Welcome to the Tracsis Full Year 2023 Results Webinar. All attendees are in listen-only mode, and questions will be answered at the end of the presentation. You could submit your questions at any time by clicking on the Q&A button during the presentation. This webinar is being recorded. I now hand over to Chris Barnes, CEO, and Andy Kelly, CFO. Chris, over to you.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much for joining the presentation this afternoon. The presentation will be split between Andy and I. It'll take about 35-40 minutes in total, and then we'll be available to answer any of the questions that you either post during the meeting or wish to ask at the end of the webinar. So what we'll do is just start with an overview of the business for anybody that's on this call who's not familiar with who Tracsis is. So overall, our fundamental purpose is to make transport work, and the business is split into two sections.
We have a software and product part of our business that has a very strong footprint across the rail technology space in both the U.K. and North America and has very high levels of recurring revenue. Then we have a second half of our business that we call data analytics, consultancy, and events, that has a mix of professional services, data science, and service-based provision that includes everything from traffic data surveys through to traffic management at major sporting events and music festivals. The two parts of the business complement each other in that we have a very strong footprint across the transport space. Our consultancy expertise enables us to get to the very highest levels of our customer base and to build their trust and ultimately to deliver software solutions to them.
Then the data that we collect from our software solutions then puts us in a very strong position to be able to then provide data insights, analytics, and visualization technologies that then go around making sure that that data improves where capital is deployed, improves operating performance, and improves operating efficiency. On the data analytics, consultancy, and events side, it's not—that's not a software side to our business. That is a business that has high levels of annual repeat revenue, but is very much about people and service provision. The business is built on a long track record of growth, all almost solely self-funded, through a mixture of both investment in technology and R&D, and also through investment in acquisition. The group currently has 550 employees split across the U.K., Ireland, and North America.
Roughly 50 in North America, roughly 100 in Ireland, and the rest in the U.K. And you can see from the, the slides on, the graphs on the page here, that we, pride ourselves on delivering, strong year-on-year growth. And that is a story very much underpinned by our strong cash generation and by our investment in new technology. Alongside that, we, are, strongly cash generative. The business doesn't have any debt. We've spent over GBP 40 million over the last three years on acquisitions to bring, new capability into the group. And this year, we've spent almost GBP 10 million in contingent and deferred consideration on a number of those acquisitions. So we've only got about GBP 400 thousand left to pay now on, historic acquisitions.
So that gives us an awful lot of horsepower now to focus on continuing to grow the group, especially through acquisition moving forward. So that's, that's it as a very quick introduction to the group. Now I'll just provide an overview of the highlights from the last 12 months. So we've made strong progress in implementing our growth strategy, that has seen us grow rail technology and services revenues by 26%. Importantly, that has seen a 9% increase in annual recurring revenues to now GBP 23.1 million. And that's an area which we will continue to see grow as the various SaaS implementations that we have in our order book go live.
Three of those SaaS implementations did go live this year, and we have a number of other ones that we'll talk through during this presentation that will go live during FY 2024 and FY 2025. Alongside that, we've seen really strong performance in our North American business. This was a business that we acquired in March 2022, and has, you know, a really strong product offering, both from the products and services that we acquired from the acquisition, but also from the technologies that we are planning to bring across to the North America from the U.K. rail sector. EBITDA continues to grow and has grown to GBP 16 million this year.
Importantly, as well, this year we've been on a restructuring journey with the group to simplify our operating model, and as part of that, the traffic data and events business has been integrated into a single business, which enables us to really focus on delivering our 2030 carbon neutral objectives, and also to bring those services together to offer a better, stronger value proposition to our customers. Overall, a strong set of results, and we'll go into more detail as we go through the presentation.
And then alongside this, one of the key questions we get asked by just about every investor in the business is: What does the future look like with regards to, I guess, three key things, digital transformation, changes of government that are a possibility in both the U.K. and North America over the next 12 months, and also ongoing industrial action, uncertainty around things like Great British Railways? What are the impacts of those on the Tracsis business? So in summary, we've got our, probably our largest-ever order book right now, of long-term work. We've got Network Rail now having confirmed that they've got GBP 43.1 billion of funding confirmed for Control Period 7, which starts next April. We've got an industry that is very much focused on improving train performance, both for passengers and for freight.
And we, at the moment, have a rapidly growing month-on-month pipeline of new opportunities. So in terms of, is there a demand from the industry? Absolutely, yes. In terms of government change, both our largest rail markets will go through general elections in the next 12 months. If you look at both those economies, efficient and effective public transport is essential if a government is gonna drive its decarbonization and sustainability agenda. So through all of the conversations we're having with civil servants in both geographies, the message back is that the investment in digital transformation, the investment in better public transport and public services, is gonna continue. And therefore, given the service offering and the product offering that Tracsis has, we should continue to focus on what we're good at, and the demand will continue to come through those two markets.
And then finally, in the King's Speech last week, there was some clarity in the U.K. around the commitment to Great British Railways, but still no commitment in terms of timing. So that is still providing us with some uncertainty in the U.K. And then the other key thing we're seeing in North America is we're now starting to see a transition to an increasingly SaaS-focused model. So historically, North America has been very perpetual license focused, and if there is an opportunity, we would clearly like to see much more recurring revenue in that market. So those two factors will probably link, result in an outcome where our H1 and H2 revenues will be slightly more weighted towards H2. That we're just making everybody aware of in a very transparent fashion.
We are still very confident in the long-term growth prospects of the group, and that we will deliver our full year results for FY 2024 as currently forecast. So that's it in terms of an introduction. I'll ask Andy now to provide you with an overview of the financial performance for FY 2023.
Thanks, Chris. So we're pleased to be reporting another strong financial performance for the group this year. That's been characterized by continued strong revenue growth. So total revenue for the group increased by 19%, and as we'll see in a second, that reflects double-digit growth in both divisions of the business. Our organic revenue growth was 10%. In the U.K., that includes continued growth in rail software revenue, and from a hardware perspective, a record year from our road condition monitoring business. And in the data analytics consultancy and events division, strong growth in all parts of that division. And that was supplemented by almost GBP 9 million of revenue from the North American rail technology business that we acquired in March 2022, which was a really pleasing performance and ahead of our expectations at the time of acquisition.
The growth in revenue delivered a 13% increase in adjusted EBITDA to GBP 16 million. Our EBITDA margin of 19%, whilst it's similar to what you would have seen in our first half, is a little bit lower than we would normally expect. The biggest driver there is one million pounds of investment that we've made this year in simplifying the group and enhancing some of our key capabilities, including around our SaaS delivery model and growing out our commercial teams in both the U.K. and in North America. We'll talk a little bit more about that later on in this presentation. That million pounds of cost is structural, so that's OpEx that we expect to repeat going forward. That investment is all about accelerating revenue growth and margin accretion as we move forward.
In the prior year, we had about GBP 3.5 million of exceptional costs to do with, changes in contingent consideration, acquisition costs, and, our minority investments. They didn't repeat this year, and therefore, the relationship between our adjusted EBITDA measure and our statutory profit measures is much closer, and as a result of that, we saw significant growth this year in our statutory profit measures. Turning now to our divisional performance. On the rail technology side of the business, as Chris said, strong revenue growth, 26% in total, that represents 8% organic growth. And as you can see from the two charts on the right-hand side, strong revenue growth in both the U.K. and in North America. Chris mentioned that the recurring revenue here increased by 9% to GBP 23 million.
That's an increasingly important focus for us, and going forward, we would like to sell our products on an increasingly SaaS recurring revenue basis. You can see from the margin here that that's come down to 27%. Again, that reflects that investment that we made in the year in order to position this part of the business for accelerated growth and margin accretion as we go forward. And so as we come through FY 2024 and into FY 2025, we would expect the margins on this side of the group to return to above the 30% level. And the reason we've made that investment is because we have got a growing pipeline of large opportunities in the rail sectors in both the U.K. and in North America. On the data analytics, consultancy, and events division, we saw strong growth here as well.
In our professional services business, so that's both our specialist rail consultancy and our data analytics business, we had 17% revenue growth to GBP 15.4 million. We're seeing good demand for that part of the business. And as part of our simplification activities, we fully integrated the traffic data and events businesses, and that delivered a record revenue year of just under GBP 29 million. So this side of the business doesn't have recurring license revenue in quite the same way, but nonetheless, it does have a high amount of repeat sticky year-on-year revenue. And this year, that increased by 25% to GBP 16.5 million. We had some important contract wins during the year, and we've also had some renewals of some of our biggest contracts, both during FY 2023 and in the start of FY 2024.
So as we sit here today, we've got a strong order book going into this financial year. We do have some revenue in this side of the business that we don't expect will repeat in FY 2024. In total, that's about GBP 3 million, and therefore, we think that this side of the business will deliver a financial performance in FY 2024 at roughly similar levels to what we've delivered in FY 2023. Turning to cash, the group continues to deliver healthy levels of cash generation. We have no debt, and while overall cash decreased by GBP 1.9 million in the year, that was after spending GBP 9.6 million to satisfy the material remaining earn-outs and deferred consideration.
So as Chris mentioned, we've got approximately GBP 400 thousand still to pay over the next 2 years, but that means that from a capital allocation perspective, the cash that we're gonna be generating going forward is now pretty much fully allocated towards driving both organic and acquisitive growth. We invested about GBP 300 thousand this year in completing the development of the Hopsta smart ticketing app, and that's a key growth driver for us in the smart ticketing space. We saw an increase in working capital again this year. That reflects trading patterns. In particular, it reflects an increasing receivables book at the end of the year that's been recovered, and we've had no recoverability issues on that side of the business. One and a half million pounds of CapEx for us is quite a high amount.
As well as reflecting our activity levels, that also includes investment to upgrade our our IT systems and operating environment as part of the transformation activities that Chris will take you through shortly. So overall, continued strong cash generation leaves us in a really good position to continue to invest in the growth of the business. I'll pass you back now to Chris to talk about some of those transformation activities that are underway across the group.
Some of you will be very familiar with the long-term story of Tracsis, and some of you won't. But basically, I took over as CEO in 2019, and took over a very, very successful buy and build strategy from the founders of the business. That nature of the businesses at that time, they were very much standalone, and that model worked really well for us at that stage. We had a real focus in terms of specific product and technology offerings in very different parts of the rail market. The only thing we really did differently to start with was to focus very much on how we could get more consistent organic growth into the business.
We then, alongside that, had a large order book of SaaS contracts that we have started to go live this year, but that we've been delivering for the sort of last 18 months, starting to get the delivery right for the last 18 months. What became very clear during that is that we needed to make some changes to the organization, both in terms of the skill sets that we had, but also in terms of the processes that we use to develop and release software. Last year, we made an investment in enhanced capabilities across the business. So we brought in a new group managing director. We've got a rail technology CTO starting with us very shortly.
We've made investments in our people team, investments in our IT and delivery teams, and that has all been focusing around bringing together our U.K. rail technology businesses, and also, at the same time, upskilling and expanding our commercial teams, such that we can really make the most of the opportunities that are in front of us, and improve the delivery of those large SaaS contracts. So what our focus is on at the moment now is on the group transformation actions that you can see in dark blue at the bottom corner of the slide. That's really about improving the timeliness, quality, and repeatability of what we do.
So if we're to be able to scale the business and really benefit from the transition to more and more SaaS revenue, we've got to make sure that we've got a product that's repeatable, that we've got a product that is delivered in partnership with our clients to a predetermined, you know, really well-defined set of delivery timelines, and is also something that we can really benefit from in terms of increased margin, in terms of then increased investment in those systems, to make sure that we can keep them at the leading edge of what we do.
So there will be around GBP 2 million of costs that we take this year as part of that group transformation, but what that will enable us to then do at the end of that, is to have a much more integrated business model, especially here in the U.K., that will enable us to scale for growth moving forward. So Andy, would you just walk everybody through what's included in that GBP 2 million of exceptional cost, please?
Yeah, of course. So the key component parts of that are to do with removing duplication around the business. So having gone from 10 operating units to 4 operating units, it's making sure that we've got the efficiencies in that model. That does include headcount reductions. It's also about streamlining our operating footprint, so both in terms of the number of locations that we operate from, also in terms of our legal entity footprint. It's investing to upgrade our systems and processes, including our finance and management information systems, to match the size of the group today, but mainly the anticipated pace of growth going forward... and it's what we're calling enhancing our IT and software product operating model. What we mean by that is having a consistent way across the group that we de-develop, deliver, and then support our technology products.
So doing that according to best practice principles, doing it in a consistent way and a joined up way, and that's the secret to really achieving that increased speed, quality, and repeatability of delivery, but then importantly, the scalability of the margins as we drive revenue from those products going forward. So all in all, we think that will be in the order of GBP 2 million of exceptional investment this year. The majority of that will be in the first half of the year, and the focus then is to come out of that transformation phase into FY 2025, with the business set up for scalable growth going forward. So I'll pass you back to Chris to start the operational update section.
Okay, so we'll start those updates in the U.K. rail technology space. So over the course of the year, we have brought that team together under a single leadership team for many of the reasons that Andy has just talked about, to give us that opportunity to collaborate more strongly, to better share technology across those different groups, and also to act in a much more coordinated way around in which we interact with our customers. So moving towards having key account directors for Network Rail, for the Train Operating Companies, for the Freight Operating Companies, and making sure we've really got that close relationship with all of our customers. So in the U.K., we've got four growth vectors. We've got TRACS Enterprise.
This year, two full scale go lives have occurred for that product with U.K. train operating companies, and we've got three further deployments that will be implemented in FY 2024. We're now talking to customers around deployments for FY 2025 as we continue to look to roll this product out across the U.K. Our RailHub platform, which is our safety and risk management platform, is now fully integrated into Network Rail and the rail supply chain, and there's 40,000 users now of that product.
That's now a standing starting point now in conversations with Network Rail around additional features and functions that we want to add into that platform, that will form either a replacement of legacy systems that have come to the end of their useful life, or increasingly, how do we bring more data interrogation and data analytics capabilities onto that platform? So it's a great start, a great entry point for us into expanding our ecosystem across the rail infrastructure space. As we've said already, we had a record year for installation of remote condition monitoring solutions. We have long-term relationships and contracts with Network Rail, and importantly, we're starting to now build out the the network of opportunities that we have into North America.
And then we'll talk about this in a little bit more detail in the R&D section is, we've also made strong progress with both our smart ticketing and Delay Repay products. We've gained market share with both, and we'll provide a bit more information on where we are with our, Hopsta app development in a subsequent slide. But overall, the U.K. has got a strong order book, we've got a growing month-by-month pipeline, and it's all about now looking at opportunities across our previously sort of very siloed product offerings, to look at opportunities where we can bring some of those together and further expand our market position and the products that we offer to our customer base. The next update is on North American rail.
So you can see in the picture on the right-hand side here, we've actually rebranded the business in October of this year. So everything in North America, as we evolve and grow this business, will be branded as Tracsis, which is a different approach to that which we took in the U.K., where, as we acquired businesses in the U.K., historically, they kept their original identity and branding. In the U.S., we're starting from a position of using the Tracsis brand. That's been really well received by the industry. I was out in the U.S. in October. A number of senior execs of transit operators and class I's are really interested in what we're doing in that model, with this model.
They're very interested in the technologies we already have in the U.K., and are looking for new competitors and new technologies to come into the U.S. marketplace. As Andy said earlier on, we're really pleased with the performance of our North American business this year. There's a real energy in the U.S. There's a real focus to want to grow and expand our product offering, and we have a market that's very receptive to that. In the U.S., there are three key growth vectors. Two of these are products that we acquired with the business, so the first is in Computer-Aided Dispatch, and we will launch a really important new variant of this product in February of next year, which links into Positive Train Control.
We think that's a very large market that we will be looking to expand and grow into over the coming years. We have Yard Automation, which is a long-term set of products that RailComm, who we acquired, had developed. There are lots of opportunities there for expansion into large ports, into mining infrastructure, and to many other industrial sectors in the U.S., and that's a real focus for growth for us. And then, remote condition monitoring is now driven directly by our team in the U.S. We've got a number of trials in progress, and we're hoping to see that materialize into more substantive contracts and growth as we move forward.
We've obviously got a strong track record in the U.K., a product that is known a little bit in the U.S. because we've been selling it in the U.S. for a number of years through a reseller, but now there's a real focus on how we can push that product further with our own sales team. So both parts of our rail business, seeing really strong demand, really good order books, and we're very confident in both those markets, that we've got a strong team of people and that we're in a good place to continue to grow. Andy, can I ask you to give the updates on the other two areas, please?
... Yeah, will do. So, our professional services vertical includes two main activities. So this includes our specialist rail and transport consultancy business. We're seeing continued strong demand in that part of the business, and it's a really important area of our group, 'cause that gives us a great shop window for the rest of what Tracsis offers, gives us really close access to our key customers, particularly in the U.K. This also includes our data analytics, GIS, and Earth Observation business. And this is, on this whole part of division, the area which we think is probably the biggest growth opportunity for us, which is around this concept of data insight. So we're seeing more and more demand from customers in the transport sector, and also outside, to have really precise data about their asset locations, about their asset performance and condition.
That becomes really powerful when you can start to build that up with some visualization, and when you can start to layer in other data sources to give you a much more real-time, a much more sophisticated, and a much more meaningful view of your operations in your network, whatever that may be. We've got a number of capabilities in this space. We're getting, a number of inbound requests from customers about how we can help them in this area, and one of our strategic objectives is to grow these capabilities increasingly in the transport space and the rail space that we operate in on the other side of the division. As I mentioned before, our traffic data and events businesses have been completely integrated this year.
Two main reasons for doing that: One is to, to maximize our operational efficiency and our, our margin optimization in this part of the business, but it also means that we've got a completely joined up and focused approach to health and safety, and also to carbon reduction. So we've set ourselves a target of being carbon neutral by 2030. Over 70% of the group's carbon emissions comes from the vehicle fleet that these two businesses operate. So by bringing this together, it gives us real focus in this area, and we can start to, optimize our operating footprint and bring together our efforts to achieve our ESG goals. And this business, on the back of contract wins and a return to full activity levels and traffic data, delivered a record revenue performance in FY 2023.
Just before we wrap up, on the subject of ESG, we've made good progress again this year towards our ESG objectives. You will see in the annual report that will be published in early December, full TCFD report alongside our sustainability reporting. A key part of our environmental objective this year has been rolling out ISO 14001 right across the group. This is the environmental management standard, and ensures that as we move towards our carbon reduction goals, we're doing that in an ISO certified way. We've had particular focus this year on our S social objectives. Our focus in this area is around accessibility to technology. We have sponsored and helped deliver a number of initiatives and activities around increasing access and increasing the diversity of people who are building their careers in tech.
We find this is a really important area for our employee proposition. We get huge amounts of engagement from our people in this area. And sustainability, in terms of what Tracsis is and what Tracsis does, is a core part of what we do as a business. With that, I'll pass back to Chris.
Right. So we've just got what? A couple of slides to finish the presentation now. So the first of those is on investment in next generation rail technology. So we have a mix of approaches that we take in this space, one of which is working very closely with our partners to develop technology on an ongoing basis, in partnership with our clients, and in partnership and alignment with their roadmaps. And during the course of this year, across the top, you can see some of the features we're adding into the RailHub platform, some of the features we're adding into the TRACS Enterprise platform, and features we're adding into the Computer Aided Dispatch platform.
Many of those are about responding to customer requests for, we've got areas of our business which we'd like to incorporate into a particular piece of software, or areas where legislation is coming in, so something like fatigue management became much more of a legislative requirement. So we've got a mixture of drivers here that kind of drive the product roadmaps that sit behind these businesses. With TRACS Enterprise in particular, we've added more functionality around station rostering.
We are developing a freight variant of that product, and as with all of our products, we're also trying to create them in a modular manner, so that we've got an opportunity not to just have to deploy the complete end-to-end solution, but have optionality about more modular deployment, hence faster deployment and easier deployment for our customers, who often do not have the resource availability to be able to cope with a very complex, all-in-one, sort of, go live event. We've got plans for developing our Centrix IoT platform. Lots of questions in America right now about predictive analysis, about can the system be expanded to cover different types of assets, and how do we-...
Do more and more with the visualization capabilities around not just what we pick up from remote condition monitoring, but what do we pick up from other pieces of software and technology that sit across the Tracsis portfolio? Then finally, in the bottom right-hand corner, we have been developing our Hopsta smart ticketing app. That product is now complete. We've been UAT testing that over the last few months. We are now waiting for Great British Railways to give direction on the trialing of this system. What the expectation is that they'll be trialing a number of different technologies across the U.K. in different pilot areas, with a view to understanding what's the best technology? Is there a single solution? Are there multiple solutions? Are there different way of integrating these technologies together?
We think we've got a very strong product offering here that builds on the capabilities of our existing deployments. So just so everybody can remember, we've got. You can access our technology via a smart card. You can access our technology via a contactless bank card, and this gives the option to have the technology via, effectively, like, a Mobility as a Service app on your mobile phone. Everybody's gonna have a different view as to which technology they would prefer to deploy in the geography in which they're based. But we are working in partnership with, with the industry and with the train operators to understand what that rollout plan will look like. So that's an area of real interest for us, and could potentially have a big vector for growth for us over the coming months and years.
Lots going on in the R&D space. Then to conclude, in terms of the look forward, before we open up for questions, we remain really confident in the long-term prospects for growth across the group. We've got record levels of order book across all different parts of the business right now, and a growing month-on-month pipeline. That is a really strong indicator that there is demand for our products and services. That is not just in the passenger space, but it's also across the freight and the infrastructure sectors as well. That growth is likely to be weighted towards H2, because of the SaaS transition that we're seeing in North America, and also because of the phasing of some of our delivery milestones on the large SaaS contracts here in the U.K.
So what are we gonna be doing moving forward? Well, we're gonna be continuing to invest in R&D and new technology, and we'll be continuing to focus on the successful delivery of the large SaaS projects that we have in our order book. We'll be completing the transformation actions that we spoke about earlier in this presentation, and embedding best practice so that we've got that ability to scale, we've got that ability to improve the speed of delivery, and hence, we've got the ability to speed up the pace at which we can recognize that revenue. We didn't do any acquisitions this year. It is our intention to continue to do acquisitions, and for that to be a core part of our strategy moving forward. Those acquisitions will be in more focused areas.
They'll be focused around rail software and technology, and they will be focused in either the U.K., in North America, or in mainland Europe. We will continue to implement our ESG priorities, and as stated, our, our objective is to be carbon neutral by 2030. And this really ties into the M&A point. We're also keen to continue the international expansion of the group, to really ensure that we're making the most of the opportunities that exist, not just in our current markets, but also in adjacent markets in, in other territories. So overall, a great year. We've got a very strong team of people across the organization who've worked incredibly hard to make, to deliver this success, and we think we're in a very strong position to benefit from the demand and growth that lies ahead of us.
Thank you very much for joining the presentation. We will now open up for any questions that you might have.
Many thanks, Chris. So if you have a question, click on the Q&A button and type it in. And, we've got a question here: What's a normalized EBITDA margin for the business, taking into account mix changes, et cetera?
That's a good question. So, the reason that we're making the changes and the transformations we are in the group at the moment, is to return that EBITDA margin to being in excess of 20%, which is what the business has delivered previously. And then if we can deliver the growth that we see in the pipeline, and if we can achieve that transition to an increasingly SaaS-based model of implementation, then we would expect to continue to see that EBITDA margin to grow, you know, up towards the mid-20s over the next sort of 3-5 years.
Great. Thank you very much. And another question about EBIT, which that might partly answer. From 2016 to 2022, you almost doubled your adjusted EBIT. But looking at the organic contribution, by deducting all of the acquired operating profit from the 2022 adjusted EBIT number, and recognized contribution from RailComm in 2020, you've only grown adjusted EBIT organically by about 2.5%. I acknowledge that COVID has had a toll on the business, and also that 2023 has been a great organic growth. But could you elaborate on this, and what is a prudent level of organic profit growth that we as shareholders should expect?
There's lots of detail in there. I think it's absolutely spot on that we haven't seen the profit growth that matches the rate of revenue growth over the period. And again, that does come back to the previous question about why we're making the changes in the organization that we are, and why we think this is the right point in our life cycle and in our journey to make those changes. I think going forward, we would like to deliver, from a revenue perspective, we'd like to deliver 10% growth on the rail side of the business. That may not necessarily be 10% every year, but over the cycle, an average of 10% growth.
That may be slightly lower on the base side of the business, so the overall group growth might be slightly under 10%, but we need to get that leverage through to the profit margin. So, I would expect that the profit growth over that period, you know, you would expect that to be at least 10% and ideally growing further than that as we increasingly adopt that SaaS model.
Great. Thank you very much. And on remote condition monitoring, excuse my basic question, but what assets are you monitoring, and what are you checking for? And generally, what is the revenue model you operate?
Okay, so the model is split into two parts. There's a hardware model, which is selling the data acquisition/data loggers that are installed line side across the railway. So in the U.K., there's somewhere in the region of 20,000 of those units now installed across the U.K. railway. They are typically on a sort of 10-year+ MRO cycle, so they do need replacing, you know, as I said, every sort of 10-15 years. So of the circa GBP 6 million of remote condition monitoring revenue that we delivered last year, about GBP 5 million of that is in hardware, and around GBP 1 million is in software.
So the GBP 1 million for software is in our Centrix data acquisition platform, which makes us unique in that we have both the hardware element to collate the data, and then we have the software element to enable you to interrogate the data, set alarms, look at trends and performance, try and forecast when there's gonna be asset failures or moments where you need to intervene as part of a maintenance cycle. So we've come sort of from a signaling background, so the assets we cover are typically points related, signaling related, level crossing related, very much electrical inputs that come into our system. But there are clearly lots of other things around things like vibration. There's an increasing look at things like subsidence, vegetation, flooding, overhead cable performance.
All sorts of things that would like to be added into a platform like ours, and they are the types of areas where we are discussing with customers around what that roadmap might look like moving forward. We've got a very strong starting point. We've got a very strong position, like, especially in the U.K. market, but we're always looking at how we can evolve that technology moving forward to capture more and more of the market opportunity.
Great, thank you very much. On rail software, you bought On Trac in December 2015, and back then, it was generating around £5 million in revenue. Despite the fact that the number of users has increased by about 40,000 on On Trac revenue, sorry, has increased above 40,000 on the On Trac revenue, it was just £5.1, sorry, £5.2 million in 2022, according to the Companies House information, and the EBIT was below 2015 levels. Could you help me understand the quantitative metrics when it optically looks like On Trac is gaining importance and performing very well?
Yeah, so in the case of On Trac, I mean, that is a part of the business that through that period has gone through that transition from to now offering a product that's based on a single platform. And actually, that RailHub sale was a mixture of a perpetual license and then an ongoing support and maintenance agreement. So that's a great example of a part of the business where the year-on-year movements can be slightly up or down, but actually, you know, the objective is to get that growth over the cycle at the right level. So we haven't yet filed the accounts for this year, but you will see On Trac's numbers for this year. It's delivered a good level of growth, double-digit growth on the prior year.
We're confident that we're getting that revenue growth from that part of the business. The RailHub product rollout has been very successful. We are gearing up for the next delivery of functionality and product enhancement for that product. We would expect to see continued growth in that part of the business.
Great, thank you. And to go on from there, the questioner says, "Many thanks for the presentation, and congratulations for this great set of results. Regarding North America, there have been many investment plans for rail recently, the latest of them being for the Northeast Corridor. Do you already see the effects of these plans in the order book, or is it too early?
It's too early from an order book perspective, but it's not from a pipeline visibility point of view. So we have changed our sales team quite significantly in the U.S. over the last 12 months, deliberately to get us closer to our customers and more engaged in these type of conversations. So we've restructured the team, where we've now got an experienced sales lead for Class I's, which is the freight operators. We've got an experienced lead now for our transit business, which is the passenger operations that happen across a large number of U.S. cities. And then we've got a sales lead for industrials and ports, which is linked to our Yard Automation capability. The dynamic change we're seeing in the U.S. market is, we are much more proactive in our engagement in conversations where we can see opportunities for new business introductions.
But the East and West Coast ports in the U.S. have seen huge increases in freight traffic, driven by global demand, and as a result of that, need enhanced levels of automation and efficiency to be able to process all of those that increase in container shipment. And so that's an area where we're getting engaged. You mentioned the Northeast Corridor, that's another area where we can see investment, and we can see opportunities for us to be able to be part of the technology investment that will go with it. So we've not yet seen it in our order book, but that is absolutely part of why we think the U.S. is such an important market to us.
Tremendous. Thank you very much. The questioner goes on to ask: Regarding M&A, you mentioned mainland Europe, could you elaborate on this, what you're looking for, a portfolio of customers first? What are the technological bricks you are targeting today? And do you have any specific country in mind?
Yeah, so acquisitions in mainland Europe are not about adding capability to what we've already got. Anything in Europe would be more about gaining access to markets that we can't currently access. So what we're really looking for in Europe would be access to new markets, which would then be delivering similar technologies and product solutions to those that we've already got here in the U.K. If you had to look at North America, that's gonna be different. So North America is gonna be more about building out the scale in our operations in the U.S. We don't want to do that like we have in the U.K., with lots of small, sort of, very geographically spread acquisitions.
What we'd like to do that, is through much more substantive acquisitions, that enable us to build headcount, build scale, give customers increasing confidence that we're in the US and here to stay, but in complementary technology areas that add to what we've already got. So it's a different approach, in different geographies, at different points in time. But, yeah, there's a lot of activity in that space, and acquisition is absolutely a core part of our business model moving forward.
In Europe, do you have a specific country in mind?
No. What we're looking for is we would like to find somebody that gives us a broad geographic base. So I would prefer not to be buying something that just gives us a footprint in Germany, or just gives us a footprint in France, but somebody that's actually got a multi-country footprint, that enables us to really benefit from entry into, you know, several different marketplaces within Europe.
Great. Thank you very much. Can you comment on current valuation metrics of potential acquisition targets? Are they mainly bolt-ons, or would you also consider something more sizable? How do you identify acquisitions?
Okay, so it's less about bolt-ons and more about more sizable targets, is currently what we're pursuing. And if we find a bolt-on that has a particular skill set that we need, or particular access to a customer that we can't do ourselves, then we will continue to add those to the group. But more sizable acquisitions are really what we're targeting. Our approach has always been one of building relationships with targets, and then trying to secure those businesses off market, i.e., not through a proper sales process. And sort of building a long-term trust relationship, almost starting from a partnership point of view, and then that naturally evolving into a decision at a point in time, where that business would like to...
The owners of that business would like to exit and become part of the Tracsis organization. That's not always possible, but that's how we try and approach our acquisition targets. And in terms of multiples, and what's happening in the market, we are seeing more inbound inquiries in the last, I would say, 6-8 weeks, than we've seen for a while. Which is probably driven, I would imagine, largely by people being concerned about future funding and future availability of, you know, of trying to manage the cash within those businesses. And we are starting to see multiples start to soften as well. So especially, there's been very, very high ARR multiples quoted, sort of 12-18 months ago. Those numbers are coming down now.
And we will. We've always been very sensible in the, the valuations we've applied on targets, and we will, and we will continue to do so moving forward.
Great. Thank you very much. With the SaaS revenue increasing, do you expect this to contribute a higher share of revenue in the future, perhaps towards 50%?
Yeah, we'd absolutely love it to increase in terms of share of revenue. Whether we can get it to 50% or not, I don't know, but I think strategically, our goal is to increasingly sell on that SaaS model where we have the opportunity to. Now, that's not gonna necessarily work for all of our products and all of our offerings, but absolutely, that ARR metric is a key KPI for us, and year on year, we wanna see that continuing to grow.
Great. Thank you very much. And how should we think about Hopsta? Is it effectively a nationwide Oyster card? Can you do things like link your Rail card to the app, which you can't do with debit card, PAYG? And is the end goal for ticketless travel and charges based off geolocation?
Yes. Is the answer to all those questions. So that is the power of the Hopsta product. You can. You basically create your own profile, you link that to your chosen payment methodology, and you add in Rail cards or any type of concession that you're entitled to. The technology, the route we're going to market, is we are not going after the B2C market. We are not a consumer brand. We're going after the B2B market, in partnership with train operators.
The vision we have for it is the technology will be the same across the whole of the U.K., but it will probably end up being individually branded train operator by train operator in each region, to give you the understanding of who owns your customer data and who your key interface is as a user. But it's completely interoperable across the U.K. The magic behind it is in the best fare guarantee that comes with that solution. Andy and I already have that system on our phones working. We can't actually use it to travel. We still have to buy a proper ticket in conjunction with it, but the functionality works. We're able to experiment with what it does.
For anybody that's seen it, it has a really powerful reaction, and it, at the end of the day, it comes down to being a truly frictionless way of traveling, without the need to pre-plan, without the need to pre-pay, and also give you the guarantee that you've got the best value. You're paying the best value amount over a given period of time. So for us, we see this as very much kind of the evolution in the ticketing experience for people within the U.K. rail market. And we're working with Great British Railways and the train operators to understand how that can best be rolled out, in a way that we don't confuse customers, but we take them through a journey where they understand how to use the technology and make the most of it.
Great. Thank you very much. On B2C rail software and Delay Repay, could you elaborate on the durability and defensiveness of the Delay Repay and the customer experience revenue streams? While I'm aware that the adaptation is ramping up, and it looks like a promising segment, why wouldn't the government insource this over time? It seems like an area that's subject to less change, and I'd like to understand the durability of your position in the segment.
Okay, so on Delay Repay, when we've been talking to Great British Railways, we're not aware of any intention for them to insource or centralize the way in which that operation is run. We're continuing to win new contracts in that space, as we've put into our recent financial results. So we've got an increasing dominance and market position. We've got a very well-established methodology that is, you know, gets very, very positive feedback from customers, in terms of the experience and how easy it is to claim Delay Repay. So I don't think that's an area that's big enough for the government to want to change the course of direction. The smart ticketing piece is more complex. It's a very, very complicated marketplace. The government obviously wants to ensure that there's maximum competition there.
So you've got, Trainline has a very, very dominant market position as a B2C brand. You can buy train tickets directly from train operators. There are third parties, like Uber, who are trying to enter the market as well. So I think the overall objective of the government is to make sure that there's a playing field that is open to everybody, but ultimately, we don't want to confuse the consumer. So we will see, under Great British Railways, a much stronger, I think, focus on what these technologies are gonna offer. With a view to making sure that from a consumer point of view, they don't get confused, but are able to see that there is progress being made, and that the industry is making use of the, the best available technologies that sit across the supply chain.
So I think on the ticketing side, there will be a level of government intervention and direction. We don't believe that's gonna be the case on the Delay Repay side. So for us, we see... We bought the iBlocks business because we saw this as a potentially huge growing market. It is relatively slow, in terms of how it is evolving and developing, because there are so many stakeholders involved, but it potentially is a huge growth, revenue growth opportunity for us. And we're getting a great reception to the products that we have.
Great. Thank you. Many consumer businesses, particularly telecoms, rely on inertia and friction, so customers don't have the most efficient price, and this must be a considerable source of additional revenue. Why would rail companies be keen to minimize fares paid by customers?
Yeah. Well, the conversations we have with rail operators are that, if we can get the right consumer offer there, we'll actually see incremental revenue coming into the industry, rather than revenue going out of the industry. So I think the view is really one, if we build a better consumer experience, that's built on increased trust around the fact that you're getting a best value fare, that you're able to travel in volume and get discounts that reflect your true travel pattern, that actually what you'll end up with, is a further recovery in passenger numbers. So if you look at the I can't remember the exact numbers at the moment on the rail landscape, but leisure travel is back at, or beyond, pre-COVID levels. But clearly, most leisure travelers are traveling off-peak.
On-peak, which is where train companies used to make all of their money, is still, I think, something like 15% down on what it was pre-COVID. And that's because people aren't buying season tickets, and people aren't traveling five days a week. So if we can create a situation where people are, are able to go into a city five days a week for work, and know they're not gonna be financially penalized, because the, the system will only ever charge what it would've charged, had they have a weekly season ticket, then I think you're in a position where suddenly people will be increasingly coming back onto the trains. It will generate more revenue. That revenue generates more-- creates more jobs and more sustainability for the sector, and we end up in a, in a much, much stronger, viable long-term position.
And then, obviously, our technology is also multimodal. So you then start to link in bus travel with train travel, with light rail travel, and suddenly you've got something where a consumer really feels at the center of that experience.
... Great, thank you very much. And how confident are you in the timing of revenues and growth for the rest of the year? A second half weighting always makes investors nervous.
Great, sure.
Yeah. Yeah, no, I understand that. We've got good visibility for this year. We do still need to convert some things in the pipeline in H2, but we've got visibility to about 95% of our full year revenue so far. So that gives us the confidence, and we are seeing the size of the pipeline increasing at the moment. So those two factors give us the confidence that we can at least deliver the full year this year, despite the H2 weighting.
Tremendous. Thank you very much. And if a sizable opportunity arises on M&A, would you take some leverage? And if so, to what extent?
Yes, I think, I think following on from what Chris said about, you know, the sorts of businesses we're looking for, I think we are looking for more scale opportunities, on the acquisition front. And if that was beyond what we could self-fund from, then we would, you know, we would look to come to the market to, to help fund the right acquisition. So that would be considered on a case-by-case basis. But I think what's important for investors is that, you know, we wouldn't be restricted by what we can just continue to self-fund. If we find a really attractive, accretive growth target that, that we need to come to the market for, then we will do that.
Great. Thank you very much. At this stage, the final question: Touchstar PLC seems to offer a complementary offering to the professional services division. Is this something for consideration?
I'm not aware specifically of that organization. I'll go and take a look in a moment. But there are lots of other organizations that have very similar capabilities to what we have in data analytics and GIS, and what we have in consultancy, but we don't provide a generalist service. So the way in which we differentiate our offering is that our consultancy service is very much focused on the transport space, and in particular on expertise in areas where ultimately our customers are using our software or our products as part of their day-to-day business.
An example of that would be timetabling or train planning or train control, where they're using our software or parts of our software in different parts of their operation, and we're either helping them to optimize the use of those products, or we're helping them understand how better to use those products. So our consultancy operation is very much tied into a lot of the products and services that we provide.
And our data analytics and GIS capabilities, although coming from an origin across, for, in Ireland, which has been very focused more on the environmental sectors rather than the transport sector, they are building already capabilities in the Ireland, in conjunction with the transport authorities in Ireland, and increasingly with conversations with people like Irish Rail and now into the U.K., where we think there's a real carry across of that capability tied to our deep, domain knowledge within the rail and transportation space. So where we're trying to differentiate ourselves is, you come to Tracsis, and we provide a service where we really understand what the data means. How do you utilize that data to then make really informed decisions that actually demonstrably improve the efficiency, the operational performance, or the way in which capital is invested within the industry?
So ours is very much focused around the core areas of competence that we have, and there are many other companies out there that offer similar services, but with a similar mindset, but in different geographies and in different sectors of the industry. But ours is very much focused around where we see our core expertise.
Tremendous. Many thanks indeed. That's the end of questions. Chris, do you have any closing remarks?
Just to say thank you very much, everybody, for your interest in Tracsis. As I said, at the conclusion earlier on, we've got a great team of people. We've got some fantastic products. We've got some fabulous long-term customer relationships, and we're just very much focused on making sure that we can deliver really positive outcomes for the industries in which we operate, and that we continue to deliver, you know, good levels of growth, and enjoy the journey that we're on. We've got—you know, it's great fun delivering some of the things that we deliver, and it's a privilege to lead this business. So thank you very much for joining us, and we look forward to speaking to you all in the near future.
Great. Many thanks, Chris and Andy. And to everyone listening, you'll now be taken to a webpage to give feedback on today's presentation. If you can't complete it now, you'll receive a follow-up email. We'd be really grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete. Many thanks for joining. This is the end of the webinar.