Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the GenusPlus results. Obviously another big year for GenusPlus. I'll go through the presentation. Happy to take any questions along the way, or we can save them to the end. Fantastic sort of year for us. Executive summary leads to 2,500 employees now, plus MPK, obviously. We'll talk through MPK. MPK came in on July 1st, so we'll talk to that through the presentation, and happy to take any questions. AUD 1.28 billion of revenue, a massive step change for the business over the last two years.
We've maintained our TRIFR results, a strong focus on people wellbeing and safety, which is the number one in our business. Solid order book, plus a recurring book of work that sits alongside our order book sets us up strong for this year coming. Some massive standouts. If we first of all look at the map as we increase our east coast exposure and as we spread our wings across the Australian market, which was what we've been trying to do over the last half a decade. A massive step change for infrastructure with 100% revenue growth.
We've seen those larger projects now start to come through from a revenue point of view. We've been responsible with the way we report the margins on those projects as they ramp up and they go into their first stages of ramp up. Energy and engineering, a solid result. Services, an outstanding result and really strong at AUD 150 million, and we'll talk to the details of that through the presentation. It's a big year. It's a solid year. It's an absolute step change for the business.
A number of things have had to been done over the last 500, 600 days in yard sizes, people, expanding the business to a multi-discipline infrastructure contractor. Some key messages we really wanted to drag out is we're proud of the stable leadership and management. The retention of our management, we believe, is second to none across the industry. People are happy to work for Genus at all levels. Stepping from AUD 550 million to just under AUD 1.3 billion over the last two years, and maintaining a strong culture is our opinion.
Safety, performance, customer focus, and operational disciplines is key to contracting. Exceeding AUD 100 million normalization EBITDA marks a major milestone. I think a number of people and us have talked. It's always Damian and I, we've been here from the start. It was always a dream to get to AUD 100 million in EBITDA, which is now a reality, and it's onwards and upwards as you can see through our forecast for next year and our guidance that we're not going to be here for very long, but that's how these things happen.
What an effort from the whole team and a big call-out to all of the Genus team at all levels. Whether it's loading a truck, doing a job, building a project, managing a project, or the leadership of Genus entirely have done a fantastic job, in our opinion, in getting us through this step change and looking to the future. I think it's hard to pin down exactly what ramp-up means. Everyone likes to say, We ramp up. We've got to understand that we've taken this business into all sorts of scaled projects now from the typical projects we did long, long time ago to now billion-dollar projects in the case of HumeLink East.
The ramp-up and the flexibility of our staff to be able to work with the challenges of ramping them up has been nothing short of amazing, in my opinion. I thought we'd find bigger challenges. Not to say it's easy, there's certainly challenges when we ramp up to large projects. But we've been able to find and deliver a strong horsepower result for our customers in the ramp-up. Understanding those ramp-ups when we've never done it before and trying to write rules and things in place to make it more streamlined in the future.
Again, talking back to that step change. Not only from an organic point of view of going out and achieving so much over the last couple of years. It was always going to be a time where we needed to diversify, and we'd been working on a strategy for that for a long period of time. The strategy was to enter the pipeline and the rail space and those types of environments with long linear type projects. Throughout that year, we were able to double down with our Railtrain acquisition, giving us a good size footprint to be able to look at growth in rail and how we become a delivery partner across the rail sector.
MPK, which was an absolute amazing acquisition. Probably, you don't get to pick the timing and the size of these acquisitions. But MPK was definitely a big bite, and we're happy with that bite size. We completed an AUD 200 million equity raise and increased our facility to AUD 540 million on the back of those. But more on an overarching strategy point of view, and we put pressure on ourselves all the time around strategy and having a document and shifting that document and keeping up with what's happening in the market.
Today, we were able to hit two major milestones from a diversification point of view into MPK and Railtrain and MGC, giving us that footprint to be able to grow alongside our renewables and transmission and distribution areas. A lot of work's been done over the last two years. I'm very pleased with that at work level. I think the team's done a fantastic job, and we're sitting on a far bigger horse today than we were two years ago. Financial highlights, so up 70% in revenue. We gave guidance not that long ago with the MPK deal, and we've hit that guidance or a little bit better.
Record EBITDA of just over AUD 100 million. Our underlying NPAT at AUD 54 million. Final dividend we paid at AUD 0.036 + the interim dividend. Cash has been very, very good. Remembering we did raise AUD 195 million for MPK, but it's still great. A great conversion, we'll talk to cash throughout the presentation. Strong order book with an increased recurring revenue on top of that order book. If we look at timing over that order book plus the recurring revenue sets us up for the guidance we've given you throughout the presentation.
Outlook, so AUD 2.2 billion order book, mainly in the space of Genus organically. MPK has lent in a little bit with that. MPK is at a period where they are rolling off some large projects they have done, and they are rolling on to some others. They will come as a part of the order book once they get to the right point in space. Mainly that is the Genus order book. Obviously, MPK help contribute to growing our recurring revenue as they sit on some service panels and gathering panels, which are typical to the panels we have always had in Genus.
We will continue to grow that recurring revenue and continue to put effort into that as we always have. A solid tendered pipeline, and I say tendered as in here and now tendered opportunities that will be negotiated, and we will be successful on a number of those tendered pipeline opportunities. We are also seeing a large activity of tendering activity, which is not until it is a tender, it is sort of tendering and then opportunities further on than that continue to grow and be solid.
It is hard to put those numbers in a presentation because sometimes they are huge, and they are all opportunities and sometimes they fly and sometimes they do not. A solid AUD 3.6 billion here and now that we need to work on. The recurring revenue, as I stated, has grown with MPK, and that is one of the key highlights of the acquisition. Not only that, it now gives us a real foothold to grow that AUD 764 million. I think there is opportunity to grow that, and we will see that come through over the coming years.
We continue to see opportunities throughout the group, as talked about from a tendering point of view to a tendered pipeline, opportunities here and now. We really need to give it some time to really see how that comes through. When we look at the rail acquisitions and MPK, and organically Genus is always trying something new. We really need to give it some time to let these sectors settle in to their new home and look at a diversified infrastructure business and start being aggressive on tendering on opportunities.
Sometimes when we look at the likes of Railtrain or MGC from a rail point of view, those businesses were the size they were. Their balance sheet was the size they were. So sometimes they are unable to take on the opportunities that now we can take on together. We have given guidance for AUD 200 million-AUD 205 million EBITDA. We have worked on that guidance and been sensible with that guidance. It is a range of organic growth. Some coming through from Railtrain and obviously MPK. You can sort of look at it a few different ways.
It is a sensible number to put there in front of us today, and we will keep the market informed if that number is to change. It is not weighed to one or the other. It is simply some contingency across organic growth. It is some contingency on Railtrain and some contingency on the high numbers of the earn-out for MPK. A range of numbers gave us our guidance to give you guys today. The overview of MPK, so just re-jogging everyone's memory and it is. MPK and Genus sort of ran into each other many years ago, so this acquisition wasn't thought about in 5 minutes.
We sort of looked at some tendering together a long way back and how we could use our overhead power and electrical skills alongside their rail, their pipelining skills. We both worked on a contract side by side around 2020. They were on separate contracts but we were on the same expansion project. We were doing the power, and they were doing the water and slurry lines at that point. We obviously got to work alongside them for a large period of time throughout those large projects.
Until we sort of ran into each other later in life again, and we couldn't get expectations to line up the first time we had a discussion with MPK. Earlier this year or late last calendar year, we ran the story again between the organizations, and those expectations got fairly close to being lined up. From there to the 1st of July, we completed the acquisition. The overarching rationale for MPK is Genus is a strong infrastructure contractor across renewables, distribution, transmission, power, mining, etc .
MPK's got all the same makeups, but more in the civil pipeline, and gas gathering and gas services side. So it's 2 + 2 is 5 in this acquisition, in my opinion. We need to look at two big horses and bring them together. We need to search for synergies and streamlined approaches on how we work together. We need to respect the gas market as it's definitely a tier 1 market. We need to reopen those doors from a water point of view for MPK. As talked about, that I saw them on a very large water and slurry line project.
Not forgetting that they're still active in their mining services piece, and there's a wide range of activity across our mining customers at Genus that we're not doing that type of work for today. So there's just a number of opportunities that, we're eight weeks into the acquisition, plus the DD time and the time we got to spend with each other earlier this year. The integration, I think, is solid and strong. It comes with a very solid leadership team. The leadership team from MPK and the leadership team from Genus are working hand-in-hand together to look at the integration and don't leave any stones unturned.
At this point in time, everything's tracking to plan. It adds on 900- 1,000 employees onto those numbers back in the earlier pages. We are a far bigger business today together and helping with our guidance as well. Overall summary, we get the gas market, we get the water market, we get the wind farm civil market, and we probably can touch on some mining services and gas services and see how we can expand that through the group as well. So a lot of opportunity. Historical performance. I'll let everyone read the charts.
There's no talking to them, but you can read the charts. I'm happy to take any questions on them. The financial overview has talked about AUD 1.28 billion of revenue, just a solid step change for the business from hundreds of millions to now into the billion sort of category. EBITDA is completely in line with where we expected it to be. Our underlying NPAT, which the normalizations are just your typical acquisition and legal costs. We had some historical EC&M claims, which that's from some old claims from an acquisition of EC&M we did many years ago.
That's just finishing out some stuff we need to do with the administrator. CommTel's restructuring costs. Our amortization from our intangibles on acquisitions is AUD 2.6 million. Nothing really, pretty standard stuff here. It's in line with where we expected. There's some costs to do to run businesses, which I hope you all understand. A strong cash balance, and happy to take some questions on cash at the question time. We've had strong cash, there's no doubt about it. Remembering, including AUD 195 million there from the Cap raise to MPK.
Franking credits balance at AUD 79 million. We've got headroom in our bank guarantees and surety bonds. We've moved that facility to AUD 540 million up from AUD 260 million, setting us up for the future. Currently, we're at AUD 240 million of bank guarantees and insurance bonds were issued at 30th of June, so plenty of headroom. The dividend's coming. I'll let that explain itself. Cash balance as talked about up AUD 315 million. Remember, there was MPK's money there. But we generated AUD 229 million of free cash flow before income tax, compared to AUD 138 million in the last PCP.
The group maintained its strong focus. Obviously, we've got to focus on cash when it comes to our major projects. Some projects are milestone-based. Most of them are triple PC or QMR sort of based projects. Our customers are happy to work with us on cash flows, and our teams are focused on making sure they stay cash flow positive throughout the project. AUD 44 million of CapEx. We have seen, we have to buy some gear, especially for our transmission department that has long lead times. We've been working with that CapEx over the last two years, and it's a hard one.
You've got to try and get ready, and then you've got to be ready on the day we start, and we need it there. Sometimes an environmental plan might or approval might shift by three months here and there. So it's been quite tough with CapEx. We think we need to try and settle that down. But the real driver to why it's quite hard to manage at the moment is the transmission stuff that comes with long lead items. We have seen an increase in that CapEx.
We bought some very large EWPs to make sure we can look after critical path, which is sort of beyond where we would have probably at a normal CapEx level. But due to the massive contracts we're starting and doing and winning. We just needed to make sure we were protected. We normally use subcontractors for some parts like that, and we'll continue to use those subcontractors. So it's not us fully internalizing those types of things, but there's protection in there for us to be able to maintain the speed of the project we need and have a critical mass of gear on site.
Ultimately, we can hire something which costs us a fortune and pay someone else's gear off, or we can own it ourselves. There's always been the method at this business. We'd like to own more gear at times, but we're disciplined around how many projects would we have running at once, how much critical mass should we put into that project. It's still a moving beast from a point of view of trying to work out what's that right level. We'll continue to update the CapEx forecast for CapEx for next year, AUD 65 million- AUD 70 million, b ut keep in mind, that includes MPK and Railtrain.
The infrastructure segment. Infrastructure segment, so sorry, the page just didn't change on our screen. Infrastructure segment, so AUD 837 million of revenue, so up 100% for the year. We called this out over the last 500 or 600 days as well throughout some of our road shows, meetings and presentations that we're seeing a big influx in the transmission and distribution space. We've ramped up to those revenues. Obviously, we've done that work throughout the year. So, we've ramped up to that. We've achieved that AUD 55 million of EBITDA.
It's AUD 42 million of EBITA. There is absolutely nothing wrong with our infrastructure business. Nothing but short of amazing in the amount of effort that's had to go into that. Well managed by the GM levels that have been in the business for a long time. Ramping up large projects, working on early works, which is sometimes just as hard to get through that early stages as actually building the project. But that long-standing employee list has managed to get through those growths and I'm proud to say we're in good shape.
We're still moving, and we're maintaining those low 5% margins at the moment that we have done for the last three reporting seasons or three reporting H areas. We would like to see the revenue come up in infrastructure. I think as we get further advanced on the large projects and as we become more comfortable at the step change size we are, and we see those synergies come through from infrastructure, as I've called out, I do believe the margin will increase. It just needs to continue to settle down and do its thing for a minute, and we'll see those synergies come through.
The successful integration of Railtrain. We're at the final stages now with branding. MGC, sorry. The branding, looking at the system, the safety systems, how we're going to do business for the next 20, 50 years. That's where we are now. We should complete that later this calendar year, which we will look at the overarching systems and management systems from Railtrain as well and work on them in the background whilst Railtrain settles down into its earn-out as that's a bit more fresher than MGC.
We're in a position where most of the integration will be completed. MGC will go first and Railtrain will flow through into that integration over once the earn-out periods and TSAs are followed. The construction work on HumeLink. The amount of effort that's gone into HumeLink is nothing short of amazing to find the people and remembering that our partner, Acciona, is working just as hard as we are and both working very well together on the project. But UGL, CPP have the other half of the project as well. So we're not only ramping up one HumeLink.
When we look at UGL, CPP, we're ramping up two. I think it's a fantastic effort from the 4 construction companies in how we are attacking, I suppose is the word the project and showing that building the job is nothing short of what we're going to achieve. I'm very happy with HumeLink, and we are currently tracking it from a financial point of view at expectations. Remembering that we certainly don't want to get ahead of ourselves with that accounting. We're trying to stay sensible with that so that there's a little bit of contingency across that project.
Activities across TasNetworks. We've sort of got to the back of the engineering phase now. We've started early works. We are very close to a start, and we'll keep the market fully informed. Once we get boots on ground, this becomes more meaningful and the stock watch starts and away we go from building this. The relationship with TasNetworks is very strong. We have a crew on the ground in Tasmania that are well-planned, ready to go. We've had the time to be able to do that, so I'm very confident the Tas project will be a success, especially now moving out a little bit.
It's given us some more time for planning, etc. , and getting ready. Again, saw that CapEx investment be ready to go with gear now in Tasmania, ready for a start and trying to work that CapEx out and get that dead right, is what I was talking to before. Hunter Central Coast, which is our largest project in New South Wales outside of HumeLink. We're doing this job by ourselves with our great customer, Ausgrid in Sydney. Job's going well. Very comfortable. Got a good leadership team up there, and they're doing a great job.
Hopefully, there's some more work on the back of that, and they're actually building in the same easement and rebuilding lines in the same easement, which is another way of trying to use the same easements that we already have in the transmission space to expand it. Very happy to be a part of that project and very happy with where we are at. Western Power, home ground for us. Strong. We're going well, there's no doubt. We ramped up on this project. Still got a piece of scope to start, but 3/ 4 of the pieces of scopes are well underway.
Still a bit to go in Western Power, but going very well from all accounts. Transmission. We've seen this map and throughout the year, we've seen the kilometers change a little bit throughout the reports, but there's still approximately 6,000 km of transmission lines, and there's still other lines and distribution and everything that goes on top of this and connections, which we'll talk to in a minute. But there's just a number of large projects that need to be done, and some of them may fly and some may not.
We're keeping an eye on that. HumeLink's 230 odd kilometers, it'll take two years to build. Look at how long it takes to do 6,000 km. Regardless of what that number exactly is, there's still an abundant of work in that large transmission space in front of us, and we have a strategy around some of those opportunities. Looking at what suits us and which timing and those types of things. Being disciplined with our pricing. We have seen a bit more competitive come into the market on the transmission side, and we will work with that, but we are going to be disciplined and do things for a margin.
There is a number of projects that sit behind that. I guess the whole overarching Rewiring the Nation , we are 100% a player in, and we hope we are doing a great job out there, and we hope our customers are satisfied with the level of effort we are putting into these projects. I think when we talk about transmission and distribution also, I think we have lost sight at the moment of all the day-to-day work that we do in changing a pole or a service or a streetlight or anything that comes to a transmission or distribution grid.
Remembering that insulators need to be changed at a certain point in life. Rusted members need to be changed on towers. Highway crossings need to be built whilst highways get built or lifted. There is just a range of activities we do in the distribution and transmission market. When we look at 44,000 km of existing lines, I guess we stay on the journey for a long time, maintaining, changing, fixing, and capital projects to extend them. Just really visiting people's minds.
We may have a million pole or tower grid in a large state like New South Wales, W.A., or Queensland, but every single mine site or large customer has a grid, in which we work on a lot of those smaller grids as well, and they are very good business for us, and we will continue to work with them. Data centers, this is a hot topic at the moment with everybody, and we have done a little bit of work trying to work out. We certainly, we are very well-placed from a connection point of view. We know all the large asset owners of the grids, and we work for them, most of them around the country.
So, looking at if there is a grid connection to the utility grid, we would certainly like to take part in that and price that work as a part of the grid panels that we sit on. From a project point of view, it does not matter how big or small it may be. Also, there may be an opportunity for the data centers to connect themselves to the grid, depending on the level of effort. We are seeing some utilities will do a handover of asset, and they can do their connection and then hand the asset over to the utility.
There may even be standalone opportunities where there is a standalone generation supply and connection from the standalone. So I think it is still a moving part here for the data centers. They will obviously make their mind up and create a way. I think what our message is that we are very happy to help them connect. We are very happy to help them build renewable type assets to help with generation capacity. We need to wait our turn as we start to see this work come through. The rail market, there are some big numbers on this page as we see the rail market take part of state and federal budgets.
This is the whole reason to join. You've got the transmission and distribution national spend. You've got the generation national spend, whether that used to be gas generation or back in the early days, coal generation. Now it's renewable generation. We also joined this market to keep up with the growth and the future for Genus. We must and we will find a way of taking a footprint of this market and taking a market share of this. Not everything needs to be the biggest in the world, but certainly we're not aiming for the smallest either.
We need to look for a decent footprint in this spend and bring that into our business under competent skill sets, under our model, and under our discipline to becoming a rail player. Energy and engineering. We called out that we thought that they would be flat the year for these guys, and that's what happened from a numbers point of view. You'll see a decrease in margin. We were rolling off some projects last year, and we knew they had done a bit better than we thought. We called that out along the way, I think, or tried to.
We're not upset with the margin of this business. Listen, I think it's a little bit low. There's no doubt about it. We've seen that, and it's on the scoreboard. We've got it under control. Last year a bit high, this year a bit high is my indication and my advice. I think we can do better, and we're going to continue to look at that into this year. Calling out a few things, like we are very well-organized here from a pre-contracts point of view for the size of the business. We are now seeing some real partnerships with some of our customers and doing the early works of their studies and what's the best facility to build.
We just could not be happier with our renewable part in this business. There may be some negativity around margin and things, right? But from my point of view, the renewable projects are going well, and I'm very happy where they are. But sometimes it comes with a bit of cost, and sometimes it comes with a bit of things that need to be managed. Last year we saw that at the high end, and this year at the low end, and I'm expecting that will start to be somewhere in the middle going forward.
CommTel is a beautiful business that we bought out of administration. We've had to bring in some new management people. Sometimes go and, stay and go. That's been done. The renewables portfolio, as said, Atmos, Equis, some real key customers of ours. We appreciate the awards. We appreciate them continuing to come, and we'll keep the market updated with their awards. Partum Engineering and CommTel are fully integrated now in the back office. They've maintained their brands and their identity as engineering firms.
W e're giving them the support in the background that they need from a corporate point of view. The renewables outlook, we're not seeing anything change or be out of the ordinary to what we think here. We've been on a journey trying to, from first battery we did in Western Australia and AUD 70-odd million project, off it goes. We're running a project with build a team. Luckily, we had the substation skill sets, the EC&M electrical skill sets that we'd picked up along the way. We pushed them into a renewable area.
Stable management for a long period of time now has driven the ability for us to increase one project to two projects, to three projects. We're probably sitting around that three projects at any one time now. We really want to get that to five. We've been pushing hard to get that. I think there's still a bit to go. They roll off, and they roll on, so we just got to keep on that journey. But it's more about the strength and the delivery that we're able to get to five.
Overarching of that, we were already on that journey and a long way down that road and seeing plenty of opportunity come from battery, substation, solar, etc. , whether it's mining or government or a private developer. Now overlaying MPK and their skill set on wind farms and the civil component of wind farms. Between Genus and MPK, we have a full one-stop shop for a wind farm, which are far bigger projects at times. Sometimes they're smaller, depending on the number of turbines.
If it's a decent amount of turbines, it will be a bigger job than what we've currently seen in what we were really driving out of our renewables over the last couple of years. I guess it just continues to get more exciting in this space. They did a great job last year on the overarching numbers of that segment. Services. Strong part of the business, there's no doubt about it. It continues to strengthen through its delivery across environmental asset management and comms. We're continuing to work with Telstra and NBN Co to be a major delivery partner.
We obviously have some stiff, big competition in that space. But we're going to stay in there. We're doing a good job. We've got to continue on our journey. Environmentally, we've settled an environmental team now that can help with that environmental planning, potentially on our major projects or other major projects. Then through to the actual environmental doing, which both comes at a maintenance point of view for some of our assets or asset owners. It also comes at a more, not project, but a piece of environmental management that would need to be done for a project.
So we're seeing a wide range of opportunities that are yet to come, and yet for us to get inside the business in the environmental space. Outstanding performance through our asset management business. They continue to strengthen, and they'll continue to look at opportunities nationally in that business. The focus is staying blended between projects and services across the Genus portfolio, and continuing looking for growth in the services segment is no doubt one of our top priorities.
Strategy with this, the telecommunications, everyone knows the size of the prize there. Asset management is something that, as a constructor and an infrastructure, we go off and do an AUD 100 million job, an AUD 150 million job, or a billion-dollar job. We sometimes forget about some of the smaller stuff in the asset management, and circling back three or four years ago to really generate this off. It was the right decision to make. There's no doubt about it. We're bloody good at it. We want to continue the asset management across all.
Can we do it in, obviously MPK's got some asset management in their services component. How do we look at, more broadly, the asset management across all the things we're doing? Followed by vegetation management, which has become very, very important in the Australian world. Is having those right permits, procedures, environmental plans, and doing the doing. Just a wide range of organic growth here, and also a focus from the leadership team of Damian and I on how do we continue to grow this business alongside our projects. That wraps it up, everyone. I will take questions.
Good day. I might jump in with a couple of questions. David and Damian, thank you very much for taking my questions, and congrats on a good result, which was ahead of guidance. Firstly, just looking at the second half infrastructure margin, I know you made the point around the contingencies for HumeLink. Just wondering if the margin for HumeLink East, in thinking steady state, has changed much from your original thinking. I think it was around 8%. Just also, in the short term, if we should be seeing maybe more conservative contingency accounting for this project?
Every project has a different timeline, Joseph. Thanks for the question. We report them on actuals with some contingency levels. Where we're currently reporting would have a contingency buffer in it as well. So, you've got your top end of town, which is your priced margin, down to probably something a little bit more realistic. You add your contingency on, and you get to where we're accounting. We've been very responsible with the accounting of that project. Likewise, other major projects as well, not just HumeLink on its own.
I don't see We wanted to continue that 5% EBIT. We've been reporting 5.2, 5.1, 4.9, 5.1. That's been to the halves, right? The main focus for infrastructure this year was go and get comfortable at 100% revenue growth, and don't blow the wheels off it, right? Just maintain strong margins and responsibility around reporting and estimating. They have done that, in my opinion. Is there upside to some of these major projects? Yes. As the business gets bigger, we will use that, but we have got to get the job done first.
When we look at the overall margin of Genus, at the group level, it is still above 6%, which we have always said 4%-8% is we believe. I guess we will take some conversation. There is no point in beating around the bush on this, everyone, right? We can all go and paint a picture that it is a 10% margin, then come back to you and tell you it is 7%, and you hate me for the rest of my life, or we can be responsible. You pay me to be responsible. I think it is in the first line item of my employment contract.
Yeah. Thank you very much for that. Just an extension. Thinking about North West Transmission Developments, given the size of that project and that starting construction. In the short term, we should be thinking that 4%-5% EBIT margin range is probably a good outcome considering potentially conservative accounting of those profits?
Yeah, I think we can achieve those levels out of that project on a reasonable day. I do not think we need to start as aggressive from a contingency point of view, just because it is a different voltage. It is a different job to HumeLink. It may be big, but it is different. HumeLink is big, is real big. It is just two different sizes, two different voltages. It is 220 kV in Tasmania. Every project is a little bit different. Sometimes a smaller project may have contingency on it because it is complex too, everybody. This is not just around being big.
We just try and be responsible. Ultimately, that is what we try and do. The aim was to do AUD 100 million of EBITDA this year. We knew we had major growth both in energy and engineering, it ended up being, from a revenue point of view, and infrastructure. We just needed to bed that down. Remember some people have not, we have got people that are brand new to our systems. You doubled in revenue for the year. We would have doubled in staff, subcontractors, everything, right? We just need to give that a little bit of time to calm down, right?
I have got control of it. I am sleeping at night. I am eating healthy. Everything is fine. We just need to just calm down and ride the show. It is all a part of the plan. We have been here for a long time. This is how I feel. Sorry if that is a bit blunt and how I feel, but that is how I feel.
No, great. I understand. Just maybe shifting focus to the guidance, just keen to get a better understanding of the underlying assumptions, as much as you can. How much of that guidance for 2027 accounts for EBITDA from MPK and how much is it organic growth?
Yeah. It's a balance. We had a quarter from Railtrain, which was, start with the smallest piece of the three pies. We had a quarter, which Railtrain did a very good job in their last quarter and then rolling into new work. So there's a little bit of a balancing act there between a strong last quarter that we achieved on timing of that acquisition to a full year result. So we worked with a balance there, and looking at that. We've set the scene on a reasonable organic growth. So double digit plus, organic growth. So, somewhere between 10 and 20, you know what I mean?
Then, add in a portion of the range of MPK's. So we did it a couple of different ways. It is a blend across those three things, and whether we do overarching what we think is going to happen and apply a contingency to that because we're talking to investors today. Or we look at it more bit by bit, and this was the range we got to.
Okay. Thank you. Just lastly, on that AUD 3.6 billion tender pipeline, which is up a lot on the first half balance. Are you able to unpack the opportunities for MPK, across civil BOP, water pipelines, and just also the gas gathering opportunities you're seeing to grow that business?
Yep. If we look at the recurring work for MPK, there is a few moving parts to that as we took a position on what we currently know as being recurring. Then there is probably a little bit of middle ground, which we are working on, whether that is our middle projects, I guess, at Genus that we have always had. Then there is a little bit in the tendered pipeline from a major project point of view. Probably not to the extent that Genus would like to see it at, and that is in line with MPK.
They were doing a bit more, their ownership and strategy structure was to do one or two jobs at a time and get them done and move on, and move on, and move on, etc . I think Genus looks at things a bit more as a revolving door round robin. We like to play with the market a bit more than, say, MPK. I guess we got to bring those two strategies together, which I don't believe is hard. We have certainly had those discussions anyway. I think we will see an increase. Most of it still, there is a chunk of that AUD 3.6 that is MPK, but it is Genus too.
It is not like it is leveraged hard to MPK. It is probably well and truly more leveraged to Genus. Then we have got to bring MPK onto those projects. MPK does have some large wind farm, or MPK and Genus now, when you join the EBoP and the CBoP together. That will be, in my opinion, the next really chunky jobs we see. We have seen that come from our transmission department first. The next department who is going to go into that territory is the wind farms.
Thank you. I will leave it there.
Guys, I'm Gav Allen , might just jump in too, if that is okay with you guys. Just a couple quick ones from me. Just on the recurring revenue side. Just thinking about the nature of that now meaningful AUD 764 million that you call out in the preso. Does that sort of work lend itself to a particular GP or a bit of margin that we can be thinking about, just by nature of what it is?
Yeah. Good question, Gav. It's the strongest margins we have when we're good at it, when we've been in that game for a long time. You can see MPK has a strong margin on gathering. Some of our old distribution panels that are 10, 20, 40, AUD 30 million type panels, very strong margin. Then it can have some softer stuff if you're entering new geographical areas, where your revenues are lower than AUD 15 million bucks. It's tough. It's tough going to have all that critical mass to do a panel. It's a bit of a blend, but it's certainly, if you did three quarters on every single major project, that would give it a run for its money.
Yeah.
That tends to not happen that way. Sometimes major projects move and shift and do things. So I would suspect that we'd be trying to get that 10% EBITDA out of those panels on any day of the week.
Yeah. Got you.
We work with different ones across the country.
Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Then just another one, just because contingency seems to be getting a bit of airplay. So just rounding up on that. So when you are thinking about contingency, when you are in a JV situation like you are at Hume, versus perhaps TasNetworks, and you talked about voltage and that does change things and I understand that, but does your tendency to take up contingency change a little bit because you are in a JV scenario versus doing it on your own, at all?
No. Because I think Acciona are doing a fantastic job to manage it. So I think it would happen if we were, depending on the relationship of the JV itself.
Yep.
I guess there are times where if we feel we are in the dark, that could add a layer of contingency for us if we feel uncomfortable, right? No, I don't think that is HumeLink. HumeLink is solely because we have had a long, long journey with the environmental permit that has been an ongoing moving target till just weeks ago. I am led to believe we finally have everything now, right? It is also just the sheer size of that project and being able to have a camp for 150 people here and then another one here, and then have laydown areas.
I did the best, or our pre-contracts team and Acciona's pre-contracts team did the best we could to put the money into all of those line items. Until we see those line items get further advanced and we see that money start to flow better, then we run where we're running.
Yeah, got it. All right, guys. Thanks very much.
Make a comment.
Yep.
Yeah.
Hello?
Yeah, go ahead, Graham. Yeah.
Many congratulations on the growth and the progress. It is truly amazing. Just from a very accounting point of view, could you explain the main reason between the difference between the, what you call the normalized profit and the statutory profit?
Yeah.
There were several. Look, the figures were there very quickly, but it was quite a difference of millions. On the basis that the statutory profit is one word, the real profit is another under accounting standards.
Yeah, I can answer that for you, Graham.
Thanks.
Statutory profit or net profit after tax is the same thing. That includes all costs in relation to acquisitions, which in this case is our biggest, what we've called out as the biggest normalization of AUD 5 million before tax. From talking to investors and analysts where I'd isolated the acquisition costs and the acquisition amortization, which we've called out previously, and presented an underlying net profit, which excludes any acquisition costs and acquisition amortization. In prior years, that equivalent was probably what we called out as NPATA.
Because of the scale of the acquisition cost this year with some fair bit of acquisition activity, we introduced that new number.
Thank you.
I think someone just asked the question. It popped up on the screen, sorry. Technically, I am learning this, but I think there was a question around MPK's earn-out. Yeah, at this point in time, great start for MPK. We are through one month. We saw their last quarter last year. Yeah, we will stay tuned, but we are not concerned on integration or earn-out at this point in time. At the same time, when you look at our guidance, we have only been in the business officially for 60 days, not even, 50 days. We have made a sensible guidance.
Is there any other questions?
All right. Thanks very much, everyone.
Nothing else. Thanks.