I would now like to hand the conference over to Jason Dixon, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Financial Year 2026 results presentation for The Environmental Group. I am joined today by Gareth Nicholls, the CFO, and Paul Gaskett, the Chief Commercial Officer. Gareth will talk to some numbers, and if you have any questions, Paul will be able to certainly address your issues with PFAS. As we move through the presentation, I welcome your questions at the end. Tough year, as you all know, with some unexpected events that took place around the world that impacted our business we could not control, and then others within that we should have had more control over. But at the end of the day, I am pleased to say that we met the revised guidance that we put out to the market earlier this half.
Revenue, I guess flat year-on-year is really a reflection of the Baltec customers and some of the delays we had with the events in the Middle East. ERP now thankfully is operating functionally. We still have room for improvement and efficiencies to put through, but it is operating as it should, and the system is far more efficient, accurate, and performing as it should have done.
Significantly, and I guess something we have not spoken broadly about, is the strength that we brought to the management team this year. The business has grown substantially from turning over sort of AUD 40 million to AUD 110 million. We have introduced a new CEO of EGL Baltec. During this period, we obviously brought on Gareth Nicholls as new CFO, who has worked very hard on trying to get the systems in place and make sure we have got the correct process and procedures.
Kiril, who was head of engineering, has also taken over as General Manager of TAPC. Very significant management changes within the business and a real strengthening of that management team during this period. In just summary, as I said, revenue is flat, basically on PCP at AUD 112 million. EBITDA came within our guidance at AUD 8.7 million. Pleasingly again, 419,000 hours worked up on about 380,000 last year. We had one very minor LTI, which is a laceration to a finger, but for 419,000 hours, we can always do better, but a good result. PFAS that Paul will talk to later on. We are getting a lot more traction now. We are really looking forward to the expansion of that business.
We treated over 5 million liters of PFAS contaminated water during that period and at the same time maintained all our global certifications to deal with clients such as Siemens and our larger overseas clients that require those for. Importantly, Gareth is going to take now through an earnings bridge just to talk about the result and how it was structured for FY 2026, and I guess just provide some comfort as to what has happened and where we are now up to within the business. I will hand over to Gareth to talk to you about the numbers.
Thanks, Jason. As Jason has just mentioned, FY 2026 was a disappointing year from an EBITDA perspective. We entered the year expecting to build on the strong growth achieved over recent years. However, as outlined in our trading update, performance was impacted by a combination of factors, including disruption associated with the Middle East conflict and challenges following the implementation of our new ERP system. Thankfully, most of those ERP-related issues are now resolved. We recognized AUD 10.8 million of significant items, including a AUD 5.7 million impairment of the Airtight business. Structural changes in the Airtight market reduced the carrying value of the business, while delays in legal proceedings resulted in a charge having to be taken in relation to an onerous contract inherited as part of the acquisition of that business. Legal proceedings relating to the onerous contract are ongoing, with a substantial recovery being pursued.
To that extent, a contingent asset has been disclosed in the annual report in relation to the potential recovery, but no asset has been recognized as at 30 June. Do you want to go to the next slide, please, Jason?
Yep. Oops, sorry. There we go.
Despite revenue being broadly flat year-on-year, we continue to strengthen the quality of our revenue base with recurring revenue increasing to AUD 61.9 million. Over the past five years, the group has delivered substantial growth, supported by both organic initiatives and strategic acquisitions. This recurring revenue foundation provides great resilience in future earnings. Next slide, please. More than 55% of FY 2026 revenue was recurring or contracted in nature, providing a strong foundation for the group. EGL Energy continues to be the largest contributor to this recurring revenue base. We remain focused on increasing recurring revenue across the group, which will further enhance earnings stability. I will now pass back to Jason.
Thanks, Gareth. I will take you through the operating divisions now and how their performance was for FY 2026 and how we are seeing the early days of FY 2027. I will start off with EGL Energy, which is obviously our boiler business, where we are using steam mainly for the function of sterilization. It is an essential service used throughout any food productions, hospitals, anywhere you need sterilization processes. Acquisition has gone very well of ABC, Advanced Boilers & Combustion from, for over a year ago now, probably a year and a half ago now. They have integrated into the business really well, which has been terrific to see. Revenue, good growth again, up to AUD 64.5 million, up 20%. Gross profit increased another AUD 3.4 million, up 21%.
You will note, as we have spoken about a few months ago now, that EBITDA was down marginally to AUD 7 million, mainly due to the impact of the ERP system issues that we had with invoicing at time and also the fuel price. We have got about 133 vehicles in our fleet. Ballpark, if they are doing 150 km a day, we are doing 22,000 km, 23,000 km a day in our fleet. Certainly, that massive increase in the diesel price had a significant influence, before we were able to put through changes in our travel costs within that business. Service revenue grew from about AUD 41 million up to AUD 47 million, now 73% of the entire revenue within that business. The business remained very strong in its underlying performance.
It met its budget expectations on revenue, and it was just purely that issue we had with the invoicing and the performance during that second half that impacted the EBITDA. I am pleased to say that the business is trading normally again now and in line with expectations post the rectification of some of the issues with the ERP system. Air boiler sales have been particularly strong in early financial year 2027, which has been great to see. The Fulton product sales and service expansion continues to be strong for Tomlinson Energy Service. That range that we brought in, the smaller scale boilers, sort of 2 MW and lower, has gone very well. As I mentioned, I couldn't be more pleased with the acquisition of Advanced Boilers & Combustion. They have increased the scale of our business and broadened the products and service capabilities.
They are doing a lot of additional work for us now. They are manufacturing our PFAS separation tanks, control panels across the business, tanks and vessels, and other structurals. A great culture within that business, where they have been very good at being able to assist the other parts of the business to make sure that we are getting all of the margin maintained in-house. Very pleased with how that acquisition has gone. Just move on to Waste now, and I am sure at the end, Paul Gaskett can answer any further questions you have on PFAS. But it has truly been, for me, an exciting period, and especially exciting last, I guess, six to eight months within that PFAS treatment business, as we have learned more about the technology, its application around the marketplace. From a pure financial view, revenue up to AUD 5 million.
We have grown that business from nothing a few years ago to AUD 5 million now. I would not worry about the gross margin too much. It is purely depending on the timing of when we get commissions on Timix sales. But the focus really now is developing that PFAS side of the business. Patented technology protected across Australia, the U.S., and Europe. R&D investment has broadened the range of waste streams that we can treat. Most of you will be aware that we built a simulation plant close to a year ago now, where we could put in waste streams from the marketplace and test them to see what would happen out of our commercial scale plants. That is absolutely accurate in the simulation plant. And we have been able to prove that we have done a much broader base of PFAS treatment across water, soil, and biosolids.
That has been a big move forward for The Environmental Group. Previously, as you would be aware, we had really focused on water from industrial waste streams and landfill leachates. To be able to broaden that out has given us a much, much bigger addressable market, and very applicable in other parts of the globe as well. By way of example, PFAS contaminated biosolids in the U.S. is quite a big deal now, and it is opening up those very, very large markets for us to enter. The capability has really given us the potential to improve the beneficial reuse outcomes. Avoiding landfill or specialist disposal and reducing those disposal costs for our clients. One of the key learnings we had from a recent trip to the U.S. is mobile treatment plants capability is very important for rapid deployment within that marketplace.
And where you have got those very large waste companies going from site to site and treating, for example, the landfill leachate on those ponds over what can potentially be tens of, if not hundreds of sites within those very large companies. That was a further development we pushed ahead with. As I mentioned, the increase in those waste streams materially increase our addressable market, and the global presence of the PFAS contamination, looking for PFAS solutions, we are very pleased to have expanded what we can now treat and the manner in which we can do it.
It was a period of really, really great development for our PFAS technology, and broadening those commercial applications. As I mentioned to you earlier, we have just had Paul and others in the U.S. talking about global market development strategies and meeting with some very large U.S. companies and other international companies.
Pleased with how we are now developing that segment, and I would like to think that that will grow in the importance of part of our business going forward. I will just move now on to EGL Baltec. Reasonably tough period for Baltec in the second half. The impacts came through from the Middle East. The business, as you know, it is a global business where we are agnostic to where we operate around the world. In this particular last half, we actually had three jobs within that region that got impacted in one way or another by what transpired in the Middle East. Revenue, as we mentioned a few months ago, was down about AUD 7 million-AUD 8 million below expectations. The couple of jobs that suffered delays in the Middle East have now been sorted out.
We had a job going to Iraq, that the client had enormous problems getting there, as you could well imagine. There was another client's project going to that part of the world that we also could not get to the client site. They have both been sorted out now. The project in Iraq is now on site. The other one is in transport into, I think it is Uzbekistan. That has all been completed. I am pleased to say that we did manage to increase the margin during that period, despite what happened with the delays within those projects. We also had another project delayed in its completion because we could not get parts out of Europe into our manufacturing facilities because of what happened in the Strait of Hormuz and what also happened within the closure of the Suez Canal to commercial traffic. That is now resolved as well.
What is really important is we have had Rob Chignell join us as General Manager of Baltec. He has got a lot of industry experience within the power industry, coming from a very large company background and is already implementing changes to processes and systems within the business that I think we will see not only a better quality product for our client, but an improvement on project delivery coming through. The macro view is the demand for gas turbines in the U.S. remains unprecedented. It is driven by data centers seeking to secure their own power supply generation. As you can imagine, previously, power was just coming in off the grid. They now want the power behind the gate with their own turbines. That has seen a significant change within the marketplace.
We are seeing record high turbine orders, but being redirected into the U.S. from other global markets, which is an interesting change within that market. I guess in response to that, we have signed an agency agreement within the U.S. in a key hub in the Midwest for engineering procurement to make sure that we are involved heavily in that market and understanding what is going on within that marketplace. Currently, we are now quoting a number of jobs in the U.S. on RFQs in that data center marketplace. I think we might have three or four we are currently in tender for. That strategy has worked quite well. Obviously, the expansion of renewable energy keeps increasing the need for gas turbines, and they operate flexibly, of course, with other renewables now. You can operate them both peaking and base load applications.
Our proprietary Silencer technology remains a key differentiator that we can do that noise attenuation of peaking load turbines and get a very durable product throughout that type of operating functionality. Look forward to hopefully end of the conflicts in the Middle East and that market returning to normal for us. On to EGL Clean Air. In line with the expectations that we had, revenue roughly flat year-on-year. Gross margin remains strong at 36%, which I guess demonstrates the technologies that we have and how they are well placed within the market. Much better results in the second half. The EBITDA increasing by 84% compared to the first half. We secured a major contract with Pensana that was around AUD 9 million for the scrubbing of gases from a rare earth offtake system that is being built in Angola.
As I mentioned earlier, Kiril Nikitin appointed General Manager of TAPC, after a long time with the group as Head of Engineering and has brought a very strong discipline into that business, which has been terrific to see. Clean Air still has a very good reputation in the air pollution control market, process optimization, and compliance solutions. As Gareth mentioned, we did take an impairment charge against Airtight, just writing down the goodwill as part of that acquisition. As Gareth mentioned, it is subject to legal proceedings. I will not say too much, but there is continued asset going into the notes of the accounts. We are very confident that that will be a successful litigation process for us, and hopefully it will be a good return of funds to the business once that is completed.
I guess the really important part is we completed a major dust control system within the grain sector. It was the project inherited from the Airtight acquisition, and it was largely delayed, as we had to review the complexities and make sure that we could deliver what the client asked for. It has ended up being an absolutely fantastic project. Great praise from the client about how we brought together a mate at work, the professionalism, the technical capability we showed through that. I would expect this will lead to a significant amount of work going forward now in the grain sector. What was difficult to deal with in the acquisition, I suspect will be of long-term benefit to our shareholders from here. I will just talk to the outlook quickly now. We would expect EBITDA to increase on the prior comparable period.
You will, of course, hopefully see growth with improved margins and improved margins back within the energy business now that is obviously trading in a more normal fashion. We will continue to grow that One EGL culture to sell multiple services to service lines across the customer group. It is quite common now that we are doing the boilers, the pollution control systems, now the combustion systems for larger industrial clients. That strategy of really bringing all of our business units to the one client has continued to be a very good driver of our revenue growth. As Gareth mentioned, 55% of our revenue is now recurring at 73%, 74% within that energy business. It is making us a much stronger and more reliable earnings stream over time. We will continue to focus on that.
EGL Energy has had a strong start to the year with boiler sales, and as I mentioned, should see improved EBITDA margins. EGL Waste Services, I mentioned, certainly the PFAS treatment plant sales are gaining traction. We have got a couple away in recent months and hopefully opening up that international markets will drive strong sales growth from here. Baltec, as I mentioned, the macro outlook is very strong, but a little bit of uncertainty around timing with certain events around the world. We should see growth again in air with that major rare earth contract win that we have had. Looking forward to a better financial year 2027. Obviously, financial year 2026 was pretty rough.
As the management team, we did not feel like we could take a trick, but we have worked extremely hard to strengthen up that management team and to make sure that the business continues to perform as best as we can into the future. Moderator, I am happy to hand over to you and respond to some questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please type your question into the Ask a Question box and click submit. The first webcast question is: Please go into more detail about your PFAS global market development strategy. What is the most efficient way to monetize this technology? When do you expect it to make a material impact on the profitability of EGL?
It has been a really interesting journey over the last 12 months, and especially having that simulation plant, which clearly gave us an indication of just how robust the technology is, how flexible it could be over various waste streams, and the modularity of it to be able to go up or down in volumes and different waste streams that we are treating. Really just using the same brains, but different material handlings for those different type of waste stream technologies. In term of that global market development strategy, as I mentioned, Paul was in Europe, I will be corrected, but in April, May, talking about the technology. He was in the U.S. in the later part of July, early part of August. We are developing those strategies right now. In fact, we have meetings on it next week as soon as the results are done.
The most efficient way to monetize the technology, well, I think that is underway now. We have just sold a couple of plants. We have already got a couple of plants in and running. The ability now to deal with those more diverse waste streams has opened up a bigger addressable market. I would expect you will start to see growth within that business and increased sales globally in the near term.
Thank you. The next question is: Are there any data center pipeline agreement visibility for next year? Any guidance in terms of EBITDA FCF?
That is a fairly difficult question to answer. In terms of the data center pipeline, obviously we see RFQs up to two to three years in advance because building a turbine is not an overnight process. At the moment, and I am just going off the top of my head. At the moment, we would have three or four data centers in the U.S., one in New Zealand from memory, and another one in Australia. So there is probably about five or six that we are looking at turbines behind the gate right now for. Obviously, it has been a rapid move in that market, for all these turbines being sucked into the U.S., as AI has really come along and meant that they need an enormous amount more power within those businesses to be able to run the AI.
My understanding is it requires about seven times more energy to run an AI search than a standard Google search. That has driven the demand. It has been a very rapidly moving market, but one that obviously we are now engaging in that agency agreement in the Midwest of the U.S. at the heart of the data centers. We would expect will get us heavily involved within that business.
I am not sure of the EBITDA, so I presume you are talking about free cash flow. We do not provide EBITDA guidance on individual businesses, of course, but the business has got very good margins. It has got very good intellectual property. What is an interesting macro outlook for us, I would expect you will continue to see that business perform reasonably well into the future, subject to, obviously, the Middle East being a little bit problematic for us at this point in time.
Thank you. The next question is: Please go into more detail about your PFAS global market development strategy. What is the most efficient way to monetize this technology? When do you ex-
We have already answered that question.
Oh, I apologize.
Do you remember the other question?
Yes. Can management confirm it is satisfied with the group's liquidity position and confirm there is no intention to announce an equity capital raise at today's depressed share market price?
Well, liquidity position, obviously, no doubt it has got tougher with the bugger up in ERP, and the invoices, et cetera. At the same time, we are not sitting here today saying we are going to raise capital at the current share price. Clearly, we are not going to be doing any acquisitions either. We have got a big focus on our working capital at this point in time and making sure that we get the invoicing right and we get the cash flow right.
My recollection is invoicing out of EGL Energy, and Gareth Nicholls can probably talk to this better than me, has been around record highs in recent months and collection is quite strong. We have certainly had a very large focus on that part of the business. So this one talking about EGL Energy, it is the same sort of question. ABC acquired revenue AUD 16 million.
Does this imply that ABC's acquired revenue, EGL's revenue would have declined? No. Because ABC was in the prior period for part. My recollection is there was probably around about half of that revenue recognized in the prior year from memory. So no, I would have to do the numbers or get Gareth to do the numbers, but no, there is certainly a large part of it recorded in the prior period. So next question, size of the PFAS plant sold more recently. So one was a bit bigger than the standard plant. I think it is around 50,000 L per hour off the top of my head. The other plant is a totally different configuration, which is working a soil washing type of facility. That is an extremely large plant capable of doing many hundreds of thousands of liters per hour.
So both bigger than our standard sort of 20,000 L per hour plant. Next question, "Is free cash flow earnings per share something that you consider? I have not seen it or mentioned in the presentation." Well, I think if you go to the appendix B, there is a reconciliation of cash there. We certainly do consider earnings per share and free cash flow. We will take it on board about future presentation, but something we clearly focus on, and this was an unusual year for us, so just take away any issues. We implemented the ERP that cost us several million dollars. We moved sites and consolidated post the acquisition of ABC.
There was a lot of things going on out of our free cash flow that we were doing to develop the business into the future and obviously make sure the business is sustainable, but it is something we clearly look at. Gareth, do you want to talk to the next question about free cash flow positive or cash flow positive FY 2027? We are certainly cash flow positive in 2026 from operations point of view. We just reinvested into the company as you expect we would, but I will hand over to you, Gareth.
Yeah, that is correct. That is probably the short answer is that yes, we were cash flow positive, from an operating activities perspective at AUD +2.3 million . That is actually a better result than FY 2025. But obviously when you take into account some of the considerable spends that occurred, we spent around AUD 2.4 million on the ERP, and around just under AUD 1 million on the relocation. Those two, which position the company well for future growth but were cash flow negative during the year, did have an impact. Coming back to Jason's earlier point, yeah, we have seen quite strong cash collections over the last two months from our energy business, which is not unusual this time of year, but it is pleasing to see that July has been so strong.
The next question, let me scroll down. Sales growth for FY 2027 for energy, given energy's trade is expected as FY 2025, EBITDA margin 14%. Reasonable expectation. I would have to do the blended margins between Advanced Boilers & Combustion and TES as a comparison to 2025, where you only had part of Advanced Boilers & Combustion in there.
But in broad answer to your question, we would expect sales growth again in FY 2027. For each boiler we put into the market, we are then doing service level agreements the next five years. Boiler sales have been very strong as I mentioned early already this financial year, so that should lead to underlying growth. And I would certainly expect margin improvement. I just cannot reconcile off the top of my head the blended margins of the two businesses. But I am happy to, one, to take that on notice and come back to you.
Next one, more recent plant sales also have recurring income components. I presume that is referring to PFAS. Yes, the answer is yes. We have a maintenance charge that is per liter or kilo, depending on the product that we are processing. Each one of those plants we sell come with a recurring income stream, once they are commissioned up and running online. That certainly is true in the case. PFAS plants sold, how many do you forecast to sell for this year? I would love to forecast 100. PFAS plants sold, so we have got a few in operation now. We have got another two into fabrication. I think by March this year, we would have four in full operation and commissioned off the top of my head. We would certainly forecast or hopefully sell another couple of plants on top of that during this period as well.
It is a difficult one to forecast, not because we do not have very high confidence in our technology and how we can see economic solutions for our clients, but you also have regulators involved in this part of the market, and that obviously can be an issue around timing. I think we are starting to get accepted now by regulators, that the technology is extremely effective. Paul, have you got any comments around that? You are closer to that.
Yeah, no, absolutely agree, Jason. I think the water authorities are certainly really taking that on board now to eliminate the pollution of their sewage treatment plant. They are certainly looking at it upstream now, to be able to mitigate their risk that they have got within the sewage treatment plant. They certainly are the key drivers at this point in time. That is across Australia and also, the recent trip to the U.S., it is the same over there as well.
Thanks, Paul. Next one, biggest profit drivers in EGL for the next two to three years. As we just mentioned, we would expect the PFAS side of the business will continue to grow. You would expect to see a return to normal earnings within that energy business and improved margins. As I said, that business now, the reality is we have got the two key leading brands in Australia between Maxitherm Boilers and John Thompson Boilers. We have got the two leading brands. We are the biggest in the market. We are the only national 24/7 company. We are very attractive to the large players within the food and beverage sector in Australia that we can do national agreements for them. I would certainly expect that to continue to grow. Slow down in bulk in Australia in the second half. Not a slowdown. I would not agree with that statement.
If you go back to FY 2025, we had the enormous Pelican Point job that we did in Australia. As we spoke to the market about then, that was a rare job where we agreed to do the installation, supervision as well as supply, which we generally do not do, but we did it purely on a cost-plus basis, so we did not have risk. I will not be able to get the exact numbers right, but that job was AUD 16 million or AUD 17 million . Gareth might be able to help me. A good chunk of that, probably AUD 6 million-AUD 7 million, was overseeing the installation, and that fell within that FY 2025 period. There is no slowdown in Australia where we are actually quoting a significant amount of jobs.
Now, I'm going to say there's three or four within Australia, a lot of them retrofitting Silencers, a couple of upgrades, and a few new larger plants as well. We're just delivering one into Kwinana in Perth at the moment. Not a slowdown, just an unusual business mix in FY 2025. I'd expect it's just business as usual in Australia. How would you think of a normal half? Was there a large contract which means next half? I'm not sure exactly which half you're referring to, but obviously Baltec, you're doing larger jobs. The jobs on average are probably AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million , some of them up to $3 million-$ 4 million . The timing of those jobs does obviously vary from half to half. But at the same time, if you're doing 10- 12 a year, you'd expect the portfolio approach would balance that out.
A large contract means next half could be slower again. No, I don't. In Americas, given strong second half, everything is normal. Yeah, look, I'm not exactly sure how to answer that question, but we've got a good tender pipeline, as mentioned, obviously affected by the Middle East for that part of our business at the moment. But outside of that, it's very much business as usual, but it will just be lumpy from half to half. Gareth, I'll let you handle the next one. ERP fully employed now?
Yes. The short answer is yes, the ERP is being fully utilized. We got these reports out using the new ERP system, so that's a positive sign that it is working as it should. We're still working on getting the efficiency out of it. Like any new large ERP installation, there's a lot of functionality there that we haven't turned on yet, and some functionality we probably need to turn off to get the most efficiency out of the system as we possibly can and would like to see. There's still some work that is going to be ongoing. But in terms of day-to-day operations, there's no issues with data being processed as we speak.
Okay. Thanks, Gareth. These two delayed Middle East Baltec projects now transition into installation, revenue recognition phase, deferred AUD 1.5 million . As I mentioned earlier, we don't do the installation. There's only one job in Australia that we do the installation. It's a bit complicated, but our role really ends at the port, where we fabricate in Vietnam. Since COVID, three, four years ago, we don't even take responsibility for the transport. We leave that up to our client as well because of the variability and the cost reflected through that. But obviously, part of our revenue recognition getting paid is that when it arrives at the client site and there's a payment when it's commissioned up and functioning as it should do. The issue is really not around the installation.
It is just that revenue recognition based on where the project is at and then when we get paid for the finality of that project. As I mentioned, there were two significant projects into the Middle East, which both suffered significant delays. We cannot get the commissioning side of things finalized and those payments. Then there was another one, which was, I cannot remember exactly where it was going to, but we had to get acoustic liners from Europe to Vietnam, and we could not get through the Suez Canal with commercial vessels because they would not insure commercial vessels through the Suez. We ended up having to go around Africa to get that to Vietnam. It slowed us down by six or eight weeks, which deferred a big chunk of that revenue on that project because we could not complete fabrication in time with our expectations.
I hope that has answered that. Oh, sorry. Have you safeguarded against similar logistic risks in the future? Well, obviously, we cannot safeguard against that. As I said, we are largely done export in Vietnam, so that was dealt with many years ago that we are not responsible for transport. Can we control getting stuff into the States from us? No, we cannot. The chance of us having two jobs in the same half delivered to the Middle East, I suspect would be fairly low, especially one into Iraq. But that is what happened. But there is no other way we can mitigate that risk. We are off risk on that. We do not do the transport. We are export. It just means that we do not get the timing of those last couple of payments as we would have expected within the business.
Synergies amongst the business, are they completely standalone or separate? Yeah, no, that is a good question.
Synergies within the business. If you look at what Waste does, the waste sector in Australia is about AUD 18 billion sector per annum, and we have got very common clients across the business units through there. We try and approach those clients on a whole One EGL basis where we could do their dust extraction systems, we could do. If we just talk about pure waste facility, we can do the dust extraction systems, we can do their odor control systems. We can do dust suppression with our dry fogging systems. If they have got any waste coming in that needs sterilization, we can do the boilers and autoclaves for them. Through, obviously, EGL Waste, we can do the Timix separation. So there really is a lot of synergies through those businesses.
We would expect going forward as we look more to waste to energy, that Baltec will also get more and more involved in that waste to energy side of the business. Could our business be vertically integrated? Yeah. The answer to the second part of that question is could we divest a business without affecting the remaining business? The answer is 100%. The businesses largely operate on a standalone basis, albeit, as I mentioned, Waste uses their client base to drive sales in all the other particular business units. Baltec could be divested without impacting it. I suspect so could Energy. No, I think the answer to that is we could divest without too many issues there. I got an enormous amount of questions. I am trying to get through them as fast as I can.
Do you want me to jump in the prior year one here?
Yeah.
The prior year only had three months of ABC revenue. Doesn't that suggest a sizable decline in EGL Energy revenue absent the ABC acquisition? Just looking at the numbers, if you exclude ABC out, they had about AUD 4 million of revenue, just low AUD 4 million in the prior year. That suggests that the underlying EGL business, the historic EGL business, was relatively flat year-on-year. There wasn't a sizable decline. There was a slight decline. The second part of the question was, is this decline driven primarily by project or service revenue? It was really around the project revenue from that side, and we believe that's purely a timing. We've seen very strong sales to start off FY 2027 in that energy space in all of the energy businesses at this point in time.
The ERP causing disruption to that business.
Yeah.
ERP rollout difficulties related to EGL or the SI provider, I'm not sure exactly what SI stands for, but it's Oracle NetSuite. It's a system that we implemented. We had a third party whose specific function in life is to do ERP implementations of Oracle NetSuite. If you listen to all three of us, I'm not sure all three of us would say the others got their own role to play in this. I think broad terms, we were very disappointed with Oracle NetSuite. I think during the process, they, and Gareth knows better than me, I think they made 15% of their staff globally redundant. We found that the response out of Oracle NetSuite wasn't particularly strong, and we're quite disappointed in that.
The service provider that did the implementation process for us, I will just say very simply, we sacked them during the process and actually completed it ourselves. That is how disappointed we were in the capabilities they brought to the business. Do we have to take some responsibility for it? Absolutely, we have to take some responsibility for it. The only excuse is that ERP implementations are obviously notorious for how they go wrong within businesses. We thought we had tested, reviewed, and audited processes extremely strongly. The ERP went live the first morning very well. We had an invoice out before 8:00 A.M. on the first morning it went live, so we are confident that we had done all that is required. The boring part, I guess that is our responsibility, is the system was complicated. I will get this wrong, but just want a better description.
On the field services, the tablets that our service technician takes out, ERP, sorry, Oracle NetSuite standard field services comes out with about 20- 24 selections on the page. Rather than reducing all that optionality on the page as what the service techs could use as a dropdown and select whatever was going on, when we probably only needed six or seven of those functionalities, we roll it out as standard. That certainly led to issues within the business. It led to incorrect data entry into the system. Certainly we could have been better in what we rolled out in terms of what out in the actual into the field to make it less complicated for our service techs.
We had issues with being in boiler rooms, of course, being a different work environment where this would normally be rolled out in the majority of businesses by a long way. There was some data migration that did not come across as smoothly as it should have, which you would clearly say our service provider was in charge of that data migration. I guess it is part on everyone, and we make no excuses for any things that we should have done better, which is probably more around making it less confusing, I guess, for the amount of service technicians we have to try and roll it out for in one go. Manufacturing PFAS plants in-house seems like an inefficient way to address the global market. I do agree with that. Manufacturing the PFAS plants in-house is done for the Australian market.
Obviously the control panels that have got all our logics and the brains within them, we keep in-house so that no one can get a hold of our IP. If, by way of example, we are doing a PFAS plant into the U.S., then your point is correct. That would be manufactured in the U.S., the tanks and the structurals. We are not shipping air overseas, and obviously it has got to be wired to those different standards as well. When it is going to foreign markets, there would be local input into that. Paul, have you got further comment on that?
Yeah. No, absolutely agree, Jason. The key component that we would remain control over is the IP. Simply the manufacturing pipework, control panels, and electrical to ensure that it meets that local market would be done in that particular country. But we would maintain that IP, and control that so it didn't get out.
Yeah. The final part of that question was, are you exploring foreign partners and royalty streams? Paul, you can talk to that one.
Yeah, absolutely. We are looking at potential agents in different countries to assist us within the rollout on selling of PFAS plants. Certainly from a local perspective, if there's people that are on the ground that do already have those networks, it makes it certainly a lot easier for us to be able to do that.
Yeah. Thanks, Paul. The next one, sorry. ERP impacted revenue and EBITDA contribution. Is that true? Well, yeah, certainly that's absolutely true. The revenue impact of the ERP was we had the invoicing issues within the energy business in, I'm going to say March, April. It was around that timeframe. The EBITDA contribution impact was some of the issues we had with the ERP was getting costs on the job of both labor and parts, where parts were going onto jobs within that energy business, that one of the big issues we had with the ERP in that timeframe, it was posting parts onto the job, either at a value of zero or a dollar. We had all the parts obviously loaded in the system at their sale price. It didn't function correctly in picking that up and putting that onto invoices.
Yes, the answer to that question is, the ERP clearly impacted revenue and hurt us on EBITDA contribution that second half, especially within the energy business. The reason it impacted within the energy business is, I think we do, it is 12,000- 13,000 invoices a year within that business, so it is a very high volume business. Within a reasonably short period of time, when you have something like that that is not operating efficiently and effectively, it mounts up in its cost rather quickly. To have an issue for that period in there with the launch of that system, we then had to go back and review a whole heap of invoices gone out. I think it was around 900 in total. We then had to manually review and try and correct and sort the systems out.
It not only had an impact in terms of revenue, but it also had an impact of additional costs that came into the business on that front as well. I am just looking at questions that are being closed out. Sorry, they are not being marked as complete, so it is a bit hard for me to see what has not been answered. I think there is one to go. Provided guidance for the group for FY 2027 statutory and normalized. Clearly, we have not done that. You do not do forward-looking statements of statutory and normalized at this time. It is very early in the year, just the results. We have come out and said we expect the year to be stronger year on year. Normally, I guess we would say, you could take a stronger view. Clearly, the issues within the Middle East and that Baltec order timing.
I think about 20% of our business is sort of Middle East Asia. On that basis, it is a little harder to forecast right now in Baltec than we would reasonably normally see. We have still got the pipeline out there. I think at this point in time, we are just satisfied to say that we expect EBITDA to increase on the prior comparable period, and we will see an improvement in margins. It looks like the questions have now been closed. I know Gareth or Paul, have you got anything else you would like to add?
No, I do not think so, Jason.
Gareth?
Nope. All good from my perspective.
Operator, I am happy to hand back to you. I am not sure whether there is any outstanding questions. They appear to all been sort of closed out on the screen now. Back to you, Operator, for any further questions we might have.
Thanks. Showing no further questions.
Yep. Okay. Well, thanks everyone for your time. Appreciate you giving us your time again. Hopefully, we look forward to a stronger and better FY 2027. We will speak to you soon. Anyone has got any questions, feel free to send us an email or drop us a note. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate it.