Turning to our results highlights on slide one of the deck. Despite a challenging economic backdrop and some sector specific headwinds, which I'll pick up on, we're very pleased to be reporting another record set of results for the year. They are testament to our strategic progress and the more diverse exposure we have to our target markets. We're delighted to have further expanded our range of pure play engineering services in both our water and relatively new T&D markets. More on these shortly. From strong cash generation, our balance sheet is in good health, and we remain very active in terms of our M&A acquisitions. Our order book remains well balanced and at record levels, yet conservatively but consistently reported and reflecting the confidence in our prospects. We've increased the interim dividend by 4.9% to GBP 0.07.
On slide two, here I provide a quick reminder, it's where we amplify the differentiated nature of our high-quality, low-risk business model. At Renew, we remain focused on markets funded and pinned by highly visible and committed funding. Our service is mission-critical and increasingly in demand. Customer sizes are small and execution timeframes are short, which dramatically reduces our risk profile. Our directly employed colleagues are deployed in some very complex and demanding environments, which present really high barriers to any new entrants. Our compounding growth and cash generation evidence the resilience in our model. Finally, we remain committed to adding value through innovation and collaboration. At the bottom of this slide two, you can see there's our 10 principal brands.
Our recent acquisition, EDS reports under devolved both Emerald and more recently, PWR-X report under the Excalon brands. Sean.
Thanks, Paul . The first half of 2026 has been another successful period in which we have delivered record revenue, record operating profit, record EPS and a record order book. Our operating margin is ahead of the same time last year, and we have a 5% increase in our interim dividend. The first half saw record revenue of GBP 589 million, which is up by 3.5% on the same period last year. The revenue growth has been driven by a combination of organic growth and a contribution from Emerald Power, which we acquired in October 2025. Our operating profit is also up on the same period last year, driven by revenue volumes and a small increase in our operating profit margins.
Consistent with previous years, the first half margin is below our guided range of 6%-7%. I remain confident that we will continue to trade within that range for our full year as we benefit from operational efficiencies and work mix improvements in the second half of the year. We have delivered 2.2% of organic revenue growth in the first half of the year, driven mainly by a strong performance in our water, rail maintenance, electricity T&D, and highways markets. We have strong momentum going into the second half and we expect to accelerate growth into H2. Over the past five years, we have averaged 9% organic growth, and we expect to continue to deliver strong organic growth over the medium term.
As always, our focus is on our EPS growth. I'm pleased to report record first half EPS of 0.309P, which is up by 10% on the same period last year. The increase has been driven by record trading performance and a reduction in finance costs due to our strong cash flows, partly offset by an increase in corporation tax paid. This slide that we always put in our deck, it demonstrates our long track record of value creation. We are proud of having maintained an EPS CAGR of over 15% over the last 15 years, driven by a combination of organic growth and accretive M&A. We have grown organic revenue by 40% and total revenue by 80% over the last five years, demonstrating this growth mix.
We have managed to achieve this growth whilst consistently maintaining our net debt to EBITDA at less than 1x throughout this period. On this slide, we bridge our opening net cash position on the October 1st, 2025 to our closing net cash position, March 31st, 2026. We generated GBP 23.6 million of free cash flow, which included GBP 8.3 million of CapEx in the period. Last year's final dividend of 0.1333P resulted in a GBP 10.6 million cash outflow. We spent GBP 7.8 million on acquisitions in the period, most of which was due to the acquisition of Emerald Power, as well as some deferred consideration on Excalon. Clearly, the two most recent acquisitions were post period and are not included in this figure.
All of this brings us back to our period -end net cash position of GBP 10.6 million, which equates to a net debt position of GBP 21.6 million on an IFRS 16 basis. Our free cash flow conversion of 71% in the first half is slightly ahead of the five-year average. However, we continue to expect to generate free cash flow of over 60% over the medium term, in line with our cash compounding model. Our asset light operating model has generated H1 ROCE of 22%, which is 12 percentage points higher than our WACC of about 10%, is consistent with the previous year. Our five-year average ROCE is 27%, but it does move around a bit depending on the timing of acquisitions and where they sit in the cycle.
We have a strong M&A track record, and it remains a key component of our capital allocation policy. Our M&A focus continues to be on the high growth markets of water and electricity T&D. However, we are also open to making acquisitions in our other key markets. During the period, we completed the acquisition of Emerald Power, and I'm pleased to report that the business is trading ahead of expectations and is integrating well. Post period end, we have announced the bolt-on acquisitions of EDS and PWR-X , which enhance our capability in the high growth water and electricity T&D markets respectively. Paul will talk a little bit more about them in his section. We continue to actively pursue M&A opportunities supported by a strong balance sheet and cash flow generation.
As I previously mentioned, we've refinanced our debt facilities in October, and we now have GBP 140 million RCF secured until October 2029, which provides us with significant financing headroom to support us in delivering our M&A strategy. Paul.
Thank you, Sean. Now I'd like to take a bit of a closer look at each of our end markets. Slide 14, you can see that we set out the strength of our addressable opportunities. Our pure play engineering services are described across these four, very different, market sector blocks. In rail represents about 40% of total group revenues in the current shape of the group, where the operating margin range is 7%-8%. Move to infrastructure, which is our highways, communication networks, and aviation activities. Around 15% of total group revenues from those services. Operating margin range 6%-7%. In energy, which includes our civil nuclear, our onshore wind, and our power transmission and distribution activities. Again, around 15% of total group revenues.
Operating margins in the range of 6%-7%. Our fourth segment growing quite nicely, our environmental activities. Both our water and more general environmental services, around 13% now of total group revenues and again margin of 6%-7%. For each of these sectors, as illustrated here, you can see our annualized addressable market together with the very specific details of the programs that we're either engaged with or have targeted in those respective areas. We currently access all of this activity by around 250 long-term frameworks. We would assess our annualized addressable total market at around GBP 30 billion presenting plenty of headroom for further expansion. Looking a little closer at each of our four sectors, I'm gonna start with rail on slide 18.
This is our largest client, Network Rail. With the main commitments to record levels of funding to operate, maintain, and renew their national rail network through to 2029. We've recently moved into year three of the most recent control period, CP7, where we hold a position as the largest supplier of infrastructure services to that client nationally. The mix of work through the cycle remains very different to our initial expectations, where record levels of maintenance activity are balanced with lower levels of renewals work. Our brands have responded really well to the challenge by flexing their delivery models, collaborating effectively, and expanding our exposure to the wider U.K. Rail market. A lot of work going on in our rail segment. Moving to Infrastructure on slide 16. We continue to strengthen our position across highways, communication networks, and aviation.
In highways, we've made the most of a very strong momentum and run at the end of Road Investment Strategy two, including expanding our geography, making good progress into Scotland, and we're very much looking forward to the growth opportunities in Road Investment Strategy three, which recently commenced in April, which promises an increased demand for the very specific services that we provide on the Strategic Roads Network. In aviation, our organically grown capabilities are gradually scaling our exposure to a broader airside client base nationally. In communication networks, we are a very well-established partner to all of the U.K. network operators. In addition, we successfully diversify our routes to market, building relationships with smaller and private network operators. Moving to energy on slide 17.
Our onshore wind services have been impacted by underperformance and an ongoing restructure in the France region. Despite this, the business remains ideally positioned to capitalize on the significant growth opportunities ahead. We've secured new MSAs, service agreements, at a rate that we anticipated, and we're in active pursuit of a very healthy pipeline of opportunities. In civil nuclear, we felt the headwinds created by a long-running site-wide industrial relations issue at Sellafield, our biggest civil nuclear site. Although not under our control, this matter will be resolved, and we're very much looking forward to making the most of our deeply embedded position at the site, where the medium- and very long-term growth opportunities in this incredibly specialist area are underpinned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's GBP 4 billion commitment annually to this complex challenge ahead of us.
In transmission and distribution, we're delighted with the progress we're making in this relatively new but incredibly exciting growth market. We're expanding our capabilities here. Emerald and PWR-X are really good examples of this in response to market demand. The market backdrop is stronger and perhaps more immediate than we had initially anticipated. We're also leveraging group collaboration. A lot of businesses working together in this sector now, with numerous brands getting access to this relatively new market sector that again, presents a really high barrier to any new entrants. Finally, our environmental activities are on slide 18, working for 10 of the 12 combined waste and water companies across the U.K. We have experienced record levels of activity in a number of our regions as we've transitioned from AMP7 into now the second year of asset management program eight.
We very successfully broadened our geographical exposure and secured a wide range of framework positions in a number of these regions, further deepening relationships in a sector with secured funding for asset improvement. We are delighted to have recently announced the acquisition of EDS to further expand our expertise in line with a long-standing strategic ambition they provide, specialist marine and underwater services that are increasingly in demand for a number of our water customers. As a final point, we would also note an increased U.K. commitment to defense investment, another potential growth sector, though very relevant to our expertise in electromechanical and civil activity. Moving the presentation through to conclusion, on slide 20, we've set out a simple bridge here to illustrate the key growth levers that we're using.
I would say initially that our markets growing naturally overall, but I think more significant than that feature. We're seeing that incremental increase in a focus on asset care, renewal, and maintenance in all of our clients wherever we're working. The level of expenditure in that area is on the increase. Our M&A record speaks for itself. We have a very healthy pipeline of opportunities to complement our organic growth ambitions. In addition to that backdrop, we're able to pull a number of levers that has enabled us to take a greater share of our markets. I would point to our ability to attract, develop, and retain our people. We're a people-intensive organization, putting 7,000 people to work today effectively.
We have 400 employees going through early -career training development programs, a real differentiator for Renew. We're also maintaining our entrepreneurial spirit by adopting innovation in a lot of what we do. A lot of routine tasks are done in a semi-automated way in the world of Renew. Part of our responsibility as we bring new businesses into the group is maintaining that entrepreneurial spirit. We want them to challenge normal modus operandi. We're doing that well. We've made tremendous progress through the collaboration of brands. Our challenge in running a holding company with independent brands in the group is making the most of their joint potential. We're getting that now. We're getting more share of client wallet as a consequence of joining our brands' capabilities together.
We've had tremendous success in winning new frameworks and getting deeply embedded into programs as a consequence of working together. An ongoing addition. On slide 21, we provide a quick reminder of the key characteristics of our company model. It's how we are thinking about the balances of growth for Renew. They include a very disciplined approach to our organic and acquisitive expansion, focus on reliable quality operating margins, a key differentiator for Renew, good cash generation, and a fundamental focus on the return of capital employed. This disciplined approach on these specific metrics have served us really well, and will continue to do so. Therein lies the further compounding growth opportunity for Renew as a model.
Finally, as an outlook on slide 22, I would say that after a record first half performance, we remain very confident in taking advantage of numerous market wins. Our pure play engineering focus on critical infrastructure presents a resilient and compelling investment case. Funding in our markets is underpinned by the critical nature of the assets that we support and look after. We're successfully broadening our range of services and exposure to these end markets. We recently demonstrated how active we are from an M&A perspective. This, of course, is supported by a diligence in the strength of the balance sheet. We have a record order book, as you can see from the report. We're therefore very confident in making further strategic and financial progress moving forward. Thank you very much. That concludes the presentation.
We purposely made that fairly slick in response to a request that we'll have a little bit more time to answer any questions and get into some more detail at your request. Happy to take any questions from people joining us online or people in the room.
Thank you very much, Paul. Before passing over to those in the room, I would like to remind those attending online to please submit your questions in writing using the Q&A tab at the bottom of your screen. I can then read these out, and we can get an answer from Paul. Passing back to the room for any questions with you.
James.
Morning. Yeah, James Beard from Deutsche Numis. I've got a couple of questions, please. First one on water. We saw a couple of weeks ago the equity raised by United Utilities, based around a desire to increase their own CapEx budgets and go back to up on multiple reopeners. Do you think that's the trend? I know you're not exposed to UU, but is that a trend that's going to proliferate across the wider industry, do you think? A second part of the water question, obviously you flagged that there's a couple of regions that have not quite been up to speed, I think in the North East.
Just any sort of update on sort of where the progress is in those two respective regions would be useful as well. The second question was on highways. If I read the statement correctly, the renewals budget for RIS3 is set to be about 75% higher than it was for RIS2. I guess the question is, are you in a position, do you have the capacity to meet that level of demand, should that be the case? And if not, how would you propose to go about meeting that demand? Do you want to answer those questions?
Yeah. Let's start with water. What I would say about water is the backdrop is very different compared to previous asset management cycles that we've experienced in our time of doing this. You know, we've just started year two. Yeah. Regardless of, you know, what we hear about, you know, debt management and funding of our various customers, our experience is exactly as we anticipated, if not slightly stronger, driven largely by the regulatory requirements and challenges in the networks. I think the model and the progress that we've made in aligning our opportunities with 10 of the 12 largest waste water combined businesses is serving us really well.
I think, you know, we've really picked out those regions of the U.K. with the biggest issues and therefore the most reliable funding. We've been very specific that we are accessing those work streams that are super reliable. Just as a reminder, we're not waiting for decisions on big treatment complex. You know, this is in the OpEx kind of area that we're accessing. trunk main renewal, for example, is a major program wherever we operate. Just as a quick reminder, we go into AMP8 with a stronger geographical footprint. We've pushed inorganically to South West Water, as an example.
If you read the note in some detail, you'll see that we've improved our position in a number of regions, but I'd point to Welsh Water, big region, historic region for us, where we've elevated our position. We're now the R&M partner in that region on the Waste Water, Clean Water Network Alliance program. This is a pattern that we've had when we move to both organically push, as well as seeking out some acquisition support in our offering, which we've done, which we've done really well. The market backdrop is super reliable. We've seen the funding come through as we anticipated it. You're right to point out of those 10 large regions for us that we have two of those that are playing a bit of catch up in Northumbrian and Yorkshire Water.
They were a little bit slower getting to the outside of the kind of things that we do. Therefore, therein lies the opportunity to have the framework positions. That work bank is gradually emerging, therefore that is the group opportunities we move towards at the end of year two into year three, perhaps. We're feeling pretty good about the world of water. You asked a question about resources in moving into highways, actually you can understand that building capacity in our people work pool is biased currently towards those water skills. EDS is a good example, I think in the period of broadening our offering, listening to what the customer wants. We do a lot of work in reservoir assets, for example, which is where EDS are experts. We know the EDS business.
We work with EDS for many years, privately run business. It was in a sale process, delighted to have that brand as part of Renew. There's some 100 involved. We'll actually provide services to all of our water activities. That's our ambition. Initially focused in Southwest, it will broaden its green and underwater services. We're delighted to have broadened the capability of Renew's water in the way that we have there. Perhaps some other things to look at too. You know, there are two pieces of geography that are alluded to are United Utilities. We don't work there, we're not currently in Scotland. Kind of giving up on those. We will perhaps think about organically pushing through. Our M&A activity finds some of the groups established in those regions.
Water's in a pretty good place. It's record performance in a few years. We've got plenty more to go at. You then moved into highways and, you know, it's appropriate at this point in time, we've just gone into Road Investment Strategy three, which transforms the April 1st. I suppose to some, the headline level of commitment through the Department for Transport as well applied, National Highways didn't look like a significant change from RIS2. Actually, if you drill into the determination, the big increase, you're quite right to point out, James, on the amount of commitment within the overall budget of the kind of things that we do, the renewal and maintenance of the strategic roads network is increasing significantly. We believe through the five-year term, our addressable market is could in fact dou ble.
That's how we're thinking about the opportunity. We have one principal brand in highways, but we now have four brands very interested in the growth in the highway sector, working collaboratively together. I would remind you that through an interesting collaboration that we launched a few years ago now with the AGC collaboration, AmcoGiffen and Carnell working together from a standing start, we became one of the leading road trade providers nationally on this Strategic Road Network by combining those capabilities. We've got a lot of that in our thinking, moving forward. What we have to do, RIS3 is just the way our client fills budget. Our commercial terms run now. They've been extended, our commercial arrangements through what we call scheme delivery frameworks are contracted through to 2028.
They were extended recently to give them time this year to go through the SDF2 procurement process. We've pre-qualified for that. We're in a good position for that. We have to tender and optimize our route to market. A lot of restrictions are helpful to us this time around in that procurement. We see the opportunity to actually grow our position, getting a wider suite of frameworks through SDF2, that procurement process, which will run through 2026 and possibly into 2027. There's some real optimism. I think the momentum in the extended year, the one-year extension to road in Strategy two, was good for us. It got a little ahead of where we thought it would be to have momentum as we go into this year.
Yeah, the, you know, exciting times in highways, but perhaps a little bit beyond, the acceleration that we're seeing in power and water at the moment. Andrew.
Okay. Good morning, Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. I'll try three if I may. First of all, the slide where you articulated the growth drivers to the Renew model over the coming years clearly focused on revenue. As that model evolves, do you see any change to thoughts around margin or risk-adjusted margin and cash flow? The second question, around the broadening base of business, any change to your views around leverage when it comes to sort of the M&A opportunity moving forward? Thirdly, on rail, just how you see the remaining components of CP7 evolving in terms of that maintenance and renewal activity split.
Yeah. Good. I'll let you Sean answer it.
Yeah. Look, I think as the business evolves, we're not expecting any material changes to the margins. Clearly, if we entered into a new market or, particularly if we entered into a market which was a bit more capital intensive, that might change the margin profile. Current plan with the markets we're focused on, the type of work that we're doing, that 67% range stands firm. I think the two little acquisitions that we've done now are both high margin and are been what we've typically done, but given the size, they're not gonna move the overall group numbers in any meaningful way. I think, you know, we often test ourselves on margins to say, is it right? Are we getting the most value out of these frameworks?
A good test for us always is when we look at on the M&A side, we look at this, we're looking to buy, and it's very unusual, like never do we see businesses with better margins than what we have. You know, I just think there is a tolerance and there's a trade-off between risk and reward here. For the risk that we're accepting on those frameworks and the way those contractual terms work, this is the maximum margins you can earn, and we're happy with it where it sits. Same goes on cash flows. The type of work that we're doing now, there's no likelihood of any change to cash flow profile. You know, as you know, we are very reliable in our cash generation.
We make greater than 60% free cash flow. We've hit for many years and continue to do so. There's no reason, there's no change to the model, there's no change to the working capital profile or anything that would lead me to believe that that is going to change. Onto the balance sheet. Again, you know, it's something we sort of do debate amongst ourselves as to whether the sort of soft limit that we've set to ourselves at one time is now debt to EBITDA. I'm trying not to go above that is right. I think the honest truth is that at the moment, with the drumbeat of acquisitions that we have and the cash flow that we generate, there's not really a need to go to any higher levels of leverage.
I think where we would have a question to ask ourselves is if we're looking to do a slightly bigger acquisition, which I think you're aware we are, we're open to doing if the right one comes along, as to what, you know, how much debt we would tolerate for that acquisition versus, you know, supplementing it with an equity raise. At the moment, it feels like there's no need to change the policy. You know, we've on that EPS chart, which shows the track record of EPS growth over the last 15 years, at no point in that cycle, at no reporting point in that cycle anyway, have we been greater than 1x net debt to EBITDA. We went very, very briefly over that when we acquired QTS in 2018.
By the time we reported it had come back down with the cash flows we had generated. There's no real need to change the model because it's working well. Whilst we always like to talk and we're often challenged by investors and analysts about doing bigger M&A, the reality is the vast majority of the businesses we see that are coming up for sale at the right points in their life cycle for sale. They don't tend to be that big because usually by the time they get to that next level, they've often been picked up by private equity, and they grow and they have multiple acquisitions themselves.
Actually, probably those businesses most times are not the right sort of businesses for us because when a process is gonna be run, because the value that's already been extracted and where the opportunity has already been taken out of it. Those owner-managed businesses that get to a certain size, working for a handful of customers on frameworks, being generally fairly focused and specialist, it kind of gets to that inflection point when they are, you know, sort of between sort of GBP 30 million and GBP 50 million in value. They can't kick the business on from there, and that's a good point for them for us to buy them.
I'll deal with the third point, Andrew . Rail, it's hard to believe we're at year three of the CP7 control cycle. Just over the horizon, people start to talk about CP8. I'll talk about views on the longer term opportunity in rail, but for now, I think the business has adapted well to the changing mix. It caught us a little bit by surprise, as it did our clients, having to spend more of their budget on different things. The mix has worked through the cycle. It feels permanent through this control period. I think we've adapted well to those increases in maintenance demand. All the signs and indicators are that we have a strong first half. We'll have a record year in rail maintenance.
The backdrop to balance that is that our renewals activity in rail is behind where we thought it would be. We recalibrated that forecast. The business has flexed it model, as I said. We found new routes to market to help mitigate that. We've pulled a number of levers in mitigating it. We've taken some people out of the business, which is painful at a time where those skills are also going to be in huge demand. You have to do these things. We've taken some people out, but we found other routes to market working for train operating companies, working in the telecommunication upgrade on the rail network. That's going quite nicely for us. Working for some combined local authorities who have some rail activity.
There's a couple of major rail programs outside of HS2 in the U.K. going on at the moment. The one that we're most interested in the northern region, the East- West Link, making some good progress there. There's possibly some news ahead of that scheme in the Transpennine Route that we're involved in. A lot of mitigation, and I think the business has found a new balance there. Is it likely to change? We've seen historically, Andrew, that in the final year of a Control Period, things can change depending on, you know, availability of funding. But we're not mapping that in. We're assuming for now, in terms of our short- and medium-term forecasts, the mix of rail is likely to stay where it is today.
It'd be wrong to think about rail without addressing the point about the future of rail. We have Great British Railways being formed in the background in parallel with the ongoing program. It's the subject of a transport bill. It has to get royal assent, which I'm told will happen this year. In the fullness of that, the body of the rail body will be formed active. The harmonization, in our opinion, train and track coming together under one body makes a lot of sense. It potentially will deal with a lot of inefficiency.
From our perspective, we are optimistic and pretty confident that the drivers to that program will be the safe, reliable operation of the rail network under severe stress from incredibly intense climatic events, as well as years of underinvestment. There's a lot of drivers at GBR which will be really focused on improving the passenger experience and safe, reliable performance of the U.K. network. We look forward to that with confidence and optimism. As the details start to emerge, clearly. Thank you, Andrew . Joseph Walker.
Morning. Joseph Walker from Panmure Gordon. Three questions from me, if I may. Firstly, on the organic revenue growth, you mentioned 2.2% in H1 and an acceleration in H2. Can you just talk through what's driving that acceleration? Secondly, on M&A, water and T&D, clearly both very attractive markets. Does that mean that you'll have to start paying a bit more for your acquisitions and will the multiples continue to move higher? Finally, costs across the construction sector are rising at the moment due to the ongoing energy crisis. What's your exposure there?
I'll let Sean go first there.
Yeah. Organic growth in the second half. I think if you look historically, you'll see that the second half of the year for us has always been much stronger, last year being the one exception. Obviously last year we had the issues around rail in the second half of the year. First year of, sorry, the start of the second year of CP7. It was a slightly anomalous year. In most years, you'll see typically we have higher revenue in the second. If we go back over a number of periods, I did this before we came in. The split roughly tends to be sort of 55%, 45% in terms of revenue, first half, second half. The key drivers of it are is, we get a bit of operational efficiency.
You know, longer daylight hours is as simple as that. Weather's a bit better. The networks are a bit drier, so we're able to do more work.
Unless things get delayed because of weather events. The site we're able to do certain types of activity that we can do in the second half that we can't do as much as the first half. Again, principally driven by weather. Most of them are water on the network, so a lot of drainage type work, which is just easier to do when the drains aren't at capacity. The consensus numbers, I think Joe, your numbers pretty much lined up with consensus, is that we can have around between sort of 6% and 7% organic growth for the full year. Despite achieving 2.2% in the first year, we're still comfortable with the full year consensus numbers that are out there.
The second one was on M&A, and the multiples we're paying. I don't think it's gonna move from where it is now. I think it's probably already moved. That's already happened. If you go back long enough, if you look, we're typically paying between sort of 6x and 7.5x EBITDA for the majority of our acquisitions. And I think outside of power and water, probably renewables, you can continue to pay those sort of multiples. Within those sectors, it depends on the, on the acquisition, the size, how many customers they have. There's all sort of various factors that determine the valuation. Generally speaking, for good quality businesses in power and T&D, you're probably more on the kind of 8x, 9x EBITDA. That's not new.
I'd say that's been around for, you know, two, three, maybe even four years now. There are certain subsectors where there's multiples even slightly higher. As you go more towards the white collar type activities, more design-led activities, you that gets into double-digit EBITDA multiples typically, which is fairly consistent. I'm not expecting any more significant moves in the M&A market for a number of years now has been really, really competitive for us. Which is why we where we can, we try to avoid buying businesses in formal sale processes through an auction. What we've been very good at over the years is identifying markets and businesses that we want to acquire, approaching those businesses when they're not for sale, building up relationship with them. We'll quite often find ways to work together.
We'll subcontract out work with them sometimes. We'll do business, do work with them, build that relationship, and plant the seed of a sale in their, in the owner's head and when the time comes. We're quite often pretty good at persuading them not to bother going and running a process and paying the fees and the cost that comes with that because we'll pay you a sensible price. We'll do a good deal. We'll absorb you through a Renew model. The Renew model from a vendor perspective is great because it protects the brand. We look after the people. It's, you know, we have the same values, you know, around health and safety and quality and all the important things as somebody who's grown a business like that from scratch will tend to care about.
We become quite an attractive buyer. That's what we're trying to do. By doing that, we're sourcing not some in terms of evaluations.
Yeah. On the cost piece, I think it'd, you know, be wrong of us not to acknowledge the pressure brought to bear. What I would ask you to consider, if you look back at one of Sean's presentations, the EPS tracks back over 15 years, if you think what's happened in that period of history in terms of a global pandemic, economic shocks, some of biblical and seismic proportion, what we've built in Renew is extremely resilient to those inflationary impacts because of discipline really. We, you know, we're not a business that will take risk, will take a place measured. We will not take on fixed price lump sum, you know, take the risk of those volatile economic circumstances into growing the business.
There's not a month goes by where the business will not be asked by a client to get into that territory. The discipline that we've got is to say no to that. You know, add value by delivering better. Our response to our costs going up, it'd be wrong of me not to We do sit and worry about our costs. Our response to it is being smart in delivering it. I mentioned keeping the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation alive. Our response to it is being smarter to delivering the service. We feel the weight of it. We are tested by our customers 'cause their budgets are under pressure. Semi-automating some of the things that we do is a differentiator for us.
I'd still ask you to look at some of the capital markets material from June 24, where we put on display there some routine tasks that have been assembled or semi-automated. We're de-vegetating the rail network, for example. Dramatically more efficient in terms of cost impact to the customer and getting that work delivered. Part of our challenge that we put to businesses is being smarter and more innovative, leaning into AI where we can, using data that tells us where we can be smarter. Ultimately, the commercial arrangements that we have, it'd be wrong of me to say they're soft, but they allow us in time to put any cost inflation we've got through to end customer.
That is the reality of what we choose to do in our end markets and how we are commercially engaged. We still feel the weight of it. You know, everything, our commodity, our energy consumption. We have an enormous fleet of vehicles that need to be fueled. You know, the cost pressures on people, employing people, making the sector attractive and compete, inevitably puts pressure obviously the cost of employing people. Again, back to the point, our response to that is be as defensive, be as resilient, pass those costs through where we can, but more than that, be smarter in driving costs out.
Any questions in the room? Matthew, anything coming through online?
Thank you, Paul. Confirming we have covered off all the online questions in the room. Given there are no further questions online, I would like to pass back to yourself for any closing remarks.
I suppose I'll repeat what I said in the outlook, really. You know, we are feeling some headwinds, equally we've got a lot of tailwinds behind us. Hopefully, that comes through. When I talk about four sectors, never been a better place to be positioned in terms of renewing and maintaining the quality of critical assets in the U.K. We've got to do better. For these unforgivable years of under investments, we're feeling that now, we are attaching ourselves to businesses that are non-discretionary nature. Things will move around a little bit through the course of the cycle, you know, we've become much broader in asset accessing our markets, not just in market exposure, but in our offering across those clients too. We've got more to go at.
We want to be a different business next year in terms of having more offerings to our clients. Our clients are telling us quite clearly what shape they would like us to be in. Listening to that, growing it organically, finding targets that can help us on that on that growth function. Maintaining a discipline around the balance sheet has served us really well. No longer is it just a factor for the investment community, but now our clients are increasingly looking at the health of the balance sheets of their strategic partners for tenure program support. It's important from that perspective too. That discipline has served us really well. The order book, as you guys know in the room, is very conservatively reported but very consistently reported.
It's a record level, and it represents a runway of a very clear, transparent, 12-month out kind of period, which does not reflect the full potential in the order book that Renew, which would be multi-billions of GBP out of the advertised value of the full term. This is hopefully a good confidence marker in how we are feeling and what is committed today. That gives us that good momentum, which is why we have the confidence in making further strategic and financial progress second half of the year and in years ahead of us. Thank you for listening .
Thank you very much. That brings the presentation to an end. Thank you.