediately addressable market for Idox at over 300 million, and our aim is to grab 10% of that market over the coming years. Now, I'm going to come back in a short while and tell you a little more. B ut in the meantime, I'm going to hand over to Anoop, who's going to take us through the results for 2024.
Great. Thanks, Dave. And good morning, everybody. Welcome to our 2024 results presentation. Firstly, let me take you through the results for the Group overall, and then I'll move on to the individual segments in a bit more detail, pulling out some key themes and observations for the year. So overall, the Group delivered a strong performance for the year, and it's pleasing to see that the results were in line with our expectations. We delivered revenues of GBP 87.6 million, which were 20% up on last year, and continue to demonstrate momentum in the business. Our recurring revenue was also at 20% at GBP 54.5 million, as we continue to secure long-term multi-year contracts for the business. The proportion of recurring revenues were in line with 2023 and accounted for 62% of the Group's overall revenue, with strong growth in our Land, Property, and Public Protection division.
We delivered revenue growth of 27% in our LPPP division to GBP 55.3 million and 16% growth in our Communities Division to GBP 17.4 million. The Assets division delivered stable revenues of GBP 14.9 million. Our adjusted EBITDA was at 7% at GBP 26.1 million, and as anticipated, we delivered an EBITDA margin of 30%. The Group ended the year with a strong order intake of GBP 101.7 million, up 23% on 2023, providing good visibility into 2025. The positive contribution to EBITDA was impacted by higher borrowing costs and tax rate changes, where we delivered an adjusted earnings per share for the year of GBP 2.61 per share in line with 2023. Given the strong results for the year, the continuing growth opportunities we see, our strong financial position, and confidence in the future, we are proposing a 17% increase in the full-year dividend to GBP 0.7 per share.
We continue to focus on cash generation and strong cash management throughout the business. As a result, we delivered an operating cash conversion rate against EBITDA of 97% and improved net debt balance of GBP 9.9 million. In October 2024, we extended our RCF facility of GBP 75 million and accordion of GBP 45 million for a full further 12 months to October 2027, providing the Group with significant financial resources to pursue its M&A strategy. In addition, the Group will utilize its RCF to repay the EUR 13 million Maltese bond, which is due in July 2025. So overall, it's pleasing to be able to report a strong financial performance in 2024. On the following slides, we set out the Group's track record over the medium term. Dave has highlighted our revenue progression earlier. The Group has consistently delivered over the last five years in line with expectations.
Over the last five years, we've delivered a CAGR of 9% both organically and through M&A, going from GBP 57.5 million of revenue to GBP 87.7 million. Furthermore, we've achieved a 9% CAGR over the last five years in terms of recurring revenue, taking it from GBP 35.7 million to GBP 54.5 million. During this time, we have worked with customers to maintain, strengthen, and extend existing relationships over a longer term, which has contributed to an order intake growth of 62% since 2021 to GBP 101.7 million, representing a 13% CAGR over this period. As a result, we've ensured the delivery of profitable growth and increased our adjusted EBITDA by 52% to GBP 26.1 million since 2020. This has represented a 9% CAGR with margins consistently at or over 30%. The following slide highlights the movement in our earnings per share.
As mentioned earlier, our EPS for the year was GBP 2.6. Since 2020, the Group has delivered a 78% increase in EPS as the business continues to generate value for shareholders. As I mentioned, given a strong performance for the year, we are proposing a GBP 0.7 per share dividend for the year, which is up 17% on the prior year. Since 2020, we've increased the dividend by over 100%, reflecting our confidence in the business whilst maintaining the financial resources to pursue the Group's buy-and-build strategy. Moving out on the following slide to break out the results into our reporting segments. Following the reorganization of the business into three distinct divisions at the beginning of 2023, we present our results on a consistent basis with last year under our Land, Property, and Public Protection, Communities, and Assets divisions.
The LPPP division includes our regulatory, planning, and building control services, our on-prem cloud solutions for land charges and planning, our inspection and enforcement software for licensing, our address management solutions, and our geospatial capabilities. Revenues for this division have grown by circa 120% since 2020, and with 117% growth in adjusted EBITDA. The LPPP division continues to form the major driver for the Group and accounted for 63% of the Group's total revenues and 65% of the Group's adjusted EBITDA. Overall revenue for the division in 2024 was up 27% at GBP 55.3 million, with good growth in local government and cloud. Our geospatial capabilities contributed significantly to the performance of the division for the year. Of the GBP 55.3 million of revenue, GBP 34.9 million was generated from recurring revenue streams, representing 63% of the division's total revenue and was up 33% on the prior year.
Non-recurring services were up 18% at GBP 20.4 million, where geospatial, local government, and cloud performed very well in the year. Our order intake for the period was GBP 65.7 million, up 29% from 2023. This included a mix of new services, pricing impact, and large contract extensions, including existing customers such as North Yorkshire County Council and new customers such as Wales & West Utilities and Property Risk Inspection services. We reported an adjusted EBITDA for the year of GBP 16.9 million, representing a 30% margin for the year and was broadly consistent with 2023, up 21% overall on the prior year. Turning to the next slide in the Communities Division. The Communities Division comprises our elections, grants, and databases, social and healthcare solutions, and similarly to LPPP, provides its services predominantly to the public sector.
The Communities Division accounts for 20% of the total Group revenues and 22% of the Group's EBITDA. While election events can cause variability in the revenue stream from one year to the next, other parts of the division have acted as a counter to such cyclicality. As anticipated, revenue for the Communities Division was up 16% for the year at GBP 17.4 million. We successfully delivered our services during the U.K. general election in July 2024, and as a result, our elections revenues increased by 38%. Elsewhere in the division, we saw good performances in our databases, social and healthcare solutions, and these contributed to recurring revenue growing 6% to GBP 10.2 million. The non-recurring revenue growth of 35% to GBP 7.2 million was driven principally by elections.
There was good order intake for the year, which was up 35% at GBP 21.2 million and was driven by key wins in elections, including our recently announced Malta contract. The division delivered an adjusted EBITDA of GBP 5.9 million, generating a margin of 34%. The margin reduction was in line with expectations, with higher election services in the year. Moving on to the Assets division, the Assets division provides document management and control solutions to asset-intensive industries, facilities management solutions, asset tracking, and transportation solutions. The Assets division has delivered a broadly stable revenue performance since 2020, with annual revenues of circa GBP 15 million to 16 million. In 2024, the division accounted for 17% of Group revenue and 13% of Group EBITDA. While profitable and cash generative, this division is becoming a smaller proportion of the Group overall.
For the year, overall revenue for the division was stable at GBP 14.9 million. Within the division, EIM solutions delivered a 4% revenue reduction in the year, while revenues for our asset tracking solution, iFIT, were up 8%. We have seen some economic and competitive pressures in the facilities management markets, where revenues in our FM solution were down 7% in the year. The small reductions in EIM and CAFM impacted recurring revenue, where revenue for the year was GBP 9.4 million, and non-recurring revenue increased 4% to GBP 5.5 million, which was largely due to iFIT. Order intake for the year was down 6% at GBP 14.8 million, which was largely driven by customer delays in procurement patterns. The adjusted EBITDA for the period was GBP 3.3 million compared to GBP 4.2 million last year and was impacted by lower margins in CAFM and EIM.
Moving on to the Group's cash flow for the year, the Group generated net cash from operating activities before taxation of GBP 20. The Group generated net cash by operating activities at GBP 25.2 million, which is up 26% on the previous year. Against the Group's adjusted EBITDA of GBP 26.1 million, this equated to a conversion rate of 97%. The Group paid GBP 4.1 million in taxes and GBP 2.4 million in M&A outflows following the finalization of the Emapsite completion adjustments. These payments were in line with our original expectations and now conclude the cash payments associated with the acquisition. The Group invested GBP 8.7 million in development and CapEx, and this was in line with the prior year, with notable investment into local government, cloud, geospatial, and elections.
The Group paid a 2023 dividend of GBP 0.6 per share, which resulted in a cash outflow of GBP 2.8 million. After interest, lease payments, and other items totaling GBP 2.4 million, the Group moved from a net debt position of GBP 14.7 million at the start of the year to a net debt position of GBP 9.9 million at the end of the year. And finally, moving on to our future guidance and outlook. This is consistent with guidance communicated previously, reflecting the medium-term outlook for the business. We expect the Group to deliver mid to high single-digit growth in 2025, excluding any further M&A activities and the future opportunities that Dave will talk about shortly. From an EBITDA margin perspective, we expect the short-term margin to remain broadly consistent in 2025, given the increase in national insurance contributions.
And over the medium term, we'd expect to head back towards a 35% adjusted EBITDA margin, driven by increased efficiencies and improvements in our geospatial margins. In terms of cash generation, we continue to expect the business to generate good levels of cash over the medium term and therefore reducing our net debt position over 2025 and then into a cash position thereafter. Having extended the GBP 75 million RCF and GBP 45 million accordion to October 2027, we have significant financial balance sheet strength to progress the M&A initiatives going forward. Just finally, in terms of 2025, we've made an encouraging start to the year with trading in line with the board's expectations. At this point, I'll hand back to Dave, who will talk you through the remainder of the deck.
Great. Thanks, Anoop. You probably gather we're quite excited about the performance in the business in 2024. We're very optimistic about the opportunities for the business going forward. If I take you through the next few slides, we really believe that we've got a strong foundation, but a real focus on the future. As I described earlier, we have very strong market positions, very sticky software in what we believe are growing core markets. We understand that the economy has its odd blips and that we're subject to world dynamics that are a little bit out of our hands sometimes. The thing is that all the government here in the U.K. is a strong supporter of improving construction, including increasing the amount of focus in infrastructure programs and the consolidation of local authorities into broader units.
Also makes us believe that we have a really strong forward path to continue to move the markets forward and to grow with those markets with these good tailwinds. That all appears great. We've got a clear focus on our operational metrics, as you all know, and we'll continue to manage the business well through what we believe will be a period of growth opportunity in our core. Now, on top of that, we have a further opportunity in geospatial that we've described. We see that as an immediate 300 million addressable market. Our goal is to go and secure 10% of that over the next three to five years. And we intend to continue to scale our business through targeted M&A.
You're never going to find Idox buying strange and wondrous things, but absolutely consolidate that geospatial part of the market and to buy assets that we believe are going to improve our scalability and our access to customers. And I'll talk to our criteria for M&A in a few slides' time. But the aim, obviously, is to continue to run a great business, to grow our margins over time. We feel that our margins at around 30% still have room to grow as we scale and improve the penetration in the markets we work in. And we'll continue over the next few years to concentrate as well on cash generation. We have invested in our product suite. We're very keen to ensure that our operational dynamics work for our shareholders.
And we continue to build our presence in Mumbai in order that we have a center of excellence that we can draw upon to continue to drive our products forward in as efficient and as economical way as we possibly can. And our aim, of course, is to continue to deliver a "rule of 40" business as we go through this next phase of growth. Next slide, please. So, as I say, we're really excited about the opportunities that present themselves in the geospatial market. Our acquisitions have unlocked new market opportunities for our business to grow naturally and through the strengths that we have from our land and property division.
The opportunities in the addressable market include working with fiber, companies like CityFibre, Lightning Fibre, our clients of the Idox Geospatial business, utilities, folk like Cadent Gas, the local government, property development, construction, logistics are all businesses that have complex problems that are trying to resolve in a digitized form. We do a little bit of work with TikTok, as people know, and their aim there is to increase the digitization of their business, not so they're solving the last mile to the customer in delivery problems and sales, but that they're solving the last 50 yards issue and improving the logistics and the scheduling management of their business as they move forward. And these things are typical of the type of precision that clients are looking for in order that they can make better decisions with their business and ultimately improve their competitive edge and bottom line.
So, the geospatial business, as well as being significantly strong, right, is also giving us a broader range of customers that we can continue to engage with, develop over time, cross-sell and upsell, both in the public and private sectors and some international clients also. Now, Anoop spoke about. We've spoken about our operational metrics, and on the next slide, you can see our approach clearly to capital allocation. We're going to maintain our debt at prudent levels. I think that's understood. We've got a very disciplined investment approach, and we are targeting M&A alongside a progressive dividend policy. So, in short, we do have a policy where we will be buying businesses during the course of the year.
I suspect that that's likely to have a second-half focus for us rather than a first-half focus. But buy, build, perform is our mantra. We continue to invest in our existing products, albeit using an arbitrage of onshore and offshore development activity. And we're going to ensure that we perform across all the metrics of the business, including improving cash generation over the next period, which already is fairly decent, but we believe we can do more for shareholders over the coming years. So, on to the next slide, just to describe very quickly what it is that we're doing around M&A. We've worked incredibly hard during 2024. Unfortunately, for various reasons, we're unable to conclude on a couple of deals. But as you know, we have a really well-established track record, a proven ability to execute and integrate value-accretive acquisitions.
We have a good, healthy M&A pipeline, positive leads on a number of strategic targets. And our operational cash generation and refinancing in October 2023 and 2024 provide us with the significant firepower that we're going to need to move those things forward. We've provided here a guidance for everyone to say what we're looking for in the particular areas of our business that would make good sense for bolt-on opportunities, either increasing our scale, the markets that we can address, or providing new capabilities that we can take to the market and existing customers. And our characteristics, obviously, is that from a strategic perspective, they'll enhance our existing software offerings, broaden our capabilities, draw upon our existing expertise, and importantly, align with our core principles and four pillars in the business.
Financially, we will drive profitable growth, increasing our recurring revenue, increasingly realizing synergies as we bring businesses together and improving the bottom line, driving cash generation, and we hope driving shareholder value through really sensible accretion. So, with that, I'm going to sort of bring the presentation towards a closing. Conclusion, the business performed well in 2024, and we're very excited about the opportunities that we've placed ourselves into with the strategy over the last few years. We've got a strong market position with really promising tailwinds, some significant opportunities to scale the business through M&A, and a continued focus on delivering operational metrics, which we hope will be superior to those of alternative businesses.
So, with that in mind, as I say, we're excited about the future. Well, I am. Anoop can tell you whether he is later. And we'd be really happy to take any questions that you might have.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Again, that is star one for your questions today. And up first, we have Kai Korschelt from Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gents. Can you hear me?
We can.
Morning, Kai.
Yeah. Great. Yeah. Good morning. So just a couple from me on our own business, and I'll start with LPPP. So, I think sort of building and planning is obviously a big part of that business. I'm just wondering, how do you see the top-down environment? The new government's making a big push into accelerating construction activity, and there's also then a lot of people in the industry saying that sort of the planning system needs to be reformed. So, I'm just wondering if that plays into sort of perhaps more digitalization or just how do you think that impact or potentially benefits Idox would be the first one. And then the second one, with all these different layers on the LPPP business, just wondering if you could share any organic growth targets for the business you may have. Thank you.
Sure. Thanks, Kai. Well, in terms of the first question, I think that's really what we're referring to in terms of tailwinds in our business. It's quite clear that the government has a number of priorities to focus on, but I think everyone understands loud and clear that MHCLG have got a real focus on removing barriers to construction programs and infrastructure programs in the U.K. and to reforming the planning process so that it's simpler and easier to get things done. And we are huge supporters of that initiative. Our software is designed to help local authorities navigate their way through the complexity of the planning process and ensure that they're serving the public well as well as the applicants for planning programs.
So there are a number of initiatives that we've taken over the last few years which have helped to do that and will continue to do it. I think that becomes a real differentiator for Idox. One of the benefits of our system is that you can clearly see for any individual planning application the route that the planning application's taken, the bits of legislation and regulation that were applicable to that application, and what the resulting outcomes have been. So simplifying some of the process for things that need to be done on a quicker basis makes a lot of sense. And more importantly, I think it should be a real boost to industry generally, but we see that as a real forward thrust for our software. You mentioned also the digitization angle, and I think that's significant.
I think that will act as a positive momentum for people to get into the cloud where it's easier to deploy and manage systems for the long term, but also it's easier for them to get performance information about how they are working and engaging with their clients and that their own staff are performing over time. There we brought forward our Insights product that connects with both our Uniform and our cloud products to ensure that clients can see how productive they're being and where the bottlenecks might be in their own authorities so that they can make adjustments accordingly, so all of those, I think, are great tailwinds for the business, and we're looking forward to exploiting that over time. The consolidation of local authorities will happen, I guess, in conjunction with that and over perhaps a longer period of time.
When local authorities come to decide which platforms they're going to use for things going forward, it clearly makes sense to work with market-leading products providing you with all that information and with an organization that has the capabilities over the long term to support their strategic aims and ambitions. In that sense, we have great examples, as we described, of Idox being favored by local authorities making those decisions. In terms of our organic growth going forward, as you know, and Anoop will comment on this too, is our organic growth in our LPPP business has been significantly higher than the Group's overall, as our community's business and our assets operations have been a little subdued in terms of bits of growth in that respect.
So I think we intend absolutely to keep our LPPP organic growth in line with the rates it's been at for the last few years.
I think that's fair. I mean, I think when I talk about mid-single digits, I think the LPPP part of the business is on the higher end of that level.
Yeah. Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. And up next, we have James Lockyer from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to go back to the immediately addressable market slide that you've got there, which is very helpful to provide sort of context around the opportunities there. So thank you for that. I guess what would be quite good to understand firstly, you've said that it's from existing portfolios.
So presumably, in order to address more of this on this existing portfolio, you wouldn't need to acquire more capabilities. You might need to be able to cross-integrate, but capability-wise, if it's from the existing portfolio, you wouldn't need to, I guess, take more capability there. But could you sort of suggest or tell us whether this is how much of the bit that's missing is the light blue is from existing clients taking more from you or new clients coming on? Because obviously, you've got a large market share within government public sector today, but not within this space. So it'd be good to understand those things, please.
Sure. Thanks, James. Yeah. So you're absolutely right. The GBP 300 million is our assessment of the markets that our products can currently address and that our offerings can work with over the next few years. Our view at the moment is that we've established a good footprint and some really strong case reference studies through that period. The opportunity is for us to accelerate the growth of that part of the business organically through investing a little bit in sales, but just generally reaching the market and making it more aware of the capabilities that we have as Idox Geospatial now, as opposed to the individual businesses that we've had individually before.
I think the acquisition of Emapsite has also given us a real focal point through which we can stream our other capabilities to the market, and also expose that to more customers, which is really helpful. On top of that, we're partnering more significantly now with other organizations who are sort of aligned in that part of the industry. Ordnance Survey is a great example. I think we're tuning ourselves into the things that they want to do to try and expand the market and grow their share of wallet for clients as they move forward, and to be able to provide some of their more senior clients with greater capability from our curated data business, and I think that's a really exciting opportunity, so I think you're right.
We don't necessarily need any further acquisitions to be able to do that. But in terms of growth, I think more of it is going to come through new clients' acquisition as opposed to just selling to our existing clients, but it's probably in that sort of 40/60 kind of capacity as we move forward, gaining more clients, supplying them with more things from our portfolio, gaining more clients, supplying them with more things through our portfolio. So that's the sort of approximate blend we have for it moving forward.
Cool. Thank you. And then just to follow up, the guidance, you've got mid- to high single-digit revenue growth. I'm presuming that's a combination of organic and M&A within that, but do correct me if I'm wrong. But let's imagine, I think, let's say mid-single for organic. Given that you mentioned just a second ago that with what you're hoping to do within geospatial means that maybe geospatial could start to accelerate, maybe by the third year, start to accelerate there, is there some sort of conservatism within your guidance on that basis if we're expecting sort of mid-single for a normal BAU business? But as geospatial gets to be a larger part of your business and starts to accelerate, could we be seeing a stronger organic growth in sort of a couple of years' time?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we're excited about all the things that Dave's sort of highlighting this morning, and I think we've got to push on now over the next 12, 6, 12, 18 months to make sure that happens. And I think the guidance that we're putting out there is looking at the business that we currently have. It's not making sort of high-level assumptions about where we want to get to. I think you've known from our track record also that any guidance that we've had tended to have out in the marketplace. We have met, touch wood, so far, and that's what we intend to do. So, I think, yeah, you're right in assuming that there probably is some upside there.
I always love the touch wood analogy because it means that there's just a lot of luck involved in that. Of course, it always plays its part. I think you're right. I mean, our view is that the geospatial area is presenting a tremendous amount of new capabilities to customers, and inevitably, there's some education of clients as to what they can do from adopting these technologies. That's why we're interested and excited about the case materials that have now developed and the referenceability we're building in each area that we operate in. I mean, I visited Cadent Gas just before Christmas, and it was great to hear from a client about the value that we're adding to their business, but also about how they felt we could help them going forwards. Their challenges and business problems become ever increasingly complex.
B ut being able to provide clarity about how they can deploy resources, ensuring that they meet the compliance regulation, and giving them some forward view as to what their demand might look like going forward are all fantastic things to be able to bring to a business, and we're excited about those growth opportunities that come through those deeper relationships with clients where we've got a tremendous track record of extending and bringing forward new technologies to people to adopt on an ongoing basis through that relationship, so that's a very exciting part of the business rolling forward, and look, we absolutely will continue to find good products and services and business that we can bring into that portfolio over time and build out,
So, I think it's a tremendous opportunity for us. I think we've done some good things to bring a capability together. And as Anoop says, it's a case now of accelerating that and driving it forward.
Thank you. Just sort of a wider sort of industry sort of view. We've touched on this previously about you being a vertical software play with expertise within your field. And as we're seeing AI models become a bit more commoditized, it becomes a bit more obvious that the data or the sector expertise using that model becomes more important than the model itself over time. Given your expertise within that, your vertical, the data assets that you're either building or partnering with, where do you see that side of the market? You're going to be sort of going to consolidate the market because you are the largest player with the expertise in that vertical as models become more commoditized?
Yeah. I think there's a long way to go for that, James, is my own view. A nd I think people are going to need guiding and shaping along the way. It's pretty clear that the technology is very exciting, and it presents a world of opportunities for deployment, but most customers in most markets have their own limitations and resources about adaptability, ability to change, and drive new models and activities, so I sense that our expertise, guidance, and abilities are going to be required to help shape and work with customers, and I just see that as a distinct advantage for it as we move forward.
I think we can demonstrate to people very, very clearly how adopting some of these newer technologies allows them to just make improved decisions on a more consistent basis and to gain greater insights to their customers and their desires and once given them competitive advantages as they roll forward. So it's an exciting time for us, but you're right. I mean, I think our sector expertise and knowledge base is going to be important as part of that rolling forward, for sure.
Excellent. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, James.
Thank you. And from Investec, we now have Julian Yates with our next question. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Just a couple from me, one on market and a couple of follow-ups. On the market share slide that you put out, that's sort of interesting data there. Could you maybe allude to what's driven your growth over the last, I guess, two to three years in terms of where your market shares have improved in those areas? Maybe there's a couple of areas that are more notable, I guess, where there is more scope to go forward, trying to understand what's just stayed the same for the last five years and what can actually sort of move up that can move the dial in terms of those market shares within your core LPPP? Does the background of consolidation and local authorities, I guess, sort of favor that sort of market share expansion? That would be good just to know your take on that.
And a couple of quick follow-ups. Focus on cash flow, d oes that mean less R&D capitalization going forward? You sort of seek to improve that cash generation. And the M&A slide that you put up, interesting that it includes four of those parts in the Communities. Was that just for completeness, or should we read something else into that as well in terms of your strategic priorities for M&A? Thanks.
Oh, I hate it when people look at your slides. Morning, Julian. Thank you. Look, I mean, I think it's pretty clear to everyone that a lot of the stuff that we've driven in market share has come from the LPPP business. I think we've got world-class solutions in the cloud.
And obviously, at the same time, we've been bringing together some of the capabilities from our Uniform product into our cloud solution, sort of give a unified version, if you like, of those two products rolling forward so that the journey for clients is an easy one to take and trying to work very hard on the data migration aspects of that rolling forward. So, the LPPP business has been the driver of a lot of growth, and that's an exciting thing for us. I think people often think if you've got a significant market share, then naturally, how are you going to grow that business rolling forward? But I think what we've shown is that the entirety of our customer spend on Land, Property, and Public Protection solutions has not just been contained within the original supply that we made to those markets.
So, adding capabilities, providing new software, providing new technologies that they can adopt over that period of time that they have the relationship with us has been a real driver for that growth. And I suspect that the longevity of relationships is a key factor in that and will continue to be a key factor in other areas of our business. Any comment on cash? I mean, from my perspective, it's not really about spending less on R&D. It's where you spend and how you spend your money on R&D. But we have pulled through a number of initiatives that will drive cash improvements over the next 12, 24 months. So maybe we'll stop and comment on that, and then I'll talk a little bit about M&A if that works.
Yeah. I mean, on the cash side, Julian, I mean, what I'd add is that I think we've been fairly stable in what we've spent on R&D over the last couple of years. So we do focus on it.
I think it's more on the capitalization point in terms of improving, I guess, the bottom line generation on the cash flow.
Yeah. Look, in blunt terms, I think you will see us driving better value from the expenditure without no question. And that's definitely part of our investment and growth in building our offshore capabilities as well. And it's not just about cash, but it's also about repeatability, increasing the way that we comply with the data standards, sorry, the software standards that we want to see in all of our software development going forward, and the increased use of agile technologies, et cetera, as we go forward.
It's giving us all of those things. But we're also looking at our supply community really strongly, looking at where we can either swap out or exchange software technology for better options rolling forward. That creates a little bit of the play. And obviously, looking as well at our price performance with customers and making sure that we've always got a sight on our pricing strategies. But all of those things in a combined way should deliver a significant improvement in cash as we roll forward, which we'll see as we go through, I think, into 2026, really, as a lot of stakeholders during 2025. On the M&A point, Communities is there. We believe it's a really good and strong business. We believe that there are valid opportunities for us out there.
It's not an early indicator to say, "Hey, you've got one line up that's going to slide into this." But it is a reflection that we have a local authority and public sector client list that also is looking for solutions on an ongoing basis. So on that footing, we're definitely alerted in the market for suitable acquisitions that could build that business and scale that business going forward.
Okay. That makes sense. Thanks for that. And just sort of coming back to that first one, in terms of the consolidation you're seeing from local authorities in the market, how do you read that? Clearly, upside risk there in terms of taking more share or downside risk in terms of replacements from consolidation? I think the answer is more upside risk, but it'll be good to hear your view.
Sure. No, I mean, it's a great question, Julian. And the answer is nobody ever really knows. But the mapping that we've done to understand the competitive landscape and where we are leads us to believe that we'll be winners as we go forward in that program. And to date, that's been backed up with those organizations that have consolidated and come together. So, often, we've been in a situation where, for example, we have in the North Yorkshire example, you've got five of the authorities maybe and three are non-Idox clients. Then you would absorb the non-Idox customers into the deployment of your solutions out into the field and add some capability with that as it goes.
Often, at that point, clients are looking either for you to move them to a cloud, host it directly, or provide you with additional software capabilities that allow them to become more efficient. The only point I would make is that there's a lot going on in local government. They're being asked to improve their performance in significant areas like planning, and at the same time, they're being asked to think about their structural activity, but to do that themselves, there's no mandate from government. There's just an indication from government about the size of transformation they'd like to see and how that they would be willing to devolve powers to larger authorities, and of course, that's very attractive for local government, having devolved powers and to be able to move those things forward.
All I would say is when local authorities do that, then they need to complete those actions first, often, before they start to make structural decisions about which technologies, et cetera, they deploy. So I think we're going to see that acting in phases over local government rather than it being a big one-size-fits-all across the country within the next 12 months. I think it'll take a wee bit longer. But what we are going to see in that period, I think, is an acceleration of local plans as they get put together for house building and also economic regeneration during that period, such that as the combined authorities are put forward to ministers, then there's a logic for and more clarity about how they deploy technology and new process as they move forward into these larger unitary type groups.
Great. Thanks for that. That's helpful commentary.
Thank you, Julian.
Thank you. And up next, we have Ciaran Donnelly from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the presentation, guys. Just a couple more from myself. Again, referring to that geospatial slide in terms of the addressable market, I guess, with respect to current geospatial revenues, is it as simple as adding up these column charts and we get to the number, or do you want to give that number? I guess the real question is, what's the kind of implied annual growth rate, assuming you do get to that 30 million of revenue within geospatial?
Also, if you want to provide some more specificity around timeline, I think you said in the coming years, but should we take that as kind of by the end of the forecast period, so FY27? And then maybe just secondary to that, in terms of the specific verticals you've outlined, is there any verticals we should be thinking of in terms of where you see the biggest opportunity to grow in that period? Thanks.
Dealing with the last one first, I think we've described. I think there's going to have to be a sort of new client generation through this. And the areas that are showing a lot of promise at the moment for us, definitely around fiber and networking and also around the utilities market. I mean, they are significant opportunities for growth for us largely because those organizations are using the type of data and software that we're providing in terms of accuracy of address management, curated data to bring that together in a 3D way using mapping technology. So those areas that we've listed, I think of those, you can see the growth there.
You can also see where, although we have relatively small market shares at the moment, energy and infrastructure, architecture, engineering, construction stand out as significant opportunities for us to replicate the things that we're doing with a new customer footprint. So, there's a lot of activity currently going on in those sectors and lots of conversation with our partners about how we can combine our efforts to really bring home to those organizations how they can benefit from an adoption of our type of technologies and offers. I don't know if you want to comment about the growth overall or no, but I can jump in on the market.
Yeah. Look, I mean, we haven't put specific numbers out there, Ciaran, but I think it is something that we're working through. I think what we've got now is a clear view of what the market is that we can address. I think very shortly over the coming months, we'll have a clearer idea of actually where we can go into those areas that Dave just talked about. I think as we progress through the remainder of this year and into next year, I think when the forecasts go out beyond sort of 2026, 2027, we will start to see some of that being reflected in those forecasts.
Great. Okay. And maybe just one follow-up in the M&A slide with respect to geospatial. I think you made an interesting comment around kind of customers and specifically kind of international customers. Is there any international, I mean, I guess, ex-U.K. countries that you'd be interested in kind of expanding into?
The only reason we mention it really at this point is for completeness. We find ourselves being levered into international opportunities that have come about through our work with U.K. operations. So we don't have an explicit target at the moment to go out to the U.S. or Canada or Australia or any of those areas. But I expect that with some of the entities we work with, we'll naturally find that their use of products and service from us will take us into those territories through that process. But our focus is very firmly at the moment on the U.K. markets. I think it will be interesting, and we'll obviously stay agile and alert to any overseas opportunities that emerge for us that could add to the growth. But our primary focus is going to be here in the U.K.
Brilliant. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. And we're now moving on to Ian Robertson from Progressive Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just a couple from me. The first one is sort of housekeeping. It's what sort of percentage of the customer base is on cloud? That's a number that sort of got lost in the last few years. And then on geospatial, on the organic side, to what extent are you willing to see some sacrifice in margin in order to gain some market share? And along those lines, to what extent is that up in the air because you don't really know exactly who's going to bite on which part of the many offerings you're going to be able to put in front of them?
And then on the acquisition side, there's a chunk of acquisition costs this year. Clearly, you've been out hunting. Was it a biggie? Clearly, it looks like a biggie. And if it was a biggie, it would have got you quite a long way toward your target of GBP 30 million. Any comment? Are there more biggies out there? That's not a technical term.
It was definitely a big cost. You're right. Yeah.
Shall we take them in order?
Okay.
Okay. So, in terms of our cloud, continued good progress there. I think during the year, we signed another six to eight customers who came onto the cloud offering. We've also had a whole series of clients from our Uniform base that have gone into more hosted environments from us. But in terms of the potential to move to the cloud, it's still around that sort of 30% mark. It's around that sort of score in the business, I think, up from about 25 a few years ago. So, plenty of room for us to continue to progress and move customers forward. And I think it remains a really strong opportunity with growing confidence from customers as they see their neighbors and other reference sites making the journey so successfully.
I think in terms of Geo, would we sacrifice margin for market share? I don't think it's really a case of doing that. I think we've got to find customers where they are. If we are introduced to customers through fundamental mapping, then, of course, we're interested in gaining those people as clients. And we know that our mapping stuff isn't at really particularly strong margins. Yeah, that tends to be at a pass-through margin. But access to clients so that we can develop the customer and improve margins through the value-added services that we can gain is always interesting to us. So, some of that is client-dependent.
But if we can add really good clients to the portfolio that we think we can upsell and onsell over the period, then we'll certainly always look at our initial deal margin in order to secure that type of business for the next three and five years. I'm going to let Anoop talk to the M&A activity. But as we said earlier in our discussion, yeah, we had a number of acquisition activities going on last year. There certainly were some bigger opportunities than others. And sometimes you don't quite get to the finish line on those things. That's just an inevitable part of doing the deals. There are no laurels at that point for those things. But as we said earlier, we're always going to be really disciplined in the way that we do those things and make sure that we're driving value for shareholders. I don't know.
No, I think you've summed it up there. I mean, I think we can't go into too many details of what it was. But yeah, I think Dave's covered that point, Ian.
But there are certainly other opportunities for us in the markets. We're excited about how the business can develop through some additional M&A in that area. And we'll be working extremely hard on it during the rest of 2025.
But the fact you actually spent the money suggests very clearly that you were in the mix.
I think that's right.
Okay. That's great. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Ian.
Thank you. And if there are currently no further questions in the queue, I would now like to hand the call back over to Dave and Anoop for any additional or closing remarks.
Well, look, everyone, thanks for attending this morning. As ever, we really appreciate your time. We know there's lots of things you can be doing. But I hope what's come across today is the enthusiasm we have for the business that we built. We've got a very strong platform, a real focus on the future, some clear growth within our business, which is continuing to be delivered year on year, and some exciting opportunities for further growth in the business, which we hope to take advantage of and develop over the coming years to the benefit of holders. So thank you for your continued coverage and support of the company. And I sincerely believe it's the right place for you to be interested and invested over the next period. So with that, thank you. And hopefully, you'll have a good remaining day.
Great. Thank you very much.