Good afternoon, and welcome to the Transense Technologies plc Interim Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted at any time using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll, and I would now like to hand you over to Executive Chairman, Nigel Rogers. Good afternoon to you, sir.
Good afternoon, and thank you for hosting again today, and welcome to everybody on the cast. I hope everybody gets what they're looking for out of this presentation, which is an update with our interim results for FY 2026, six months ended 31st of December 2025.
I'm sure the vast majority of people will have had a chance to look at the RNS this morning and will have also read with a bit of disappointment the trading update a few days ago. And so, you know, I'd like to start by saying that we will approach this with a bit of humility. You know, we've hit some bumps in the road, but we're convinced that we're on the right road and going at the fastest speed that's possible.
So, you know, with that in mind, I think we've got a lot of really good news stories today in terms of positive things that are happening in the business, and we look forward to sharing that with you in the presentation. I'm supported today, as usual, by Ryan Maughan, the Managing Director, and by Melvyn Segal, the CFO.
We're going to probably drop cameras while we're presenting so that you can see the slides more clearly, and then we'll bring cameras back on for the Q&A session at the end. Thank you. So, I'm gonna start with a bit of an overview, and then I'm gonna pass over to Ryan, who'll talk through developments within SAWsense and within Translogik.
Then Melvyn will take up the rear with the figures, and he'll also talk a little bit about the iTrack royalty rates, both for this year and also the forecast to the end of that royalty agreement in 2030. So first of all, just to set the scene, you know, we have got in both of the business that we're going to be talking about today, strong revenue growth this year, although the full-year revenue growth was slightly downgraded in the trading update on the 13th of January.
The reasons for that were essentially threefold. Firstly, within the Bridgestone iTrack royalty income, the volume growth rate was slightly lower than we had anticipated a year ago. The historic growth rate is about 30% per annum, and we'd expected about 15% this year, and in the event, the volume growth rate was a little lower than that, 10%, and there were some FX headwinds.
Melvyn will talk a little bit about that towards the end. Within Translogik, although our new business ramp-up in new areas has been strong, and we'll talk about the new channels to market and the successes that we've had, the global tire majors have been a little down, and so consequently, Translogik sales growth was somewhat more muted than we'd originally expected.
Within SAWsense, you know, while we've got a lot of onboarding going on with a lot of customers at the moment, but that process is quite protracted, and there's a lot of technical work required to onboard customers, and also a lot of commercial work. So, Ryan will talk a lot about the pipeline.
We've actually put some information about the scale and size of the pipeline and the timing for conversion of development projects into production, which Ryan will talk about at some length, and I'm sure you'll find that interesting. So overall, in the first half of the year, we've generated cash, we've delivered a small profit, but there is clear customer demand and meaningful commercial progress across both businesses, and I'm sure you'll find that interesting to hear.
For our part, the focus is on disciplined execution. You know, we spend as much time as we possibly can on the day job, but we're happy to spend some time on investor relations, every now and then, including today. So just a refresher of the company's strategy.
We have in SAWsense and in Translogik, two businesses which we think are capable of very high growth for a sustained period of time, and we're developing both of those businesses towards having high-value, recurring revenue streams by the end of the decade. We'll talk a little bit about the mechanics of how we're achieving that, later on in the presentation, but then that is all underpinned by the royalty income from the Bridgestone iTrack product, which is just over halfway through its 10-year period.
Financial highlights for this year, revenue, excluding the iTrack royalty income, was up about 39% on the first half of last year, so good growth. In total, revenue was down by about 8%, and Melvyn will go into the granular detail of that, by segment, in his presentation.
Gross margin was maintained at 90%, profitable, cash generative, and we've been working on a broad strategy of retaining at least GBP 1 million of cash headroom, and it was GBP 1.3 million at the end of the period under review. So if that sets the scene, I'll pass over now, if I may, to Ryan, please. And, Ryan, you could talk through SAWsense first, please.
Thanks, Nigel, and good afternoon to everyone. So the first chart that we have here shows the revenue distribution for SAW. So on the left-hand side there, just looking at the four segments that we're active in, robotics, eDrive, motorsport, and aerospace, and comparing the first half of this financial year to the first half last, period-to-period analysis.
So you can see, you know, aerospace is, was our biggest market. It's, it's growing strongly. There's a combination of things there, some new customers, but also a lot of activity on the- with GE on the programs with them. Motorsport business has also grown strongly, and still working very closely with Motion Applied, formerly known as McLaren Applied, who are the leading electronic supplier into the motorsports market, who are our partner for distributing the SAW technology there.
Very, very good growth and an awful lot in the pipeline with them. The next largest segment for us was eDrives. So that hasn't grown quite strongly, but it did still grow. We're working there with automotive tier one suppliers and OEs on the integration of SAW into electric drivelines for vehicles of various kinds.
And then lastly, the robotics, which we'll talk more about later, grew very strongly as a percentage from a low base. Expect to have much more growth there in the coming months. So really very exciting space that I'll talk about later. Looking at the graph on the right-hand side of this page, you can see where the income is coming from. So basically on here we've got the NRE and the grant income.
So I tend to roll those together. We show them separately for obvious reasons, but the grant programs that we have are working with key customers, where the customer has secured government grant funding to help them pay for a development program with us.
So the customers are investing in those programs, and they're leveraging grants available from the APC, which is the Advanced Propulsion Centre, so that's aimed at automotive, and that's the program we have with Protean, or aerospace, with the Aerospace Technology Institute, and that's the program that we have with Airbus. So two fantastic programs. So we're developing new technology for those customers to integrate into their systems. The NRE is much the same, but obviously not supported with the grants.
That's fully commercial work, where the customers are paying for applications engineering, typically developing the application for SAW into their product or system. And then on the right-hand side of that graph, you see components and production. So the difference between those two, and in the past we've had some questions, so I think people have not sort of realized that they are two distinct, different things.
So what we mean in production is, that is, where we are manufacturing an instrumented system inside Transense. So typically, most of that is motorsport business, and you see actually the bars align pretty well with motorsport. There's a couple of things that fall outside of motorsport at the moment, but where we're assembling shaft systems in low volume, that's under production.
And then the component supply is where we are supplying the components that go into a sensor system to an end customer for them to integrate in, to their systems. So examples of that would be, you know, supplying ASICs and sensing elements to, to people like GE, that then they're taking into their production to build into engines and systems.
So you can see that component income grew very strongly, for us compared to, before, which is an indicator of, the direction of, a number of the programs that we've got. So in the next, four slides, I'm just gonna talk a little bit more about each market segment. So first of all, the aerospace market.
So for people not familiar with it, we are supplying torque sensors and temperature sensors into the aerospace market using the SAW technology. It's a great market for us. There's a lot of sensors on aircraft, and it's only increasing in number as aircraft become smarter with more automated control systems, more preventative maintenance systems, and so on.
The sensor content on all types of aircraft is increasing. Electrified aircraft as well are a thing, and that's impacting on us with some of the projects where, again, they need the sort of sensors we can provide. Our sensors allow the customer to reduce the size of the component that we're installed in, so we're a smaller solution than conventional sensor technology, and we're typically more accurate and offer them some lifetime reliability benefits compared to more traditional sensors.
So there's a really strong commercial case and a strategic rationale for our technology in aerospace. It is a low-volume market, but we are really working with some of the leading companies in the space. So with GE, we've got three programs now with them. We have the Airbus program. So initially, that was the one grant-funded project, but since then, we've got two commercial projects running with Airbus, and we have a lot of activity with them.
So, you know, really the leading fixed-wing aircraft manufacturer, and I think the leading engine manufacturer at the moment. We do have some other running projects in aerospace, so we're working with another engine OEM. We've got a couple of programs there, and with a big actuator supplier, we've got a really interesting program. So we've got some great customer coverage.
We do have a bit of a pipeline of new programs with some new customers, so there's more to go at in the aerospace market. And really, the plan for us is to continue to deliver and expand those relationships with those existing customers, and build a little bit outside of those relationships with some more customers in that market.
And try and just continue to grow the revenue through that engineering application support, and then obviously, the component and production supply. I think everyone knows the aerospace market. It's a long cycle time to go from development into production, but there isn't like a big hockey stick like you would see in some industries.
You know, the investment in the development of a system is very significant. The production supplies are, you know, over a very long period of time. So it's a good market for us to be in, but it does have that characteristic in terms of the pace that it moves at. So we're doing a lot in aerospace today, and we see potential to grow this in the near term. So the next key market for us is motorsport.
I said before, we work with Motion Applied, so that was part of McLaren Group, now a standalone business. They are the leading electronics supplier in motorsport. You'll find their electronics, engine controllers and other solutions in pretty much every major motorsport series in the world. And they're a very, very strong partner for us to be working with.
We've got some really good reference cases now with them, where the technology is being used in different motorsport championships like IndyCar, WEC. You'll see there, that's World Endurance Championships, so basically the Le Mans-type cars, which is a huge part of global motorsport. And we have a number of other championships that we're working on with Motion Applied in terms of getting our technology into those.
The technology's been used in motorsport for torque sensing, and typically being used for performance management within the championships. So in IndyCar, they use our sensors to make sure the engine manufacturers aren't cheating, basically, and to help control the cost caps in the formula. The benefit of our technology, there are other torque sensors available in motorsport.
Effectively, we give improved reliability, improved accuracy, and a better lifetime cost, so a better total cost of ownership compared to other sensor technology that's in that market. And for that reason, we're getting increasing commercial traction, more programs, and a good pipeline here. So, you know, motorsport's a great market for us today.
Will be the next couple of years, you know, we potential to double, and probably double again the size of the market in motorsport. There is a cap to it, so I think in, you know, the sort of presentation of the markets that we're in, you know, obviously, motorsport is not a high-volume market. It's relatively high value per system, but it's limited in terms of the overall number of units that we'll be able to supply in that market. But still, you know, several millions of potential revenue there for us.
So next, eDrives. So what we're talking about here are electric propulsion units for vehicles. So, you know, electric cars and hybrid cars have an electric drive system with electric motors and gearboxes, and we're talking about putting our sensors into that application.
This market is a bit of a unique space for us in that, we are really opening up a market. So in the difference in aerospace and motorsport, there are alternative sensor technologies that we're competing against, and, you know, the markets know they need torque sensors and so on. We provide an alternative.
This market, you can't put conventional sensors inside electric motors, so we're creating an opportunity to put sensors where you can't normally put them. That's got us some good engagement with some automotive companies, so working with a number of companies in this space where, you know, these projects are at development phase now. The companies are testing, and we're looking to get into production on some vehicle platforms.
The volumes are much higher than the other two markets that we've looked at so far. It is cost sensitive, so this is where our pilot production line is starting to come into force in terms of being able to demonstrate to the customers in this space that we can achieve the cost targets for the programs and the quality and the reliability targets for the programs that they need at hundreds of thousands of units a year, which is the typical volumes that we're looking at here.
So very significant potential for us, you know, and a good pipeline, and the programs that are running are running well. So finally, the industrial robotics market, we've started to get some really good progress here.
So over the last year or so, got some good engagement with a number of companies. The robotics market is set for some pretty explosive growth over the next few years, because of a combination of a number of things to do with, you know, AI and processing power and some capability of mobile robots. So there's some very exciting things happening in the robotics market.
And I think we'll start to see robotic solutions come into our daily lives much more, you know, from a robotic vacuum cleaner or lawnmower to, you know, cleaning equipment for hospitals, as well as the sort of factory robots and the sort of robot systems that we don't normally see.
All of these robots present an opportunity for us for sensors that help the robots get better performance, get better accuracy, and move around better. We are competing against other sensor technologies, so a sort of good feature of robots is that they, you know, the manufacturers understand that they need sensors in the robots, and we're presenting an alternative to the current sensors that's helping them get an edge in the market. So we've got some really strong engagement here. So, you know, working with a very big U.S. company, a big Japanese Tier I, and a couple of sort of more niche suppliers.
But we also have a very strong pipeline, we haven't started working yet with, but we are in discussions with some of the biggest robot and robot drive system manufacturers in the world. And I think that, you know, there's a huge potential in the robotics market for us. Faster moving than the other markets we've looked at as well.
So a much shorter time into production than, you know, certainly than aerospace, but much shorter time into production than automotive as well, in terms of the cycle times that we're starting to see here. So that should be great in terms of helping us to develop some volume for the SAW business in the medium term. So just looking a slightly different view across the four key markets.
So what this slide is showing is the number of projects that we've currently got on. So on the left-hand side there, the pre-contract engagement, so that is where we are talking to companies, but we don't have a commercial contract in place with them yet. So each line there represents a different company where we have an ongoing discussion, and they're showing an interest in adopting the technology.
So that's, you know, it's a strong pipeline for future engagement. Then the other side of that dark green line there, prototypes, development, pre-production, production, et cetera, those are companies where we are commercially, contractually engaged, so we are on contract with them, working on a development program or in the production side in the motorsport.
You can see, you know, we've got a number of programs there. We've indicated, I think for the first time, a sort of potential value that we see or value range that we see those, those programs being in. So, you know what that is telling us in aerospace, we've got eight projects that are currently on contract, and each of those we see as having a mature value of somewhere between GBP 1 million and GBP 5 million a year.
So, you know, the aerospace business for us is gonna grow into a significant, you know, several millions GBP of revenue over the next few years. Motorsport as well, so some stuff that's in production and bedded down now, but then we do have a number of series we're working on.
Lower value, but still quite significant, so there are four different things we're working on there with a value from GBP 200,000-GBP 500,000 per year per program. So again, potential for a couple of million GBP of revenue in motorsport. But then the eDrives and the robotics are really where the very high values come in 'cause of the higher volumes in those markets.
So, you know, seven programs in eDrives, four at the moment in robotics, but a very strong pipeline behind that. So you can see the picture building in terms of, you know, we've always said, not all of these programs are gonna get into production, but also, you know, not all of them are not gonna get into production.
So we've got very, very good customers here, some world-leading companies. They are investing their own money in applying SAW technology into their systems. And, you know, we have improving visibility all the time of what the production side of that will look like and the timescales for us to get into volumes and production, and a steady pipeline of new work coming towards us and new programs coming and building towards us.
I think it's also, you know, you can take it as a good verdict on the business that we've got customers, like I mentioned, with Airbus, where it started as one project, and we've now got three projects running with them.
We're getting kind of repeat business from customers as well for the technologies, and I think that speaks volumes about the technology, but also about the team and the work that we're doing with customers on that. Okay. So moving on to Translogik.
Translogik is our tire inspection and management tools business. It's a very different business. I think, you know, what we're looking at here is a very strong opportunity for us to be a market leader in this space for smart, connected tire inspection management tools. You know, our existing tools are used by five out of 10, six out of 10 of the biggest tire manufacturers in the world.
So we've, you know, increased that presence in that market, but it's a very strong endorsement of the product that, you know, the biggest tire companies in the world, and you know, it's five out of five now of the top five are using our tools within their businesses in some way, shape, or form. It's a very strong endorsement of the product and what it can do in that market.
We're building our offer, so adding complementary products, and we're looking at how we can extend our offering to the market. And it, you know, it is a growing market. It is a global market, so we actually still do very relatively little in the UK, mostly all export sales.
We have got some nice legislative tailwinds coming, which are gonna start to help us in this market, which is something that we've been sort of hearing more and more about recently and learning more and more about, which is to do with basically Digital Product Passport regulations for tire life cycle management that the EU is introducing, but also a number of other countries are following suit and introducing very similar legislation. You know, it's been in the news in the last couple of days about another one of these tire dumps that have appeared out of nowhere, with people illegally dumping tires.
Governments around the world are trying to do something about that by introducing laws that will require tires to be fully traceable, and they're doing that by means of RFID tags embedded in the tires, which will then be used to track the tire. Tire inspections are mandatory, well, will be mandatory as part of these regulations.
So tools like ours will become essential, and go from being something that's optional, kind of good business practice, to being essential for regulatory compliance. So that's quite an exciting move that's happening in this space. And obviously, there's a lot happening with cloud computing and AI services as well, that's also helping improve this market and add capability to the tools that we're offering to customers all the time.
So we've been working here to build our business quite successfully. We've got this sort of key five-point plan that has been working, but I think if I just jump to the next slide, you can see, so just looking at where our revenues come from, so tire majors, you can see actually the revenue is down.
So we have added a new tire major to the business, but even despite that, the revenue is down compared to the prior period. In every other place we've expanded, so we're actually growing the business much more strongly in our other routes to markets. So distribution, direct to fleet, software, partnerships much more strongly than the traditional business with the tire majors.
That has been a bit of a drag on us in this first half. You know, if even if we'd held the tire major accounts steady, that would have done, you know, significantly better for us as a business overall because of the growth that we'd had elsewhere. I do think that the turbulence in the tire industry is coming to an end.
The number of factors been driving that, and, you know, quite well documented, some of these bigger tire companies been having a very difficult time over the last 12 or 18 months. So, you know, we are expecting that to recover, and we are seeing really healthy growth from our other routes to market here, and a lot of potential to expand and grow further within this business.
Part of that is gonna come through adding new products. So we announced last year in November, we launched a new product, the TLGi, which is a smart inflator. It's a complementary product to sit alongside our inspection tools. We're starting to ship the first units to customers in the next couple of months.
So the launch went well. We've had a lot of early interest, and then obviously we've got to get the supply chains and the production set up to start shipping units, and that's gonna start to happen in the next couple of months. So that should start to have an impact on us.
We do have some other complementary product launches planned as well, so we've got some exciting new products that are on the way, which will extend our offer, should enhance revenue. And we've got some more software partnerships that we're trying to bring through. So we did a deal with a software company called TIRETASK to resell their software.
We've been working on another deal that's a different for a different part of the market, but a complementary product that we're looking to bring through as well. So there's a lot coming on the Translogik side of the business, a lot of potential. You know, it is a growing business. We've got some...
I think probably for the first time ever, we've got, you know, a good number of really strategically important sort of partnerships and cooperation activities under discussion. So that potentially huge for us in terms of getting some of those through.
And, you know, expecting a much improved new business pipeline and, you know, some new subscription deals starting to come through in the next few months. So, I'm very optimistic on the outlook for this part of the business, but obviously from a growth point of view, this was the area where the first half wasn't quite as strong. But hopefully, you can see the reasons for that. Okay.
Thanks, Ryan. The reduction in the iTrack royalty rate by 40% at the commencement of this financial year was always going to make FY 2026 our most challenging year post the Bridgestone deal. Evaluating that royalty change produces an annual reduction in excess of GBP 1 million, which, as Nigel mentioned, has been increased further as a result of the stronger pound.
The expectation for FY 2026, based on the levels of activity at the time the market numbers were released, was that both SAWsense and Translogik revenues combined would be able to generate a challenging but achievable year-on-year increase of 72% to compensate for this reduction. So, what have we achieved in H1?
The financial highlights show the increase in SAWsense revenues from GBP 380,000 to GBP 660,000, and Translogik from GBP 520,000 to GBP 590,000, representing a combined growth year-on-year in revenue of nearly 40%. Although SAWsense on its own enjoyed a strong growth of 74% year-on-year. In any normal year without the royalty rate reduction, those growth rate numbers would be regarded as strong, particularly in the current economic climate.
They also meant that the impact on total revenues of the royalty income falling by GBP 550,000 was reduced to GBP 200,000 as a result of the GBP 350,000 increase in SAWsense and Translogik revenues. Gross margins have been maintained at 90%, helped by improved Translogik margins.
The royalty reduction and increased operating costs have, of course, impacted profit before tax. However, we did remain profitable, just. We continued to be cash generative, and the period-end cash balance was a healthy GBP 1.33 million, reflecting the drawdown in December of GBP 0.4 million against our GBP 1 million asset finance loan facility.
The balance will likely be drawn down in the first quarter of the current calendar year as the tangible CapEx investment reaches the GBP 1 million mark. Looking now at the revenue growth of our two active segments, i.e. SAWsense and Translogik, the chart shows a consistent year-on-year growth in both H1 and H2, and the level of growth from H1 to H2 has historically been very healthy, being around 70% in FY 2025... and an even higher expectation in the current year.
Just pausing for a second, I noticed that someone actually raised a question regarding why H2 seems to exceed H1 by so much. I think the answers probably are, one, the obvious answer, which is we are a growing business, so you'd expect it. But I think maybe the lesser obvious answer, and I'm sure Nigel and Ryan might want to comment on this, is to do with budgets.
I know that there were one or two transactions that could have gone ahead at the end of December, but because there were no budget available, they were halted or delayed and will go through hopefully in this current second half year. So looking again at the chart, you'll see the growth that we've achieved, and this remains very positive, even though we didn't hit the levels of the original research note.
The next two slides show the bridge from FY 2025 H1 to FY 2026 H1 in terms of revenue and adjusted earnings before tax. Reinforcing my comments, you see across the board increases in revenues with rises of GBP 231,000 in SAW alone, and GBP 48,000 and GBP 69,000 in Grants and Translogik, respectively.
The fall in royalties of over GBP 500,000, resulting in final revenue numbers of nearly GBP 2.3 million, with SAW and Translogik, as I mentioned, mitigating that fall in royalties. Looking at the adjusted earnings before tax bridge analysis, SAW margins have increased by GBP 266,000, partially offset by an increase in costs of GBP 188,000, giving a positive year-on-year increase, year-on-year increase of GBP 78,000.
Translogik numbers show 115,000 increased margins, helped by improved gross margins achieved as a result of moving production in-house, with gross profit rates moving up from 55% last year to 68% in the current period.
Translogik costs only increased marginally as a proportion of employee time has been capitalized, reflecting the engagement on development work on the next generation Translogik TLGX, and also the new tire inflator tool, both of which Ryan referred to. The latter was launched last month. Finally, you can see the reduction in iTrack royalties and an increase in central costs, the latter mainly relating to costs for a larger headcount, which currently stands at 35, including 19 in the SAW team.
A few words on the cash flow statement, which sees positive cash flow in the period of GBP 190,000, with a closing cash balance of GBP 1.3 million, rising to GBP 1.7 million in January following the quarterly royalty receipt.
The 2024 planned CapEx spend of GBP 2.8 million on SAW is summarized in the smaller table, showing a spend to date of GBP 1.7 million, partly funded by the asset finance loan of GBP 0.4 million, and a future spend of GBP 1.1 million, where the balance of the asset finance facility will be used. The tangible part of the spend being in respect of new plant and equipment to both modernize existing equipment and create a new production line that Ryan referred to.
On intangibles, it represents the development of the next generation key SAW components, being the ASIC and AQP. Careful cash management has seen us manage the CapEx spend and maintain cash headroom above the GBP 1 million mark.
My final chart looks at iTrack, and you will be familiar with this chart, looking at historical income and an illustration of future income based on two different levels of compound annual growth, being 8% and 12%, reflecting growth in truck numbers, where we have already enjoyed a near six-fold increase in truck numbers since inception of the deal, and a compound annual growth in excess of 30%, and in the current year, this is running at 10%. The chart reflects the 40% royalty rate deduction that commenced in July 2025, and the further reduction of 1/3 of the new rate in July 2028.
Looking at the chart, the current year should end up being aligned with FY 2023 revenues, with the growth in royalty-producing trucks offsetting the royalty rate reduction. The illustration closes in FY 2030, with an annual royalty of between $1.8 million and $2 million based on the illustrated growth rates. A word on FX, as the royalty receipts are received in US dollars. The opening rate when we did the deal was completed was $1.25 to the pound. During the first five and a half years, the average rate has seen a stronger pound in all but one of the financial years, thereby reducing our reported revenues.
To give some context, had the rate remained static throughout the five and a half years, we would have received around GBP 300,000 more in that period, GBP 200,000 of that coming in FY 2025 and FY 2026 alone. We have hedged the US dollar to mitigate the FX movements, and this has clawed back about 20% of that sum. However, the hedging impacts cash receipts and not the reported revenue numbers.
The overall value of the royalties due over the final four and a half years of the contract should be around GBP 9 million. And 9 million is a familiar number, as it also represents the current market cap of Transense, following the recent fall in the share price. What this is saying, therefore, is that the market is effectively recognizing very little value of both the Translogik and SAWsense segments.
Whilst pondering that thought, also consider that in October 2015, we sold IntelliSAW, a company with a very narrow usage of SAW technology, for $5 million. In July 2016, we granted a license to GE for a very specific and non-exclusive use of SAW technology for $750,000, plus anticipated future annual royalties.
Of course, the transaction in June 2020 with Bridgestone, selling iTrack for its net assets value and a 10-year royalty that has already generated $14 million and could generate in total a sum in excess of $25 million in royalties. The conclusion being our leading technology and the strong market recognition of both segments clearly does have a value. If I can now pass over to Nigel to look at the outlook.
Thank you, Melvyn, and I'm just looking at the time. We're gonna have about 20 minutes left for questions. We've got some really good quality questions come in, so thank you for that, and we'll answer as many as we can.
But I think just to close on the presentation, I think, you know, we've actually started today to disclose some pipeline information in terms of the scale and quality of the inquiries when they reach full production that we're handling within SAWsense. And I think that that gives a clear indication to investors of the reasons why we're investing today in order to reap those rewards tomorrow.
And, you know, that is based on our genuine feeling of clear buying signals coming from customers and prospective customers, that we have the right products at the right price to be able to fulfill their requirements going forwards. So as a team, we are confident in our strategic plan, you know, we also, as I said at the outset, carry some humility with us because we're not on the trajectory that we said we would be.
But with that in mind, we continue to focus on disciplined execution of the plan, and, you know, we remain very confident of the direction of travel and the size of the prize at the other end of this process. I'm just going to now put on the screen there where you can obtain further information and start to answer your questions.
So I'm gonna try and sort of group the questions together a little bit, and I'm gonna kick off, if I may, just directing some of them at you, Ryan, and that's first of all, specifically on SAW. So I'm going to put three questions together here because they're all connected. First of all, from Martin H: What is the patent position, and is anyone else looking to compete against you with similar SAW sensors?
From Paris T: What can go wrong in the eDrive market, given the lack of competition? And again, from Paris T: Could the Chinese bypass or copy our tech in robotics? So I think they're, you know, three questions connected with the level of patent protection, and the level of competitive threat that we see within the SAW business. Could you perhaps just say a few words about that, please?
Okay. So in terms of the patent coverage, you know, we do have an aging patent portfolio, so some of the patents are older now, and, you know, some have already expired of the original SAW patents. We've been working to put new patents in place. So last year we got a couple of new patent applications filed. We've got some more planned.
So we are putting new patents in place that are to do with typically the application engineering side or the scaled up production techniques and technology side of what we're doing. So there is an awareness of patents. We are working to continue to extend the patent coverage. I think the other thing that's really important is the know-how that surrounds the product as well.
Like, actually, a lot of the reason for where we've ended up with the business model is because SAW is very different technology. In the past, customers had a lot of problems applying it without assistance. Transense has developed a lot of know-how, continuing to improve that know-how base all the time of the application of it, the sort of high volume production technology, et cetera, et cetera.
S o there's a huge amount of know-how within the business, that's, is very valuable to us. I think that it kind of covers the Chinese point. We don't, we don't have any active business in China at the moment. We do have a supplier in Taiwan for one of our key components. I'd be very careful about the Chinese market.
Obviously, there could be an opportunity there for us, but it's not one that we've actively tried to seek out. We're not aware of, you know, companies trying to copy SAW technology, but obviously, you don't know what you don't know, about that.
I think, though, we are pretty well protected in terms of the efforts someone would have to go to, to replicate that deep know-how and expertise and the IP that we've got, would be very, very difficult for them, to do. And well, I say this very flippantly, but it would be easier for someone just to come and buy us, than try and replicate it. So, yeah, that patents in China.
On eDrive, I think really the key risk there, because it's a market that doesn't use torque sensors today, our sort of positioning in that market is all about proving that there's a good return on investment for the customer of applying the SAWsense technology.
So they, if they're spending money on our part, you know, the automotive industry is pretty heavy on cost savings and taking cost out of products rather than adding cost. So they have, it has to be clear what cost they can save in the system. So being able to demonstrate good savings in other areas, and typically, that's from reducing rare earth magnet content for a given performance of motor. There's some functional safety benefits as well.
Getting that business case really clear for the customer and then taking the risk out of it. Automotive companies are massively risk-averse. You know, we all expect our cars to be super reliable and not have any problems.
You know, they put a lot of effort into making sure that happens, and making sure that SAW can demonstrate the reliability, repeatability, and that it meets all of the requirements for that market are key. That, you know, they're really the two key areas to achieving success in eDrive space is show the benefits and take the risk out of it.
Thank you, Ryan. I'm gonna also group together another couple of questions, which I think you could take together. From Brian: Can you explain customer onboarding used in the trading update, please? And from Nicholas: Are delays to contract wins just down to market forces, or is there something you could have done differently? So will you just talk a little bit about the, you know, the customer onboarding process and how that worked through, through the early stages of development?
Yeah.
You know, the reasons why, getting them over the line into the starting blocks can sometimes be, more time-consuming than one might imagine.
Yeah, sure. I mean, so if you look at actually both sides of the business, I mean, they're, they're obviously very different businesses, but there are some similarities here. You know, we're, we're selling specialized technical products and technology. So the, the thing that we're selling, it is not straightforward typically, and there's always a, a value proposition, and there's a lot of work to, to do with the customer.
We're typically dealing with... I mean, we talked, you know, Translogik, we've got, you know, some huge tire companies and, but, and the other companies we deal with are typically very big. So we're dealing with large organizations that have got extensive contractual requirements and, you know, you're often negotiating points in a, you know, hundred-page long contract about something. So they're, they're quite complicated organizations to deal with normally 'cause they're very big.
You imagine on SAW, we're dealing with automotive OEMs, aircraft OEMs, you know, these are huge companies. They, you know, spend a lot of money, have huge contracting departments and teams. So that process of getting set up as a supplier, even on their systems, is quite onerous and takes a lot of time to do.
Then, particularly with SAW, the process of understanding the customer requirements and looking at their application and then actually developing a project plan and a proposal to be able to quote work back to the customer, that is significant in itself, and there's quite often negotiation on that in terms of, you know, the scope of work and the costs and so on and so on.
It can be quite a lot of backwards and forwards on that. You know, we have had with customers where we've been, you know, sometimes it can take three or four months even to negotiate around the actual work, to come up with a plan in the first place and then negotiate around the work that we're gonna do with them.
So when we say onboarding, it's that process that we go through of getting set up with a customer so we can exchange information, and then getting set up as a supplier, getting in a position where we can provide a proposal, and that, you know, that's quite involved. And then getting on contract, 'cause then, you know, that in itself is another lengthy activity.
Typically, especially on the SAW side with some of the larger organizations that we're dealing with there, it can take almost as long to, for the customer to raise a purchase order for something, 'cause, you know, it takes us to deliver the actual technical project, which, you know, if you've never dealt with a large business before, can be a surprise.
So but, once you're up and running, though, once you're set up with a company, once you're on their systems, you're a registered supplier, the next time around, it all becomes a lot easier. But I think it is a characteristic, and we've talked about this internally, that, you know, the last year or so, you know, we've been doing a lot of new stuff.
So we've been dealing with a lot of new customers and onboarding a lot of new customers and going through this process time and time again with new people. It'll start to sort of settle off a bit as that ratio of dealing with customers that we already know increases to the number of new customers that we're starting to engage with.
I think on the second point, the delays, I think there's... I mean, there's all sorts of reasons behind that. And I think principally, if you look at what's happened across the two divisions, we've had some larger projects on the Translogik side that have taken longer than anticipated.
And some of that are, you know, tire OEMs taking longer than we'd expected to come back and do, you know, significant orders and rollouts. But other, you know, other things taking time as companies are being cautious with their investment, you know, Translogik is a spend- to- save type activity, so there's a good investment case, but we're, you know, people are investing money in that equipment and the software technology to help their business.
And at the moment, I mean, globally, it's not just a UK phenomenon, you know, people generally are being quite careful with those investments and taking longer to make decisions. On the SAW side of things, I think, you know...
We in general, I think, are progressing pretty well other than, you know, some of the larger companies that we've been dealing with. We have had issues where just a process thing, it's taken longer. You know, they've wanted us to do something. We sort of agreed in principle we would start on this date, and then just the internal mechanism of getting a purchase order and getting on contract has taken, you know, plus two months, three months to come through, so.
There's even occasions when we've been asked by the team that we're dealing with to do the work at risk without a purchase order, simply because they know of the frustrations of their own internal processes.
Yeah, we have done that a couple of times in the last 12 months, especially for the aerospace side of things, where we've started work at risk 'cause the customer's in a hurry to get it done, and we've finished the work before they've actually managed to get the purchase order raised.
Yeah. Okay, I think perhaps we might pivot and just look a little bit about the questions more sort of at a corporate level on, the cash position and outlook. And then I'm gonna answer a couple of questions on the shareholder base as well. So if we first of all could look at the questions on cash, and, you might take these, please, Melvyn. I have: "Given the reduced cash inflows expected until June 2026, is the company still going ahead with its CapEx program? If yes, does this mean the existing plus expected cash flows will suffice?
I'm unmuted now. I tend to do cash forecasts 18-24 months forward, so I'm regularly looking at the cash position. I also obviously sensitize those cash flows, and taking into account the current planned CapEx, we maintain the GBP 1 million headroom throughout that period.
And that was part of the reason why I went for the asset loan finance to maintain that headroom as well. And as I mentioned in the presentation, so far I've drawn down GBP 400,000 of that and should draw down the balance of that in the first quarter of this calendar year.
Thank you. And, allied to that, question 10: "Do you believe you'll be able to maintain your GBP 1 million cash buffer level over the next year and meet your longer term growth ambitions without needing to raise?" You know, and I think we can answer that as a team.
I mean, we have set out a strategy which is intended to deliver the benefits that we've outlined today without needing to raise growth capital to lengthen the runway. You know, we're on a runway, we're ready for take-off, and we don't believe at this stage that we would need to raise cash in order to lengthen that runway. You know, of course, it would be a fool who said never, because we don't know what's gonna happen next year in the world.
But, you know, it's our strong belief that we can build a plan, and as Melvyn has said, that plan includes an 18-month forward-looking cash forecast to enable the company to live within its means. I think that ties in with another question, you know, "Is the OpEx/recruitment done?" And the answer is, you know, yes, we have what we need.
We don't have what we'd like, but we have what we need. And, you know, it will always be our plan to work within the constraints of the cash flow that we have available to us, until and unless the business is ready to move on to a completely different level. And I think that brings us then to what that level might look like. I'm gonna perhaps invite Ryan and Melvyn to comment on these three questions.
So again, I'm gonna combine three questions together. Cavendish of 2030 forecasts of GBP 12.5 million of revenue and 4.3% of EBIT, that's in Max's valuation model at the back of the broker research. With what you're currently seeing in SAWsense and Translogik, do you think these targets are realistic? So that's 12.5% of revenue, with GBP 4 million of EBIT by 2030. Are they realistic? But I'm gonna tie that together with another question, which reads: "The release today outlines large expected SAW revenues by 2030, several tens of millions.
How does that reconcile to the previous guidance of GBP 5 million-GBP 10 million by 2030, or Cavendish GBP 12.5 million by 2030?" And then finally, "What operating margins you expect for SAWsense if the revenue is GBP 10 million plus?"
So I think those three questions connect together quite nicely, and really, you know, what they're looking for is a view of what this business looks like in three to five years time, and is GBP 12.5 million of revenue and GBP 4 million of profit a sensible target? Is it pessimistic? Is it optimistic? Does it sit in a range? What sort of operating margin would we generate at that level of revenue to be able to hit the bottom line?
I'm happy to comment on that myself, but perhaps I'll let at least one of you do so first.
You want to kick off, Ryan, or do you want me to?
I'll let you go first, Melvyn.
Yeah, so, so far as the margin is concerned, I think you'll see as it develops and when we move towards production, we're gonna be looking at margins between 50% and 90%. So on average, I probably will be operating at a margin of 70% on SAW. And actually, that's probably where between 65% and 70% on Translogik. With regards to the numbers in 2030-
It can only be guesswork. I mean, we have an idea of the various projects we're working on that are moving towards production, and if they do move it towards production, we have an idea on what volumes might be. Some of them are in the thousands, some of them would be in the hundreds of thousands. You take all of that information into account and extrapolate it, and the numbers that you've seen given are numbers that are achievable. I'd like to personally think they're at the lower end, but I'll get Ryan's view on that.
Yeah, I'd be inclined to agree. I mean, I would segregate it into... I think in SAWsense, we've got the sort of lower volume business in aerospace and motorsport, where we can see a business developing, you know, that's several millions of revenue. And it's pretty low risk in terms of we don't have to demonstrate high-volume production. We don't have to demonstrate low, you know, low-cost component supply or any of those things. Like it's we can get there with what we've got around us today.
You then add into that on SAW, we've got the two higher volume areas where we seem to have a good technology fit for the market, but we do need to be able to demonstrate high-volume production capability, low-cost component supply capability in order to achieve success in those markets. So obviously, that introduces a bit of extra risk.
But those markets are absolutely enormous, you know, and it would have the potential for significant upsides over those numbers if we manage to achieve a breakthrough in the high-volume side of things. But there is a risk level attached to that in SAW. On Translogik, I think, you know, again, we're doing pretty well growing the Translogik business, and there's a lot of potential there to grow that a lot further.
So, you know, the Translogik business will be able to, you know, grow significantly over the next four or five years, doubling, doubling again. And there's a lot of potential in the market for that. So, you know, overall, combined, I think, like Melvyn said, I'd like to believe those numbers are achievable, and there's some upside potential on that.
And, you know, every week that goes by, we're getting better clarity and, reducing you know, some of the risk elements and learning more about where we can take the business to.
Great. Thank you very much. I'm gonna close with a couple of questions on the share price reaction and the shareholder base. I've been asked by three different people whether Dowgate have disclosed to us their reason for selling, and whether they've stopped now.
You know, obviously, you know, I can reassure you that after the trading update, I had contact with all of the major shareholders, and we've got you know, of course and opportunity to do that again face-to-face over the next few days. So we will get you know, a complete picture. We already have strong indications, but we'll get a complete picture of where they stand.
Nobody would expect me to comment and share that information publicly, obviously, but we have very good and close dialogue with all of our major shareholders, and, you know, we expect to and try to spread that to all of our shareholders, not just the larger ones.
Allied to that, two or three people asking whether the directors are clear to buy, you know, obviously, up to, yeah, this morning, the answer to that was no. After this morning, then, you know, I'm not in a position to comment, but all I would say is that you've seen how much is happening in the business, and from time to time, and often for extended periods of time, the directors are in possession of price-sensitive information because of commercial activities as well.
So I think anybody who wants to try and extrapolate whether or not directors are buying, as to whether or not we think the share price is an opportunity or a risk, you know, you can't always buy when you want to, and you can't ever sell whether you want to or not.
So don't interpret our activity as necessarily being one of pure sentiment. But having said that, also recognize, you know, we are all well invested in this business. You know, we have skin in the game. We share your pain when things go wrong with the share price, and we share your excitement when they go right, but we also recognize that they're only money when you buy them and sell them, not when you hold them.
Mindful now of the time, I think we're wrapping up. I'm also mindful that there's a few questions we haven't answered, but we will do so on the Q&A tab. If you want to look at that, we'll try and get them done over the next 24 or 48 hours. So I'll now wrap up. I hope you've enjoyed the session and got out of it what you wanted, and I look forward to speaking to you next time. Thank you very much, everybody, and for your help, Melvyn and Ryan.
That's great. Nigel, Melvyn, Ryan, thank you very much indeed for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, which will help the company better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.