Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the IMDEX 1H 2023 results presentation. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Paul House, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Lucy, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the IMDEX FY 2023 first half results presentation. Joining me on the call today is Paul Evans, our Chief Financial Officer, and Kym Clements, our Head of Investor Relations. As always, we'd like to begin on slide 3 by outlining how we distinguish our mining-tech business from the broader mining services arena. First, we place technical leadership at the core of our growth strategy. Second, we build that technical leadership through consistent and disciplined investment in R&D to deliver patented technologies to the market. Our recently proposed acquisition of Devico and our investment in Krux Analytics speak directly to these two themes, and we will be pleased to elaborate on these later on in the presentation. Thirdly, our mining-tech business model is neither capital intensive nor people intensive.
We are truly global with limited geographical risk, limited contract risk, and limited commodity risk. Finally, we are developing an integrated solution set that works together rather than as individual products to build a high-quality revenue base with increasing EBITDA margins. IMDEX technologies enable resource companies and drilling contractors to find, define, and mine ore bodies with precision, confidence, and at speed. This message, our purpose at IMDEX, is highly aligned to that of Devico's. In our announcement of January 19, we highlighted that Devico's purpose and the addition of their core technologies to ours directly enhances our combined capability to find, define, and mine ore bodies. Today's presentation agenda is set out on slide 4.
While we have already shared our unaudited results with the market on January 19, we're delighted to expand upon our performance for the first half, which Paul Evans will do, and discuss the outlook for the industry and our business in particular. Finally, to provide an overview of our recent proposed investments in Devico and Krux and how they support our growth strategy. Following the presentation, Paul and I are happy to take any questions. Turning now to slide 5 and our financial highlights. 1H 2023 was a juxtaposition of strong client demand during a period of significant market uncertainty. Macroeconomic concerns regarding rising inflation, geopolitical tensions, fluctuating commodity prices, and declining capital raisings by juniors impacted some sentiment. At IMDEX, we regarded that as uncertainty rather than cyclicality, and we have long been clear that it should not impact our ability to grow our business.
We are most pleased to report that we did indeed rise above that noise to achieve above average industry growth for the period once again. We generated revenue of AUD 198.8 million, which was an uplift of 18.4% and a record half year result. This result again just demonstrates the strength of our core business and our objective to outperform in all operating conditions. The uplift in earnings continue to be supported by our higher margin sensors and software business, together with our transition to next generation cloud-connected sensors. At the close of 1H 2023, rentals and software represented 58% of revenue, and our ARPU was up 8.8% on PCP. The normalized EBITDA growth of 22% highlights the leverage in our operating model, achieved whilst continuing to fund various strategic initiatives.
Significantly, the results of normalized EBITDA margin of 32% represents our fifth consecutive year of margin expansion. I'd like to draw your attention to the footnote on this slide that explains the normalization. As we have previously informed the market, we undertook legal action during 1H 2023 over and above our ordinary course of business. This action took place in both Australia and the USA to protect our intellectual property from infringement. The positive outcome was the successful defense of our unique IP in both Australia and the USA, the former by way of court judgment and the latter by way of settlement. It will result in the withdrawal of the infringing tools from those markets and the opportunity for our business to support that demand. The awarded costs and damages, including additional damages, as highlighted in the judgment, are still to be determined by the court.
We do not expect these exceptional legal costs to recur in 2H 2023. Paul Evans will expand upon our operating cost base and outlook when he discusses the financial performance in more detail. Finally, our directors declared an AUD 0.015 per share interim dividend. This is within our well-established 30% NPAT payout ratio. Turning to slide 6, as always, our financial performance is an outworking of our operational achievements as identified here. Once again, I'd like to commend our global teams, folks, and their delivery. Saying of our people is always a key concern. We increase engagement, indicate behavior. In turn, the LTIR for the year was 1.6, and our TRIFR was 3.11.
These equate to a 9% and 10% improvement on the PCP respectively. Our team should be acknowledged for their unwavering commitment to protecting each other, particularly during a highly rewarding and incredibly busy half. It highlights the strengths of our teams and the maturity of our safety culture. To them, I express my direct thanks. The other highlights speak for themselves. I'd like to draw your attention to the achievements on the lower left-hand side and the people in leadership. During the half, we closed the gender pay gap for roles on a like-to-like basis. This was an important and significant body of work that, in a perfect world, should never be required, and yet it remains at the forefront of challenges to many organizations still, both in Australia and around the world.
We are pleased with the progress made and our commitment to sustaining equality in all its forms. It is one of our highest priorities. Our objective, which has strong support from our board, is to make IMDEX a safe, inclusive, and stimulating place to work. A community where everyone is rewarded appropriately for thriving at their talents and contributing to the success of our business. During the half, we were very pleased to welcome Uwe as Non-Executive Director and Wayne Panther as Chief Information Officer. Uwe is based in Seattle as Chief Commercial Officer, Worldwide Energy and Mining for Microsoft. Wayne joined us in January and has previously held roles in both Chevron and Microsoft, and will take custodianship of our Digital 2.0 program of work.
Both gentlemen bring a wonderful breadth of capability and experience to our leadership. We welcome them to our team. Finally, under the strategic investment heading, Devico and Krux are significant highlights, both requiring a large amount of work during the first half, and both announced shortly after December 31. I'll expand on each of these later. We also made progress with our investment in Datarock and further development of our AusSpec aiSIRIS software. During the half, we increased in our interest in Datarock from 30%- 40.9%. A notable achievement is the release of the first set of their first SaaS-based geotech product. Our aiSIRIS software continues to grow transaction volumes. Its full integration with IMDEXHUB-IQ remains on track. I'll now hand over to Paul to discuss the financials in more detail.
Thank you, Paul. Consistent with our first half 2023 results update provided to the market on January 19, I would like to expand on this and the highlights Paul mentioned earlier. Our reported EBITDA is AUD 53.4 million, up 3.7% from the PCP. Normalized EBITDA for the period was AUD 62.8 million, up 22% on the PCP and up 11% on a constant currency basis. The normalized result excludes AUD 9.4 million of exceptional litigation costs related to the Boart Longyear Globaltech IP litigation, which are not expected to recur during 2H 2023. Total legal fees for the period in relation to this matter were AUD 12.4 million versus AUD 1.5 million in the prior period.
On a normalized basis, our EBITDA result represents a 31.6% EBITDA margin compared to 30.7% in the PCP. Pleasingly, we achieved this margin expansion while progressing Digital 2.0, increasing investment in R&D, particularly software development, and building up our IMT business. We also note there was an increase in global travel expenses as mobility started to return. D&A depreciation limitation was slightly higher over the PCP, directly related to the revenue growth profile of the business. The effective tax rate for the period was 32%. These two points combined resulted in a 6.9% decline in NPAT. Excluding the exceptional legal costs, this would have shown an increase in NPAT of 20%. Notably, our OCF was up 46% from the PCP, and net cash at 31 December was 8% up on the PCP.
I'll provide more detail on working capital shortly. It is important to note that of the AUD 9.4 million exceptional legal costs not expected to recur during 2H 2023, the majority is unpaid at 31 December 2022. Three other items funded during the period are worthy of mention. Firstly, the AUD 12.2 million CapEx, largely into our central sensor rental fleet, to support strong industry demand and AUD 3 million into capitalized software development. Secondly, final deferred consideration payments to former owners of AusSpec of AUD 1.5 million and to Flexidrill of AUD 1.8 million. Finally, AUD 3.5 million to purchase shares to meet our long-term incentive plan outcomes. You will see at the bottom of the table that FTEs were up 15.9% on the PCP. Approximately half of the increase relates to supporting core business operations.
At 18.4% revenue growth, supported by circa 8% core FTE growth, it reinforces the leverage in our business model and the value of our Digital One project. The remaining half of the increase in FTEs is largely associated with the initiatives we had previously called out, Digital 2.0 software development and scaling our IMT business unit. I would now like to refer you to the graphs on the right. They illustrate our strong half on half revenue and earnings profile since 1H 2020. Our 1H 2023 revenue is now 56% over 1H 2020's pre-COVID peak revenue.
Our 1H 2023 EBITDA is more than 100% over the same period. Before covering the balance of this financial performance section, I would like to reinforce that our reporting philosophy is always to focus on statutory results and highlight complete performance of the business. Our strong pre-preference is not to provide normalized numbers and only do so where necessary. For FY 2023, this will include the elevated legal fees and the anticipated co-transaction costs, which will occur in 2H 2023. The integration of Devico with ADM reporting entities across 15 countries and sales in over 50 countries is a significant body of work. This is likely to extend our FY 2023 reporting timeline. Further details will be provided following completion. Moving now to slide 9. Our five-year CAGR of 13% continues to demonstrate our ability to outperform industry growth rates.
Our Benchmark is the S&P exploration expenditure for non-ferrous metals, which had a five-year CAGR of 9%. The graph in the center again illustrates a strong trend of earnings growth with a normalized five-year EBITDA CAGR of 24%. As noted, the 1H 2023 bar is the normalized result. This positive trend demonstrates the strength in our gross margins, our ability to manage input costs and revenue from our sensors and software continuing to grow. This has allowed the business to fund additional investment to support growth. The graph on the right shows our continued EBITDA margin expansion and demonstrates ongoing price leverage as the revenue base has increased. You will note our EBITDA margin has continued to be maintained above 30% at a normalized level of 31.6% for 1H 2023, and is up from 30.7% from the PCP.
Moving to slide 10. Our strategy has seen our revenue profile strengthen over the past five years. I'd like to draw your attention to a number of key points on this slide. The growing portion of revenue coming from rental and SaaS products, which have higher margins and are recurring in nature. Increasingly, these sensor products are being actively managed in our Hub IQ platform. You will note 32%, sorry, of revenue continues to be hub connected, versus 8% in 1H 17. Our strong geographic footprint and increasing presence in the Americas, which now represents 45% of total revenue. Finally, acknowledging our product offering is largely commodity agnostic and therefore we are well positioned to benefit from the accelerated spend in critical meta-metals. Looking now at slide 11.
From the normalized EBITDA result of AUD 62.8 million, there was a net inflow of operating cash of AUD 44 million. Pre-tax, this represented an increase of 46% over the PCP. Within this, we saw a 31% investment into working capital. This is in line with historical levels and a higher EBITDA to operating cash conversion rate due to a higher level of rental sales, fleet sales in the period. As highlighted in previous presentations, we increased our investment in inventory by AUD 8 million during FY 2022 to mitigate supply chain delivery times. Pleasingly, supply chain pressures are easing, and we expect inventory levels to unwind once delivery times begin to improve. At this stage, we expect this to be towards the end of FY 2023 and into FY 2024. Moving to slide 12, the last slide in this section.
You'll see on the right our normalized return on equity and return on capital employed were strong for the year, and our full, fully franked dividend for 1H 2023 is in line with our historical payout ratio. Looking briefly now at the remainder of our balance sheet. I've spoken to net cash and inventory. Other notable balance sheet movements include investment in associates. The increase relates to our planned additional 10.9% investment in Datarock. Payables, the increase includes the exceptional legal costs mentioned earlier. I'll now hand back to Paul for an industry and market update commencing on slide 14.
Thank you, Paul. During the half, the strongest growth was in Africa, Asia Pacific and South America. Within the Americas, North America grew even though Canada remained flat on the PCP. The Canadian market was impacted by two factors. Firstly, uncharacteristically warm weather, which delayed the winter drilling programs that typically require a hard freeze and a lack of funding for juniors. Pleasingly, junior financing increased towards the end of calendar year 2022, with strong raisings reported in December and January both. These funds are expected to underpin strong support for the summer drilling season in the Canadian market. There was strong growth within South America, particularly in Brazil, Chile and Argentina. Growth in Peru was impacted by some political driven social unrest, which was slightly down on the PCP. Drilling is expected to gain traction again in the second half.
From all reports, large and intermediate producers are progressing or increasing their planned drilling programs, and drilling clients continue to report strong to full order books for the balance of calendar year 2023. Rig utilization remains high in the majority of regions, but not at the level that is restricting growth. Similarly, while demand for skilled labor remains high, resourcing personnel is no longer impeding the large majority of operations. Inflation remains a challenge for some clients. However, it is beginning to moderate. In some regions, particularly the USA and Australia, resource companies have recommenced tendering processes which suggest greater availability of rigs in the market and their willingness to revisit pricing. Utilization rates in the underground rig market remain high and are expected to stay that way for some time.
This reflects the increased growth in underground activity overall and the greater cost of mobilization and demobilization for underground rigs. In summary, we remain optimistic about our industry's operating environment in the near and medium term. Moving now to slide 15 and a quick recap of the drivers behind our operating environment. We regard the industry as having strong underlying fundamentals with increasingly less restrictions on the pace of growth. The large and mid-cap producers remain well-funded. Forward-looking exploration budgets remain high or growing. Junior and intermediate financings were significantly higher in December, and Bloomberg recently reported mining equity ratings were up 29% year-on-year in January. Commodity prices are strengthening, notably gold and copper, and price levels remain supportive of increased exploration budgets. Based on S&P data, non-ferrous exploration budgets are still well below the peak of 2012.
Finally, the underlying mining industry fundamentals of diminishing reserves, greater demand for critical metals, and drilling at depth is continuing to support growth in drilling activity and the adoption of new technologies. For IMDEX, this is our sweet spot. Turning now to slide 17 and a quick recap of our growth strategy. Our growth strategy has been established for some time. It is clearly defined, clearly articulated, and clearly executed. This slide aims to provide context for our achievements during the half and our future areas of focus. At all times, our board and executive leadership team exercise a great deal of discipline to ensure that all of our initiatives remain on strategy. Key components of this strategy include growing our core business in exploration and development and leveraging our core competencies across into the mining production segment.
Our four growth drivers are outlined to the left-hand side of slide 17. Notable achievements against these four growth drivers during 1H 2023 include the following: Increasing software for IMDEXHUB-IQ connected revenue, currently at 32% of total revenue. Releasing version eight of IMDEX's ioGAS software. Completing IMDEX's first-generation MinePortal software to support all future BLASTDOG trials and contracts. Progressing the commercial prototype trials with BLASTDOG. Increasing IMDEX's interest in Datarock from 30% 0.9%. Finally, the proposed Devico and Krux investments. The following slides on the Devico acquisition are largely in line with the presentation we spoke to on January 19. Let's turn to slide 19. What a wonderful team. Over the half, we were fortunate enough to spend considerable time getting to know the Devico business and Devico's people.
Our chairman's quote below their team photo summarize our shared sentiments very well. I would add that it was a pleasure to discover a strong alignment of our corporate values and our purpose as we look for ways to bring mining technology to the mining industry. Turning to an overview of the transaction of slides 20 and 21. The enterprise value of Devico at AUD 324 million is a full, fair, and standalone valuation. We approached that valuation prior to the consideration of any synergies that accrue to IMDEX or the combination of the businesses or the inclusion of any new products. The EBITDA multiple is very similar to IMDEX. The EBITDA multiple is at a slight premium. This reflects the high quality, high growth, and high margin nature of the Devico business.
Once again, our valuation and these multiples are prior to the consideration of any synergies that may accrue post-completion. Completion is expected to occur on 28 February and is subject to a number of conditions that we do not place significant risk upon. Devico itself was founded in 1988 by Viktor Tokle and the Tokle family and is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway. Devico has a well-established global network complementing our own operations and enhancing our presence in Europe in particular. It has a world-class R&D and manufacturing facilities in the heart of the Scandinavian region. A key feature of this investment is the Devico management team that will be joining us. They will reinvest approximately 30% of their equity proceeds back into the IMDEX business by way of shares. This is a strong vote of confidence in the strategic combination of our two businesses. Turning to slide 21.
Funding for the transaction is by way of a AUD 224 million underwritten equity raising and a new AUD 120 million bank facility. The institutional offer of AUD 125 million achieved a take-up rate of 97.3%, receiving strong support from existing and new shareholders. The fully underwritten retail entitlement offer of circa AUD 36 million closed on 7th February, these new shares are expected to be issued tomorrow. For some time, we have advocated that our balance sheet could be put to better work for investors, given the high quality of our core business today. We're pleased to use this investment opportunity to draw down on the new bank facility. This maintains a conservative balance sheet position with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of approximately 0.7.
The Devico transaction is expected to be cash EPS accretive from the first full- year of ownership, and again, prior to the consideration of any synergies that may accrue. Looking now at Devico's complementary product offering on slide 22. Devico essentially operates two business units that align very closely with our IMDEX business units. On the right-hand side, we have Devico's directional drilling technologies, where they are the market leader in one of the fastest growing mining technology markets. Their number one position has been established for more than 20 years. On the left-hand side are their sensor technologies. Devico's product suite complements our IMDEX product suite very neatly. Devico's R&D process follows a similar stage-gate model to ours, and they have a number of new products in their R&D pipeline similar to ours. DeviStar and DeviDrill RSS have recently moved to the commercial prototype phase.
Whilst we have not factored in any revenues for these products in our valuation, they represent great potential upside. Turning to slide 23. The combination of facilities and locations around the world deliver three key benefits. Firstly, the extension of our reach into the key mining regions around the world by combining IMDEX and Devico operating footprints. Secondly, there is a natural overlap in some areas which speaks directly to some of the occupancy synergies that we may unlock over time. Finally, the addition of a world-class R&D facility in Europe and Norway specifically, perfectly complements our existing global R&D hubs today. Turning to slide 24 and the financials of the business. Devico has a strong track record of revenue growth and EBITDA growth.
If I draw your attention to the center box and the margin profile, the sensing technologies business with an 80% gross margin is similar in profile to the IMDEX sensor technologies business today. To the right-hand side, the Devico directional drilling business has a 60% gross margin profile. This market leading technology complements our drilling optimization portfolio, presents opportunities for cross-selling with our fluid engineering expertise. In summary, Devico has strong and fast growing revenue, presents good operating leverage delivering strong incremental EBITDA margin drop-through, and is highly complementary to the IMDEX business and product suite today. Slide 25 demonstrates clearly the strategic rationale of combining IMDEX and Devico and how it complements our four strategic growth drivers.
In particular, Devico delivers us the number one market position in Europe, consolidates our number one market position globally, adds the number one directional drilling technology in the market, provides a world-class R&D team and manufacturing facility in the Scandinavian region. Although not included in our valuation, the expanded and complementary product suite together with our expanded and complementary operating footprint, present increasing opportunities for cross-selling and revenue growth. Looking briefly now at the proposed Krux acquisition on slide 26. On January 13, we were pleased to announce that we had entered into a heads of agreement to acquire a 40% interest in Krux for AUD 6.42 million cash. Krux is a Calgary-based business that develops market-leading drilling analytics software focusing on the collection and analysis of exploration and production drilling data in real time. Like Devico, Krux has a high-quality team.
That team has developed and commercialized a robust SaaS business, providing contractors and resource companies the means to digitize their drilling operations and embark on a pathway to real-time advanced data analytics in the drilling section. The key terms of the proposed investment are being refined. However, like our investment in Datarock, our investment model will incorporate provisions to enable a sharing of risk. We expect to finalize the transaction in April of this year. The subheading on slide 28 encapsulates why Krux is on strategy. The combination of our drilling analytics software will establish us as the number one provider to customers globally. Moving now to the final section of this presentation and our focus areas on outlook on slide 30. Protecting and developing our people will remain our priority.
We will continue to pursue growth drivers and operational initiatives that focus on investment in our core, investment in IMT and expanding our software offering, investment in Digital 2.0, and completing the Devico and Krux transactions. As Paul Evans mentioned earlier, the integration of Devico is a significant body of work and is likely to extend our FY 2023 reporting timeline. Some brief commentary on the outlook for FY 2023 on slide 31. We had a positive start to 2H 2023. Pleasingly, the January start up recommenced faster than in prior years, and the average number of sensors on hire for the month was up 2% on the PCP. Demand for our drilling optimization products is also increasing, particularly in Africa and South America. As I mentioned earlier, we regard the current macro related uncertainty as short term.
The underlying long term demand drivers for the industry are robust, strengthened by a fundamental supply demand imbalance. Our drilling clients are reporting strong forward-looking order books. In some regions, they have forward visibility for the balance of calendar year 2023. Our resource company clients are reporting sustained or increasing exploration budgets. Our core technologies speak directly to the increasing demand for drilling at depth, the increasing demand for greater ore body knowledge, and the increasing demand for sustainable operations in mining in general. The addition of Devico's core technologies strengthen our breadth of offering to address these thematics head-on. We remain positive about the outlook and excited about delivering on our growth strategy. Paul and I, together with our global teams, are looking forward to the balance of FY 2023 and beyond. For that day, that is now a wrap.
Thank you for your time, and we're happy to take any questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from William Park from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Paul and Paul. Thanks for the presentation today. Just wanted to sort of touch on average census and hire for first half. You're saying it's 6% growth, at the AGM, you were talking about how that was up 13%. That implies slowdown in second quarter. Could you just elaborate on what's happened between first quarter and second quarter, please?
Yeah, William, I think the as you know, the Christmas shutdown normally causes that drop-off in the second quarter. We've called out that over the over the two halves, it's 6% up, first half 2023 versus first half 2022. It's that seasonal slowdown in the second half that you're seeing there. In the second quarter, sorry.
Yep. Thank you. In terms of the revenue growth for drilling fluids versus rentals and SaaS, looks like the drilling fluids revenue growth has outpaced it. Could you just provide some color around what's driven this?
Yeah. I think William, we've previously been quite open to the market that some of the, again, post-COVID, the recovery period's taken sort of 18 months or so, and that the areas that were slowest to recover or regain running speed post-COVID were areas that were higher weight in the fluids business. As those regions have come back online, which was initially South America, then Africa, and now Southeast Asia, those areas had a heavier ratio of fluids in their revenue profile than sensors. As those, as investment starts to go into those regions, you're seeing a higher proportion of fluids revenue coming back in those regions, consistent with that regional activity.
Thank you. Just last one from me. Looks like the margin in Africa and Europe and APAC have gone up quite substantially. I appreciate that you've already provided some color around some of the, I guess, tailwinds in these regions. Can you just give some specific examples as to what drove those margin expansion?
Look, there's a couple of things. You've called out that currency was obviously a tailwind which did feature between the two halves and reflected in the constant currency numbers. I think the other call-outs, if you look at Asia Pacific, we saw Asia coming back strongly, which was one of the last regions to come back post-COVID. Seeing that grow in the half. We also had, I suppose, a higher level of rental fleet sales in Asia, in Asia Pac, in the half, which has contributed to that revenue growth. As you move into the other regions, the African market particularly saw strong growth, particularly in West Africa and the rental fleet, and thus the margin growth that came through there.
Also fluid sales were quite strong in that region as well. As you move into the Americas, there's Canada, which we've spoken to previously, did have an uncharacteristically warm winter, and therefore their drilling program wasn't as strong as it would have otherwise have been. Plus, as we know, there was some conserving of capital with the equity raising or the soft equity raisings, which Paul called out. We did see an increase in December and then into January, which is likely to only be seen as we move into the summer program. As you move into USA, where we saw good growth, we did see South America, particularly into Chile and Brazil, strong return of growth and activity in that market.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Josh Kannourakis from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Good day, Paul and Paul. Thanks for taking my questions. First one, just with regard to the outlook statement, could you give us a little bit of clarity just with regards to those January figures in terms of census on hire? Obviously, that's up 2%. The commentary sort of, you know, around the Devico acquisition felt like you're, you know, comfortable for a similar second half on sort of first half, all else equal. Can you help us maybe bridge that a little bit to give a bit of extra clarity on the outlook and, you know, how we should bridge that gap between census and ARPU, and obviously the sales into the second half on the base IMDEX business? Thanks, guys.
Yeah, sure. Hi, Josh. Look, I think with the 2% that was up in January over the previous average for the first of 2022 January. What we're trying to show there was that the activity or the comeback in the market post-Christmas was stronger than prior year, which was a good starter in any case. I think what and reflected in our comments about our positive outlook for the second half reflects that we feel that growth profile, and much like we're picking up on William's question previously, we know that in the second half of or in the lead up to Christmas or in first of 2023 out of second of 2022, that that growth profile had slowed, but is continuing at a similar rate as we go into 2023.
In that context, on the back of those comments I made earlier about the growing activity in those Asia, African and South American markets supports those positive comments into the next half. Just on ARPU, we know that there was some currency benefit in our ARPU increase that Paul mentioned of 8.8%, but we do expect that to continue to grow on an absolute basis with the rise in tool fleet and new technologies coming into the market.
I might just add on there that, just to build on Paul's point about January, Josh, I think 2% up on PCP. Last year was a good year post-Christmas. That start up was good. This is slightly stronger than that, which was that faster start up. It also absorbed, probably a weaker Canadian market where it was, it was so warm in Canada this year that a lot of the winter drilling that would normally get done, and got done last year did not get done this year. That 2% increase over PCP is after absorbing, you know, that warmer Canadian winter season, depression as well.
Got it. Just to, I guess maybe to confirm though. In terms of how we're thinking about the base IMDEX business, ex Devico and the acquisitions, you know, do you think a similar sort of second half to first half is achievable all else equal?
Correct.
Okay, great. Second one, just really quickly on BLASTDOG, could you give us a little bit of progress? I know you mentioned that there was some additional prototype revenues expected in FY 2023, but could we just get a little bit of an update on, you know, the progress? How much revenue, if any, is expected in 2023 and how we should be thinking about the sort of key milestones over this year and next?
At this stage, we have just the one commercial contract that we've announced previously. What we've said in the past is that we have a number of trials in the pipeline. Our focus is to continue to execute those trials. Those trials are complicated because you need to, first of all, schedule the trial, conduct the trial, then analyze the data and work out how you would roll that back into the operations to take advantage of some of the data that gets made visual by an operation like BLASTDOG. We've been quite methodical about how we go about those. We have had some, those trials, the physical element of those trials has been bouncing around with weather challenges.
I mean, I think the level of rain in Queensland and even in Chile is well known. That's just put a slight delay on executing them. We don't think the overall trial timeline is going to change at all. Our focus for the balance of FY 2023 is, as it was, just to complete those trials, work through this discussion with the clients to unlock the value of that data and bring one of those through to another commercial contract, hopefully by the end of FY 2023, which is our expectation.
Got it. Okay. Give someone else a go. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Josh.
Your next question comes from Mitch Sonogan from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, Paul and Paul. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple of quick ones. First up, I think you mentioned during the call that the majority of the legal costs were unpaid at the period end. Can you just provide us the quantum here and the timing of those upcoming payments, please?
Yeah. Look, it was pretty much what the exceptional amount called out of AUD 9.4 million is what was unpaid, as at 31 December. That would be paid in the third quarter of this, of the second of this half.
Yeah. Great. Thanks, Paul. Just while I've got you as well, just on the tax rate there at 32%, up from around 30% of PCP. Can you maybe just talk through the drivers there and what we should expect in the second half and going forward? Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Yeah, look, it's slightly up. There are a couple of factors that cause that to be up slightly. We have largely extinguished the majority of our carry forward losses across the group. There's a small amount there, but that has allowed the tax rate to lift up to what I would call the average going forward of around that 31%. 31% would be a normalized rate to go forward. CHC and some the hyperinflation in South America has caused some of that additional expense charge in the half and in the full-year.
Yeah. Great. And Paul, just maybe jumping over to Devico. Can you maybe just give a little bit more detail around, I guess, the penetration of the directional drilling tools, over here in Australia, but also out in the North American market. Maybe just talk about if there's any challenges to increasing the penetration or how you see that going over the next couple of years as you close that acquisition. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. The directional drilling revenue today is really focused around Europe, North America and South America. They are highly underweight in Africa and nonexistent in Australia. You know, we are looking for opportunities whereby our relationships can introduce directional drilling to customers that have, you know, suitable programs that we think meet the. That have challenges that directional drilling can help solve. Introducing any new technology always requires quite an engaged body of work. You need a combination of the resource company and the drilling company to work together to determine when would you use directional drilling and then progressively introduce it onto the site. I think that remains, that will remain the challenge as we introduce directional into those new markets of Africa and Australia.
s been around 20 years. It is the number one player. They are very adept at introducing those conversations to resource companies, particularly in Europe, North America and South America. We think that there is a significant growth opportunity in all of the Americas, in addition to the existing territories in which they play. And then if you roll forward the overall thematic around drilling at depth, more complex ore bodies and requiring greater information about an ore body, all of those play into that theme for directional drilling
Particularly, you know, with the higher costs of drilling, one of the advantages directional drilling offers is that once you get to depth, you can get to depth and then spur off the mother hole to a number of daughter holes without having to redrill that first pilot hole. You can do that. You save significant money, you can drill at speed, you can still recover the core. There's quite a few advantages in introducing directional drilling. It is of course a change to a lot of conventional drilling practices. It's just about steering that conversation.
Yeah. Great. Thanks for the information. I'll pass off to the next person. Thanks, guys.
Thanks.
Thanks, Mitch.
Your next question comes from Ben Brownette from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Paul Evans, can I start with you? I see you've moved a few things around in that IMDEX technology segment again. If you back out the legal cost is about AUD 22 million for the half. Is that about right?
What we're calling out, if you're talking just core R&D and the reference to our, well, 8.8% for the half, it's the AUD 14.5 million plus the AUD 3 million capitalized for software development. AUD 17.7 million would be our for the half. You could that run rate will be similar for the full- year.
Okay. 'Cause I thought the note gives another number in there as well. 'Cause the segment note is AUD 31.4.
Yes.
In terms of IMDEX product, less than AUD 9.4 in legal cost.
We've our product management area, which is the corporate head office team, which is really responsible for product is in that segment and is not a direct R&D cost. Similarly, the IP litigation plus the support for IP is in there as well. Again, not part of our core R&D. Those two numbers are excluded.
Right.
8% call out.
thinking about the second half, you're saying per note one there, AUD 14.5 in R&D?
Yes.
you don't add the product management 3.2?
No, no. We add, in the 8.8% that I've called out, we add the capitalized software development. We're looking at a total, pure R&D development, cost and representing that as a percentage of revenue.
Right. In the second half, you expect that similar AUD 14.5 Million?
Correct.
Okay, sorry this is confusing, but so the P&L in the first half is inclusive or exclusive of product management?
The P&L is ex-inclusive of it. We don't in our conversations that we have around what is pure R&D, looking at the pure development of the product, that is the AUD 14.5 million number that's referred to there. Product management is the broader context of managing the product. The cradle-to-grave development of the product and the pricing and the marketing strategy, et cetera. It isn't pure R&D, but it is part of that segment that we've called out there, if that gives a little more color.
Yeah. Okay. To get to AUD 62.8 million on my math includes AUD 3.2 million cost in the first half. I'm just wondering why that wouldn't be there in the second half if it was there the year before.
The product management will be there in the first half, and it will be there again in the second half. Sorry to confuse.
I'm just struggling how you only get to AUD 14.5 in the second half then.
Yes.
a material step down.
In the note, yeah, we do call out that what makes up the actual IMDEX product number in the segment note of AUD 32 million. It's made up of AUD 14.5 million of R&D, AUD 3.2 million of product management, which is that cradle-to-grave management of the product and the team to support that. Is it IP activities which we know includes the AUD 9.4 million of a significant item of AUD 9.4 million totaling at AUD 13.7 million. That's what totals the AUD 32 million, which is shown in the segment note.
But in the reference to the pure R&D and our what we call out as our percentage of revenue investment of R&D, it's the AUD 14.5 million only, plus what's been capitalized into the balance sheet for software, which makes up that additional number and is about AUD 3 million for the half.
Okay. Got it. Just not wanting to labor the point on the sensors on hire because obviously you ramp up January, February, March. You had such a good December quarter for revenue. Presumably that sort of resets the base of sensors that you've got on market. I would have thought just on that basis, being at 2% ahead of last year isn't that great of an outcome. If that's not the case, can you explain why?
I think, particularly in light of the Canadian impact and that warmer winter, which has curtailed drilling activity in that region, I think we have in the other region a earlier comeback to market, and that's what we're trying to pull out, which is we feel a positive, and reflects in our commentary and our positive trend for that second half.
I think then the other. You talk about the strong December quarter, which is true, but the other thing we did call out in the past is that a lot of companies that had calendar-based exploration budgets had, by virtue of inflation, expended their budget earlier than normal coming into the Christmas break. We started to see a slowdown in some regions that had calendar-based exploration budgets from October. December was good, but Christmas is still Christmas. When people shut down, they shut down. You saw a lot of companies, whilst they would have liked to drill through Christmas, they don't because of labor availability and people taking the break that they usually take. I'm not sure that, you know, that the higher base around December that you're referring to is quite right.
I think it's, the way to look at it is actually just simply that fast start coming out of Christmas.
Yeah. I mean, wasn't AUD 93 million for the December quarter was your second-best-ever revenue for the quarter, surely it was a higher base than a good result?
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Cheers.
Your next question comes from Nicholas Rollinson from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Paul and Paul. Thanks for taking my questions. Just on the Canada stuff, can you give us an indication of how much of a drag the warm weather's been, maybe just in terms of the average delayed operations in number of weeks and how much Canada would usually comprise of your, of your second half revenue?
We, we normally don't split out Canada in that way, Nicholas, you know, suffice to say that there are parts of Canada that can only be drilled when you've had a hard freeze because they want to get onto that marshland and the like. If you don't have a hard freeze, you just can't mobilize into those areas. That was, that was suppressed by way of warm weather and a little bit by way of juniors having slightly less funds for deployment in that winter period. What we're seeing, though, is with the capital raisings in December and January, those funds we expect to be deployed over the summer drilling season now. We, we don't call out the specific drag in Canada as it relates to the warmer weather, no.
Okay. Just wanna make sure that I understand the expected 1H, 2H revenue split. Can we sort of expect revenue in 3Q to be roughly the same as 2Q and then in 4Q, you expect to see around 10% on 3Q and maybe take out a bit for currency? Is that the right way to think about it in terms of quarters?
It is, Nick. So, you know, that's the right way to look at it.
Okay. Great. Just the last one from me, and you touched on it a little bit before. Could you step through the key components of the strong PO result? I'm particularly interested in how much upsell you're getting and how sustainable that is in the second half.
I think, as we often call out, ARPU is really. It's not the, it's not a, it is one factor in determining the quality of our revenue base. What's driving that is that continued upgrade from lower price sensors or older generation sensors to higher grade sensors that have higher value to the customer and therefore higher price points for us. We've previously signaled that we think we're approaching about halfway through that technology upgrade curve. It's just a continued execution along that line, Nicholas. Probably related to that is we've been trying to upgrade customers from our lower end sensors to our higher end sensors.
What Devico offers is a in their core sensor product is a midpoint survey tool. The opportunity to help customers step up through that technology upgrade curve is now easier for the remaining 50% of customers that haven't already gone through that. It means that we get to put the right sensor into the right geological application. It gives us an offering there that should hopefully bring forward the balance of that technology upgrade curve for the 50% that haven't done it so far.
Okay, great. That's it from me. Thanks, guys.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Evan Karatzas from UBS. Please go ahead.
Okay, thanks. Hi. Just on the operating cash flow, I guess putting the legal cost payments aside for the 2H, that's 70% for the OCF conversion. Should we expect that number to improve in the 2H just given the, I guess, the supply chain pressures easing that you, that you've mentioned as well?
Yeah, look, I think, all things being equal, we're not expecting that to unwind quickly, which is why we talk about it rolling into FY 2024 as well. In, as a base principle, that is correct. We will see that improve conversion.
Sorry, Paul. Just to add to what Paul's saying, Evan, you know, where we see supply chain pressures easing, that's a, that's a broad statement around a number of areas around rig availability and labor availability. But specifically in terms of, you know, supply chain for our products, there are two factors. One has been the price of shipping, and the other has been the time to shipping.
Mm.
You know, we've previously made statements that said shipping from Santiago to L.A., which is one of our major shipping routes for fluids products, for example, just as an anecdote, it went from $5,000 a container to $25,000 a container, and it went from 25 days to 95 days. What we're now seeing is that prices are coming back, meaning that availability and the price of shipping is easing. However, those lead times, that 90-95 days, is not yet easing. A lot of the working capital growth we had was because we had more product on the water trying to get it to points where the customers could draw down on it. We think that part of the supply chain is now stable.
What we're looking for, the next release of working capital will come when, and a proper easing in the extent that we'll see it in the financials, is when that 95-day shipping time comes down to 70 days, 60 days, 50 days. That's when we'll start to see the unwinding of that capital.
Okay. All right. That's perfectly clear. Really appreciate that extra color. Just final one for me, just the recovery of some of these legal costs and the, and the damages, sort of, et cetera. Any color or you can give us just on when that may get received or when that ruling will be made?
I'd love to, but I just can't. We just. It's just, it's within the court system. There's a number of actions that are required to happen within the court system for that to play out. We're pretty calm about that, Evan. We're optimistic that at least one of those hearings will happen by the end of this financial year. It'll, it has historically played out over a long period of time, and we think that'll continue to be the case. We're building our business around just ensuring that our core business stays focused and all of these things are just nice upsides when they happen.
Yeah. Got it. Got it. Okay. Thanks for your time.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. House for closing remarks.
Thanks, Lucy. Thank you to everyone for joining today. Once again, my thanks to our team around the world for what was a very busy half and being able to stay focused on our core business whilst we were able to advance our growth strategy so significantly. We look forward to a strong second half as some of the initiatives we've put in place, start to take hold, in particular, the number of investments or the two investments we've made around Devico and Krux. I'm very excited after the 28th of February to welcome the Devico team to the broader IMDEX group, and I look forward to meeting up with them in their various places of work around the world. That, for us, concludes today's presentation. Thank you very much for your time.
That does conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.