Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Perth. Welcome to the 2025 ALS Investor Days. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to be with us here today. We were just commenting earlier with the team. I think just about everyone here has actually flown to be here today, and it's fantastic to see such a great turnout and a full room. Thank you. I also want to thank the people that are joining us today online via webcast. Unfortunately, we don't have you here in the room, but it's great to have you in attendance also, and we welcome your interest in the company. I'd also like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners today of the land on which we meet, the Wadjuk, the Nuyengar people, and we pay respects to their elders past and present.
A few housekeeping matters that I'd just like to quickly cover for you. Could we please ask that you all switch your mobile phones to silent during today's presentations? In the unlikely event of an emergency, and we hear an evacuation alarm, we'll follow the directions of the convention center staff, and we'll exit the room to the right and head out to the plaza area. Finally, the bathrooms are located out in the lobby on your left-hand side. Ladies and gentlemen, ALS is a storied company. By that I mean it has a very proud history. From humble beginnings in the 1860s as a soap manufacturer on the banks of the Brisbane River, ALS has evolved itself today to be a world-leading tech sector player with a mix of both global and regional leadership positions in key markets.
The reason I mention this is because ALS already has over 160 years of learned experience playing to its strengths, building competitive advantage, identifying regional and global megatrends, evolving its strategies, and ultimately positioning ALS to win. At today's event, we will outline for you how we intend for ALS to continue to win in what we call ALS's journey toward the lab of the future. As always, at ALS, we start with safety. Safety at ALS is not just a KPI; it's a reflection of who we are. Safety underpins everything that we do at ALS. It's part of our DNA. Safety, along with curiosity, form the foundation of our culture. These two principles define ALS. They unite our global teams. They guide our decisions. They drive our disciplined, focused execution that is allowing us to reshape our business for the future.
We recognize that it's not just what we say, but what we do when it comes to safety that really matters. That's been reflected in the recent implementation of our life-saving rules, which mitigate critical risks at all of our ALS locations. Our strong safety performance continues to set us apart, but more importantly, it underpins everything that we do, how we operate, how we lead, and how we deliver for our clients. While we are very proud of our leading safety performance, we don't take it for granted, and we recommit each day to ensuring that our more than 22,000 staff globally go home safely to their families and loved ones. It's this cultural strength that enables us to pursue the innovation, navigate complexity, and lead the industry toward its next chapter. Moving to today's exciting agenda, shortly I will hand over to Malcolm for his opening remarks.
This will be followed by members of the ALS executive and senior leadership team, who will each present to you today on a range of topics outlined, including our refreshed strategy, our digital and AI journey. We'll be talking to you about minerals innovation and environmental excellence. We have a number of interactive Q&A sessions planned for today. Each of you will have Slido QR codes on your table. If we could ask you all to please scan those with your phone and log in, you'll each be able to submit questions. They can be done anonymously. If you could submit questions that are relevant to the presentation material, we'll have a Q&A session at the end of each before each break.
Those Q&A questions should relate to the session material because at the end of each session, we'll purge the questions, and then we'll reset those for the next session. If you could please do that, that'd be much appreciated. With that, I'll hand over to Malcolm, and he'll make his opening remarks. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thanks for coming, and thanks for taking some time out of your busy agenda to be here in Perth. I've been seeing some of the questions coming through, and before we move forward with the topic, there's an important aspect that I think I need to cover. I arrived to Australia on Saturday, and I've seen it in the Australian newspaper since then. I believe that the two tries of the Lions should have been disallowed. If you're a Lions fan, I have a different view that we can discuss privately. Having said that, honestly, I think both of them should have been disallowed. People often ask me, what is the thing that I like most about leading ALS Limited? What you're going to see today is exactly that.
The transformation we have achieved, the strategy we build, and the future we are creating together with the team. Over the past two years, we built a world-class leadership team, and we developed a strategy that positions us to capture opportunities that others are missing. What makes me particularly proud isn't just about the exceptional executive and senior leadership team. It's about the people that we have and the talent we build across every single level of this organization. Today is about talking to you, our shareholders, commercial partners, and the investment community on that journey and bringing you on that journey with us. I want to show you not just where we are going, but also how confident we are in getting there. Before I tell you about the future that is extremely exciting, we need to start with the history and tell you about how we got here.
There are two critical aspects about this story. First, it's our track record that is sustained in a solid performance. Second, yes, it's the potential we are pursuing in the future. From our perspective, ALS Limited is in a unique position not just to lead, but also disrupt the testing industry, a journey that we have already started. If we start with fiscal year 2025 results, as you well know, we finished with AUD 3 billion in revenue and underlying EBIT of AUD 515 million and a return on capital employed of 18.9%. All of this was delivered by a workforce of more than 22,000 individuals across 450 sites, scaling the scale that has been underpinned by consistency and quality. From our perspective, leadership in this sector isn't just about size. It's about strategic focus.
ALS serves clients in the most complex, highly regulated industry, from minerals exploration to environmental compliance to food safety and pharmaceutical development. Our portfolio reflects the optimal balance of focus and diversification, as you can see at the bottom right side of the slide, which we have intentionally set up to better enable growth in those areas that we have a clear competitive edge. As you can see in this part of the slide, our revenue is also appropriately distributed, with strong contributions from the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, and an emerging position in Africa. The result? Global diversified, regionally balanced business that is not dependent on one specific or single market or region. We deliberately compete where we have a clear right to win. Importantly, the ALS of today is a result of multiple years of intentional refinement and reshaping towards a more resilient and high-performing portfolio.
Since fiscal year 2021, ALS delivered approximately 14% underlying CAGR and a total shareholders' return of 208%, well above industry benchmarks. This speaks to the strengths of the portfolio, the discipline of the execution, and the commitment we have demonstrated to delivering sustainable long-term value for our shareholders. From fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2025, there are three key shifts that I want to talk about. At the top of the slide, the first shift is seen as the revenue trajectory. Over the past four years, as I just mentioned, ALS has more than doubled our growth rate, with revenue CAGR accelerating from 7% before fiscal year 2021 to 14% between 2021 and 2025. That acceleration is due to our focus on scale, relevance, and strategic capital deployment. The second shift at the center of the slide is around our revenue mix by business stream.
Today, Life Sciences accounts for 64% of the total revenue of the business. Within Life Sciences, the Environmental division is the largest division we have in the company, representing 37% of the total revenue of the company, and Minerals is still at 36%. Let me highlight something about Minerals. Minerals has grown at an impressive 14% CAGR in the last four years, from AUD 500 million in revenue in 2021 to AUD 151 million in revenue in fiscal year 2025. All of this was achieved while exploration spend contracted 8% worldwide during the last three years. The rebalancing shown in this slide has been intentional. Through portfolio rationalization, we've increased exposure to more resilient, higher growth sectors with continuing investments in core areas of long-term strength. The third shift is our geographic diversification. As I just mentioned, we have more presence now in the Americas and EMEA.
This was made to be closer to the growth markets and much better aligned with the evolving needs of our clients. All of this put together is a portfolio built with purpose to deliver consistent returns in today's markets and set us for future success. I've been talking about performance, and before I move to our potential, it's essential that we pause for a second and discuss these four key strategic actions that we decided. In particular, vision that is clear and ambitious. We want to be the global leader in the discipline of scientific analysis in pursuit of a better world for all. Every decision that we make, from strategic choices to portfolio shaping, is grounded in the strength of our team, aligned in purpose, disciplined in execution, and unified in the one ALS mindset.
Every day, our people collaborate and share knowledge to deliver the most accurate technical results, enabling our clients to make decisions in real time with confidence. What powers this momentum is curiosity, that spark that has guided ALS since our earliest days and drives today's challenges, conventions, embraces technology, and leads the industry transformation. Curiosity isn't just about innovation for its own sake. It's about solving real problems for our clients, creating an exceptional experience for our employees, and delivering top quarter returns to our shareholders. If we move forward, curiosity is the bridge between our performance and our potential, which now we're going to turn into. ALS is entering the next growth phase, a phase where we will go beyond participating in the testing industry to transforming and leading it.
Our potential is driving us towards the lab of the future, labs powered by data, technology, and above all, people united in purpose. Let me share a short video that shows how ALS is evolving and gives you an idea of the projects we're working on in terms of the lab of the future.
Laboratories of the past involved intensive manual work to capture data, unlock insights, and create client value. At ALS, we've been investing in technologies that enable digitized and automated work to achieve greater speed, detail, and precision. App-based data capture, advanced analytics, machine learning, robotics, AI-powered testing excellence, and it's all live linked to client information centers for real-time results that drive value. From our origins in traditional labs, these are our smart labs, spaces where our capability, curiosity, and collaborative spirit come together to empower our clients' work in sectors like environmental, food, industrial materials, minerals, and pharma. Across 70 countries, our 450 labs deliver hundreds of thousands of testing procedures every day with the precision, pace, and performance our clients need. Mineral samples, once manually melted and poured, are now handled with robotic precision.
Laborious separation of soil samples is now replaced by automated vibration and high-speed photography for micron-level examination. Cultures that were once physically inspected now undergo high-resolution AI analysis, and water quality that was tested by hand is now achieved with surgical precision at industrial scale. Every step change has transformed data efficiency, quality, and accuracy, sharpening the advantage our clients gain. Embedded in our DNA is constant pursuit, which means we're far from done. We're looking at what the next era holds for capturing data, unlocking insights, and creating value. We're exploring what might be. We're looking toward the lab of the future. We expect there will be new technologies for new applications, even for new industries.
What excites us most is the chance to bring our lab expertise direct to the source, to where our clients work, comparing the clients we have today and those that will be leading the industries of the future. At ALS, we're investing in tomorrow because we believe the greatest innovations in the future will find their start in labs. That starts with imagining what our labs can become towards the lab of the future.
You know what? The first image that you've seen in this video, that's an actual image of a lab of ALS Limited in 1950. It's amazing how much we evolved. As you've just seen, we're building tomorrow's testing capabilities today. The lab of the future is in progress with incremental steps taking across all of our network. We're working towards the lab of the future through sharper strategy, smarter capital allocation, and deeper innovation. This is strategically positioning ALS Limited at the intersection of the most pressing major trends, from the energy transition to environmental regulations to food quality to the growing demand for data-driven compliance. These forces align with our ambition to continue delivering mid to high single-digit organic growth while sharpening our portfolio, further diversifying our geographic revenue mix, and leveraging innovation to impact greater productivity.
Rather than react to these trends, we're building them into our approach, and this is already translating into strong results. As we build tomorrow's testing capabilities, we're not just evolving in technology. We are evolving in how we operate to make sure ALS Limited is fit for the future. Today, our strategy, structure, and culture are well aligned. Strategy, we have a globally focused plan that sharpens where we play and how we win. Second, in terms of structure, we have a scalable global model underpinned by shared systems and technology, giving us flexibility to adapt as the clients evolve. Finally, most important, culture. We have a shared values, people-first mindset, and commitment to curiosity and learning. All of these unite our diverse global team and fuel our culture that challenges convention and earns the trust of our clients.
This alignment is what turns our vision of the lab of the future into a reality today, and it sets the stage for what you're going to hear next. Over the next few hours, we'll cover several themes that connect the performance with the future potential of ALS Limited. First, Heike, our Chief Strategy Officer that joined the company 18 months ago, 24 months ago. He will walk us through the roadmap to win our refreshed global focus strategy designed to strengthen our competitive advantage. The strategy is focused on growth, innovation, and building on the strengths that differentiate ALS Limited in this market. Second, Thibault, that joined the company four months ago, will give or take, will talk through how we are embedding innovation, data, and AI across our business to create sustainable, competitive services for our clients.
Third, you will hear from the operational teams, both for minerals and environmental, that will share how divisional strategies build on our existing strength, extending our competitive advantage through progress in operations, technology, and client delivery. Finally, Stuart, I think that you have no need for introduction for Stuart, will discuss our investment proposition, reinforcing how our strategy, technology, and operations progress come together to create sustainable growth, disciplined deployment of capital, and long-term shareholders' value. This is the last one. Before I wrap up, let's note that the technological revolution we're living through demands continuous evolution in the system and processes, but also in how we all lead. Our leaders don't need to be technologists, but they must know how to harness technology to guide teams through change, make smarter decisions, and deliver faster, more reliable outcomes for our clients.
They are the ones that are going to connect innovation with our people and our purpose. That's why we're becoming leaner, more agile, and more accountable at the Executive and Senior Leadership Team, bringing the new talent for critical roles while also developing and promoting exceptional leaders from within. I'm proud to say that ALS has a really strong team ready to tackle today's opportunities and shape the industry of the future. You will meet the team today. Hopefully, you already met some of them. In the process, I'm confident that you will see how we will convert our future potential in actual actions, and more important, in another season of the strong performance that our clients and you, our shareholders, are expecting. With that, I hand over to Heike that will take you through the next part of the presentation.
Thank you, Malcolm.
15 years.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Heike. I used to live in Australia in Sydney, and I'm now in London in the U.K. for the last 15 years, and it's absolutely fantastic to be back in the Australian sunshine, at least here on the West Coast. Our roadmap to win is about a sharper portfolio focus and a right to win, smarter capital allocation, and a healthy growth pipeline. I'll now tell you about each of these in turn. Today, we have a refreshed strategy and a disciplined capital allocation framework which guides all of our investment decisions. Through our strategic actions, we have deliberately positioned our portfolio in attractive markets. The result, as Malcolm has said, is a globally diversified portfolio which is regionally balanced with a clear right to win. In developing this roadmap, we have addressed two questions: where to win.
This is where to allocate our capital and the time of our people, and how to win. What do we need to do in order to maintain and build competitive advantage? The outcome of this strategy refresh has led to the development of the value creation framework that many of you are familiar with. That underpins all of our capital decisions that we're making today and that we've made over the past 12 months. That's introducing minimum return hurdles as well as having a focus on operating and capital productivity. I'm now going to show you another film. This is a film or a brief video about the roadmap to win. Afterwards, I'll take you through the key elements of the roadmap to win.
From where ALS started in 1863 as a small chemical company in Australia, we have grown into a regional and global leader across our business streams. We have a presence in more than 70 countries, a team of over 22,000 people, and a diverse and growing client base. Our vision is to be the global leader in the discipline of scientific analysis in pursuit of a better world for all. For us to succeed long-term, we need a strategy that strengthens the value we bring to this global story. Our roadmap to win defines the critical choices over the next five years for where we will place our resources, particularly our time and money, toward our vision. It's based on having a sharper focus and building deeper competitive advantage. Having a sharper focus is about having a clearer, tighter perspective on where we will win.
We will prioritize high-volume analytical testing and associated services in sectors and geographies where ALS can develop a competitive advantage and market-leading results. We will do this using three lenses to guide our decision-making. The first lens is the character of a market. Our focus is clients who have high-volume testing needs because of the critical nature of their work in areas where we have strong leadership potential. The second lens is the alignment of a market to our portfolio and our ALS operating way. Wherever we work in the world, this is about delivering consistent, reliable testing solutions with the benefit of sharing continual improvement and best practices across our business streams to drive commercial and operational excellence. The third lens is the growth potential of a market.
This looks at the size of a market, our current and potential share of that market, and the incremental rate of growth it offers into the future. We call that our growth runway. This sharper focus is great, but it isn't enough. The second part of our strategy is building a deeper competitive advantage, which defines how we will win. There are seven pillars to this competitive advantage, some being areas that are already mature and others representing either emerging points of difference or areas needing greater attention. They are customers, innovation, expertise, culture, capital, operations, and sustainability. Customers is about nurturing high-value customer relationships and delivering exemplary service. We want to be known for consistency, quality, reliability, agility, turnaround time, and technical support. Our customers intentionally come first because our ability to partner with them and create value for them are the foundation of our success.
Innovation is about building leadership in testing technology and other specialist digital solutions to unlock predictive, real-time insights and intelligence for our clients. When we do this well, it also creates powerful feedback to further enhance our services. Expertise looks at maintaining a reputation for sector and regulatory expertise, including emerging contaminants. This is critical to our role as a specialist service provider. Culture acknowledges the importance of our people and the value of fostering an inclusive, collaborative culture that supports employee development and recognition, champions diversity and equity, and prioritizes well-being. Capital is centered around driving disciplined capital allocation to support growth. This is largely via targeted M&A to develop capabilities, geographies, or market share. We are constantly improving how we manage these and integrate new teams into our ALS family. Operations highlights two complementary ideas of pursuing operational excellence and operational synergies across our portfolio.
At the heart is an integrated operating model with center-led capabilities in key areas such as M&A, human capital management, and technology. Finally, sustainability is about continually enhancing and extending our testing offer in ways that serve our clients and ALS's sustainability agendas today while anticipating their needs well into the future. These long-term efforts and investments make practical contributions to pursuing a better world for all. A sharper focus for where we will win and deeper advantage for how we will win are then brought to life by who we are collectively. Our purpose and mission continue to guide our choices. Our brand promise continues to guide the services we offer and how we offer them. Our values continue to guide our behaviors. Combined, this is our roadmap to win, guiding the journey we're taking as a global team.
As you've seen in the video, the roadmap to win is about a sharper focus and deeper advantage. I'll tell you a bit more now about the first one, sharper focus. We've characterized the ALS portfolio by business, by country, by region, by part of the value chain across four investment categories and applying the three lenses you heard about in the video. That really was to understand current potential, future potential of each of the parts in the portfolio. The first lens is the character of the market. The second lens is the alignment with the ALS operating way because wherever we are in the world, we want to provide consistent and reliable solutions to all of our customers. The third lens is the growth potential. Size of the market, the market share we have, and what's the growth one way, what's the growth % of that market.
The three lenses have allocated all of the businesses into these four investment areas. The first one is the expand category. These are attractive markets. We have a good position in them. We have an okay share, but we like to increase our share, and we want to grow organically and even inorganically. Examples are the minerals business, our environmental business, and also our oil and lubricants business. The second category is called protect and extend. These are markets that are attractive. We have a good position in them, and we already have a significant share in those markets. Here it is not about growing, but it is about protecting and extending the business via value-added services. Examples here are our geochemistry business, but also our environmental business here in Australia, for example, where we already have a good share. The third category we call selective and opportunistic.
These are moderately attractive markets. We have room to grow, but less advantage, and we will selectively invest in order to improve the operations. Examples are pharma, our food business, and also our assay and inspection business. The fourth area we call manage and monitor. These are the markets where ALS has less of an advantage, and performance can be improved. We actively manage the portfolio of businesses across these four areas and review it on a continuous basis as well. This is a busy slide with a couple of charts on it, and there's really just three key things you need to take away here. The first one is we have done a lot of work at a very granular level to look at our portfolio.
The second one is, if you look at the chart in the middle, let's call it the bubble chart, all of the bubbles are on the top and towards the right-hand side. Really what that means is the majority of our portfolio is in attractive markets where we have an advantaged position. The two bar charts on the right-hand side of the slide are where you can see the percentage of our EBIT and revenue. You can see that 70% of our revenue and about 80% of our EBIT is within the expand and protect extend category of our investment of our portfolio, where we are in an attractive market with a good position. We've been investing in line with our strategy in the expand area of the portfolio, and you can see that here the last financial year we've seen a 30% year-on-year growth in that area.
That's also where we see the strongest future, particularly within the environmental part of the business. Our inorganic investment, for example, Westling and York, two of the acquisitions we did last year, are going well. They're delivering on the objectives, financial and performance expectations as well. York has expanded our market position in the U.S. in environmental, which is the largest environmental testing market in the world. Westling has expanded our presence in Germany and in France, the largest environmental testing markets in Europe. Both are complementing and expanding our Life Sciences portfolio and are aligned to the ALS operating way. Both provide substantial earnings growth and runway in these key markets. Future organic growth is also focused on expanding environmental and minerals. We've got AUD 230 million earmarked for organic growth in four key laboratories: Lima in minerals and then environmental across Sydney, Bangkok, and Prague.
Our refreshed strategy, as I said earlier, has shaped our value creation framework. That value creation framework prioritizes risk-weighted capital to protect, extend, and grow the portfolio. All our growth investment, both organic and inorganic, is aligned to this framework. As part of this, we expect all growth opportunities to meet a minimum ROCE target of 15%. The objective across the portfolio is to deliver mid to high single-digit organic growth revenue and steady margin over time. Following this, we also have a focused M&A framework which follows the discipline of the value creation framework. What we've done here is we've adjusted or we've applied learnings from past acquisitions and sharpened our approach to M&A to ensure that we will be disciplined. We assess all opportunities against three criteria. Number one, all opportunities need to be on strategy. Number two, we need to be able to add value operationally.
What that means is the opportunity needs to fit with our footprint, with our hub and spoke model. We need to have a business and also a cultural understanding. Number three is the financial criteria that I've talked about already. We will be disciplined in organic growth and balance organic and focused inorganic growth in line with our strategy. Our M&A approach is centrally coordinated but relies very heavily on regional expertise and input. We source inorganic opportunities via a range of channels, but we place emphasis on actually the regions building relationships and undertaking proactive market scanning as well. We also have a very strong process and governance in place, with stage gates for approvals, ensuring that the risk assessments are in place as well.
That includes dedicated due diligence teams, multi-pronged staff by business and functions as well, so center and regions, to ensure also that the acquisitions meet the objectives and then the financial targets. I'll now talk on the next slide a bit more about the future growth potential. We're in an attractive market. The tech sector is large. It's about $150 billion in size. It is evolving, and it's growing at 4% CAGR in the next five years. The market is consolidating. About 25% is in the hands of the top 10 players. ALS will be an active player in this consolidation. We're a global business. We've got diverse end-market services customers, and our end markets are driven by the industry megatrends, and we will be building into these trends. Our environmental business is benefiting from stricter regulation on air, soil, and water.
Society wants a cleaner world, a healthier world, and that is driving scrutiny on emerging contaminants such as microplastics or PFAS. Our minerals and industrial materials businesses are benefiting from the energy transition accelerating. Metals extraction is becoming harder. The need for high-quality testing data is becoming ever more important. Our food and pharma businesses are seeing stricter regulation to ensure product safety, and a growing population is driving demand for higher quality food testing. Across all of our businesses, we see the need for high quality and real-time data in order to provide insight and help our customers make better and faster decisions. The portfolio categorization and investment areas that I spoke about have given us a clear focus: how we allocate capital. We will prioritize the capital in line with this framework. In environmental, we're a global leader.
We've got above industry margins, and we will expand geographically to build scale in key regions, including Western Europe and the U.S. In minerals, we're a global leader. We have above industry margins, and we will grow through the entire value chain of the mining industry, particularly mine site testing and metallurgy, and also offering new technology services. In industrial materials, we will establish regional scale, and we will grow oil and lubricants, mainly organically, supported by large key client expansions. In food, we're a regional leader. We've got good margins. We will make selective investment to complement and strengthen the existing footprint. In pharma, we will establish regional leadership to focus on global client delivery. I've spoken about our established and disciplined approach to M&A, and that approach is supported by a healthy M&A pipeline.
What you see on the screen here is just a snapshot in time because the pipeline is continuously evolving. You can see here as well that we've got a clear focus on inorganic capital or inorganic sourcing for minerals and the environment. Whilst at the initial stage, we look at many, many opportunities, two-thirds here are within the areas that we want to expand in, which is in line with our strategy. You've heard from me three things. We've got a clear strategy in place. We've got a value creation that's guiding our investments. Through our actions, we have positioned our portfolio in attractive markets where we have a clear right to win, and we have an established and disciplined approach to M&A and a healthy pipeline. A key component of the roadmap to win that you would have seen in the video is also about building deeper advantages.
Out of the deeper advantages, Malcolm has touched on culture. I've touched on capital. Later, you hear the Minerals and Environmental leaders talk about expertise in the operations and how that creates advantage. I will now hand over to Thibault, who will bring focus on innovation, technology, and how we are moving towards the lab of the future.
Thank you, Heike. Hello, everyone. I'm Thibault Bonneton, Chief Digital and Information Officer at ALS. I joined ALS four months ago after 15 years at Orange, one of the leading telecommunication operators in Europe with revenue of EUR 40 billion. Over the last five years, I was Chief Digital and AI Officer in Spain and France, driving the use of AI across commercial, operational processes, and corporate functions. It is my first time in Australia, and I'm very grateful to be here discovering your amazing country. Before we start, I want to sincerely thank you for your warm welcome and the opportunity to engage with you today. As Malcolm and Heike have just highlighted, ALS is a global leader in testing services, committed to delivering strong and sustainable shareholder return. A key factor driving these returns is our investment in digital innovation and artificial intelligence.
Over the next minutes, I'll explain how digital innovation and AI are key drivers in our roadmap to win. Digitalization is reshaping the tech market, and ALS is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation. As Heike explained, ALS's strategic journey makes us more focused and more agile. It allows us to scale technology rapidly with precision and discipline. Our proprietary LIMS are already deployed across every continent. They demonstrate our capability to drive consistent global innovation at scale. Scale alone isn't enough. It's how we leverage our size that truly matters. Every day, our 450 labs across over 70 countries generate vast amounts of structured, reliable data carefully maintained over three decades. We view data as a critical strategic asset managed in a consistent way to guarantee accuracy and trust.
This structured data is a critical fuel, powering every analytical model, every insight we deliver, and ultimately every decision our clients make. With LIMS fully embedded in our workflows, most ALS labs already operate as digital labs, and they are ready for our next strategic leap: artificial intelligence. ALS adopted AI early, as demonstrated by our strategic acquisition of GoldSpot in Canada, long before the current generative AI wave. This early investment in AI now benefits multiple verticals within ALS, building value and reinforcing our competitive edge. Our recent capital raise provides targeted investment to further accelerate our AI initiatives, always focused on efficiency and clear returns. Specialization, data leadership, and our early AI adoptions position ALS uniquely to serve many industries in the future. The digital backbone of ALS is the foundation for our automation and AI strategy.
When the tech industry talks about digital labs, it typically means implementing standardized LIMS. At ALS, we have already achieved that. Our ambition goes well beyond industry standards. We are accelerating automation and embedding AI directly into our daily operations. Let's step back for a moment. Early on, we made the strategic decision to develop our own unified and proprietary LIMS. This provides us with a unique competitive advantage. In geochemistry, for example, one unified LIMS means one version of the truth. Every sample, every result, is instantly traceable from Perth to Vancouver and everywhere in between. Today, 78% of the revenue of the groups are covered by our unified LIMS: 100% in geochemistry, 87% in industrial materials, 68% in food, and 60% in environmental. It doesn't end there. We also invested early in client-centric digital solutions, creative, intuitive, and user-friendly experiences that significantly enhance client engagement.
Finally, we successfully extended our digital approach to recent acquisitions like Nuvisun and Westling. This has accelerated synergies, increased efficiency, and delivered annual IT cost savings in those businesses of approximately 25% year on year. When it comes to AI, our approach is highly targeted. We are not scattering resources across numerous low-impact pilots. Instead, we focus our efforts precisely on high-potential areas, what we call our big bets. We firmly believe that SOAP functions are the ideal starting point for leveraging AI, delivering substantial gains in efficiency, and significantly reducing the use of human resources. We've just launched an ambitious automation program across our SOAP functions, employing advanced robotics process automation solutions. This is expected to deliver incremental benefits from full year 2027. In our environmental labs, an inter-lab knowledge assistant is already operational.
It provides technicians with rapid, accurate answers to complex regulatory questions such as regional compliance requirements in North America. Accelerating our code generation capabilities is another clear priority. Already, 30% of our code base is AI-generated, and our ambition is to exceed 50% by 2027, placing ALS alongside technology leaders like Microsoft or Google. Generative AI also offers a unique opportunity to revolutionize customer experience. Our ambition is clear. We aim to transform how clients interact with ALS, enabling seamless real-time engagement. Additionally, we see a particular opportunity by providing faster on-field testing solutions and better sampling tools. AI-enhanced camera and drones or mobile applications will soon automate site infrastructure and sample inspections. They will deliver faster and more accurate outcomes through AI-driven image recognition and validation. Finally, our vision of the future revolves around smart labs, laboratories empowered by robotics, data, and artificial intelligence.
This transformation will enable faster, more consistent sample processing, reduce manual errors, and significantly shorter turnaround times. The successful implementation of these initiatives helps support our objective of improving margins by 20 - 40 basis points in the medium term. Each strategic initiative undergoes careful evaluation, aligning our ambition precisely with the resources needed to achieve measurable and lasting impact. When it comes to AI, we made a bold decision several years ago. We chose to move early and decisively. Through the acquisition of GoldSpot, we built a significant competitive edge in artificial intelligence. Today, we're seeing tangible results, AI applications already deployed, and crucially, scalable across all our business units. Let me share two concrete examples that illustrate this advantage. Firstly, numerical validation. By leveraging AI-driven workflows, we've significantly accelerated turnaround times and enhanced process reliability.
A single numerical validation use case in our mineral labs delivered a 138% improvement in consistency and AUD 2.5 million in savings over five years, a single use case. Now we are ready to take this use case even further, scaling this success across multiple divisions and multiple geographies. The second compelling example is computer vision in our food division. Our custom-made AI already reads more than 10,000 plates a day at more than 90% accuracy. This solution is accredited in the U.K. and significantly enhances productivity by enabling microbiologists to focus on more complex analysis. The AI model automatically analyzes microbiology culture plates after incubation, leading to productivity gain of over 100% in our evaluation. This technology is also scalable and will be deployed across all microbiology labs in the food, environmental, and pharmaceutical sector. These initiatives illustrate our strong AI capabilities.
They are built upon solid foundations we've laid over years: our unified LIMS infrastructure and our enterprise-wide data lake. The laboratory of tomorrow will be smarter, more efficient, and capable of delivering faster results at a lower cost. Our ambition over the next five years is clear and focused: fully leverage technology to completely transform our operations, creating more streamlined and effective labs. The strategic convergence of data, robotics, and artificial intelligence will enable us to achieve our core objective: faster results, higher quality, and lower costs. We already have a strong foundation in traditional robotics and AI. Beyond the time series model and computer vision already highlighted, several robotic solutions are currently operational. This includes, for example, solvent dispensing robots in our environmental lab, dry matter measurement robots, and automated systems managing petri dishes.
Alongside robotics, we are also actively deploying specialized AI assistants to make our team's daily tasks smoother, more accurate, and more productive. Examples include regulatory assistants, testing methodology assistants, and dedicated R&D and pattern assistants. Finally, we are preparing today for the future arrival of a fully autonomous agent, building upon our growing internal expertise in artificial intelligence. We will deploy these advanced solutions gradually and strategically, focusing only on high-value areas and avoiding the common mistake of chasing micro-efficiency. Importantly, the capital intensity of these initiatives is relatively low. The capital to fund the implementation of this transformation is already included in our AUD 230 million investment program in the four new hub labs.
The capital required for implementation at all the sites is already included in our ongoing annual base spend of approximately AUD 170 million and will be deployed progressively as we validate efficiency gain and achieve our targeted return of investment. This strategic approach positions ALS Limited not just to follow industry trends, but to decisively lead them. To deploy artificial intelligence at scale and to do so cost-effectively, we are seamlessly investing in our AI factory and our people. Let's start with the AI factory. Our goal is straightforward: build once, scale everywhere. We have adopted a modular Lego-like approach, creating reusable building blocks that allow rapid deployment at minimal incremental costs. Today, our average deployment lead time is measured in months. This enables us to replicate solutions efficiently across multiple applications and multiple geographies.
Today, each new deployment achieves a 30% reduction in unitary costs, driven by the strategic reuse of proven AI components. Even more critical than technology are our people and their skills. At ALS, our philosophy is clear. Successful AI deployments depend largely on people. Their expertise, their engagement, and their adaptability will ultimately determine our success. Reflecting this priority, we are rolling out mandatory AI training for all ALS employees globally, tailored specifically to our proprietary tools and processes. Additionally, we are providing intensive AI training for over 100 leaders across various business units, empowering them to lead AI-driven initiatives and ensure sustainable long-term adoption in our organization. The bottom line is clear. Our AI investment delivers immediate and measurable impacts, including a 40% improvement in work quality that's transforming performance across many teams.
In a nutshell, we build once, scale everywhere, and upskill everyone, turning data, robotics, and AI into compounding shareholder value. In summary, ALS is positioned as a true industry disruptor. We hold one of the largest and most comprehensive data sets in our industry, continuously enriched by more than 450 laboratories globally, all operating within our proven hub and spoke model. Our proprietary LIMS already covers more than 78% of the group revenue, a figure that grows steadily as we continue to extend its reach across our entire organization, successfully integrating new acquisitions and expanding digital integration. Our strong commitment to automation is intensifying, particularly within support functions, as we progress toward fully automating workflows in finance, HR, and other cross-business processes. We have also a unique opportunity to accelerate the deployment of AI-powered smart labs, particularly in strategically targeted regions, further amplifying our growth potential.
ALS is supporting its clients by turning high-quality data into high-value knowledge for rapid decision-making. With our AI-powered smart labs, ALS is evolving beyond a testing network. We are a global data company with laboratories attached. As you see, ALS is not merely embracing the future of testing. We are actively shaping it: greater insight, smarter decisions, stronger margins, leaner operations. This aligns perfectly with our brand promise: right solutions, right partner. That's why ALS is a smart tech growth story. I will now hand back to Heike to summarize.
Thank you, Thibault. Before we move into Q&A, a quick summary of the last three presentations. You've heard from Malcolm that ALS has delivered superior TSR performance, and we have an industry-leading safety performance. Our structure is scalable. We've got the global model that gives us flexibility to adapt as our clients need us to. This is underpinned by a culture of shared values. You heard from me. We have a clear strategy and a focused value creation framework in place. We have an attractive and a resilient portfolio that's leveraged to meet macro trends, and that portfolio is underpinned by a healthy M&A pipeline. Just now you've heard from Thibault that we are well on the path towards the lab of the future, which is driving our competitive advantage in digital and in AI.
Now let's move on to Q&A, and I'll invite Malcolm and Thibault to join me back here on the stage.
Just a reminder, folks, we've got the Slido Q&A function. If anyone's got any questions to submit for this session, you can log in and submit those. Otherwise, we do have microphones we'll use in the room for any sort of roving questions as well.
Okay.
You want to sit down this end? All right. Sure, come down this end.
See you there, mate.
All right. We'll just start with some of the Slido Q&A questions. There's a few that are on M&A that I can see. There's one from John Campbell around sort of global scale and competitive advantage as it relates to minerals and environmental. Looking at the other sectors which are more niche, do we sort of see any opportunities as it relates to asset swaps with any of the tech majors?
Do you want to cover that?
Should I touch on it? Yeah. I mean, as I said, the way we look at M&A, basically, we have a very wide cast. Our net is really wide. We talk to all of the banks to see participated processes. We talk to have regional relationships. We also take a look at what our competitors are doing and what our competitors have. From that perspective, in order to at all times see what's the best opportunity for us.
Fantastic. Maybe switching tact to Thibault in terms of you outlined a sort of ambitious platform, if you like, of ongoing opportunities as it relates to digital and AI. Just from a data security and data integrity perspective, how are the sort of safeguards that you're looking to build into those new innovations?
About data, it's very important because, as I commented, data is a critical fuel that we use to build AI use cases. We have been very carefully working with our data over many, many years. We've been moving this early to the cloud. I think we have a partnership with Microsoft, and part of this is in Microsoft Azure tenants. Also, legally, we own the data. We have the ability to use it in an anonymized way, which is also very important. We are very carefully working on this. It's important that we're also deploying a governance framework and data privacy impact assessment that ensures our ability to deliver these use cases in a very safe and controlled way.
Thank you. Just following on from that, there's a follow-up question around labor being a big part of our overall cost base. How do you sort of see that evolving as it relates to some of the automations that you're looking at? How do you sort of see that changing in terms of how we operate?
I think that Thibault said that part of the impacts that we're going to see is going to start in fiscal year 2027. Clearly, there is an opportunity in labor, but we are also seeing how we redeploy labor more efficiently. As we continue growing the company, I think with the growth rates that we just showed, the expectation is that the % will slowly be decreasing, but not in the short term, clearly not during this next year. The big opportunity with AI and with this type of technology is how we, and you're going to hear that in the minerals and environmental presentations, is how we better use our staff, how we better use our staff for the more critical aspects of our work. Our work is very intense. It's highly technical. Our view is that it's not going to disappear.
It's going to be even more technical in the future. Our hub locations will be even more technical than they are right now. Part of the staff will be extremely needed to be able to give the responses that the clients, the new regulations, the miners of the future will continue needing. It's an evolution. Clearly, it's an opportunity. What we are looking at right now, as I think Thibault rightly said, is how we train the staff to better use AI and how we can create better insights for our clients in the future.
I think we've got a question over here from the floor.
Thank you. That was a really good presentation, and thanks a lot for that because, I mean, we spent a lot of time with Malcolm and Stuart sort of talking about these things, but seeing them in a video opens it up and brings it to life a little bit. I'm just interested to understand the operating leverage as a result of all of this. I mean, we look at a lot of those videos, and there's a lot more robotics than what I've seen in the past walking through some of these labs. My first thought that comes to my head is, we're seeing obviously a reduction in labor costs, and then thinking about capacity expansion from there.
If there's just something you could talk through around what the operating leverage looks like from here, given that you've given the end market demand profile and what that looks like over the next sort of six odd years or so, just interested if you can give us a little bit more color there around what that ultimately means and what it means for margins moving forward.
Thanks. When you started the question, I realized that I thought you were going to say that Stuart and myself didn't do a very good job explaining that. Thanks for the feedback. We'll take it, Stuart. Clearly, the key of robotics or any technology is the speed of how much of the speed of the deployment of the technology globally. What I can tell you is that we made significant upgrades in the last two years, but the opportunities, the biggest opportunities are still ahead of us. Clearly, that presents a strong opportunity. In terms of operating leverage, I think you covered the part of the answer that I would like to give you is this will.
Incremental increase in production capacity, think about sample prep in the Minerals testing business. As much as fast as we can automate those labs, it's going to be easier for us to scale up or down depending on where you are in the cycle and to also work. This is part of the presentation for Bruce and Michelle, how you can create better methods to serve the industry because with better sample prep, you can have better analytical testing. If you're asking about the operating leverage, I think that's why in the value creation framework we state steady margin improvement. Part of that steady margin improvement is how much faster we can deploy technology that we've done in the past. I think we are in a much better position because, as Thibault also showed, 78% of the total revenue of the company is using unified LIMS.
As that scales up and we speed up, for example, Environmental testing, that I think will release some of the barriers we have to deploy technology in some other locations. Deploying LIMS, unifying processes will help us deploy faster robotics, for example. Heike, do you want to add anything or Thibault?
No.
No? You have a follow-up? I'm sure you have.
No, I'm good.
Thanks.
I mean.
We're going to start showing videos in the next investor meeting.
Malcolm, we heard a lot about strategy and culture in the presentations to lead off today. There's a question from the floor around how do you think our strategy and culture differs to that of our tech peers?
I'm not going to comment about tech peers. I'm going to comment how it differs of ALS itself. I think that one of the things that I hope is transpiring from the presentation is that ALS is a business that will take risks within a very clear framework. We will empower our staff to take risks and to move faster. We want to be agile. We want to be more accountable. I think if we achieve that, we're going to be able to deploy better innovation for our clients, our employees, and overall to create a better return to our shareholders. What I can say about ALS without speaking about competitors is that the unique thing about ALS is a testing company with a very clear focus in specific end markets. That puts us in a very unique position.
We know where we have a right to win, and we will compete strongly in those markets. In those markets or geographies that we think that we are not going to achieve that, we will discuss other options. I think that's the beauty of ALS. We want to be the best in class. What means the best in class? Be the best in class for our clients, the best technical solutions, the best in class for our employees, the best culture to work in, the best in class to you. We want to be top quartile shareholders return. The best in class also for the communities we serve.
OK. Maybe just following on, too, from obviously, we had the capital raising sort of in tandem with the full-year results. There's a question here. What portion of lab sites does ALS currently own, and is there any strategic focus to increase that percentage moving forward?
We made that analysis, and we got that question during the capital raising. I think that there's nothing in the short term and the medium term that you should be expecting that we're going to start changing what we've done. We own the labs that we'd like to own. I think that in the locations that we decided to include in this capital raising were locations that we were constrained in the near future in terms of production capacity, and that's why we've done it. It's not something that you should be expecting that in the near future capital will turn from supporting all of these initiatives that Heike and Thibault were presenting and using that capital to buy real estate. Clearly, there are some locations that are more critical than others, and we own them.
In those locations, we will see, we will review the cases, and we will buy them. In the other cases, we will be comfortable with long-term lease agreements. Clearly, from a geochemistry perspective, the flexibility of the hub and spoke model also is connected with how much we can flex our cost base. That means that in the hub locations, if we can own the land, it puts us in a much better position to serve the different waves or the different stages of each of the cycles.
I'll just call out for any other questions from the floor for the panel at this point. If anyone's got a question, just put your hand up. It's down the front. Monica?
Thank you. Yeah, Nathan Ryder, UBS. I think you highlighted just in terms of the benefits of lab AI and automation investments, faster results, higher quality, and lower cost. Obviously, very positive outcomes. My question is, how much of that efficiency would you expect to share with customers in terms of, I guess, lower pricing going forward, particularly in some of those higher volume testing services you provide in environmental? From that point of view, do you see that as an opportunity to grow market share?
To the first part of the question, I think price, it's an output of several things. Clearly, they're going to be part of our testing that will be more commoditized than others. In those other parts of the business, we will be able to extract better pricing if we can prove that our service is better than the average of the market or respond to high technical demands from the clients itself. Price is, I don't think you can see it with one lens only. Obviously, there are some stages that you will have to have a different conversation with the clients. As long as we can continue adding value solutions to our services, we will be in a good position. You included in that question, you mentioned that environmental is high throughput testing, which I don't disagree.
I think it's similar to other businesses that a percentage of the overall environmental business is still niche testing that demands, I think, a deeper science if you want during the process. To your question on market share, I would not answer in terms of market share, but I would agree with Heike's point that she made during the presentation. ALS Limited wants to be a consolidator in those verticals that we have a right to win. We will be very clear in which of those verticals, which are those geographies. We think we have a fantastic opportunity to achieve that. I want to be very clear, first organically. I think that the market is going through a journey that will put us an opportunity to accelerate the consolidation, first organically, and yes, in those regions or specific services through acquisitions.
The business has turned to start deploying more capital for organic growth than inorganic. I'm not saying we're not going to do acquisitions, but it will be only the right ones that meet our return hurdles. We're not going to move away from our return hurdles to get an asset. I thought it was, I hope it's part of your question. Otherwise, I answered.
Any other questions from the floor, folks? Yep, down the front.
Yeah, just on the point you made about having one of the largest data sets in the industry, is that largely being acquired and built upon to generate better quality from ALS Limited in terms of your output? Or is it longer term within the confines of data privacy? Is that an opportunity that can be monetized and add additional value to your customer base?
No, I think this is a very important question. For me, this is a competitive advantage that is the result of decisions made by ALS 20, 25 years ago when we decided to move into a standardized LIMS approach. I think we made this move in the early 2000s in geochemistry. I cannot tell you how grateful I am as a newly joined CDAO to benefit from this. This is really very important. We expanded this into multiple verticals, and now we have an average coverage of 78%, which is very good. This gives us the scale, the data, and also the accuracy. I think one of the big differences that you will see between ALS and other industries is that natively, we have highly structured data because it's our job. It's our job to do that, and the data quality is probably higher.
It is structured, while in many other industries, you don't have this because it's by, I would say, the nature of our job and the nature of the service we offer to our clients that gives us. I feel very grateful to have this starting point because it's a very important competitive advantage to deploy AI and automation at scale.
Not necessarily monetized externally.
No.
Maybe just as a follow-up question on the same theme, you talked about Thibault in your presentation. We've got 78.
Iker just joined. Can you repeat the last part of it?
Just whether the data set is.
The second part you said, you are not going to.
Monetize.
Monetize.
Don't necessarily use that as a revenue-generating asset.
Let me give you an example. Sorry, Michelle. When you develop high-performance methods, that is, and you will see the increased weight of HPMs in our revenue, HPMs need better data enabled to produce them. It depends on how you see that monetization. I can give you a very clear example in the next couple of minutes. You will see how we are monetizing HPMs. In order for Michelle and the team to develop HPMs, you need data. Yes, there's an opportunity. If you ask me, would we be able to create specific solutions from data from the clients, the answer is depending where you're going to use it and how you define monetization. Yes, we're seeing in that regard opportunities to monetize data in the very short term as well. Sorry, I interrupted you.
That's OK. Just a follow-on question. Thibault referenced, I think, 78% LIMS mutualization in his presentation. There's a question around whether or not the timing and the goal to get to 100%. If so, what's the cost and time frame attached to that?
Yeah, let me start with that answer. The target of the business, when we speak about 78%, is about business stream consolidation, not globally. It's not that we're going to use the LIMS of Minerals and deploy it in Environmental. Clearly, within each of the verticals, the intention is that in the medium term, let's say before the next five years, all of those divisions will be at least 95% or higher integrated with each of their own LIMS. I think that Thibault mentioned we have 60% of the Environmental business. If we remove the Environmental business that is sampling, that Environmental business consolidation is closer to 70% - 75%. The answer would be yes, you should expect that, but by business stream. They are so unique and different that one solution will not apply to the other one. With that caveat, the answer is yes.
Excellent. All right. We might wrap up that Q&A session there. Thank you very much, panelists. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take a quick 10-minute break now for the session. For those online, we will recommend set 2:55 P.M. Perth time. If you could please be back in the room in 10 minutes, there's food outside. Feel free to bring it back into the room so that we can start on time. Thank you.
Thank you.
OK. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back. Welcome back to those online that are joining us via webcast. Hopefully, everyone's had a chance to refresh and grab a coffee. We've heard some key messages today already from Malcolm, Heike, Thibault about the strategic positioning of ALS Limited. We've heard about our new Roadmap to Win strategy and also the embrace of new digital opportunities, automation, AI, as well as we move forward. In my 21 years at ALS Limited, in my opinion, we've never had a more focused, concise, and synchronized approach to the way in which we will continue to deliver growth and value for you, our shareholders. That's really, really exciting. We're now going to change focus and consider more closely what this now means for our operations, our global platform operations, and firstly, starting with our Minerals team.
I have the pleasure of welcoming today our Global Executive General Manager for Minerals, Bruce McDonald, to present alongside the Minerals team. Bruce.
Great. Thanks, Michael. Hello, everyone, and welcome back. I have been, I think, living and visiting Perth every year, at least for the last 40 years. In fact, a long time ago, I had my very first job out of school here with BHP. I was working up in the Kimberleys. In those days, I was a client of ALS. Now, today, I'm happy to say I've established a 20+ year career with the company and enjoyed myself very much. Welcome back. Today, I'm presenting with my colleagues, Michelle Ramshaw, who's the GM of Global Geochemistry, and Shawn Hood, who's our GM of Minerals Geoanalytics. I'm going to outline what the minerals group is today. Michelle and Shawn are going to expand on some of our recent innovation activities and how they're moving us towards the lab of the future.
Today, I'll show you why ALS Minerals is uniquely positioned for growth and resilience. First, I'll outline how our client-focused structure, unmatched global footprint, and our single unifying global Laboratory Information Management System, or LIMS, gives us a clear competitive advantage. Second, I'll outline how market megatrends align with our established reputation and technical strengths to create a robust growth runway. Third, I'll cover how we've strategically diversified downstream from the well-established geochemistry market, significantly reducing our cyclical exposure. How do we deliver all of this? It starts with how we're built. The minerals group is the original laboratory-based service line of ALS. It started more than 50 years ago with the acquisition of a small lab in Mount Isa, Queensland.
From this starting point, the group has maintained a clear customer-centric focus as it's grown from a local to a regional competitor and then into the global sector leader that it is today. Our years of experience in a cyclical industry have shaped the group's structure into a focused hub and spoke system, giving us the ability to maintain efficient analytical hubs with a flexible series of small collector spoke laboratories. In the structure, seven regional hubs anchor our technical capability, each serving continental-sized regions supported by more than 80 spoke labs that provide local client support and sample collection functions. This structure gives us the ability to establish highly efficient technical expertise centers while also retaining flexibility to adjust quickly as service demands in countries or continents increase or decrease in response to business trends, political events, or other factors.
Today, we operate with this structure in more than 44 countries. As you can see, our revenue distribution is well represented across every major region. Four main business lines operate from this hub and spoke laboratory network. They include geochemistry, metallurgy, mine production testing services, and geoanalytics. Geochemistry, which operates six hubs in five continental areas, enjoys a market-leading position. The metallurgy group operates one hub and a number of spokes in Australia, Western Canada, and a recent greenfield expansion in the U.S.A. Mine production testing services operate on around 30 client sites. It's fully integrated with geochemistry technical services and the geochemistry LIMS. The geoanalytics business leverages opportunities for data services and tools as it provides innovative workflow solutions to both geochemistry clients and mine production testing service clients. In total, minerals generated AUD 851 million in revenue last year.
Now that you've seen how minerals group is built, let's look at the market fundamentals that underpin our optimism for the future. The first is the strong global policy direction supporting energy transition and electrification. The technologies enabling this transition are all metals intensive and support a long-term uplift in demand that may also serve to offset the long history of cyclicity in our industry by sustaining demand for many years. A second fundamental driver is resource nationalism that's arisen as it's become clear that commercial production of many important metals is not equally accessible to end users. Recently, the access to these materials has become a geopolitical tool, and that's increased interest in exploration worldwide. Finally, the prospect of more consistent metals demand profiles over a longer time frame has highlighted the declining frequency of exploration success for all metals for many reasons.
This challenge has put a focus on maximizing opportunity around known and active deposits. Maximizing opportunity requires more and better data. ALS is perfectly positioned for this new reality. We've led the industry in producing new testing methods with unique performance characteristics that help our clients see opportunities where previous methods would have seen nothing. Our global distribution and unified LIMS gives geologists access to the cleanest and most trusted data sets possible from virtually anywhere in the world. We already provide dedicated on-site services at more than 30 mines across several continents, many at world-class deposits with decades-long mine lives. Because many of our other ALS business lines have grown up around our minerals business, they're perfectly aligned to provide additional service support for things like environmental monitoring, equipment wear monitoring, finished product testing, and even food testing. Where do we see the biggest opportunities?
ALS is active across the entire minerals value chain with particular strength upstream where our geochemistry business has built a global leadership position. While strong growth potential continues in geochemistry, the most significant opportunities lie further downstream where we see growth potential equal to or exceeding our current geochemistry business. We see attractive opportunities to replicate our metallurgical success in new regions. We also see important opportunities to integrate our data capabilities deeper into client workflows from exploration to mining to milling to finished product. As mentioned, we can and do offer more than just mineral-related testing services. Approaching the client as one ALS, we've seen linkages build across our other service lines as well. A mine, after all, is a complex organization with many needs, like a small city, often in remote locations.
As our own offerings have grown around the mining sector, we can offer a full range of testing services to supply the knowledge a miner requires. Our strategy is to grow market share in the mining industry while building greater resilience across the cycles that mining and mineral exploration have historically presented. Our strategy has proven effective. We've consistently grown our market share over the past 20 years in exploration, with some of our fastest growth happening in just the past three years. Over this same period, while exploration spend has contracted by 8% worldwide, minerals has enjoyed growth from innovation success and by targeting our downstream market opportunities as I've just described. We've seen a 28% increase in revenue from high-performance methods in geochemistry. Our focus on winning market share in mine production testing services has resulted in 22% of this area over the same time frame, three years.
Meanwhile, metallurgy has grown 8% as interest in extracting difficult battery metals from ore has increased during the same period. Geoanalytics has focused on the development of data-driven tools and software services to help clients use data more quickly and effectively. They've also been working on internal improvements to our own operating processes that include the application of AI approaches to improve our analytical methods. Despite the global contraction and exploration spend, our diversification strategy has resulted in us adding capabilities as well as extending testing services and data workflows downstream. What results do we see from our strategic direction? Since 2016, we've decoupled revenue growth from global exploration spend, significantly decreasing volatility. Even as the weighting of exploration testing in our portfolio has decreased, we've continued to grow our market share in this segment while also growing further downstream.
Our minerals revenue has grown at a CAGR of 10% over two decades, which is more than double the industry average. As Malcolm mentioned earlier, our CAGR in the past four years has accelerated to 14%. Our shift downstream towards mine production testing is a big part of that. It stabilizes revenue even when exploration spending slows. These new MPTS clients appreciate the operating discipline that our LIMS system brings to mine testing applications and the attention to detail and client service that comes from our long association with exploration. This discipline strategy has significantly reduced revenue volatility and enabled strong underlying EBIT margins consistently above 30% for the past four years. To close, our strategic ambition leverages our proven strengths across three key goals. First, grow market share throughout the mining value chain using ALS's global brand, innovative technologies, and robust client relationships.
Second, establish distinct and superior mine production testing services leveraging our geochemistry success, client trust, and integrated systems. Third, develop unique data-driven digital solutions to support client needs across the value chain using geoanalytics to reinforce our industry leadership in AI applications for mining. We will continue to excel in geochemistry. At the same time, we will expand metallurgy globally. We will leverage expertise from geochemistry and metallurgy to accelerate growth in mine production testing opportunities. As we grow, we will use advanced geoanalytic solutions to connect data across the entire mining cycle. I will now hand over to Michelle, who is going to talk further about how our leading innovation drives resilience for our minerals business.
Thank you, Bruce. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Michelle Ramshaw, and I'm the General Manager of Global Geochemistry. I joined the company the day I stepped out of university, and it's been incredible for me to see the evolution from writing data on a piece of paper to AI-enabled. I'm joined by my colleague Shawn Hood, who is the General Manager of the geoanalytics division and will be connecting innovation concepts with resilience in the minerals business. How do resilience and innovation connect? You may not think about those two words naturally going together. For us, they go hand in hand in our journey towards the lab of the future. To be resilient, we leverage both our traditional strengths and add innovation to enhance that resilience.
With those, we deliver the highest quality data, safer working conditions for our staff, efficiencies in our operations, and new differentiating products to our clients. Shawn will talk a bit more about that later. First, I'll speak about the traditional foundation of our operating resilience. There are two key pillars: our hub and spoke model and our 100% unified LIMS. Both of these are unique in the industry. With the hub and spoke model, we operate a truly integrated global network of labs, not just a geographic collection of labs. This allows us to do many things: be flexible and move samples to make use of capacity wherever it is, pull levers and add or remove spokes quickly, concentrate work at locations with highly skilled staff, control and monitor every aspect of our processes.
That means right down to the make and model of each instrument and the calibrations and QC controls applied. This enables unrivaled data consistency ready for AI application. This also allows us to deploy innovation throughout a network to the benefit of all. The 100% unified LIMS is the enabler for all of this. It's the backbone of our operating resilience. Through it, we can control and oversee everything, both on commercial and mine production testing sites. It is also more than just the global repository of data. For example, it contains information that shapes our strategies, extending even to a market sensing system that drives our pricing approach through the industry cycles. These two things, the hub and spoke model and single LIMS, are key to executing and proliferating innovations throughout our operations. Good ideas don't just remain as ideas; they become reality for everyone everywhere. Back to innovation.
How do we decide what to do? We take much of our inspiration from our clients and staff in solving their challenges. What are some of these challenges? For one, things are very different in mining today compared to 100 years ago. Minerals are harder to find, and grades are declining. Gone are the days of walking around Australia and stumbling over a gold nugget. Discovery is complex. We have to dig deeper and test more to help our customers. Another change is with the green energy transition. Different commodities are a focus, and many require different methods: copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths. It has been forecasted that we currently don't have enough of these in the world to support the future. This is a gap that we will need to close through increased exploration. To meet these challenges, we have developed what we call high-performance methods.
What are these? They are commercialized scientific approaches that have not previously been available outside of academia. This could be instrument conditions that detect signals not previously measurable or novel chemistry to extract an element of interest. Some of our most popular recent developments target lithium and rare earths, all things that we need for the future. In the gold world, we have developed a gold nanomethod able to detect golds at parts per trillion levels. These high-performance methods are brand defining for ALS Limited that help target commodities in complex geological environments. Data is delivered with a consistency only possible from the tight analytical controls that we apply through the hub and spoke model and the unified LIMS. High-performance methods contribute to our resilience as a competitive advantage. Their uptake increasingly contributes to our bottom line, as shown by the 28% CAGR from 2021 to 2025.
Talking about people again, which I mentioned was also an inspiration for innovation, we also develop methods that make it safer to work in our labs. We recently adapted a common industry method to remove one of the most dangerous chemicals we use. The first application of this is at our mine site labs, where it is the farthest to reach to implement safety controls. What does our lab of the future look like? At this early stage, there are three contributors. I've talked about our hub and spoke model with its standardized equipment and SOPs and the 100% unified LIMS. The third piece is automation, both mechanical and digital, that make us more efficient and able to deliver better data. Automation is not just putting a robot or AI to mimic a human, but recognizing the strengths of each and using both together to get the greatest benefit.
We take a practical approach to automation, what we call micro-automation, where we take a piece of a workflow, whether physical or mental, and automate the rote work. We leave the specialized tasks to humans. As an example of mechanical automation, we developed and patented a liquid dispensing system. Early in my career as a bench chemist, I dispensed three liquids into 5,000 samples a day that made 15,000 wrist movements per shift. Automating this has not only dramatically reduced repetitive strain injuries, but it has also made that dispensing more precise. That means more precise data. Now add digital automation to this. As part of our data quality control step, we have added machine learning to a human task that is by nature variable and subjective, of course, within certain boundaries.
What you see on the chart here is a culmination of both mechanical and digital automation: more precise data, less noise, and applied everywhere. With that better data, if our clients apply AI, the better the data, the better the output, the opposite of garbage in, garbage out. What next? ALS Limited has traditionally been a data producer. We are now looking ahead to what can be done with that data. How can we combine data sets from different sources and provide insights or solutions to clients? I'll hand over to Shawn to delve deeper with some examples through the mining value chain.
Thanks, Michelle. Hi, everybody. I'm Shawn from the geoanalytics group, which was formerly known as GoldSpot, as Thibault was mentioning. We provide a base of consulting and data analytics into the mining industry. Michelle spoke about data and innovation, which is being developed within ALS. What I'd like to tell you about is how we're bringing that innovation out to clients in the mining industry. We help our clients to turn high-quality data into high-impact decisions. What I'm going to show you is how we combine deep technical knowledge in mining and geoscience with advanced technical abilities like AI, machine learning, and data automation. Thibault spoke earlier about the lab of the future. We're bringing that vision to life by combining the structured data that he mentioned, expert interpretation, scalable analytics, and really our insights with clients across the value chain.
What sets us apart is our ability to deliver these workflows with clarity and speed. The reason why we are able to do this is because many of us come from the mining industry itself. Myself, I'm a professional geologist. For about two decades and three continents, I have been an ALS client. We have a deep knowledge of what it is that people look for when they engage with ALS. Our clients operate from greenfield discovery to active mining. They're reporting that we can help them to move faster, to reduce risk, and to make better informed decisions, all underpinned by the trusted data that ALS is known for. I'm going to give you some examples now. We're going to walk through some of those stages, starting with a kind of big picture, then medium, and then something more granular. This is a practical example at big scale.
This is a map of Western Australia. It shows work that's currently underway as part of a public-private initiative to redefine part of the state's underlying geological mapping framework. This is a collaboration which is involving high-quality ALS geochemistry data with digital integration supplied by ourselves and interpretation using our proprietary data analytical platform for mineral exploration. Here's how it works. What we do is we start with accurate high-resolution data that is typically produced by ALS Geochemistry. We use this to understand and inform the types of rocks that are present across the region. We and our partners layer in geophysical surveys, satellite imagery, remote sensing, and geological knowledge with AI-enabled workflows. This allows us to build a more complete understanding of the underlying bedrock in the state, which underlies all the red dirt that's out there.
The result and the impact is to identify those regions with better potential for strategic metals. This is more than a research exercise. It's a scalable and repeatable service that we are providing globally to governments, to explorers, and to mining companies. This service demonstrates an example where we're applying our strategic capabilities in high-growth markets and using data as the force multiplier. We're not just reacting to the demand. We're helping to shape it through our data leadership. Now let's zoom in to the scale of mining tenements. This is the scale at which many of our clients work every day. Explorers typically rely on many data sets, things like geochemistry, geophysics, hyperspectral data, satellite drill logs, and more. These data sets are so often not analyzed together in a way that delivers consistent decision-ready insight. That's the challenge that we help them to solve.
On the left-hand side of the screen, you can see a data stack. These are the common data types that are used in the exploration industry. Geochemistry is positioned there at the top. I've put it there because it's one of the highest confidence data sets that typically inform metals exploration, and so it underpins the AI workflows which follow. Our approach allows subject matter experts in mining to access AI with scalable digital workflows and to reveal the patterns that are present in data stacks like this. On the right-hand side of the screen, what you see is the output which has been processed using our smart suite AI platform. This is where we are showing the regions of the area of interest which are more prospective for the metals or the mineralization of interest.
In this situation, you can think of AI not as a black box, but rather it's a tool. It's a tool that's used by geologists to move faster, to test ideas, to generate better hypotheses. These hypotheses are actually what's the most important. They're the kernels of thinking that allow these scientists, these geologists, to go out into the wilderness and to collect the types of samples which then come to ALS Limited. We're working to build software like this using what Thibault mentioned, building once and scaling everywhere. The platform tools are created in a modular way. This way, we can proceed from a proof of concept more to a production solution in weeks rather than months or even years. Very importantly, these types of solutions are scalable across geographies and commodity types. Now we're moving further downstream. We're into the mining area.
This is where exploration has transitioned into production. Here, ALS Limited plays an important role because geochemistry, metallurgy, and mine production testing are generating essential operational data. That data is often siloed at the mine site. That's because it's produced by different teams, different groups, different budget lines. It's rarely fused to deliver full value. Our core intelligence suite is addressing this challenge. It's the platform that we're rolling out to integrate field-collected data, lab assays, operational inputs, and other human-driven data to form coherent, usable insights. This slide shows that journey from sample collection to transformation of data into actionable knowledge. It starts with people, the engineers, the geologists, and the technicians, which are so common across all mine and exploration sites. These are the teams that inform the what and the how, why data is collected and how it should be used.
Then there are the sensors and the equipment in the field. These produce the initial data sets which are closest to the mine, closest to the rocks. We add to that ALS Limited's high-quality laboratory testing information. This is coming from the mine testing sites and the hub labs. Finally, we integrate these streams using smart data pipelines and contextual AI workflows. This approach provides earlier decision support. It can inform mine planning, improved ore characterization. It generally supports a transition from reactive decision-making to proactive decision-making. We know that today's mine sites need flexibility and responsiveness. The core intelligence platform is working towards both these things. In the last column for your insight, these are geological cross-sections. These are the types of deliverables that we give to clients. What they are is a computed value for different minerals which can add value within mills and mines for decision-making.
To close, I'd like to return to a guiding idea. It's to begin with the end in mind. Data alone isn't anything. It's nothing. It's the application of data which can add value. We are helping clients to select and use information with their goals and their problems as our focus. Across the industry, clients are facing very similar challenges to find resources, to produce efficiently, and manage environmental expectations. What's different today is the volume of data involved. We're working to help these organizations to bring data together. By drawing on the client's experience and our own professional backgrounds in industry, we can make purpose-built functions and give purpose-built workflows that reflect the realities of mining and are deployed in collaboration with these groups. We're building digital capabilities which support this and which enhance ALS's model, as well as expanding the value proposition.
At the heart of all this, though, is trust because our clients trust ALS data, and they have confidence in it. We're working in ways that help to build on this trust so that their data can become knowledge, insight, and ultimately value. I'll pass back to Bruce for summary.
OK, thank you. Thank you, Michelle and Shawn. To sum up the minerals story, ALS is a known and respected partner for the mining industry with a strong brand identity. We're known for deep knowledge of client needs, our innovative science, and our ability to provide high-quality data solutions in mining districts anywhere around the world. ALS is extremely well represented on a global basis in the discovery segment of the industry, which is geochemistry, and has a leading position in the feasibility segment of the industry, which is metallurgy.
Our drive to innovate and commercialize new science and systems is providing savings for our business processes today and is helping clients access a new range of deeply embedded services as well. Our tools and systems are fully scalable and ready to quantify and connect data workflow points further downstream in the mining value chain to provide traceable testing from point to point as miners discover, mine, process, and sell their product. We can move to the question and answer period after this.
Thanks, Bruce. Just a reminder, everyone, if you continue to submit your questions via the Slido app, we have purged the questions from the first session. We start afresh for each session.
OK.
You're all set.
OK. Michael?
Yep.
Here I am once again.
Yep.
All right.
All right. The first one is just in relation, probably for you, Bruce, just in terms of the change in the regulatory landscape in North America. I presume by that we're talking about tariffs and the impact that's having on the commodities business moving forward.
Yeah, OK. The tariff reaction has been a confused one. In the first instance, I think it caused a lot of people to pause investment opportunities because of a fear that there would be tariff regimes that were introduced that would limit the ability to get a return on investment. People didn't know what to do for a long time. A secondary reaction was much more positive. That was that people started thinking about the impacts of tariffs and the reasons for those tariffs, which was really geared around being able to put your hands on the secure supply of the raw materials that are needed for manufacture, production of essential elements of our economy. What that caused was a lot of inward thinking in a lot of governments about what they were doing to encourage the exploration and mining efforts within their own jurisdictions.
That's given rise to announcements about incentives for exploration, fast tracking of regulatory approvals for mine implementation in many jurisdictions around the world. It's had a net positive effect on us in that way. There's a third impact as well. That is an uncertainty about how trade relationships will play out over time and at the end of the day, whether or not it'll have an impact on inflation and overall GDP growth. There's a mix of hot and cold in that whole thing. We've seen a lot of people within our communities galvanized by what they've heard and looking at their own backyards to see if they could activate some activity that might give rise to a story or an opportunity for production or success in the exploration endeavors in the country.
As I said, there's other factors that are working against a really golden opportunity in that arena as well.
OK, maybe just turning track to sort of high-performance methods. There's a question here around our go-to-market strategy to grow the high-performance method offering. Should we expect greater adoption as exploration activity improves moving forward? Maybe Bruce or Michelle?
Michelle might want to answer that one. Would you like to take that one?
The high-performance methods aren't for everybody. They do very much fit into the exploration phase because of the range of elements we detect and the low detection limits that we report. Understanding what our clients need for their needs and making people aware of them is important. We have developed a number of high-performance methods specifically to address the critical minerals, rare earths, lithium, those kinds of items. We'll continue to develop things as the client base needs them.
I might add to that that because the high-performance methods tend to be involved, they tend to require a little bit more effort and time to come up with a result. They cost a little bit more. As we see activity improve in our industry, we would expect to see a greater uptake of high-performance methods because the availability of new science is often a catalyst for discovery for our clients.
I might just add to that because the other thing that's important is, and sorry for dodging Mike here, the other thing that's important is we've only had our high-performance method for gold for about the last 12 or 15 months. That's still relatively early in its adoption in the market. That still remains a really solid opportunity for us as we move forward.
Maybe just moving through the panel for you, Shawn. I mean, what's the next big opportunity for geoanalytics?
I think it's the mine site area. We've seen such a change in the industry as people begin to adopt a greater understanding of use of data for improved mining efficiencies. This is something that was actually set out in a big way in Australia 10 years ago. Many of the universities were investing in the use of data, high-quality data, and often ALS data to inform downstream mining decisions. What I mean by this is that at earlier and earlier stages, better and better data is being collected and amalgamated after a deposit is discovered. This is being integrated and then used to create better mine plans, improve the recovery rates, and also improve remediation from an environmental standpoint. That has begun to permeate into other jurisdictions like North America, especially Latin America as well.
We are far ahead in that space because of our understanding of the ALS data being used, the metallurgy data, and also the positioning at the mine site. By bringing some of the things that have been developed in academia or in more scientific circles very quickly to commercialization, we're able to capitalize on that, move that zeitgeist in the industry.
OK, maybe we'll take a question from the floor. Are there any questions in the audience? Yep, down the back.
Yeah, just a question on the high-performance methods. Are these tests that no one else has? Is this your own R&D that's coming up with these tests, or have they come out of academia and you've figured out how to industrialize them?
Yeah, look, it's a little bit more subtle than that. They are often refinements on methods we already have that actually take the performance of detection limit, for example, or the noise and the signal noise out of the result, so that you wind up with a far, far cleaner outcome. That's really just a matter of process improvement in terms of how we're operating the method within our lab and the controls we put around that process. Some of them, though, are actually tests that you would find in academia. They're things that are done in very, very specific lab environments by certain highly skilled individuals that we're systematizing. We're putting them in place, systematizing them with our LIMS system, which helps us to provide additional governance that other groups may not have access to.
We can offer a method that will actually, again, have much lower detection limits and allow explorers to see anomalies where they weren't visible before, that kind of thing.
Thanks, Bruce.
Yeah.
Any other questions from the floor, folks? Yep, Nathan down the front.
Thank you. Bruce, the mine production testing services, we've seen some pretty significant growth there. You've been growing that organically. Can you talk us through the sales pitch to the customer base in terms of how you've been driving that growth and also how you've been displacing the incumbents in terms of growing market share?
Yeah, look, the sales cycle for the mine production testing type of activity is actually much, much longer. It's a very different thing. We engage clients for a period of five years, not just one year at a time. It's very relationship-driven in that way. We've had to work over time to build the relationships that we have with our exploration customers in the same way with the operating customers. The time taken to do that, again, is a big investment. It requires a consistency of visits, over and over proving the types of things that you can offer to the client, convincing them that you can meaningfully deliver on those things. I think what helps us in that is our exploration client base operates in very, very remote places. They have huge challenges. Our support systems for those people are very, very high.
We're used to providing one-on-one support in a very intensive way. The mine operators don't tend to have access to that sort of service. It's a one-and-done delivery. A group will come in, build something, leave, and expect everything to work fine. It rarely operates that way. Our approach is a little bit different. We're intensively engaging with people. We're providing a lot of follow-up visits with very high-level operatives from each of our regions so that they can tell that we care. We're providing follow-up reports and action lists and then visiting again to make sure that they're happy with the service outcomes. These are types of activities that we're very used to in exploration. In the mining side, they're not so used to at all because, like I say, they're remote. They're out there in the wilderness. It's hard to get to these places.
We're making that effort because that's what we're used to doing. I think that's a difference that our clients are seeing. The other big thing is the LIMS itself because once we've got the LIMS system in place on a mine site, we can remotely oversee how every single operating procedure is being performed, whether it's within specs or outside of specs. We actually will actively go to a client and have regular briefings with those clients about what the performance was that we saw, being totally honest. These are very surprising relationship elements that our clients aren't used to, the mining clients aren't used to. They appreciate that. That presents some glue. We can bring in other services around, like the environmental services. We also have then access for the exploration teams to the high-performance methods that we offer, not on the site.
Because we're there, we can organize the logistics for getting those samples out to our hubs where we do those analyses in particular. They're usually not part of the mine service contract, but they come in because you're there. There's a whole ecosystem of work that follows the establishment of a placement on a mine site. Yeah.
Maybe just to follow up on mine site, Bruce, there's a question around you mentioned in your presentation we've got 30 current operating sites with ALS facilities on them. I mean, how large is the market globally? What is the opportunity in mine site?
There is a lot of mine site sizes. They come in all different sizes and shapes. Numerically listing numbers isn't a great way to go. We estimate, though, that if you look at there's kind of two answers there. If you look at the mine site market in the context of the services that we offer as a minerals testing group, I would say that the mine testing opportunities within that market are probably slightly bigger than the exploration testing market itself, probably 10% - 15% larger. I think that if you look at the larger ecosystem, as I've just been talking about, the opportunity to bring in environmental work, the opportunity to bring in finished product work, the opportunity to start doing mill monitoring work, you're starting to talk about a market that's 2.5 - 3 times larger than the exploration testing market. It's very, very big.
Thank you. Any other questions from the floor, folks? I know there's a question here from John. We'll hold your question to the last Q&A session. John, we will answer it around the exploration cycle.
No worries. Thank you. I just had one related one, Bruce. Just in terms of are there any structural threats that you worry about for your business? I suppose there's been a discussion around various other participants in the broader supply chain. There's obviously photon assay, et cetera. There are some down-the-hole instrument companies that are getting smarter about the way they do things. Is there anything that worries you in that regard?
I'd have to say today, no. 10 years ago, as these new technologies were coming forward, there was a concern. What we've found is that as these technologies get implemented, very often what they're doing is they're supplying new data types that just weren't available from anywhere before. They have their own specific use, not to replace the kinds of work that we do, but to help the miners or explorers make different decisions than they ever could before just because that type of data wasn't available. The same client will still deliver the same samples to our labs. Now, when you talk about Akrisos, for example, we thought about that technology as a threat too. Today, I look at them as an OEM. They're an original equipment maker. They provide instruments that we use. We adopted some of that technology before anyone else.
We're one of the biggest purveyors of photon assay equipment right now. If they're a disruptor, we're a disruptor too. We're the disrupting vehicle. Very often, as a new technology comes forward, what happens is that technology finds a place within the lab. We wind up offering it as a part of our service offerings, but often a little bit of a different way than what was intended originally, maybe with some more controls around it, maybe with linkages to other types of analyses. Those are the kinds of the ways we're looking at those things today. They're extra information points. They're opportunities for us to engage a client in a different way with a new piece of equipment. It's another new science element that will be great as a lab offering for our clients. Yeah.
Any other questions from the floor, folks? Yep, Peter.
Thanks. Bruce, probably one for you and the team. Just firstly, on the high-performance methods, that's come about in the absence of the juniors being active. I'm just wondering what your expectation would be with their uptake if and when they ever switch back on.
OK. If and when juniors switch back on, very often what happens with juniors is they're looking for an edge. They're looking for something new, some new science element or a different approach that they can bring forward to their investors. For them, I think it's a bit of a boon because the richness of a data set coming out of these high-performance methods, because they're so clean, you can actually start using different manipulations with them than you ever could in a meaningful way with the previous data. Groups like Shawn's are actually perfect vehicles for taking a data set from a high-performance method and then using that to define targeting or solve a problem that couldn't have been solved before using artificial intelligence because the amount of data that these high-performance methods generate is quite large.
You wind up with very, very big data sets that are very, very clean that show information that could never have been available before. It's kind of like writing a clean slate over often areas that have been explored over and over again. It gives a junior more opportunity than they used to have. I think that they'll pick it up for that reason.
Thanks. Just one other one, just on the mine site. How do you think about sort of, I guess, the growth trajectory there? My understanding is that the Big Four, including yourselves, occupy probably 80% of that market. You talked earlier that relationships matter. Is it really just outside of the Big Four that you're kind of trying to win share, or can you take share from them? How quickly do you think that could scale from 30?
Yeah, look, I think we're the new kid on the block with the mine production testing service effort. I mean, it hadn't been a focus for many years prior. We'd been building out the exploration geochemistry market geographically, coming up with new methods and new applications there. We wanted to take a different tack and find a new area of growth. We started approaching the mine production testing area with some determination only in the last few years. What we've seen is that in the environment we entered at those moments, the other players, the other Big Four, Big Three, Big Two, however you want to look at it, they owned that market. We'd left them alone. We had some presence. It was an accidental presence simply because we'd had a good streak with a particular client, they invited us into a mine site.
Yes, we had a number of those. Making this a particular objective, what we found, as I mentioned in my discussion, was that we can bring something different to it because of where we come from. What we find with the wins is that we're most often taking them off an incumbent who is a competitor and making that work our own. So far, that's been something we've been quite successful at. There will be a response. I think that we've got something to offer that our competitors don't. It's more than just a way of working. It's actually the technology that we can bring in as well. I think that sets us apart.
Thanks. Just last one. I mean, just generally on the exploration cycle, I remember back in 2019, we had a chat. You were of the view that this was going to be a more progressive cycle versus the sort of 2008 to 2013 boom bust. COVID kind of interfered and distorted things. I think you've been proven correct. I'm just wondering where do you think we are in this exploration cycle with very historically high gold prices?
We might hold that one, Peter. I know it's already been asked on Slido, and we will answer it, but we might just hold it for the final panel discussion with the full panel.
Thanks, Bruce.
OK, we might wrap that Q&A session up. Thanks very much for all your questions. We will have another quick 10-minute break. We'll be back in the room at 4:00 P.M. Perth time. Feel free to duck outside and get a refreshment. We'll see you back in the room for a 4:00 P.M. start. Thank you.
Welcome back, everyone. Thanks again for being here. We're just going to cover now the environmental sector. I just want to give a quick introduction of the life sciences business. As you well know, we've been growing the life sciences business during the last eight, 10 years. One of the businesses we're extremely proud of, I think the overall life sciences portfolio is in a very, very good shape. Within that portfolio, the environmental business is specifically one of the jewels of the crown within ALS. Collectively, the life sciences business makes 64% of the revenue and delivers testing to ensure environmental protection, food safety, and product quality and safety in pharmaceutical products. What you're going to see next is we're going to discuss about how we're going to continue growing the environmental business.
In this case, you can see that the life sciences revenue from 2021 to 2025 had an underlying CAGR growth of 20%, which I think is quite impressive. The underlying EBIT margin of last year. Excluding
The recent acquisitions, finishing 17.1%. Now I'm going to hand over to Tim Kilmister. Tim has been with the company since he was born, now just talking, but for a long time, together with Phil Kennedy that he runs the Queensland Lab. Hopefully, you're going to hear more and understand more why we believe that Environmental is one of those other jewels that we have in this crown. Hopefully, you'll enjoy the next presentation. I will come back for some Q&A. Tim?
Thanks, Malcolm. All right, Phil and I are going to talk to you about the environmental business. We've got a combined career tenure at ALS of almost 60 years, and it's been a great journey. We've been part of building what we think is one of the world's best environmental testing platforms. It's been a real adventure. We both started in very junior technical roles. We've worked in client service and sales roles, technology roles, and had the chance to live and work overseas. Myself, I went and spent time in Singapore and went and spent time in Hong Kong. I'm not sure what Phil was thinking. He thought it was a great idea to take a one-year-old son and a pregnant wife to Saudi Arabia for two years, so maybe had a slightly different experience. In the early days, the environmental business was a small water lab in Brisbane.
We used to write our work orders up on a whiteboard. It's a very different business today. It's a billion-dollar business. It employs 8,500 people. It would be seen as a market leader for organic growth and margins. I think it would be fairly safe to say technology and innovation has always been a part of that journey. Really, it's about how should we think about the environmental lab of the future. There are probably three key takeaways that I wanted to put across to you today. The first one being, I think the environmental business at ALS has the global scale and product positioning to support continuing growth and performance, that we're being really deliberate in our positioning choices where we can be seen as market leaders.
The third point would be that we've got a really exciting vision for the future as far as the environmental business is concerned, and we're investing in that journey today. Over the course of the next 10 or 15 minutes, I'll walk you through the fundamentals of the environmental segment. I'll talk a little bit more about the ALS strategy to win in environmental, and then thirdly, why we should continue to expect to outperform the market in the segment. I'll start by describing what we do in environmental and what it means, because I'm not sure it's always well understood. Sometimes I think environmental and sustainability get mixed up a little bit. We're a geographically decentralized market business that's governed by local regulation and enforcement. You can see that on the map here in the number of locations in which we operate.
We help clients and end users meet their environmental obligations or brand commitments. The core of what we do is the testing of soil, water, and air samples for environmental contaminants. We also operate in a number of adjacencies, like field services or hydrographics. If I talk about some of the work programs that we do, maybe something like contaminated land, that would be where a developer wants to repurpose a former industrial site into residential or commercial. We do a lot of environmental monitoring work for heavy industry, like mining companies, pulp and paper, chemical, and manufacturing. We do a lot of work for the water industry, everything from sort of catchment to what would come out of your tap at home, and then through to wastewater discharges. We also do work for things like desalination plants and recycled water plants.
We think that work's pretty important and a great opportunity. As we contemplate global warming, I really do think that water is an increasingly valuable and scarce resource. We've come a long way over the last 30 years. We've built a great environmental testing platform. For investors, I really think the best years for the business continue to sit in front of us. The segment itself at a macro level or a holistic level, I think it's got some really supportive themes over the short, medium, and long term. Compliance with evolving regulations in established economies, enforcement of environmental regulations in emerging economies, and social demand for a cleaner society are important to our business. Growing awareness of emerging contaminants, like PFAS, which I'll talk to shortly, and increasing data integration across the value chain and how we interact with our clients and end users, are also key.
It's a competitive market. As we consider the global environmental business, ALS has got about an 11% market share currently, so continuing to have a long runway in front of us. If we look at it at a business unit or geography level, there are some geographies where we're a newer entrant where we might have a single-digit market share. I think markets in which we've had a long presence, we've typically got a much larger market share, maybe 50% in some instances. I mean, our strategy is really to say, look, let's operate in the markets and segments where we can be at least a top three competitor. Typically, we're looking for a number one position there over the medium and long term. If we think about the market and the segmentation, there's a limited number of global tech companies that operate in environmental.
There's a couple of regional and, you know, platform players. Over 50% of the market is very local, typically small and often mom-and-pop type operations. We think that there'll be a sort of slow-burn consolidation of that going forward. Maybe there'll be some acceleration there as technology requirements get higher or as data requirements get higher. I think it will tend to advantage the platform players a little bit more. We set out to provide investors with superior returns through market-leading growth and margin. We achieve that through a focus on client solutions, our advanced operating model that services locally but leverages globally, market leadership for data integration, and investment in next-generation technologies. I think as I look at the environmental business, our footprint at ALS is starting to more holistically reflect end-market opportunities. We've seen that in growth of regions such as Europe and North America.
As I look at the portfolio, we'd be market leaders across APAC, Canada, Northern Europe, Central Europe, U.K.. I think it's important to make the comment that environmental is a segment where size matters. In these geographies, we're advantaged by brand, economies of scale, reaching capability, price leadership. As I mentioned, within our strategy going forward, and I think Heike mentioned in her presentation as well, we've really prioritized growth in Western Europe, so places like Germany and France, and then in the U.S as well, where we think that there's a continuing market opportunity for us. What are the enablers of that portfolio growth? Prioritize capital allocation within the framework that exists within the company. An acceleration in our investment in technology and technical. I think our ability to leverage global systems and processes.
I think being really disciplined with what we're doing from an M&A perspective, whether that be market entry into new geographies being the ones that we really want to target, or creating scale in geographies where we've got an expansion ambition. Unpacking some of the competitive advantages in our operating model, I really do believe that we've got a more leveraged operating model. I think we benefit by technical leadership, best practice sharing, economies of scale, and our commitment to emerging technologies. What I'm saying in really simple terms is how do we pick up the best bits of our operations and replicate them and do them everywhere? I think we do a better job than our competitors, and that positions us in a favorable position today. As we sort of look to tomorrow, I'm pretty excited by the accelerating investment that we've got in next-generation technology.
Things like robotic automation, things like AI, looking for deeper insights into the data that we provide. We work pretty closely with a number of instrument vendors. I think we're benefited by standard instrument platforms. We've heard that in other business streams as well as being a competitive advantage. Preferred vendor agreements are important to us in getting access to new technologies. We've got a bespoke LIMS system. Just to provide some clarity, and it's sort of been mentioned a couple of times already, but for Environmental, we've probably got about 60% of revenue on our GEL LIMS platform. If we sort of build a bridge going forward, there's probably 15% or so of work associated with field services or adjacency that's not LIMS applicable. That gets us to about 75% today.
We've got deployments on foot currently in the U.S. and the U.K., and some newly acquired businesses in Germany and France. That's kind of the stepping stones to get us towards that 95% or 100% application. Why is it important? I think it provides the underlying system harmonization that then lets us really layer on the data insight side of things or the automation side of things or the productivity benchmarking sort of things, or the client data integration side. We see that as being such an important advantage for our Minerals business, and it's the same in the Environmental side of things. You know, our vision towards the smart lab of the future, increasing deployment and replication of task-based robots, using AI to perform repetitive tasks, improving or continuing to improve our operating model based on data insights, and then bringing additional value to clients through data.
That's what we're really passionate about, and that's what we find exciting about our business opportunity going forward. I can't talk about environmental in this audience and not talk about PFAS. It's really significant for the environmental segment, and we're really energized by it. I do just need to continue to provide a little bit of context here. It represents about 5% of the available market, and the other 95% is probably going pretty well for ALS at the moment. If we look at our history for PFAS, we've probably been at this for about 15 years, and it started here in Australia. We did and continue to do a lot of work for the Department of Defense, Air Services, the Civil Fire Authorities. Within our global platform, we've got 28 laboratories that now have PFAS capabilities.
We've got great PFAS capabilities in all regions, in all of the major markets in which we operate. Within our portfolio, we've really made a point to prioritize capital investment in PFAS, whether that's from a capabilities development perspective or whether that's from a capacity-building consideration. We've got a leveraged technical position to support best practice and standard methods. What does all that mean? Why should you guys care? For me, it's about higher returns on investment. It's about being faster to market and being on the proactive side of creating capacity within our network. Just to provide a little bit of context, a new PFAS instrument, we're looking at an investment of about AUD 500,000. From ordering to commissioning, we're looking at about six weeks faster if we need it, so we can spin up capacity fairly quickly.
If we want to create a new PFAS cell, so look at a new location, it's probably more of a six to 12-month commitment. The rate limiting step is typically the regulatory or accreditation side of things. We're probably looking at about a AUD 2 million spend in that instance. I think what I'm really proud of, PFAS revenues have grown organically at more than two and a half times the broader portfolio at ALS. We're seeing the outcomes of that investment and priority that it's got within our business. For me, that sets the context. I now want to hand over to Phil. He can walk you through a couple of examples and look more deeply at how we're thinking about innovation at ALS.
Thanks, Tim. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone here, and also everyone online today. I'm excited to talk to you about what we're doing in Environmental to support the lab of the future. You've heard some great stories today already about what Geochemistry or the Minerals business are doing in the innovation space, and we want to replicate what they do. Unfortunately, we've got different problems to solve because we don't have a single set of methods or procedures that we deploy across all laboratories globally. I want to reflect on what Thibault said initially in his presentation, that we are building a future-ready operating model that drives efficiency, improves margins, and strengthens our competitive edge. Our smart lab strategy integrates technology with human expertise to deliver faster and higher quality outcomes for our clients.
Historically, as Tim said, we have a strong track record across innovation, with many hardware and software applications deployed across the portfolio globally. However, COVID came, and exiting COVID, there's been an acceleration to AI and also robotics, and we've pivoted very quickly to embrace this new technology. We've now a revised operating model. We've got dedicated in-house technology and technical experts, and also disciplined capital allocation, which has supported robotic and AI applications being integrated into workflows across the portfolio. This is creating sustainable and scalable value for the company. As Tim said earlier, we both have a long history working for ALS Limited, and we could easily be in this image. When I started my career in Brisbane at Stafford in 1998, that's what we had in parts of our laboratory. The most technical piece of equipment that I had was a calculator.
We had very little computing power. We had very few instruments, and results were faxed to clients each evening. We've pushed the instrumentation and lean manufacturing piece really hard. We've squeezed that lemon as hard as it can be. There's still incremental improvement to be achieved on the hardware side. We're now pivoting to look at bigger opportunities for our business. That's because technology has become affordable and available. We're now pivoting to enhance instrument software and also streamlining and automating manual sample preparation. I'm going to call out a few highlights across the portfolio so that you're aware of our commitment to innovation. Please note, I know that you're all going to a number of laboratories tomorrow, that you won't see everything everywhere. We've got a tactical plan to roll out some of these robotic and AI applications into the future. This one here, unfortunately, the video's not playing.
That's a passion project of mine. In the Brisbane Laboratory, we invested significant sums of money to automate a number of sample preparation techniques across many different sample containers. When you go into Environmental tomorrow, you're going to see red, green, blue, purple, all different colored containers. This robotic solution processes many different container types, as I said, eliminating the human endeavor in that process. In Europe, we've implemented task-based automation. This is really important because we have many different applications, or many different processes in the laboratory that we can apply a robotic application to. Robotics are now collaborating with our scientists and technicians to provide a great outcome. We are engaging with technology experts. We're not diluting our margin doing that. What we need to do is basically enhance our skill set across our internal experts. It is providing value across productivity and also the customer experience.
We're also collaborating with leading global instrument vendors under NDA to evolve their software applications. We are progressive. We want them to do better so that we can do better for our clients. We want to ensure that we hold a leadership position without compromising our own IP. As Tim has already said, and I think a few others as well, our ability to scale innovation across ALS is powered by our global operating leverage and our common digital backbone. The backbone is our LIMS, but also our client web portal. Our LIMS currently supports greater than 60% of the locations and 75% of the available work. Within three years, we're expecting to cover 95% - 100% of our business. What's really impressive is our global web portal. It serves 30,000 customers globally.
This is our competitive advantage, as we can deploy innovative solutions faster and more consistently than our competitors. In summary, our investments across innovation are creating value and providing value and tangible improvements across quality, safety, and the client experience. Now shifting to data management, where we hold a significant leadership position. As we live now in a data-driven and litigious society, our clients are now realizing that data is a business asset, and they're transforming their own processes internally to store and also utilize that data beyond simple reporting and compliance requirements. We're well positioned to support their digital strategy to ensure that they can use the data in a meaningful way. Our value proposition extends past the traditional great quality results on time. We now integrate vertically into the digital value chain to ensure that data is loaded into their system without any errors.
We're taking ownership of that process. In 20 years, we've transitioned from faxing results to now providing results in real time, allowing for quicker decisions and also lowering operating costs. Our journey to data leadership started in 2012, and I'm proud to say that I was involved in that initial journey as well. Being at ALS for a very long time allows us to get exposed to different projects and different opportunities. The data piece has been something that I'm very proud about. The workflows on this screen, obviously, it's a circle.
It shows you basically a loop of how we deal with the transaction from quoting through to receiving a chain of custody, which is the transaction document between client and ALS, sampling, and then also some transactions between us and them in the lifecycle of the work order within the laboratory, and also post once we finish the analytical work. Documents that were once paper or PDF are now replaced with electronic files where data is loaded into the client or lab systems. We've successfully led and demonstrated a value proposition to our clients that they can transition to analog and digital. Proudly, we were the first laboratory group globally to integrate with these digital workflows across multiple environmental systems, or we call them an EDMS. The largest in the world is a system called EQUIS.
They recently identified us as a leader across data management and a key player in supporting BP, the global oil giant, transitioning from analog to digital. BP quote that the savings for them in transitioning from analog to digital is in the range of seven figures. You can see it is material for us to support the digital workflows and maintain a leadership position in this space. We are an innovator across data management, providing novel solutions for our clients across the digital landscape. In addition to supporting the external applications, we also provide our own tools for our clients to use. We have sampling utilities, mobile apps, and our backend client portal allows the clients to interrogate their results. The commercial benefit to ALS is material. We provide more efficient workflows, we improve data quality, and we reduce overhead.
The value proposition to us and to the client is that they get great quality results on time in their database, and it dilutes the focus on price. Summing up, we are committed to embed technology and innovation into everything we do, laying a foundation for the lab of the future and reinforcing our leading market position. With that, I'll hand back to Tim so we can wrap up the environmental section of the presentation.
Thanks again. All right, so hopefully we've convinced you all that environmental is a great place to be, and it's an attractive market segment for ALS to continue to expand within the portfolio. To recap, I think the segment is underpinned by supportive fundamentals with a continuing growth runway into the future. I'll confirm up again, size matters in environmental, and with the brand, price, and economy of scale benefit, I think ALS is advantaged in many economies to be a market leader. I think we're well positioned to continue to outperform the market with advantages in our operating model and being really deliberate with our positioning choices. I think the business has been really well supported by the company's capital allocation framework, both from an organic and from an M&A perspective.
I think the element that energizes me the most is the continuing acceleration to invest in technical and technology to evolve our operating model and provide better client outcomes, and really to accelerate our journey towards the lab of the future. I think with that, we'll now move into Q&A.
Thanks. All right. How far away do you want to be?
You sit in the middle, mate.
Oh, thanks. You get the hard questions.
All right, so questions focusing on the environmental business. Maybe the first one, I mean, we often get asked the question around the impact of changes in regulations coming out of North America linked to EPA regulations that have sort of, it's been a number of announcements over recent months from the president of the U.S. How do you sort of see that playing out or the impacts as it relates to the environmental business more broadly, Tim, in North America?
Yeah, look, I mean, it's been an interesting six months for sure. I think some of the rhetoric in the media has been volatile to say the very least. I think for our business, it's not had a significant impact. We saw a couple of token projects canceled in the December quarter. I think we saw some weather events in the March quarter that were potentially a little bit challenging. In the majority, I continue to be very upbeat in that U.S. market. I think it's really important to remember that in the U.S., it's really state-based regulation and enforcement as opposed to what's coming through the federal EPA. I think there'll potentially be some hiccups on a continuing basis. In the majority, I'm positive on that U.S. market.
Just in terms of PFAS, can you maybe outline for the audience how you think about capturing that opportunity moving forward and where you think those opportunities are likely to head into the future?
All right, I'll talk about environmental narrowly and then maybe more broadly about life sciences. I think from an environmental perspective, it really plays to our strengths. From a technical leadership perspective, what we do from a horizon scanning perspective, targeting markets where we can be a market leader holistically certainly then advantages us from a PFAS perspective. It's the technical collaborations that we've got either within the business itself or with what we've got going with a number of the larger instrument vendors. The efficiencies, the productivities, and the returns that we can see are to our favor. The bit I didn't speak to in the presentation but would reference is there are PFAS opportunities in other life sciences market segments, and that's something as an organization we're pursuing. If we contemplate food, for example, or specifically food packaging, our European food business has that capability.
It's based in our Italian operations, and they work in close cooperation with the environmental businesses in that region. If we look at what's coming through from a beauty and personal care perspective, the MOCHRA regulations, which we're expecting by the end of this calendar year, that was a great one ALS story for us. The technical capability was built in an R&D business that we've got in New Zealand. The market application from a technical perspective is occurring through our Kelsay laboratory in the U.S., and the marketing and go-to-market strategy has been owned by the BPC business and their clientele. There's continuing opportunities for ALS in PFAS.
Yeah, and just one interesting thing about PFAS. As long as we can ensure the sample flows, if you have some critical products that you're going to be testing are independent or high-risk samples and low-risk samples, the beauty of PFAS is that we can leverage our environmental sites to test everything that was just mentioned by Tim. The example that he gave, developing those methods in New Zealand and now very close to completion, the implementation in Kelso, puts us in a unique position to tackle that MOCHRA market in the U.S. It's the first regulation in cosmetics since 1930, and it's a massive regulation that basically bans PFAS for any over-the-counter product in the U.S., existing or new products. Leading that technical innovation was we were being able to do that because we were leveraging the global network.
The PFAS opportunity, the one that was described by Tim and on the slide of the 5%, that's the environmental piece of PFAS. Clearly, there's much more around PFAS, and we are extremely excited about the opportunities that present for ALS within other areas of our portfolio.
Maybe just focusing on Environmental and M&A, I think Heike in her presentation referenced Western Europe and the U.S as priority Environmental markets. I mean, how do you sort of think about those opportunities, Tim, moving forward for Environmental?
Let me start by that one, saying that clearly the Environmental business is an area that we will prioritize capital for inorganic opportunities. We will seek those opportunities provided that we can meet our return hurdles. I think as Heike showed, the pipeline of inorganic opportunities for Environmental is extremely attractive. We have opportunities in most of the key regions that were mentioned by Tim, North America, especially the United States, those areas in Europe that we want to grow, and some other areas globally. We have identified where we want to play, what geographies we have a gap, and what services we may complement. We are very excited about the execution of that pipeline. Do you want to give any other further details on that?
I think you've covered it. I mean, for us, I guess, you know, if we look at two of the acquisitions we did last year, being Westling and York, I mean, unto themselves, it's important that those businesses deliver on plan and provide a return to shareholders. I think it's also important from a continuing M&A perspective. You know, as we look at the progress being made with the integrations and the performance uplift, particularly from that Westling business where we were putting it into a really high-performance platform for us in Europe, that's going to provide the impetus and energy to be doing more M&A in those geographies. For me, it's particularly Germany, it's particularly France, and then opportunities in other large economies in Europe like Spain and Italy.
No, because we moved to Spain, okay? There's no being pushed because of that.
Questions have come through. Are there any emerging testing lines that ALS has attracted to in Environmental, so in micro or nanoplastics testing as examples given here?
The answer to that is yes. I think, if we look at the history of the environmental market, there's always continuing evolution of new parameters, new regulatory limits, lower levels of detection, expanded suites of testing, and that continues to be the case today. Things that are in the media, microplastics is absolutely there. We've got that capability within our network. We've got a high-performance microplastics business in KL, Malaysia. We're building the capability in our water business in Melbourne, and you might understand why it's important to the water industry. We've also got that capability in our Stockholm laboratory in Sweden. I think other areas of focus for us would be pharmaceuticals and personal care products that come through wastewater discharges and then accumulate in water systems. That would be another example. The answer is categorically yes.
Yeah, just one more comment. Within PFAS, I think there are ongoing opportunities to deliver new testing capabilities in other matrixes like air testing, right?
Yep, absolutely.
Maybe just open it up to the floor for any questions. Yep, down the front.
Just within PFAS, Tim, is there any sense that we'll see a significant burst of testing, say, for the next five years, initial testing, and then it settles down to a lower level beyond that? Is that not even in your sort of thinking about how it will evolve?
Look, it's not how we're thinking about it currently. I mean, you know, if you look at a market like here in Australia, which is quite a mature PFAS market, it went from a singular analyte that was tested for in specific applications, whether that was a DOD site or an ASA site, it's now part of the routine regulations here. If you're doing a contaminated land work or contaminated land program here in Perth, and you're testing for metals, and you're testing for petroleum hydrocarbons, you're testing for PFAS. I think that there is a sustainable market for PFAS over the medium and long term.
Maybe just going back to the automation and some of the initiatives that Phil touched on. In terms of the robots and the sort of the custom instrumentation that's being developed, is that being developed with suppliers or is it more sort of off-the-shelf technology, Phil?
It's a combination of both. We've deployed internal experts to actually work on projects around automation and also AI. We do realize there may be some limitations in our skill set where we've got to complement with third-party experts. Through that opportunity, we're learning, and obviously we'll be able to deploy it internally by ourselves moving forward.
Any other questions from the floor, folks?
The good thing is we're closer to the flamenco dance from Stuart.
All right, we might wrap up Q&A this session. Thanks very much, guys.
Thank you.
To your flow. For our final wrap-up and closing remarks, I'll invite Stuart to the stage. He's going to round out what the key message is for today and also touch on our financial guidance that we provided at yesterday's AGM. I'll invite Stuart to the stage.
Are we on? We are on. Thank you, sir. Unfortunately, no flamenco dancing just yet. I hope you do note these socks match the shirt. That's the first tip I got from my Spanish tailor. I'm joking. Firstly, thanks for your attention. I appreciate that some of these sessions are quite long, so I appreciate your ability to hold your focus. For those of you who don't know me, I am Stuart Hutton. I'm the CFO. I have been at ALS for 18 months, as opposed to the number of years that some of the other presenters have been here. You'll be pleased to know that this is the last formal session of the day before we go to the final fireside chat. In baseball parlance, we're at the bottom of the ninth, and I'm the closing pitcher. Hopefully, I can close it out.
I'm going to run through some of the key takeaways, key messages that I'd like you to take away from today, including closing with why we think ALS makes an attractive investment proposition for shareholders. I'll be reinforcing how our strategy, technology, and operational progress come together in line with our value creation framework to create sustainable growth, disciplined capital deployment, and ultimately long-term shareholder value. Before I do, most of you know we held our AGM yesterday, and Malcolm provided a trading update on performance for the first quarter of FY 2026. I would like to reiterate the key points, and I thank the analysts in the room for their very prompt notes yesterday. The good thing is our resilient business model has again demonstrated its ability to deliver financial results aligned to our expectations through the first quarter of FY 2026.
In the May full-year results, we outlined our growth targets for FY 2026, being 5% - 7% organic revenue growth and steady margin expansion. As I said, in short, after Q1, we are on track to deliver to these expectations. Let me just double-click into the segments. In commodities, the group is anticipating organic revenue growth at the upper end of the 5% - 7% range. We also remain cautiously optimistic of what lies ahead. The positive trend in mineral sample volumes that began in late calendar year 2024 continued throughout Q1 and into the early part of Q2 of calendar 2025. At this stage, this is still being led by the major and mid-tier client base. I know all of you in the room cover the junior equity raisings, and they have been trending positively. We absolutely acknowledge that. We are yet to see that activity in our network.
In terms of the impact of pricing, we anticipate a more favorable pricing environment to flow through half two. Importantly, as we communicated at the full year, we are seeing some operating leverage from the increased sample volumes coming through our results. EBIT margins in minerals after Q1 are at approximately 30%, which is in line with the guidance expectations we communicated a couple of months ago. Other callouts for the commodities division are industrial materials have delivered an impressive low double-digit organic growth, which is consistent with what they delivered in the prior year, whilst metallurgy remains somewhat subdued. This is typical for this business, as historically there is a six to nine-month lag from a volume uptick in exploration activity for metallurgy. In life sciences, we anticipate organic revenue growth at the lower end of the 5% - 7% range.
There has been solid growth in geographies in environmental, which those of you in the room will recall. Environmental is cycling a very strong comparative period, and also food is in that 5% - 7%, whilst pharmaceutical conditions remain mixed to challenging at the revenue line. Within the legacy operations, margins are steady, and we are targeting margin improvement of 20 - 40 basis points in life sciences. In addition to the incremental benefits of the recent acquisitions, the integrations of Westling and York and cost reduction program at Nuvisan continue to track to expectations on a cumulative basis. As always, we remain focused on delivering consistent, safe, and reliable service to our clients. Just one point to clarify as we move from here.
In terms of market communications, just to clarify, unless required for continuous disclosure purposes for us here, we plan to only communicate with the market as part of our half-year, full-year, and AGM processes. This has really stemmed from, well-intended from both sides, I think. We accept the feedback provided from a number of you in the room and those no doubt joining online that some of the interim briefings that we have held in the past have created unnecessary confusion. Hence our change in approach. Take it as read. If we've got something to tell you, we'll tell you. If you're not hearing from us, do not be alarmed, I guess is the message.
Now, to recap on several of the themes which we have discussed today, which bring to life the connection between our performance and our potential, which includes as we move towards the lab of the future. Outlining our roadmap to win, Heike talked through our refreshed global strategy, designed to strengthen our competitive advantage, focus capital where we have the greatest edge, and position ALS as the best-in-class global testing leader. Many of you are familiar with our value creation framework already. Heike took this to a deeper level to illustrate how it evolved and where we are focusing capital allocation to ensure every investment dollar delivers maximum impact for shareholders. We are confident that this value creation framework forms a solid foundation for our future.
Thibault, our newest ELT member, discussed how we're looking to step up automation, data, and AI across our business to create sustainable, competitive services for clients. This is a key lever to deliver ongoing margin improvement across the business in line with our long-term value creation strategy. We have a great opportunity with our harmonized or already harmonized or harmonizing LIMS, hub lab investment program, and ongoing base capital expenditure to showcase the art of the possible in terms of value add, efficiency, and return on investment from this initiative. Bruce outlined the unique competitive advantage and positioning of our global leading minerals division, with Michelle and Shawn providing tangible examples of how their teams are driving growth and better outcomes for clients and ALS through innovation.
We then just recently heard from Tim and Phil on the environmental strategy and competitive edge, with Phil giving some examples of next-gen technologies we are using to support our journey to the lab of the future. In the case of minerals and environmental, you will see some initiatives already in place on tomorrow's site visits. Keep your eye out for those. Many of you have been supporting ALS for many years, long before I started, and will have seen the company through various iterations. As a management team, we are truly excited to step in the next phase of growth and look forward to demonstrating to you how we will unlock further value. What we trust has become apparent through each of the speakers' presentations is that we are evolving how we operate to ensure ALS is fit for the future.
We are aligning our strategy, structure, and culture to support the next phase of growth. Strategically, we have a disciplined, globally focused plan that guides where we play and how we win, designed to drive both growth and innovation. With structure, we have a scalable global or regional framework, leveraging shared systems and technology, providing the agility to respond as client needs change. On culture, our shared values, curiosity, and people-first mindset not only unify our diverse global team, but also reinforce the trust our clients place in us. It is the alignment of these three which will enable us to deliver our vision of the lab of the future. To close, a few points on our investment proposition. ALS Limited is a resilient global leader in the tech sector, servicing diverse end markets and well-poised to capture growth opportunities from industry megatrends.
We have a clear strategic advantage through our leading hub and spoke model and harmonized LIMS. We are proud to hold leadership positions globally in minerals and environmental and regional strengths in food, pharmaceutical, and industrial materials. We have spoken a lot today about our innovative, data-driven approach, which provides substantial growth opportunities and enables us to better support our clients. We are further accelerating our AI initiatives and believe our specialization, data leadership, and early mover advantage in AI uniquely position us to serve many industries of the future. Finally, we have a diverse earnings profile, a disciplined capital allocation strategy, and ultimately want to deliver ongoing profitable growth, market-leading returns on capital, and strong generation to maximize returns for you, our shareholders. Thank you again for your attention and participation today. With that, we will move to the final fireside Q&A session with the team.
Just bear with us for a minute or two while we get that set up. Thank you all for your attention.
Hey, Mark Zorbas is here. He's the Chief People Officer of the company. You haven't met him, but I thought it was important. We spoke so much about culture, and he's been here with us, so he will also be on the stage.
Very good.
I might go to the podium.
I'll sit here.
I'll sit down.
All right, we might start the session off with John, your question from earlier today. I think that was where are we in relation to the exploration cycle, given the commentary around the fact that it's being driven by the majors and mids. Malcolm, did you want us to do a comment?
Mr. Bruce? It's the easy one.
You want me?
Yeah, fair enough.
We'll put a video, and it's clearer.
Now look, I think as we were describing, and what we've talked about is real. I mean, we haven't seen yet any real step up in samples from the junior miners. The position that we're in or the uptick we've seen has all been from the majors and the mids. If you look at the, and as I said, you guys and Gael cover the equity raises very well, so thank you for that because we get real-time snapshots from most of you. That's clearly a positive indicator, but what seems to be at play is the lag between when they're raising equity for exploration, because bear in mind they raise equity for refinancing and M&A, so it's not always for exploration activity. We're seeing that there must be, there is seemingly an extension of the lag between raising and deployment.
Now, how long that takes, we don't necessarily see it, but I mean, there's been some, call it green shoots in recent weeks, but I wouldn't say that's necessarily a trend at this point in time. The other thing I would say is, should it manifest into increased activity in our network? We certainly have the capacity to deal with it, and we're ready to roll when it comes. I don't know, Bruce, did you want to add anything to that? I'm sure they're interesting in your view.
Yeah, no, I think you've got it right. I mean, we've already talked about an uplift in samples through Q4 of FY 2025 and the first quarter of FY 2026. There is support for our year ahead. I think we've given guidance about being at the high end of the 5%- 7% range, and the sample support that we see is clearly there for that. I think that's what we know at this point.
Maybe just a follow-on question on commodities, and I think this is going to the AGM guidance slide, Stu, so I might put it to you. There's a question, commodities incremental operating leverage coming through, but also margins are in line with PCP. Which one is it?
Oh, that's a very good question, but it's the same scenario as we talked about at the full-year results. We've got two things at play. We've got the impact of the discounting that we had to invest in, if you want to use that terminology, in the second half of calendar 2024. Those investments in discounts are rolling through our invoicing with our clients now, and therefore, if you like, are both a drag on revenues and also margins. What is important to know is if we weren't getting the operating leverage, our margins would be, therefore, by definition, lower. If you did a bridge on our operating or our EBIT margin, this is where we finished at the end of FY 2025. We've got a step up with operating leverage, but it's been checked back by the impact of the pricing.
As we said at the full year, as that pricing, that backbook pricing, the discounts flow through the system, which we expect to start in the second half of FY 2026, assuming the volumes are retained where they are, the levels we see, then we would reasonably expect, and you should reasonably expect, increasing margins.
Just to add one thing, remember that what we presented was first commodities and then minerals. Within minerals, we are not discussing margins within each of the segments. I don't think that there's a contradiction between what we presented and what we are saying, because yes, we're seeing sample being more positive in terms of geochemistry, but we also pointed out in that same slide of the presentation that the metallurgy activity was subdued and that we expect that lag to be six to nine months from the recovery. It's no surprise for us. Bear in mind that yes, what Stuart said is right in terms of pricing and volumes, but we have within minerals the other parts of the business like metallurgy as well.
Okay, so maybe just continuing with commodities a little bit, but switching tack to mine site. There's a question here around ALS's penetration into mine site. Is that being sort of led? What do we bring to that market other than trying to compete on price? What do we offer clients in terms of building market share in mine site? Probably to Bruce.
Yeah, so I think what we bring to the mine site is the LIMS system, number one, our ability to monitor remotely what's happening at the mine site. You know, uniquely we can look at the quality control processes from Vancouver for operation activities that are happening in Africa, for example, and in real time see what's happening on the ground. I think it's really unusual for a group like ours to be able to move into a mine site, let's say someone like me, fly into a mine site and be intimately familiar with what's going on with the operating performance of the laboratory on that site. That's a surprise for clients, and I think something that brings a little bit of a stickiness for us. We're embarking on a project where we're introducing systems that tie together sample points throughout the mining value chain.
For example, we are analyzing samples in the exploration phase. We're analyzing samples in the blasting phase. We're analyzing samples as they go into the millhead and then through the mill itself. All of those samples have a relationship to one another, and it's really important that that relationship is tracked because that is a fundamental level of quality control for the miner to make sure that they're finding, extracting, digging, and then extracting the materials that were on offer through the exploration phase and definition phase of the ore body itself. That's really important for miners. As we're putting our systems in place and systems that can do that and also provide geological insights for the geologists on site using AI as well, those are attractive opportunities that others don't have in their arsenal, and they're things that we're bringing into play on the mine site.
That's a really important element of it. I think, though, what we're finding from a competitive point of view is our approach to relationship and the execution of our business is different than what our clients are used to seeing from our competitors. We are quite open and honest in our approach to our business. We recognize that not everything goes perfectly all the time. We are coming in routinely and frequently with operating reviews and findings. In a way, they're audits of our own businesses and proposing means of improving the processes on sites. I think that's something that previously probably never happened for our clients or only happened when the client paid for an external auditor to come in. We're building that into our system as a free service. It's an assurance part of the business that gives great confidence to the client, and they love that.
Yes, most of the business we're winning is coming from incumbents, the previous competitive incumbents. We're winning that business away from them and moving in.
Maybe just changing tack to M&A, and maybe for you, Heike, there's a question here about how should investors be thinking about ALS as it relates to M&A, and I suppose in the context of the capital raise that we did back at the end of May.
Thanks, yeah. The question here is, are we thinking about M&A differently than six months ago? I think the answer is probably a more resounding yes. We absolutely are. It's been 12 months since we've made the acquisitions of Westling and York, and you've heard that the integrations are going well. You've seen the slides I showed around the M&A pipeline and how we're thinking about sourcing. We're definitely a lot more bullish, and we're much more active. What's really important is that we're also far more disciplined about it. We were in several processes over the last six months in our core areas or in the areas that we're looking to grow, where we declined opportunities because it just didn't fit the criteria. We're thinking about it, and I think there was a question on environmental M&A as well.
We're absolutely looking, but it needs to be the right opportunity and fit with our strategy.
I think good point, Heike. Some of the best M&A deals are the ones you don't do.
Good segue. Tim, did you maybe just want to give a little bit of an update on how the integration of York and Westling businesses are performing?
Yeah, sure. I mean, I think consistent with the commentaries that we've provided, we have a plan and a return schedule for each of those two acquisitions that we're seeing that those businesses are progressing on that in line with expectations. We've got very detailed integration plans for each, and again, the teams are executing on them. I think what I would say is I'm comfortable with the progress being made and optimistic as to the value that they will create for the environmental business over the medium and longer term.
Maybe a question for Malcolm, just in terms of we called out back at the full year the potential impact of the change in the Mexican pharma regulation and the impact on, or the likely impact on 2026 EBIT. Is there any sort of update on how that is impacting year to date?
No, I would say that the Mexican business is performing in line with the expectations that we had. We gave a range, and we said we're going to be at the upper side of the range if we cannot execute everything that was expected, and we'll be in the lower side of the range if the execution was strong. I think we are seeing a strong execution by the Mexican team. We will be, for that specific business, the run rate will be closer to the lower part of that range, but it's still early days, and we were very clear that the impact of that will be seen throughout the year. The numbers that we have in Q1 solidify the answer I just gave, but I think we still have three quarters ahead of us to prove that that continues or not.
Any questions from the floor? Just open it up. Yeah, Megan down the back.
My question is just on the revenue growth outlook. The market growth numbers that you presented today point to, I guess, mid to high single-digit growth. You've done a really good job at presenting your competitive advantage, which I guess suggests market share gains. How should we be thinking about that potential uplift? My follow-on would be just the FY 2027 revenue target still being AUD 3.3 billion. Should we be thinking about potential upside to that, or what are the assumptions built in?
Thanks, Megan. I think that the first part of the answer is the target is 5% - 7% organic revenue growth. For the short term, how are we seeing medium to long term is mid to high single-digit. I think it's important to remember last year the first half, the environmental business had a 12% organic growth. From a comparison base, it's quite a strong starting point. That's why we are also saying that the life sciences business will be at the lower end of the range. Are we excited about the growth opportunities that we have ahead? Absolutely yes. I think that what we try to show today is that clearly the ALS business is more focused and sharper in where we're going to play. We have two, three, four great businesses. We presented two of them today that give us the runways that we want to see.
I don't think we are limited in the growth opportunity due to the segments we have decided to participate. I would say the opposite. I think that being focused in these three or four segments that we want to play gives us an accelerating pace of growth. In terms of the second point of the fiscal year 2027 targets, we confirmed those targets during the AGM. It's very early days for me to give you an honest answer saying we're going to be ahead or not. Right now, what I can say is we have confirmed that we are on target to deliver the AUD 3.3 billion in revenue and AUD 600 million in underlying EBIT with a floor margin of 19% of the legacy business. Hopefully throughout the year, we will continue building confidence and we'll give you a new answer either in November or in May of next year.
Right now, what I can tell you is that we are confident of the targets that we set for that period of time.
Maybe just you, there's a question that's just come through on Nuvisan, and should we be expecting top line revenue growth in the year ahead?
Look, I think we said at the full year that that's the quest that we're on. I don't think that's, I mean, again, a number of you in the room would follow the pharmaceutical space. It's probably been the one that's the most uncertain out of all the tariff noise. We've seen projects be put on hold or canceled in a pharma R&D sense. The outlook is somewhat muted. I think even in the update we gave yesterday and today, we said that pharma is challenged at the revenue line. Our cost turnaround program is tracking as we expected, but I think it will be a challenge this year to grow the top line in pharmaceutical, not because of anything we've done. It's really just the external market conditions. I think even some of our peers last week commented the same.
It's a pretty tough market at the moment, but it's not because we haven't secured, it's not because we've lost market share. It's really because our clients are delaying projects really because of this uncertainty surrounding tariffs and all the rest of it. It's going to be a challenge. We think we're up for it, but I'd say that our optimism of perhaps a couple of months ago is a bit more muted now. It's probably fair. I don't know, Malcolm, you want to add to that?
I would just reiterate that we are ahead of the transformation plan, and that builds the confidence on the team. The team is doing, I think, an incredible job, and we have seen consistent third-party revenue growth for the business, which is great. What was a little bit more muted the first quarter was on the third-party, sorry, on what we call Nuvisan GMBH, the early stage CRO, probably from the anchor client revenue, but the third-party revenue is growing in pace with expectations.
Maybe a question for Mark down the end. What is ALS doing to ensure that we've got the skills and workforce resilience to stay ahead in a fast-moving, what is a fast-moving industry?
Yeah, okay, first of all, good to have a HR question. I was speaking to Tim at lunchtime and said, are you presenting? I said, oh, nobody wants to hear about HR. He said, yeah, you're right. He said, only if there's a problem or something's gone wrong do we hear? Hey,
Look, I think building on this quality, as you heard Malcolm and then Stuart at the end really highlight the point about how intentional we've been with aligning strategy, structure, and culture. For us, we've spent a lot of time as a team identifying what are those cultural capabilities we need, and one of those being resilient along with collaboration, innovation, and so forth. I think what's important, I think, for ALS, and something that we've put a lot of time in the last 12 months and two years, is how do we then determine what are those mindsets and behaviors we need in our employees and build that into leadership levels at all levels, actually starting with us because we're the ones that shape the culture going forward.
It's easy to say these are all the things we want to do, but it's going to have a big impact on our workforce. You see on this stage here, people have been 30 years with the company, others 18 months, three. We've got people at all different sort of stages of their journeys. For us, we want to make sure we're bringing people along with us in this. We don't want them to see what we're doing as something that's a threat, but actually something they want to lean into and be part of this journey with us as well. From a training perspective, we've got programs. Thibault mentioned we've built innovation programs into our training and onboarding, but it's also a lot around what we do with recruitment, promotions, and so forth.
Just one other thing I'd add is we're also leveraging AI in our learning and development side of things as well. We're actually putting it to use also.
OK. Changing tack, maybe for Bruce and Tim as the sort of Divisional Heads, in terms of LIMS integrations and the ability to integrate into third-party data sets, so maybe from both a Jell and Gem's perspective, how do you look at that?
Yes, sure. Thank you very much. I commented our approach, which is build once at scale everywhere, and it's based on the modular, legal-like approach, which I would technically say it's an application programming interface or API. The good news is that most of our LIMS, not all of them, but most of our LIMS are API-based or are in the process of becoming API-based, which is very important because it enables us to integrate third-party data sets. It enables us to integrate third-party modules also. It enables us to integrate third-party AI eventually or generative AI. That is very important because this approach makes us much more agile, faster, and able to meet the business needs at a much lower cost.
Sorry, do you want to add anything, Bruce or Tim, on that?
No, I think Thibault got that.
Yeah, I mean, I'll just support the comments made. Specific to an environmental perspective, data is really important to our strategy. Part of that is being agnostic across platforms, whether it's ALS in-house proprietary software products, third-party products, which we heard Phil speak a little bit to today, or across client-side EDMSs. It's certainly part of the software design and the ecosystem that we're operating and building.
Thanks, Tim. Just in terms of industrial materials, maybe a question for Malcolm. When we called out in the Q1 update that it did low double-digit growth, could you maybe just give a little bit of context to some of the drivers for that growth?
Yeah, that business comprises oil and lubricants, assay and testing, and coal. Obviously, all of those three businesses are having fantastic growth. I will call out as positives and probably supporting that accelerated pace, the oil and lubricants business and the assay and testing. The oil and lubricants business, we are heavily focused on expanding our global presence with new greenfield facilities. I think last year we opened four. This year we are on track to open between four to five new facilities. We're growing that new presence by leveraging existing relationships with new clients, but also leveraging the one ALS approach. I think that Bruce made a comment about the mine site and how that mine site can be connected with environmental oil and lubricants. We have very good examples, not only one, that we're seeing oil and lubricants coming into mine site and leveraging clients.
The second business that I want to call out is the assay and testing. Assay and inspection, we do testing. A big part of the revenue of that business, I would say close to north of 60% of the revenue is processed in our U.K. lab. What we are seeing is a very supportive environment for our methods in terms of pricing. I would say a big portion of the growth that we're seeing in assay and inspection is related with pricing. If you ask me why, I think because of the reputation and what we are delivering to clients in terms of turnaround time, reliability, and consistency is quite unique.
Thanks, Malcolm. Maybe just a separate one, and probably to Stu. We heard Heike today outline the roadmap strategy and the value creation framework. Can shareholders expect a new five-year quantitative financial target for beyond FY 2027?
You have the long answer and the short.
The short answer is no. We have gone to more general guidance now. The real reason for that is we can't deny part of the positive and the risk, I guess, with ALS is the exposure to resources cycles. If you set those five-year targets now, we're still committed to the FY 2027 ones, but that was set back in FY 2022. Cycles can do a lot of things in a five-year period. I would say for a business like us, it's much better to the way we've now phrased it with our value creation framework is we're targeting mid to high single-digit revenue growth, we're targeting ongoing margin improvement, and we're targeting a minimum 15% return on any growth capital. For us, that's how we would like to see this business evolve as we move forward.
I think having a fixed target on the hill, whether it's sales or EBIT, I think is dangerous because if things go against us, we may, let's say, make some shorter-term decisions that are suboptimal for the long term of the business. I don't think that's the appropriate way that we should be managing this business for you, the shareholders. We're managing this for the medium to longer term. I think we'd rather have the discipline of making the right decisions than have some beacon on the hill that makes us potentially make some suboptimal decisions.
Yeah, and just to add, when we set those targets, clearly it was a different company at the time. I don't think that the management team, I would speak as a management team, we are too keen to put targets that mix organic and inorganic targets or growth. I think that we can speak about the organic growth. We will do acquisitions, and we're excited about the pipeline. Again, those targets need to meet our return hurdle. We don't want to put ourselves or corner ourselves in a position that we will do acquisitions just for the sake of hitting a specific target. Part of the presentation today, the roadmap to win, I hope that we repeated several times, is there is a very clear capital allocation strategy. We will leave and support that one. That's why we believe that it's better giving a range of organic growth.
If the right acquisitions come, that's fantastic. Otherwise, we will continue trying to deliver mid to high single-digit organic revenue growth in the medium to long term.
Thanks, Malcolm. Maybe a question for Heike just on sustainability. Maybe if you could just comment a little bit on ALS Limited's commitment to sustainability.
Yeah, sure. Thank you very much. We've also just brought out our very comprehensive sustainability report that's on our website that's also just been made public. Within that, we're talking about our emissions as well and the performance in the laboratories and what initiatives we've got in place across sustainability, but also commitment to community and safety as well. Tomorrow, you will visit one of the labs, which is very impressive in that it is almost zero waste. That's an interesting one to ask questions around as well. We were carbon neutral in financial year 2025. That's one of the areas we won't be renewing into next year. We have a net zero target by 2050, and we're committed to signing up to science-based targets. That's very much also driven by enabling or supporting our clients' sustainability agendas as well.
Thanks, Heike. Maybe if I just go to the floor for any questions. Yep, just Peter down the back.
Thanks. Just on Nuvisan, I'm just keen to understand what the sort of targets are for the business. You know, sort of to what level do you want to get that business before you put it up for sale? Is it a margin target, profitability target? What sort of time frame are you putting on that?
Thanks. I just want to correct one thing. We are running that business as part of our organization. We don't comment on speculation about divestments or acquisitions. We never said in this environment something around divesting Nuvisan. We are working towards a transformation program. We know that we have a heavy weight because we basically cleaned from the balance sheet EUR 150 million that we invested in that, and we owe that money to the shareholders. We will be sure that we run Nuvisan to return the capital that we deployed several years ago. What are the targets for Nuvisan? Very clear. Nuvisan needs to be aligned with the strategic roadmap and plan that we just presented in terms of growth expectations and return expectations. Once the business is delivering within those targets, we'll decide what the next steps moving forward.
Thanks. Just a follow-up on that. I understand that you're going to move away from that 2022 strategy where you've mapped out revenue and EBIT margin targets. Within that, your added target was adding a bit over AUD 1 billion worth of revenue. A bit less than half of that was coming from acquisitions. I understand you don't want to disclose what your targets are, but I'm just keen to understand your thinking of what acquisitions, what part acquisitions will play in the growth within the new five-year strategy that you're not going to share with the market.
Oh, look, it's a fantastic question, Peter. What I can tell you is that acquisitions for us is core and is part of the day-to-day responsibilities of Heike, and you see the pipeline and how strong that pipeline is. I don't want to be in a position to say we're going to be deploying AUD X million per year on acquisition because if we don't find the right quality targets and those targets are not in line with our minimum return on capital employed, we will not be generating the shareholders' return that we expect. M&A is important for us, yes, provided that they add to the overall strategy of the organization. The overall strategy is steady margin improvements and return on capital employed in line with the expectations for our shareholders. That's why we're not putting those targets. Clearly, our balance sheet is strong right now.
Thank you, everyone, that supported ALS Limited during the capital raising. That means that, as I think that Stuart and Heike said, we relaunched that project, I think that overall process several months ago. That's why we've shown a very healthy pipeline. When and how that pipeline will be executed, I cannot give you a specific term. If we find the right targets for the returns that we have that are very clear, minimum return on capital employed of 15% in year three for organic and in year five for inorganic, we will make sure that we are executing on that. If we do two, three, five per year, it would depend on how many of those targets we find in the strategic areas that we're looking for.
Thanks.
Any other questions from the floor, folks? This is our last session, so last opportunity.
There's one more question there.
If we haven't addressed it, yes, I mean, I suppose going back to the FY 2027 targets and Malcolm, I mean, the concept of the 19% margin floor, how should shareholders be thinking about that?
Yeah, I wanted to ask a question because I think it's important that I just responded to Megan that we are on track to deliver on that. I think that the question also is challenging us why we feel confident that we can deliver that 19% margin having a minerals business like the one that we have. If we go to the data that we presented today, it's 10% CAGR in the last 10 years, 14% in the last four years. Even with the last three years, the overall exploration expenditure went down 8%. A floor margin of 30% in the last four years, I think it shows why we're building confidence towards that.
When you see on the presentation that Bruce did on why we are expanding downstream, and that includes metallurgy, geoanalytics, but also mine site, part of the reason behind that is to be able to continue delivering top returns to our shareholders. I think this floor margin of 19%, if we are diligent in how we grow the mine site, again, if we are diligent and strategic of how we grow mine site, are achievable. I think Bruce got several questions around how big is the market, whether it's 450 mines, 475 mines. The market is quite impressive. ALS Limited will grow into the market, making sure that we will be able to deliver these returns in a slow market on the upstream on exploration. Clearly for us, mine site is a play to de-risk the profile of the organization.
That's why it's so important within the minerals journey that we just described. Do you want to add anything?
No, that's well described.
Thank you.
Should be the CEO.
Thank you.
All right, folks, if there's no more questions, we might wrap up the panel chat there. Thank you very much, everyone.
Thank you. You will do the closing remarks, right? Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Yeah.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's the end of the formal proceedings for today. Thanks, everyone, that's joined the webcast.