...Welcome everyone to Bhagwan Marine's 2024 full year results presentation. I'm delighted 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. Bhagwan Marine is a leading marine, excuse me, marine solutions provider, and since listing on the ASX in July, we have become the largest listed Australian marine services provider. As highlighted on slide three, we operate across diverse sectors, including oil and gas, resources, civil construction, marine logistics, offshore wind, and defense. Today's presentation agenda is set out on slide four, and we will focus on three key areas: Our financial and operational highlights, a deeper dive into our financial performance, which Andrew will provide, and finally, the market outlook and how Bhagwan Marine is positioned for growth. Excuse me.
Following the presentation, Andrew and I will be happy to take any questions. Before moving to our financial highlights, I'd like to provide a little more detail about our company for listeners who may be new to Bhagwan. We were established in 2000 in Geraldton by the Kannikoski family, or my family, principally servicing the oil and gas industry. We have, over time, diversified our core services, which now can largely be grouped into the following four categories: offshore, nearshore, subsea, and port services, to name a few. We have established facilities in strategically located ports around Australia, placing us where the demand is and enabling us to leverage opportunities as they arise. Our diverse fleet comprises about 100 vessels to service our customer base, including government organizations, large mining and oil and gas companies, port authorities, civil construction companies.
Now moving to slide seven. In July, we successfully raised AUD 80 million by way of an IPO. The funds have enabled us to deleverage our balance sheet and provide us with greater flexibility to pursue compelling growth opportunities, particularly in the decommissioning, offshore wind, and defense sectors. We commenced trading on the eighth on the ASX on the 29th July. This was a very proud day for our family, the Kanakoski family, with my mother and my wife ringing the bell. I wasn't allowed to, and the team at Bhagwan Marine. I'm moving now to our financial highlights. During you know, FY 2024, we generated record revenue of AUD 303 million, up 79% on FY 2023 and ahead of the forecast and the prospectus by 4%.
This strong performance was largely driven by increasing demand across our core businesses and our entry into the decommissioning sector, a large project in the North West. Earnings were up 14% on the prior corresponding period and up 6% on forecast in the prospectus. Our net cash from operations of AUD 29 million was in line with FY 2023. And finally, pro forma net debt as of thirtieth of June 2024 was AUD 12.4 million. As I mentioned earlier, Andrew will provide more detail on our financial performance shortly. Looking now at our operational highlights on Slide 10. Firstly, I'm very proud of the team for remaining focused on safety and service delivery while undertaking a large decommissioning project and the IPO process, which was no mean feat. Everyone's commitment and dedication during a very busy year was outstanding.
Importantly, we maintained our positive safety culture, which was reflected in the improved total recordable injury frequency rate and lost time injury frequency rate performance. Having said this, when it comes to safety, we are never satisfied and always looking for a continued improvement. Looking at our governance towards the latter part of 2024, FY 2024, we were pleased to welcome Andrew as Director of Finance, Tracey Horton as a non-executive director, and as a listed company, we will continue to mature this aspect of our business. Turning now to operations. We experienced strong demand across all of our sectors and services nationally: offshore oil and gas, subsea, port, and civil construction. A highlight was successfully transitioning Bhagwan Marine's first oil and gas decommissioning project, the largest undertaken by an Australian-owned service provider, to the demobilization phase.
Importantly, more than 800,000 hours worked offshore were completed without a lost time injury, which was a massive achievement. This important project enhances our capability and process improvement delivery within decommissioning, a high-growth area for Bhagwan Marine. This will mean that Bhagwan Marine will be included in all or most upcoming Australian decommissioning projects, which should take us well into the future. I'll now hand over to Andrew to cover our financial performance in more detail. Thank you.
Thanks, Loui. I'm commencing on slide 12. Our net revenue, that's net of pass-through revenue, was up 59% on FY 2023 and up 1% on the prospectus forecast. Our pro forma EBITDA was up 14% on FY 2023 and 6% above the prospectus forecast. The two pro forma adjustments to EBITDA are AUD 1.2 million in ongoing listed company costs, which are deducted from statutory EBITDA, and AUD 2.7 million in non-contingent transaction costs, which were incurred in FY 2024 and added back to statutory EBITDA. There are reconciliations of pro formas to statutory numbers in the appendices of the presentation and in the prospectus. On the chart on the right-hand side of page 13 compares the pro forma prospectus profit and loss breakdown to the actual FY 2024 pro forma performance.
The orange bars and dotted lines highlight the performance of the large decommissioning contract, where FY 2024 revenue of AUD 65.4 million compared favorably to the prospectus forecast of AUD 60.7 million, and the EBITDA was AUD 6 million, compared to the forecast of AUD 3.2 million, giving an EBITDA margin to date on this project of 9.1%, compared to the prospectus forecast of 5.3%. The favorable performance to forecast was due mostly to client approval of some of our early change orders. The project was completed successfully and safely in August and is currently in the demobilization phase. Our core revenue of AUD 203.2 million and EBITDA of AUD 35.3 million were both in line with prospectus forecasts.
The core EBITDA margin of 17.4% was in line with the prospectus forecast, but was lower than the FY 2023 EBITDA margin of 21.5%, due to the investing in corporate overheads, as detailed in the prospectus. We expect to be able to leverage this investment in FY 2025 and beyond to support future growth in the business. Looking now at slide 14, our operating cash flow of AUD 29 million was 5% ahead of the prospectus forecast, and our free cash flow of AUD 17 million was 1% ahead of the prospectus forecast. Working capital was impacted by some large customers deferring payments to us until early July, and net CapEx was higher than the prospectus forecast, primarily due to cost inflation and project timing.
We expect FY 2025 CapEx to increase due to the dry docking of a major asset and general cost inflation in the shipbuilding and repair industry. We still retain nearly AUD 39 million in tax losses, which is expected to provide a cash flow shield for the next several years. Finally, on this slide, our operating lease payments were in line with forecast. Turning now to our balance sheet on slide 15. FY 2023 total net debt, including leases, of AUD 88.7 million reduced by AUD 7.3 million over the course of FY 2024 to AUD 81.4 million. Post-year-end debt was substantially repaid, with AUD 69 million of IPO proceeds. Pro forma December 2023 net debt of AUD 19.7 million now stands at AUD 12.4 million pro forma in June 2024.
Before leaving the financial section, I'd like to mention that we have included additional slides in the appendices starting on page 22, providing further detail regarding the statutory to pro forma reconciliation. I'll now skip forward to slide 17 on the global offshore vessel market. The graphs on slide 17, developed by a global shipbroker, Clarksons, provide some industry context. The middle chart highlights that the utilization of the global offshore support vessel, or OSV fleet, this is both anchor handlers and platform supply vessels, has been steadily improving post-COVID. This has in turn driven global day rates back to similar levels to those experienced in the mid to late two thousands. This is depicted in the left-hand chart.
The chart on the right-hand side highlights that the low day rates and associated industry returns experienced from 2015 to 2021 has led to a limited newbuild response, despite recently improved day rates. Current industry indications are that newbuild orders remain limited globally due to high newbuild pricing, access to finance, and uncertainty surrounding vessel technology and design. These factors indicate that supply is likely to remain constrained for some time, despite improving demand from the oil and gas and renewable sectors. Bhagwan has the largest fleet in Australia and is in a strong position to capitalize on increasing demand for marine services in a tight global vessel market. I'll now hand you back to Loui.
Thanks, Andrew. As supported by the previous slide, the industry supply-demand fundamentals are strong, as prospects for decommissioning offshore wind and defense projects are also compelling. There is a strong project, sorry, strong pipeline of decommissioning projects. Bhagwan now has a proven experience and capability in this area. The government is committed to offshore wind projects. Bhagwan is currently supporting the initial survey phase of these projects, especially in the Bass Strait, and there has been 12 licenses issued around the country, so we expect that demand to get to grow steadily over the next few years. Generally, the government is also increasing investment in marine defense projects. Again, Bhagwan has proven experience in this sector, with ongoing contracts with Border Force and the Navy.
With a leveraged balance sheet, Bhagwan is in a stronger position, sorry, to capitalize on these growth opportunities. FY twenty-five focus areas. Without the distraction of the IPO, we are firmly focused on strengthening our core business and expansion into growth sectors. More specifically, we'll look to build on our long-term contracts and higher utilization rates and recurring revenue. Maintaining our leading fleet is also a focus. We have some exciting projects relating to greener energy and hybrid options, together with automated vessels that reduce crew requirements and enhance safety. In conclusion, moving now to slide twenty and some points we would like to leave you with. We delivered a strong FY twenty-four results. Bhagwan has a successful twenty-five year history with a strong reputation for service delivery.
As founders, we remain shareholders and committed to the long-term success of Bhagwan. There remains strong demand for our core businesses and compelling growth opportunities within decommissioning, offshore wind, and defense. We're in the strongest position in the company's history to accelerate growth for shareholders. I will now hand you back to the moderator for any questions.
Thanks very much. If you do wish to ask a question, please press the star key, then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star, then two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Thank you. Your first question comes from Tony Mitchell, from Shaw and Partners. Go ahead, thank you.
Congratulations. Excellent result, very well explained. I'd just like to ask you, why haven't you included a forecast through the back half for 2025?
Look, Tony, thank you for the question. We're not proposing to, you know, provide detailed guidance on it going forward. You know, listing, we think industry conditions are strong. We think conditions for, you know, improving rates and utilization are strong, demand is strong, and we think the supply response from the market is limited. So we think we're in a good position, but we're not... We'll give an update at our AGM on our first quarter trading performance and obviously at our half year. But I don't think we'll be providing formal guidance or forecast guide- on a go-forward basis.
Okay. Given, what is the current level of utilization among the fleet at the moment? I know there are different categories, but what is the average level of utilization?
Tony, we're at about 55%-60%. But what we do with utilization, we include times, you know, when the vessels are either docking and, you know, maintenance periods and these sorts of things. So whilst we've, we sort of... If you look at the percentage range of, say, 55%, and you're working it out of a hundred, it's probably not quite correct. And we are trying to- we're looking at rectifying that. But, you know, in reality, we probably get to about 90% utilization, and then 10% of the year is taken up by maintenance and these sorts of things. But there's still a lot of, you know, we consider that there's a lot of room for growth as far as the utilization goes.
You know, we're happy with the way it's looking for next year or for 2025 as we say.
Okay, so just with the decommissioning project you've done, you've obviously shut the lights out on that. Is it likely that in the future you can do any further decommissioning in oil and gas? Or you've alluded to decommissioning and wind, which is gonna be bigger, and would the wind margins be anything similar to the oil and gas margins that you've just experienced?
The decommissioning, I think. Well, it's gonna go on for the future. We, we'll see some stops and starts. It's, you know, what we're seeing at the moment, we've just completed, you know, what we've said is Australia's biggest decommissioning project currently. There's another part from that we expect to start in the next six to 12 months. So there's some ebbs and flows, if you like, but I think that'll change going forward, you know, when more of these projects come on and we'll be involved. So it'll be a major part of the business, but that'll go on for, you know, years to come. I mean, while there's infrastructure in the water, it's got to come out. So you know, it's gonna go on for a lot longer than I'll be around, Tony, anyway.
But which is hopefully for a long time to come yet, by the way. Anyway, but and then with the wind farms, look, I think wind farms for us, with what's proposed at the moment, is the same. It's, you know, 20-30 year look ahead stuff. It's going to be a major part of our business. It's a very small part at the moment, but I think the beauty of it, and while we mentioned there's a lot of great opportunities for the company, and one of the main reasons or one of the big reasons we did the IPO, was to take advantage of these things in the future. So we obviously see a great deal of strength in both wind farms and decommissioning.
Thank you. Your next question is from Gavin Allen, from Euroz Hartleys. Go ahead, thank you.
Loui and Andrew, good morning. Very good. Thanks for that, so just, Tony asked a couple that I was thinking about, but perhaps... I don't know if you can do this or not, but, is there prospect of any flavor around sort of the near-term opportunities that you're seeing, you know, kind of at the moment, and whether they've changed over the last number of months? Just how maybe to think of what's ahead for the next six months, perhaps.
Sorry, Gavin, I just missed that. Could you repeat that?
I guess I'm just asking or wondering, you know, over the process of the listing, we did talk from time to time about some of the things that you were thinking about over the next number of months in terms of possible prospect. I just wondering if that environment has changed at all for you. Are you still seeing things that can land in the next six months as contracts?
... Yeah, look, absolutely. I think what we mentioned was our commercial department with tendering and those sorts of things were as busy as they've ever been, and that hasn't changed. But yeah, we do expect a few of the larger tenders that we're bidding on to be awarded over, you know, within the next six months, so to speak. So no, that hasn't changed, Gavin. I think if anything, I mean, the amount of work that's getting done at the moment through tendering and that has got stronger, if anything. So that's as far as that's going, we're very pleased with that.
Yeah. Terrific. And this is just another quick one. So you've spoken on this before, but just in the interest of clarity, you are seeing some evidence of rate rising, rates rising as you redeploy spot contracts on the new work?
Yeah, look, we're getting impacted a lot from international. The world's busy at the moment, which is good. So what it means is a lot of the big players in the international sector have actually moved out of the country and because they're getting better rates elsewhere, which is obviously impacting us. So with the shortage of supply, which we sort of expect to go on for the next few years, there is going to be an increase in rates. But, you know, I'm sort of not certainly not sure on what that's gonna be, but I see it going a little bit silly at some point in the not-too-distant future, but then it'll come back to reality.
Yeah, makes sense. That's all I have for the moment. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Gavin.
Thank you. I'll now hand back to Mr. Kannikoski for his closing remarks. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Jodie. Well, thanks to everybody for your interest in Bhagwan. Looking forward to the balance of FY twenty-five with great enthusiasm. Very excited about the growth and prospects, and we're going to provide updates to the market at conferences and investor events throughout the year. I'm becoming very interested in these roadshows and things, so, you know, I'm starting to enjoy them, which is a bit of a worry, but thanks everybody for their attendance.