Welcome to the Bhagwan Marine First Half 2025 Results Call. Following the formal presentation, there will be a Q&A session for investors and analysts. Participants can ask both text and live audio questions during today's call. To ask a text question, select the messaging icon, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen, and press the send button. To ask a live audio question, press the request to speak button at the top of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the audio questions interface. Press join queue, and if prompted, select allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. If you have any issues asking a question via the web, a backup phone line is available. File and details can be found on the request to speak page or on the home page under asking audio questions.
To view documents relevant to today's meeting, select the document icon. Available documents will appear. When selected, the documents will open within the Lumi platform. You will still be able to listen to the meeting while viewing the documents. Text questions can be submitted at any time, and the audio queue is now open. I will now hand over to Managing Director and CEO, Loui Kannikoski.
Thanks, Michelle. Excuse me. Welcome, everyone, to Bhagwan Marine's half-year results presentation. I'm pleased to be joined by Andrew Wackett, our Director of Finance. Throughout this call, we'll be referring to the investor presentation slides that have been released on the ASX this morning. Today's agenda is outlined on slide four, and we'll focus on three key areas: our financial and operational highlights, a detailed review of our financial performance, which Andrew will cover, the market outlook, and how Bhagwan is positioned for growth. You'll also notice that we've included additional information in the appendices. Following the presentation, Andrew and I will be happy to take any questions. Before we move on to our highlights, I'd like to offer a brief overview of Bhagwan on slide six for those who are new to our company.
Founded in 2000 by the Kannikoski family in Geraldton, Western Australia, and starting with just a single vessel, Bhagwan has experienced remarkable growth. Today, we operate a fleet of over 100 vessels. Our strategic diversification has enabled us to expand our services nationwide across sectors including offshore oil and gas, subsea, port operations, and civil construction. We've established facilities at key ports across Australia, positioning us to respond quickly to demand and emerging opportunities. Our fleet serves a broad range of long-standing clients, from government organizations and major mining oil and gas companies to port authorities and civil construction firms. Turning briefly to slide seven, in July 2024, Bhagwan successfully completed its IPO and was listed on the ASX. I'm proud to share that we are now the largest listed Australian Marine Solutions provider.
To complete the company overview section, we've highlighted our key strengths and what sets us apart on slide eight. Since 2000, we've built an unrivaled foundation of expertise driven by our founder-led commitment to service and operational excellence. We take pride in being the largest listed Australian marine services company, underpinned by strong demand and robust pipeline in our core operations. Our consistent year-on-year growth is bolstered by compelling opportunities in the emerging sectors, including oil and gas decommissioning, offshore wind, defense, maintenance, and the larger vessel market. Our facilities across all key marine hubs in Australia place us where we need to be, ensuring comprehensive coverage and timely support. Our large varied fleet enables us to capitalize on a rising demand in a market where business supply is constrained. We'll cover the final strengths in greater detail throughout the presentation.
Moving now to the operational highlights for the half on slide 10. I'm incredibly proud of our team for maintaining their focus on safety and service delivery during a period of heightened demand and tendering activity. The commitment and dedication demonstrated by everyone has been truly remarkable. We've continued to build on a positive safety culture, as reflected in our total recordable injury frequency rate and lost time injury frequency rate. Operationally, we experience strong demand across all sectors nationwide, particularly in offshore oil and gas and subsea. We also gained significant momentum in new growth sectors. One standout achievement was the successful commercial completion of Bhagwan's first oil and gas decommissioning project as a Tier 1 service provider. Another notable highlight was commencing our first commercial contract using a remotely operated vessel for a major global oil and gas client. More on this later in the presentation.
Lastly, I'd like to emphasize our ongoing focus on maturing our business and enhancing its capabilities to drive future growth. In line with this, we're appointing a Chief Operating Officer, and I'm pleased to announce that the recruitment process is well underway. Looking now at our financial highlights on slide 11, during the first half of 2025, we achieved record revenue of AUD 154.1 million, a 41% increase over the same period last year. This excellent performance was driven by strong demand across our core business, bolstered by a significant contribution from our major decommissioning project. Our earnings increased by 32% to AUD 27.3 million, while net cash from operations was up 64%, AUD 21 million. I'm also pleased to report that as of 31st of December 2024, our net debt stood at a comfortable AUD 11.5 million.
That completes the highlights for the half, and I'll now hand over to Andrew to discuss financials in more detail.
Thanks, Loui. Our strong trend of revenue and earnings growth is clearly illustrated on slide 13. As Loui mentioned, first half revenue, excluding pass-through revenue, was AUD 154.1 million, reflecting a 41% increase on the prior corresponding period. This strong performance was driven by heightened activity across all sectors and regions, with our major oil and gas decommissioning project contributing AUD 26.4 million in revenue. Proforma EBITDA reached AUD 27.3 million, up 32%, and this included AUD 3.9 million from the oil and gas decommissioning project. Notably, earnings from underlying core operations grew by 12%, underscoring our company's strength and our ability to leverage opportunities in new growth sectors. The pro forma adjustment of AUD 0.7 million to EBITDA relates to non-recurring transaction costs associated with our IPO. For further details and reconciliation of pro forma to statutory numbers, please refer to the appendices. Turning now to slide 14.
While I recognize that this slide is busy, the charts provide a comprehensive breakdown of the impact of our oil and gas decommissioning project and the performance of the underlying business. Over FY2024 and the first half of FY2025, the project contributed AUD 91.9 million in revenue and AUD 9.9 million in EBITDA, achieving an overall 11% EBITDA margin. The core or underlying revenue in the first half grew by 29% to AUD 127.7 million, driven by increased fleet numbers, enhanced utilization, and higher average day rates. Administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue improved to 13%, and core EBITDA margins have returned to 18% in line with our expectations. Operating cash flow for the half reached AUD 21.0 million, representing a 64% increase over the prior period. This uplift was primarily driven by stronger earnings, lower interest charges, and a disciplined focus on working capital management.
Our free cash generation was impacted by a AUD 6.7 million spend on the Dryden, our largest vessel in the fleet, which I'll detail shortly. Finally, on this slide, our IPO raised AUD 76.8 million in cash, which we utilized to repay all external debt. Slide 16 outlines our capital expenditure for the first half compared to PCP and is divided into three categories: gross, sustaining, and discretionary. As noted on the previous slide, the 10-year dry docking and capability upgrade of our largest vessel totaled AUD 6.7 million, comprising AUD 2.8 million in growth CapEx and AUD 3.9 million in sustaining CapEx. The growth component included new and upgraded electronic, operating, and dynamic positioning systems.
We also acquired a new tow to meet rising demand at Dampier Port Operations, and our growth CapEx includes an innovation spend of AUD 0.6 million for remote operations and hybrid vessels, which Loui will talk about in a minute. Our approach ensures that we are flexible in responding to opportunities to optimize vessel maintenance, the cost efficiency, and availability, with some sustaining CapEx brought forward to prepare vessels for longer-term projects. Looking ahead, we expect significantly lower sustaining and discretionary CapEx in the second half. Turning briefly to our balance sheet on slide 17, I'd like to highlight three key points. Firstly, our net debt to equity ratio post-IPO is 7%, including operating leases. Net financial assets, though, excluding operating leases, is AUD 8 million.
Finally, our annualized return on capital employed, that's EBIT to capital employed in the business, the debt plus the equity employed in the business, improved to 16%, up from 11% in the first half of FY2024, clearly reflecting our earnings growth. That concludes the financial performance section, so now I'll hand back to Loui to cover off outlook and growth opportunities.
Thanks, Andrew. Starting on slide 17, sorry, starting on slide 19, we've included graphs developed by global shipbroker Clarksons, which provide valuable industry insights. The chart in the top left illustrates a steady recovery from the utilization of global offshore support vessel fleet, including both anchor handlers and platform supply vessels since the impact of COVID-19. This increased utilization has driven global day rates back to levels last seen in the mid-2000s, as shown in the top right chart. It is important to note that the slight dip in global rates to the right of the graph is primarily due to large Middle Eastern energy companies delaying some projects. This caused a short-term increase in the platform supply vessels' availability, however, had little or no effect on the rates on the Australian market.
The chart at the bottom right, sorry, at the bottom highlights that despite day rates trending upwards, new build orders remain constrained due to high costs, limited financing options, and uncertainty surrounding vessel technology. This supply-demand imbalance suggests that day rates will continue rising over time. Further, we believe global day rates are not currently high enough to incentivize new builds. Whilst anchor handlers and PSV rates are up 19% and 13% since 2014, new build prices are up 45% and 44% respectively. With the largest fleet in Australia, Bhagwan is exceptionally well positioned to meet growing demand for marine services and younger fleets in a constrained global vessel market. Turning now to slide 20, where I'll outline our regional outlook and key development in subsea and innovation. In Western Australia, we're capitalizing on expansion and diversification opportunities in the larger vessel market.
We're also seeing increased inquiries at the Henderson Marine Precinct, particularly in the defense sector. In the Northern Territory, our ongoing contracts with major global energy companies remain strong, and we're identifying further growth opportunities in the larger vessel market. Over in Queensland, we've experienced robust demand in the second quarter for maintenance services and civil construction support, a trend we expect to continue into the second half of 2025. In Victoria, demand for maintenance services and support at Port Melbourne is on the rise, and we're planning to mobilize additional vessels to back offshore wind projects in the second half of 2025. Turning to subsea, there's a growing demand and diversification opportunities, especially in the telecommunication infrastructure sector. Finally, on the innovation front, we're enhancing our fleet capabilities through advancements in automation technologies and hybrid solutions, keeping us at the forefront of industry innovation. Again, more on that shortly.
We've included the table on slide 21 previously to recap our growth sectors. As highlighted, we continue to see promising opportunities in decommissioning, offshore wind, defense, and maintenance. In addition to these, we've now added the fifth growth pillar, the larger vessel market. This encompasses opportunities such as platform supply vessels, emergency and standby support, and anchor handling support, areas in which Bhagwan has significant expertise as a leading marine solutions provider. I'll expand on our ability to gain traction with these growth sectors over the next few slides. Moving to slide 22, I'll share more details about our first large-scale offshore decommissioning project. We achieved operational completion in quarter one of 2025 and commercial completion in quarter two of 2025. The project was delivered safely and to an exceptionally high standard.
Notably, we completed over 850,000 man-hours offshore without a single lost time injury, and the client feedback has been extremely positive. In a partnership with our client on its asset retirement initiatives, we decommissioned nine offshore platforms of depths of up to 20 meters. This complex phase project was carried out over several months to safely remove or secure each platform's structures. Our dedicated marine fleet dive team and construction professionals ensured smooth execution from start to finish. This milestone showcases our strong capabilities in the offshore decommissioning sector and reinforces our commitment to safety, environmental responsibility, and operational excellence. Slide 23 highlights the growth potential within the decommissioning sector. The data and graphs are sourced from a study conducted by the Centre of Decommissioning Australia, or CODA.
The study emphasizes the wide range of services required, including subsea lifts, the decommissioning of over 50 platforms, more than 8,000 km of pipeline and umbilicals, and approximately 1,000 wells that need to be plugged and abandoned off the coast of Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Victoria. The graph on the right further illustrates the significant long-term investment required to achieve this, and estimates put the total spend required at about AUD 60 billion over the medium term. Returning to events on slide 24, this slide highlights how Bhagwan is positioned to benefit from infrastructure upgrades, together with increased vessel calls and border security requirements. We have a well-established presence in strategically important locations, including Henderson and WA, where land is at a premium, and we're fielding increasing inquiries. Slide 25 introduces the Ada Clara, a 26-meter customized inspection vessel designed for remote operations.
In our second quarter of 2025, we commenced our first contract with an oil and gas major off the coast of Western Australia. During the project, the Ada Clara performed critical inspections of offshore subsea assets. Its compact design and reduced crew requirements delivered cost savings of more than 50% compared to larger vessels traditionally used for this work. We see being at the forefront of innovation as a vital and exciting part of our future. With this in mind, we're also progressing conversion of our first hybrid powered vessel, which will be initially based at the Port of Melbourne. Excuse me. Turning to slide 26, Bhagwan Marine is well positioned for continued growth with strong activity levels and sustained demand for our solutions.
Key drivers include ongoing demand from major energy companies in the Northern Territory, diversification within the subsea sector, expansion and growth in the larger vessel market across Northern Australia, and rising inquiries from the defense sector at our Henderson Marine Precinct, as we pursue these opportunities. Our focus remains on ensuring safety and service excellence, enhancing fleet capabilities, including remote operation technologies and hybrid solutions, and maintaining disciplined capital allocation and cost management in an inflationary environment. With these priorities in place, Bhagwan Marine is set to deliver another strong year in FY25. Turning now to the final slide, I'd like to leave you with four key messages. Firstly, we achieved record revenue and earnings for the half. Secondly, we have continued to demonstrate the strength of our core business, have an unprecedented pipeline in the tendering of a tendering activity.
Thirdly, the growth sectors we've highlighted in this presentation offer significant potential, and we are well positioned to capitalize on these opportunities. Finally, we continue to evolve as a business while maintaining our focus on commercial discipline and operational excellence. That concludes the formal part of our presentation, and Andrew and I are now happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Loui. If you have not yet submitted your text question or joined the live audio queue, please do so now. As there are no questions in the queue, I will re-read the instructions and give people time to submit. To ask a text question, select the messaging icon, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen, and press the send button. To ask a live audio question, press the request to speak button at the top of the broadcast window. Follow the instructions on screen to join the queue. We have a few people joining the queue, so I will just allow them to join. Our first question comes from Gavin Allen from Euroz Hartleys. Gavin, please go ahead.
Hi guys, it's Gavin here. Thank you very much, Loui and Andrew. Just a couple for me. You do point out you spend a bit of money bringing forward CapEx and on a new vessel. In the meantime, another thing that came out, which was good, was your ROIC sort of increased to 16%. Is that a reasonable way we might think about possible contribution from that growth CapEx going forward, guys? Can you give us any flavor on how to think of that?
Yeah, sure, Gav. Thanks for the question, too. I think return on invested capital is certainly something that we focus on internally, and we obviously have a hurdle rate for justifying new CapEx. We'd certainly be hoping with any new vessel we'd generate a higher return than that. Importantly, I know there's been some industry comparisons that use EBITDA to capital employed. This is using EBIT, which includes essentially the cost of maintaining the vessel in there. We'd certainly be hoping on any major new CapEx to generate a return in excess of that return we've just posted in the first half.
Yeah, sure. It comes out in the presentations, but just in the interest of clarity, conditions, as you're seeing them now, and this might be for you, Loui, as you're seeing them now versus last year in whatever mechanism or flavor you can provide, whether that be in broad terms or by region or however you might provide it, but just some flavor on how conditions are versus this time last year.
Yeah, thanks, Gav. Look, as far as if you're asking me on the activity levels, the activity remains strong. Probably one of the things that's as strong as we've ever seen it is our commercial department. The tendering activity is as strong as we've ever seen it. It's very busy, I suppose, to clarify some with tendering. Tendering can be for the next 6 months, 12 months, 24 sort of things. That's a little bit. We are seeing a lot of activity, and it sort of gives us comfort that the future's looking pretty bright.
Just to add to that, Gav, if you look at the oil and gas market, our traditional market in Western Australia and the Northern Territory at the moment, Santos is completing Barossa. Scarborough is under construction. Chevron's got quite a big CapEx spend on its assets for Wheatstone and Gorgon. Also, Shell's just committed to a project called Crux, which is really driving our core business. You would have seen the other day that in the announcements from the oil and gas companies as well, too, that decommissioning markets are definitely gaining momentum. I think Woodside announced that they were spending AUD 1 billion on decommissioning this year. If you have a look at Santos's accounts as well, too, you can see that there's a very large spend there as well, too.
Even in some of our longer data growth areas like wind farms, we're committing extra vessels to survey works and early works off the coast of Victoria this half. We certainly see lots of opportunities for civil construction works and support, both defense-related in places like Henderson and Darwin, but also just mainstream port works. Our core operations across the northern part of Australia, there's plenty of really large material opportunities, particularly in Queensland and the Northern Territory at the moment.
Terrific. That makes plenty of sense to me, guys. Thanks very much. I'll leave it there. Thank you.
The next question is a text question from Cameron Bell, who asks, "Do you think the utilization impact from the Saudi CapEx plans has bottomed?
Look, to try and answer that, I think it has. I mean, I've spoken to quite a few of the international players in the bigger end of the marketplace recently, and everybody's sort of thinking along the same lines that that little dip we see in the Clarksons report is not sustainable going forward. Most people think that that will start an upwards trend, and that'll be mainly driven by a lack of supply. If you look at what we try to explain in the new build marketplace, there's just very few new builds there to try and help with the supply. I think supply and demand's going to continue that trend upwards.
Look, I think to add to that, too, if you look at the Tidewater result that came out overnight in the U.S., I think they said pretty much the same thing, that expecting that impact to settle over the first quarter, first half of this year and build. Just reiterate that point that Loui made in his presentation, that since 2014, since the peak of the last cycle, day rates are only up in the teens, and new build prices are up 44%-45%. Certain industry economics have not incentivized new builds. The way forward from here, really, for the industry is either day rates will have to rise or the fleet will just get older, global fleet. We see the medium term only being a very positive setup for very positive conditions for us.
The next question is from Andrew Johnston from MST Access. Andrew, please go ahead.
Good morning, Loui. Good morning, Andrew. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah, fine.
Excellent. Okay. Look, three quick questions. Apologies if this information's sitting somewhere but I didn't find it. Could you break down the revenue between, and I suppose if I could pick commercial oil and gas, decommissioning, and defense? If you don't break it down, can you sort of talk generally about what the pipeline of opportunities looks like for, say, the next two years compared with the sort of work you've been doing in the last two? In other words, where are the segments that you expect to grow more quickly than others?
Yeah, look, I'll try and answer that. I mean, the work in our core business, if you like, the stuff we do day to day, and try and explain that, that's around the country, which is quite diverse. Our core business is very strong. We've also got some inshore construction projects on the East Coast coming up towards the end of the calendar year, which we'll be no doubt involved in both of them. To what end is yet to be determined, but that's going to keep us very busy. The projects that we've got, like I say, through our core business, they're strong, and they're going to go for the next probably 12-24 months. The core business looks good. Decommissioning, for instance, we're expecting some growth in that area on the West Coast of Barrow Island. We just started decommissioning.
There's a decade of work there, to give you an idea. We expect that to start impacting us over the next 6 to 12 months. We've also got decommissioning of the Thevenard Island pipeline project, which we hope to be seeing some tenders and stuff coming out in the next probably three to six months. Defense is always, at this point, still a bit of an unknown, but we are getting a lot of inquiry through WA and the Northern Territory, so we expect that to increase. It's very, very difficult to try and put a number or a percentage to that at the moment, which is probably the same as the wind farms that we've got mainly on the East Coast and Bass Strait. Just on the wind farms, we're doing a lot of survey work and stuff like that.
We've moved a few more assets to the area to be able to achieve that sort of work. In all of those sorts of areas that we mentioned, there's definitely an increase in demand, if you like, and certainly in inquiry. As far as I sit here, the future, as far as all that's concerned, looks pretty bright.
Okay, great. Just on that, if I go back to slide 14, where you break out the decommissioning work, is, and I suppose a question for going forward as well, do you expect is all your decommissioning work just in that one project that you've identified, or is there other decommissioning work that sits part of your core revenue? Then going forward, will decommissioning just get included into core revenue in the future?
No. Look, I think decommissioning, we'll keep it as a separate part of the business. The reason for that is that particular project we did, whilst we were at sea for about six or seven months, the project itself took about 18 months. There's a lot of pre-works, a lot of engineering services that we contracted in, and these sorts of things. I think in the future, for me, it'd be better to be split out and be separate because it demands a lot of other services from the business that are not currently here. Probably the other thing to add to that, and I know you haven't asked the question, but one of the things that Andrew mentioned was the margins that we made on our first foray into as a Tier 1 contractor were at about 11%.
Our expectations would be a bit better than that. I mean, we went into that project knowing that we wouldn't have everything 100% right. Not saying that the next one will have it 100% right, but we would expect to have better margins than what we achieved in the TVI project. It is really important to highlight the fact that we are the first Australian company to be Tier 1 with a major, and that is the biggest decommissioning project in our history at this point in time. We are pretty well placed for future projects.
Andrew, just to add to that, look, we did separate it out because it was an outsized project in our book of work. We just wanted to give everyone some quite good transparency on what was happening, but also to demonstrate that the underlying business is benefiting from the industry thematics of improved utilization, improved day rates, and those sorts of things, and that there is plenty of other work going on. Sorry, just to answer the last part of your question, yes, we were providing work to other decommissioning scopes, but on a far smaller scale. We just included those in our core business.
Okay, great. If I can just squeeze in two more. One very quick one. On slide 16, you talk about bringing forward, I think you used the word bringing forward CapEx or maintenance, getting ready for longer-term projects. Is there some particularly long-term projects that are in the pipeline that's different to what you've had in the past?
No. What we do with the fleet, the fleet can be in the spot market, longer-term contracts. What we call sort of longer-term is anything sort of beyond six months. Some of the vessels that we talk about with that CapEx spend are vessels that are going into 12 to 18-month projects. This is sort of what we do generally, so it's nothing to sort of single out. We did single it out through the CapEx spend because we need to get the boat ready for that period of time. While the project's on, you do not want to be pulling the boat out for surveys or any of the maintenance spend that you see coming up through that particular time frame.
It is a bit of a juggling act to try and make sure that we do not overspend, I suppose, if you like, and just to take advantage of boats going into contracts. It is something that we keep a real close eye on and try and measure correctly, I suppose.
It sounds like on a half-to-half basis, the CapEx number is going to be a bit volatile. Are we better off to look at an average across a year or something like that, or a year or two years?
Yeah. To answer you, I think that's correct. I think to do it properly, you've got to do it over more than a year because whilst we had a fairly hectic year this year, a lot of the survey requirements are on five-yearly periods. You've got to try and average it out a little bit better. This year is showing a heavier year than what we expect for next year. Next year, we expect it to be much more back to where we normally see it. You do have different years. I think you've got to base that over a couple of years.
Okay. Look, one final question. If I go to one of the earlier slides, the one that shows the industry and shows the day rates moving up, but there is no new build, I am sort of intrigued by the issues that are driving that. Is that just a function of the cost of a new build going up so much? If that is the case, why is that? Is this just a post-COVID hangover as the industry starts to get itself sorted out? What do you think is going on there?
Look, what's happened, it's not only COVID, obviously, the stuff going on in the Ukraine and other places around the world, of course, material prices, steel prices, and aluminium, excuse me, and those sorts of things up phenomenally. To try and give you an idea, from pre-COVID to build one of our vessels, so to speak, for an AUD 5 million number, we're looking at AUD 9 million-10 million now. The issue is trying to get the industry to accept that they're paying a day rate on an AUD 10 million asset instead of 5 million. The larger the vessels get, that number gets greater. We're really trying hard to get the industry to accept that. The oil and gas industry, especially, demands vessels under 15 years old.
When those things happen, and if you see the gap in how long it's been since boats have been getting built, we're running out of time. I believe over the next couple of years, the prices are going to increase for new builds quite exceptionally. Probably to give you a little bit more color on that, we have four of the large tenders that we've been involved in recently, where they all required new boats, have all gone back to existing vessels because the prices are so high. It's going to take a bit of time to get that level accepted, if you like.
I think we're still, it's going to take 12-24 months to be able to get people to accept that if they want these newer vessels with more technology and all these sorts of things, it's going to come at quite a price. We're a fair way from that. This is why we see day rates just increasing steadily as that time goes on.
Looking further, reflecting the economics that Loui talked about, when you look at the day rates from 2014 onwards declining and the corresponding new building activity declining as well, if you go back to 2011, 2012, 2013, when the industry was building around 300 large vessels a year, there was a lot more shipyard capacity globally. A lot of that shipyard capacity has come out of the market, and that extended downturn. As we sit today, it's not actually the capacity to add new builds of anywhere near that size because of that extended downturn. The economics, the day rates relative to the new build prices are not incentivizing that to restart again at the moment. That's what we're saying, that for that to happen, global day rates are going to have to rise relative to new build prices.
Something's going to have to give in that equation.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, guys. That's great color. Appreciate the answers to those questions. It's helped a lot. Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you. There are no further questions. I'll now hand back to Andrew and Loui for closing remarks.
Just thanks, everybody, for taking the time. We'll see you at the full years of results. Thank you.
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