Thank you very much and welcome, everybody. So pleased to be here with you today to deliver our FY 2025 results. Again, my name is Michael Sainsbury, and I've got a couple of presenters with us here today. Jason Boschetti as our CFO and David McFadyen as our investor relations, working for Tenor Advisory. I will walk you through the slide deck today, and I will call out the slides so you can keep up with us. slide two is just our notice and disclaimer, so I'll leave you to read that at your own time. slide three is the presenters that we'll have today.
Moving forward to slide four, what we'll share today, obviously we'll give an overview of the business, and I'll give an overview of who the company is for those of you who are new to the organization, some of our results for the first 12 months, and a bit of an understanding of what we do and how we do it in a business model. I'll then hand over to Jason to cover off in a little bit more depth some of the financial performance, the key parameters. I'll come back to myself for a market and business update, and then we'll close off with a strategy and an outlook for the future, followed by, time permitting, some Q&A. slide five is just a title slide, so I'll ask everybody to move forward to slide six. Here we talk about the vision and mission of our company.
Important slide for us, and I do present it every time I present to whether it's internal or external, because it does give clarity around what we're doing and what we're trying to create as an organization and how we're going to do that. With that regard, our vision is to help build a future where sustainable electrical infrastructure creates a better life for all. Our mission and how we're going to do that, our aim is to enhance every aspect of infrastructure through energy efficiency, automation, and secure connectivity, while prioritizing the safety and well-being of people. Moving forward to slide seven, IPD Group consists of four different businesses. Our ticker code is IPG, covering us at a group level. Underneath that, we have four very, very well-attached and collaborative business models underneath. They're shown here in alphabetical order, so I don't give any preference or priority to one.
I'll cover off just quickly what those businesses are for anybody that is new to. I'll start with the Addelec Power Services business. Addelec Power Services is a complete electrical engineering services provider for high and low voltage electrical projects with a strong specialization in EV charging infrastructure. It was an acquisition of the group about five years ago and is well and truly an important part of the group in the lifecycle of all of our products. The second business is CMI Electrical and the most recent acquisition. CMI is the manufacturer and distributor of electrical cables, specialty plugs, couplers, and receptacles for industrial applications in below ground, above ground applications there in the plugs and sockets. EX Engineering was the acquisition just prior to CMI. EX Engineering is a specialist in the supply, modification, repair, and design of hazardous area electrical equipment.
EX Engineering business is predominantly West Coast of Australia in Western Australia. The group is looking to expand that in a more national model, and I'll talk more to that in future slides. The fourth business of the group is the traditional foundation on which the group was born, is IPD business. It is product and solution distribution in the areas of power distribution, energy management, and automation products. Distribution of those products, but we do have custom assembly services, so we can either sell our products, our solutions as a loose item, or we can build them as a customized assembly, mitigating the customer's needs to have resources there to build those solutions up. We can either do it loose components or customized solutions. slide eight gives a bit of a corporate snapshot.
Obviously, our ticker code at IPG, our share price of AUD 3.70, which was as of the 18th of August. The IPO date for the organization was the 17th of December, 2021. Just under 104 million shares on issue. Our net cash position of AUD 9.8 million, which was as of the 30th of June. Our market capitalization at that share price of AUD 3.70 would equate to AUD 384 million. We've got four board members. It's a very well-operating and cohesive board. David Rafter is our Non-Executive Chair. Andrew Moffat is our Non-Executive Director. Myself as Executive Director and CEO, and Mohammad Yoosuf as Executive Director and Head of Strategic Development for the organization. The bottom left there shows the progression of our share price since listing back in 2021. You can see there we listed at AUD 1.20 to that AUD 3.70 mark, which was in 18th of August.
It's been a good strong performance in terms of share price. Our shareholder breakdown is 85% of our holdings are external and 15% of our holdings are at board, management, and employees. Advancing to slide nine, where I give an overview of our results. Really pleased to say that the continued growth at the top end of our guidance, which we put out in May of this year. If I break it down into the key parameters, revenue at AUD 354.7 million, which was up 22.1% on the prior comparative period. EBITDA at AUD 46.4 million, up 19.3% on the prior comparative period. EBIT at AUD 39.2 million, up 18.4% on the prior comparative period. Net profit at AUD 26.2 million, up 17% on the prior comparative period. Earnings per share at AUD 0.253, up 8.6% on the prior comparative period.
One of the outstanding results in the last 12 months has been our operating cash flow at AUD 52.7 million, up from AUD 35.5 million at the 30th of June 2024. Our net cash, a very strong result at AUD 9.8 million, with taking into account the AUD 11.1 million of borrowings as of the 30th of June 2025. Our data center revenues, revenues derived from the data center opportunity and the phenomenon that's going on, is AUD 56.5 million, which is up 33% as a percentage of our revenue on 2024, which is an outstanding result and faster than we had called out at past conversations. In terms of safety, our lost time injury frequency rate at 1.9% against an industry benchmark that we hold ourselves accountable to at between six and seven. Obviously, our aim, our aspiration is to get that to zero, but still performing quite well there.
Our total dividends of AUD 0.126, and they're obviously fully franked and represent a 50% payout ratio. I'll move forward to slide 10, which is just a slide title slide. Move forward to slide 11. Here I'll hand over to Jason Boschetti to go through the financial performance in a little bit more depth. Over to you, Jason.
Fantastic. Thank you, Michael, and welcome, everyone. I'm Jason Boschetti, the Chief Financial Officer of IPD Group, and I'm pleased to announce another record performance for the financial year ending June 30, 2025. As Michael mentioned, we're on slide 11 at the moment, looking at the financial performance. During the 2025 financial year, IPD Group continued to grow at the top end of the earnings guidance range, delivering record revenue, EBIT, EBITDA, and net profit after tax results for the group. Revenue of AUD 354.7 million was up 22.1% on the prior comparative period of 2024. There was continued revenue growth across the group, with the core traditional IPD business growing 5.2% on the prior comparative period, contributed by strength in key infrastructure sectors, including data centers and water and wastewater.
CMI Minto plugs and receptacles, was up 6.4% on the pro forma prior comparative period, and EX Engineering was up 5.2%. CMI Cables revenue was down on the pro forma prior comparative period. It remains affected by headwinds across key end markets, being the commercial construction sector. Addelec's revenue was also down, being impacted by previously disclosed project delays. A really good highlight with data center revenue growing strongly, up 33% on FY 2024. This end market now represents 16% of the group's revenue. Earnings per share of AUD 0.253 for FY 2025 was up 8.6% on the prior comparative period, and this result demonstrates the success of accretive acquisitions that were made in FY 2024 with CMI Electrical Operations and EX Engineering. We'll skip forward to slide 12, which is sales and earnings. As mentioned, revenue of AUD 354.7 million was up 22.1%.
The acquisition of EX Engineering and CMI Operations last year have contributed to this statutory revenue growth. IPD's diverse product range has enabled IPD to pivot towards growing industries, particularly data centers and water and wastewater. As expected, CMI 's lower operating gross profit margins have had a dilutive impact on consolidated gross profit margins. However, these strategic acquisitions have improved consolidated EBITDA margins. EBITDA of AUD 46.4 million is up 19.3% on the prior comparative period, and our continued growth across the group drove EBITDA earnings above the top end of the guidance range. As mentioned just previously, the acquisitions of CMI Electrical and EX Engineering's consolidated EBITDA margins have improved with the acquisitions of these businesses. As evidenced by the EBITDA graph on the right, the pre-acquisition IPD Group averaged EBITDA margins of 11.4% from FY 2020 to FY 2023.
Across FY 2024 and FY 2025, the group averaged EBITDA margins of 13.2%, a 16% improvement in these average EBITDA margins post the acquisition of these businesses. Earnings per share, again, of AUD 0.253 is up 8.6% and continues to demonstrate the success of accretive acquisitions. On to slide 13, pro forma financial performance. This slide presents financial year 2024 and 2025 on a pro forma basis, and it includes the financial performance of EX Engineering and CMI Electrical prior to acquisition whilst excluding the acquisition-related costs. For financial year 2025, AUD 1.8 million of interest expense has been excluded to show a comparative net profit after tax result to the pro forma FY 2024 result. Despite the wider macroeconomic challenges in the commercial construction sector, IPD Group delivered pro forma revenue growth in financial year 2025, with continued revenue growth across the core IPD business, CMI 's Minto plugs, and EX Engineering.
That's all on the back of the strength in key infrastructure sectors such as data center services and water and wastewater. CMI Electrical's cables remains affected by the headwinds across its key end market commercial construction sector. Larger, more complex orders typically have longer lead times and less certainty around delivery and timing, and this has resulted in a proportion of orders that would previously have been already invoiced now sitting in order backlog. These larger, more complex orders have put pressure on pro forma gross profit margins. While operating expenses have remained consistent and well controlled despite inflationary cost pressures and additional investments made throughout the year. I'll touch on a few of those in the slides to come. On to slide 14, discussing the balance sheet.
As at the 30th of June 2025, the group had AUD 163.9 million of net assets on its balance sheet, and the group was in a net cash position of AUD 9.8 million. That's up from an AUD 8.8 million net debt position as at the 30th of June 2024. This consists of AUD 20.9 million of cash and AUD 11.1 million in non-current borrowings. In November 2024, the group opened its new Brisbane office within the Brisbane Airport Precinct, and in June 2025, we opened our new Melbourne office in Noble Park. These expanded facilities feature product showrooms and training rooms and foster a collaborative environment to drive strategic sales synergies, whilst also improving our footprint and enabling enough space for growth across the group. On to slide 15, cash and cash flow.
As Michael mentioned, one of the highlights to the financial reporting is our cash conversion for the year, and we're proud to report that our operating cash flow has continued to increase, rising to AUD 52.7 million for FY 2025. Our operating cash flow conversion of 113% is up from 91.3% on the prior comparative period and continues IPD Group's long history of strong cash conversion. As a result of prudent cash management and strong cash conversion, the group repaid AUD 20 million of core debt. As a result, the acquisition debt facility has reduced to AUD 11.1 million, and the group is in a net cash position of AUD 9.8 million, as shown on the graph to the right. On to slide 16, which is net working capital and dividend. Our net working capital now sits at AUD 70.9 million.
Whilst total net working capital decreased during the year, our inventory levels increased by AUD 3.3 million. Our working capital position was improved on the back of enhanced vendor terms and diligent debtor management throughout the year. Dividends. Today, the directors declared a fully franked dividend of AUD 0.062/ share. Statutory net profit after tax was AUD 26.2 million, and that was up 17% on the prior comparative period. Total dividends declared for FY 2025 were AUD 0.126/ share, up 16.7% on the prior comparative period. Total dividends declared equate to a payout of AUD 13.1 million for the financial year 2025 and a payout ratio of 50%. Again, I'm pleased to announce another record financial result for the year. Let me hand back to CEO Michael Sainsbury to take you through the market and business outlook slide.
Thank you very much, Jason. Well done, mate. slide 78 is more a title slide, so we'll move straight into slide 18, where we're talking, giving you a little bit of clarity around the market and the markets we're attached to. Firstly, before I go into this slide, I will talk about some green shoots we're seeing in our core business environment, which is commercial construction, and certainly some positive sentiment in that commercial construction space. The sentiment from our major contractors, from the builders, is one of increased activity, and that's certainly also being reinforced by some reporting. We follow the Australian Industry Group, where there's some report coming out confirming that information we're hearing through our major customers. Some green shoots in our core business should underpin a strong result in the next 12 months.
Aside from that, the slide here is more talking about the electrification of the economy, and particularly the industrial Internet of Things and smart grid digitization. These are two of the biggest long-term drivers of connected energy solutions. These technologies aren't a passing trend. They're fundamentally changing how electricity networks are monitored, managed, and optimized. Let me just walk you through these four areas here to bring it down to how it impacts IPD. The first one there, data sources. What happens here? It starts with the capture of data from connected devices. This data can be from anything from a PowerPoint, from a light switch, from a sensor, from a meetup, from a circuit breaker. Any connection point these days is a point at which we can connect and have access to information through to EV chargers and substation equipment.
This is where we're capturing all of the information at a granular level. Technology changes in the past have meant that we can capture that at any connection point. What happens with that data is one of two things. It either goes into the edge computing. What is edge computing? Edge computing is the data which is processed locally. You can potentially have an end user could have somebody working in their organization to get immediate access to this data to identify areas of issues or improvement and to be able to mobilize that quickly. It's close to the source. It enables faster decision making, and it's obviously critical where real-time responses are needed. Similar to that, if it doesn't get stored locally, it gets put up into the cloud, and cloud computing is what's driving the data center phenomenon. These are the bigger data sets that aren't so priority.
They're being sent to the cloud where they can be stored, analyzed, and integrated with other systems to get deeper insights over a longer period. Obviously, all of this then creates actions and insights, and ultimately, this enables automated actions and real-time operational improvements, everything from predictive maintenance to better integration of renewables. What does that mean for IPD? Obviously, this drives the demand for both our core hardware, all of our components from switchgear to switchboards to sensors, metering, and our integrated IoT solutions. Edge computing in particular is increasing the need for local infrastructure to be able to support this edge computing phenomenon, and that drives uptake of switchboards, distribution boards, power supplies, just to name a few, while the cloud integration plays to our strengths in connectivity and control and the data center phenomenon that I'll cover in a future slide.
This positions IPD for growth in both the new infrastructure builds and also ongoing upgrade cycles. A very, very, very strong market and some really good, one of the strong tailwinds to support the business moving forward. slide 19 talks more to the Australian data center boom and capitalizing on data center growth and ESG upgrades. The Australian data center market is really going through a once-in-a-generation expansion. It's not a short-term bubble. It's driven by structural changes in technology, connectivity, and the energy policy that is going to run for decades. What are the drivers here? We talk about the three boxes in this graph here. One of the drivers is the demand for AI, the demand for cloud services, and 5G is driving the exponential growth in data processing and storage.
It's forecasted that by 2030, the market is expected to more than double, adding over 175 new data center facilities and driving a AUD 26 billion investment in pipeline. A massive opportunity, and our growth in this space can continue well into the future on the back of this demand. The second one there is around ESG pressures, and ESG pressures create more opportunity. It's not just about capacity growth. ESG mandates are creating additional demand as well. Energy efficiency upgrades, renewable integration as we exit dirtier energy sources by 2035, and new cooling innovations are forcing operators to invest in their electrical infrastructure, creating a massive opportunity for us. The combination of these two is where IPD is positioned to win, supplying power distribution systems, supplying high-powered cable opportunities, critical backup solutions like our UPS portfolio, potentially generators, automation and control systems, and advanced sustainability solutions.
The key takeaway for you guys from this slide here is we as IPD Group benefit from both ends of this trend. There's obviously the greenfield new build boom, and then there's the brownfield ESG-driven retrofit market. It means recurring opportunities well beyond the initial construction phase. For investors, it's a multi-cycle opportunity. We don't just sell into the build. We stay in it for the lifecycle, supporting the ongoing upgrades, expansions, and efficiency improvements over decades to come. A massive tailwind for us as an organization. Moving forward to slide 20, I'll talk here to the EV market. It is, again, it's not a short-term growth opportunity. It's a long-term structural shift. Electric vehicle adoption in Australia is a structural change in transport and energy. The shift will span decades and will require large-scale ongoing investment into electrical infrastructure.
The chart on the left there talks to the historical growth in EV sales over the last five years, where you can see since 2020, the market share has grown to 11.6% of the market in electric cars. That's a combination of battery energy and plug-in hybrid EVs, but rolling up to 11.6% of fleet. That growth is accelerating as more affordable models hit the market, charging infrastructure expands, and new emission standards take effect. The graph on the right talks more to the future, the growth targets for the future. To meet Australia's 2027 EV fleet targets, the total fleet will need to grow fourfold in just the next four years.
That's a huge demand driver, which will drive charging stations and all the associated infrastructure to be able to feed those charging stations like switchboards, distribution boards, switchgear, power management systems, and not to mention the lifecycle of servicing that will follow after that investment. Our role, our opportunity in this space is at every point in the transaction, from supplying EV chargers to all of the equipment to feed the EV chargers, through from design, installation, and lifecycle support. We'll benefit from the surge in new installations, but we'll also equally benefit from the long-term maintenance and upgrade cycle in this space as well. The key takeaway for you guys in this space is it's a multi-decade opportunity. Even after the big growth push towards 2027, the replacement, expansion, and optimization of the infrastructure will continue for years, keeping demand for our solutions strong and recurring.
Moving forward to slide 2021, where I talk about our revenue and the diversification of our revenue. We break it up there into revenue type, the geography split, the product type, and the end markets. If I just start with the product type there, you can see there that 94% of our revenue is derived from products, and this represents a combination of the CMI Electrical, EX Engineering, and IPD businesses. The 6% there is what is represented from the Addelec contribution to the overall revenue.
If I break it down by state from a group, New South Wales is still the biggest state, with 36% of our revenue coming from New South Wales, 22% from WA, which has grown significantly over the last 12 months to take the number two position, Queensland at 21%, Victoria at 17%, and we amalgamate South Australia and Northern Territory together at 3%, with Tassie at 1%. The product type, 36%, still our biggest portfolio by a long way, is product power distribution, with 36% of our revenue, a large portion of that being derived from the ABB product, but not exclusively. Obviously, the acquisition of CMI Electrical in the last 12 months has meant that cable is now 21% of our total revenue. Hazardous area equipment certainly improved by the acquisition of EX Engineering, but also some sales in the core IPD business at 12% of our revenue.
Motor control at 10%, automation and industrial communications at 9%, and services, as mentioned on the previous graph, at 6%. Power monitoring at 4%, and then 2% represented by others. In the end market space, still the largest part of our end market is commercial construction and buildings. We lump this together in a fairly broad category. Now it's commercial construction, but it does cover factories and warehouses and distribution centers and shopping centers and hotels in there. It is, we call it buildings as an expanded portfolio. That's 32% of our total revenue. Infrastructure, industrial mining at 23% of our total revenue. As we've mentioned on a number of occasions, data centers is the fastest growing part of our business and grown to 16% of our revenue.
Water and wastewater at 13%, power utilities at 5%, food and beverage at 3%, and residential construction, as mentioned on a number of occasions, less than 1% of our total revenue, with others representing 7% of the revenue there. A very, very good diversification around our portfolios. slide 22 talks to our vendor relationships. We've obviously had supplier expansion, which drives long-term stability and growth. ABB accounts for 31% of the group's revenue and continues to drive revenue growth in key areas of infrastructure and data and commercial construction. The contribution of the cumulative of the top five vendors has decreased from 62% in 2023 to 53% in 2025. The concentration with one particular, those core vendors, has certainly reduced, giving the organization some protection.
The action, obviously, that's as a result of the acquisition of EX Engineering and CMI and the addition of new vendors to give us an expanded portfolio. The company's diverse vendor and technology portfolios give us the ability to offset declines when there are some in some segments with growth in others. Moving forward to slide 23, what I'll try and do here is give you a little bit of a granular without going too deep into the individual businesses of IPD. I'll start with the Addelec business. Just for a recoup, it's a leader in high voltage and low voltage and EV charging solutions. The initiatives that we put in place and the highlights that we call out for the year, financial year 2025, is a national expansion. We established an operation in Queensland to increase our national coverage.
We had strong coverage in New South Wales, Victoria, and WA, but Queensland was always a gap for us. We've established an operation up in Queensland to be able to support our customers in a more concentrated fashion. Strategic partnerships. We achieved ABB authorized value partner status for both motion services and motion covers, variable speed drives and motors, and EV charging solutions, where we are now an extension of ABB's services team, where we are able to service their motors, their variable speed drive, and we're able to service their EV chargers as authorized partners of ABB, which is a great opportunity for us moving forward. The business integration, we've consolidated our EV and our services capabilities together by integrating the GemTech business, which was an acquisition in the past, IPD services, which is more about calibration and testing, and the Addelec business.
That's been consolidated now under the brand label of Addelec as a whole. Our workforce optimization. We've rolled out a technician utilization strategy to improve project delivery and workforce efficiency. One of the risks here is around utilization of technicians, and in particular, we have a civils group there that lay the foundations for a lot of our services to be put into, and sometimes the utilization of those civils can be challenging. We have partnerships with three or four external companies where they're using our civils team in a subcontracting model, so we get better optimization out of our technicians, and that'll have an improvement on our profitability for the Addelec business. Pleased to say, airport infrastructure, we've secured a turnkey contract with Sydney Airport for ongoing electrical services, strengthening Addelec's presence in critical transport infrastructure. Call out some major projects on the right-hand side.
I won't go into them with any depth, but just to quickly gloss over them. Perth Transit Authority, which is in WA, we've delivered the electrification of two sites over there. There are a further 25 sites to be rolled out over the coming years. That will represent a significant opportunity in the electrification in that transport space. We continue to work closely with NRMA, rolling out their national EV charging, with 10 new charging sites in the last 12 months. Western Sydney University and PowerCore City Corps, which is down in Victoria, we've secured multi-year services contracts. If I talk specifically to Western Sydney Uni, it's AUD 1 million annually for high voltage maintenance. If I talk about the PowerCore City Corps opportunity, it's AUD 3 million annually for zone substation testing and calibration services.
A really, really strong year of growth and expansion to facilitate future growth in that Addelec Power Services business. Moving on to slide 24, CMI , obviously experts in cables and power connections. The initiatives and highlights there in the last 12 months. In terms of operational integration, we've integrated the Melbourne facility, which was a warehouse, a standalone warehouse. We brought it into one facility with the rest of the IPD businesses at Noble Park. This will give us improved cable storage efficiency.
It's a bigger warehouse solution, enabling us to hold more stock to be able to capitalize on the growth opportunities in that CMI business in the future, enabling us to be able to hold more stock, but as importantly, to be able to set that up to be able to handle that in a more efficient manner, a safer manner, with obviously better workflows and new racking systems in there as well. From a technology investment perspective, we've introduced a new laser engraving on the Minto plugs. It's important that they have traceability, and that was done in a very laborious and really not effective way. We have invested in a laser engraving machine to do faster label marking and improve traceability of those stainless steel labeled products.
On the product portfolio expansion, we have launched the Minto Mark II plugs, which includes 300 amp and 425 amp stainless steel plugs, the dummy plugs, the PCOA plugs, and multipurpose plugs. This will allow us to expand into above-ground applications, you know, in infrastructure, particularly there. On the logistics and transport improvements, we've rolled out a new transport provider arrangement. We've done that in the last quarter of 2025, and that'll have significant benefits for us in 2026 around our cost model for freight, but it'll also allow us to be able to do it in a more efficient and effective manner as well. In digital experience, if you're not going forward, you're certainly going backwards. We've launched a new website offering enhanced access to technical product information for our customers and stronger customer engagement tools there.
A lot is being done with the view to the future opportunity and expansion in the CMI business. The major projects are a large processing facility up in Tamworth, which is in the food and beverage space, the Woodford Youth Detention Center up in Queensland, which was the submarine cable there, a copper mine in Mongolia. Pleased to say that export of the Minto plugs has bounced back and bounced back strongly, where we've got a new three-year supply contract with that Mongolian copper mine. In Papua New Guinea, we supplied 60 and 150 amp Minto plugs and receptacles to multiple copper and gold mines through a local partner into Papua New Guinea. Some really good project success in the last 12 months for the CMI business as well. Moving on to slide 25 on EX Engineering, a trusted, obviously trusted provider in electrical safety and hazardous area.
What have we done here? Effectively, we've released the reputation and we're seeing a growing market demand. Their recognition as a trusted supplier of hazardous area solutions has grown and grown exceptionally, with a fantastic result in the 2025 business. More industries are engaging EX Engineering for specialized support, and that is certainly as a result of their own actions, but also as a result of the attachment of the group and the confidence that some of these large end users have of working with a company with a much stronger balance sheet than EX had before the integration. Our sales pipeline and growth continues. We're getting substantial growth in inquiries and revenue year on year, reflecting a stronger market confidence and expanding project pipeline.
On the Dexon product development, Dexon is a product which is really in the sweet spot in grain applications, dusty environments, which are also classed as hazardous area environments. Several of the previous custom enclosures here with long lead times are now being produced to standard products, which opens new markets and opportunities for us in grain and food and beverage and the likes. Pleasingly, around stock optimization, we've reduced the inventory levels in the EX Engineering business by 25%. They are now leveraging off the stock holding of the group, but as a business themselves, it has reduced by 25%, while the availability of high-demand products has improved, increasing the efficiency and the customer responsiveness.
In terms of projects there, a major LNG facility, a contract extension, a major bulk handling company and supplier of the hazardous area equipment, a major LNG facility, repair services to support the large-scale site expansion, a bulk handling company with the Dexon product that I was talking about there for the dust environments, and hydrogen application completed verification and certification of custom enclosures on a hydrogen project as well there. Really good meaty opportunities and glad to see that business going strongly into the future. The IPD business, a leading solutions provider in electrical power control and automation, a really strong result, well ahead of our competitors and certainly aggressively taking market share off our competitors in that space. We've launched some new products in the last year. I call out here a 160 amp distribution board.
Not only have we launched that, which is a great product in the wholesale and project space, we're also about to launch a software system which allows our customers to autonomously create quotes for that without having to engage our team. We developed a software with an external partner to make that more streamlined for our customers. We've also launched ABB electrical metering offers in the last 12 months, not to mention motors and UPS, which I've called out before. The team expansion, obviously, as a result of a growing business, we've expanded the team in some key growth areas, and I call out UPS and motors. We now have dedicated technical specialists working for our organization to be able to give our customers application support in these products.
Also across key markets, we have data center business development people now focusing truly and exclusively on data centers and the same in mining as well. In terms of supply chain optimization, we've enhanced performance through automation, including the implementation of a vertical lifting system in our Wetherill Park Warehouse. Now, it's an automated solution where we're able to have a number of SKUs in a concentrated small area, and over 11% of our total picks are being done from there now, giving us greater efficiency in that space. In terms of category growth, we've delivered strong performance in motor control, automation, and industrial communication, which were key areas of growth for this part of the business. Overall, the growth in this business has been a fantastic result.
Major projects, the continuation of our penetration into Amazon data centers, a Mirvac harborside development here in Sydney, which is the redevelopment of Darling Harbour, where we supplied a whole lot of power distribution and control systems product through a company called Trivantage for a large-scale commercial redevelopment. In Melbourne, we've delivered motors and control systems into 101 Collins Street. We did that through a company called A.G. Coombs, which was an air handling upgrade, and we've put variable speed drives into the HVAC environment in that space there. Around electrical infrastructure, we've secured a AUD 1.6 million contract for industrial communications, of which the project is under NDA, so I can't talk to it. Around the Byron and Fraser Coast Council, which is the northern New South Wales and Queensland, we've delivered over AUD 750,000 in industrial communication systems in those regional areas and municipal sites.
A really good performance by the IPD business. slide 27 is the title slide around strategy and outlook. We'll move straight past that and move into the strategic pillars of the organization. No change here. Four pillars make up the core of our strategy around business growth, operational efficiency, a focus on sustainability, and a focus on people. If I talk specifically to business growth, it'll be a combination of organic and inorganic. On the organic side, it's obviously about customer value and market expansion, leveraging the strong brands we have today and the expertise to deliver tailored, reliable solutions, and also expand into new markets with new distribution. We're having many conversations with many new vendors about expanding our portfolio.
On the inorganic growth, obviously accelerating growth, and we'll continue to have conversations with opportunities to invest in strategic acquisitions to increase the earnings, the market share, and the sector reach of the organization. If I talk specifically to operational efficiency, it's about focus on scalable operations and leveraging our shared services model and the economy of scales to streamline our processes, reduce our costs, and expand our industry reach. We will use synergies and internal and external synergies to embrace emerging technologies, and we use partnerships to develop innovative, adaptable solutions that drive value and growth. A particular example of this is the software that I spoke about for quotation of distribution boards.
We've used a third-party provider to assist us in the development of that technology to what will be a best-in-class offer and really usable for our customers and streamline their efficiency in that space and ours as well. On sustainability, two areas of focus: reducing our environmental footprint. We're focusing on reduction, cutting grid energy reliance, working with our landlords. We're transitioning our fleet to electric hybrid fleets, and we're promoting the circularity of all of our products, our waste, and obviously to minimize waste and extend the product lifecycle of the products that we do have. Secondly to that, we want to make a lasting social impact, and we're supporting charities every quarter. We have a different charity that we support. We're supporting industry initiatives. We're working closely with Engineers Australia, with education programs.
We're also working to strengthen the competence and the knowledge in the electrical industry through partnerships with NECA, which is the National Electrical Communications Association, and NESMA, which is the National Electrical Switchboard Manufacturers Association. The last one there, but certainly not least, probably the most important pillar for me is around people. Our success depends upon a strong, engaged, and diverse workforce, essential for delivering sustainable growth. We'll focus on employee wellbeing and development, enhancing the satisfaction, the engagement, and safety, while fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace. The second part there is around talent attraction and retention. I think we've done a remarkable job around talent attraction. We've certainly got a much higher level caliber of candidates applying for roles.
We now need to move our focus to the retention of those people, retaining and developing diverse talent to strengthen our team and uphold the high standards of the organization moving forward. slide 29, what you've all been waiting for, I'm sure, the outlook. Our outlook there is about sustaining strong results. Three pillars to that: strategic focus, obviously executing our strategic priorities, creating long-term value, and staying agile to adapt to changing market conditions. Our unique value proposition with a comparison to our competitors is our agility, and it's important that we keep that in the key. The growth drivers of some of our end markets remain challenging, and I talk particularly to commercial construction, which I mentioned earlier there. We see some green shoots.
We continue to capitalize on the emerging opportunities driven by the transition to renewables, the increased demand from data centers and associated energy requirements, and the expansion of EV chargers and demand for public transportation, electrification, and a supportive legislative environment. There are some strong tailwinds to support our business well into the future. Sustainable growth, efficiently positioned to capitalize on an improvement in weaker end markets, notably commercial construction and buildings. We will have our AGM on the 25th of November, and we will give a trading update to be presented by the team at that AGM. That really closes off the formal part of the presentation for me, and I will hand over in case there are any questions. We've got a few minutes to answer any questions that might be there. I'll hand over to the any questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star and two. If you are on a speaker phone, please pick up your handset to ask a question. First question comes from Philip Pepe. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking the question. Great, great result and great presentation. Lots of detail. I might start with some big picture ones. You're being confident historically of growing. It's sort of maybe twice whatever the market rate is. I think the last time you called the market flat and you did about 5% in the main business. What's your current outlook on market growth versus your growth, please, say for the next 12 months to three years?
Yeah. Thanks for asking that question, Phil. Our expectations remain unchanged there. Our expectation is to certainly continue to grow at twice the market rate. It's certainly in different markets. We've seen a subdued market in some spaces, but a growing market in others. I would guess that the market in the next 12 months, my best guess would be sort of somewhere between 0% and 3% growth in the next 12 months.
That certainly clearly points out that we're aspiring to somewhere in the vicinity of 5%- 6% if that is the case. Obviously, we'll continue to drive that expectation at double the market rate and aggressively take market share off our competitors with a really enthusiastic approach to the business development and prudently investing where we need to.
Excellent. Thank you. And second one, just on the M&A, your thoughts on whether acquiring something that would give you more products to sell to existing clients versus an adjacent avenue, so like another CMI Electrical type thing, what's the better ROI in the next sort of three years?
Yeah. Phil, I would certainly say to you that our M&A strategy is clearly around adjacent spaces to our current portfolio.
Our organic growth will come with new distribution of products, but if there's a potential acquisition out there that either is a distributor of products that are adjacent to our space, ultimately, the electrical contractor is charged with the responsibility of delivering the complete electrical package. We have really, really strong in-depth ingrained relationships with those contractors. Any new products that we bring to market, we can capitalize on that relationship we have in that space with generally a good uptake. We continue to have many conversations in the M&A space, and they would range anywhere from sort of AUD 20 million revenue models up to AUD 100 million revenue models. At the end of the day, though, we don't know when those acquisitions are going to fall, and the conversations that we're having today could materialize next month. They could next year.
We don't really know, but we continue to have those conversations, and there's certainly a good pipeline of acquisitions that we're in conversation with.
Excellent. No, thanks very much, and well done again.
Thanks, Phil.
The next question comes from Matthew Chen with Moelis. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just some comments, if you could, around your expectations, particularly in the data center space over the next 12 months. Thank you.
Yeah, Matty, you've seen in the presentation that we've grown at 33% over the last 12 months, taking it up to 16% of our total revenue. While we called out, I know historically we called out 25% growth, we've obviously exceeded that. However, as I presented in the deck, with the opportunity that is available in that data center space, although the number continues to get bigger, I don't think the growth expectation has changed dramatically from us. I would expect that we would have a further sort of circa 25% growth in data centers in the next 12 months. Our order book is certainly very strong, and a large portion of that is around data center opportunities.
It's well and truly underpinned by a great quotation pipeline for the future and order book pipeline. Quite bullish there, mate, with the phenomenon that I called out in the presentation that 25% growth is a fair expectation in that space.
Thanks for that. That's really helpful. Just a comment on how you're thinking about prices across your product portfolio over the next 12 months. Thanks.
Good question, Matt. Obviously, we've sort of fallen in line now with historical pricing mechanisms. During COVID and during the supply chain challenges, there was the ability to have multiple price increases in a year, but it's somewhat normalized now to 1/ year.
We're planning on having a price increase in February as an organization, and that'll be somewhere in the, and we haven't landed on a number yet, but my guess is it'll be somewhere around about the 4% in terms of quantifying that. It's not really coming on tee back of massive changes in our vendor pricing model. It's more just the increased operation model, and we're seeing freight costing more and inflationary cost pressures there. Obviously salaries and that sort of thing as well. We're expecting a 4% price increase in February. Important, Matt, still a large portion of our business is done via quotation and contracts, and generally sort of half of that flows through to the bottom to give you some sort of indication of the quantum that'll be realized from price.
Thanks. It's really helpful. Congrats again on the result.
Thanks, Matty.
Thanks, Matt.
The next question comes from Nick Maxwell from PAC Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one on CMI and integration. Obviously, it's been in the business for a little while now. Just some commentary around how that's sort of going now. I know you sort of spoke to some issues sort of early days, but just, yeah, some commentary around that.
Yeah, thanks for asking that, Nick. It's really important in the growth aspirations for the organization moving forward. Two parts to that question. With the green shoots coming through in commercial construction, certainly CMI is very materially exposed to that commercial construction. In the last 12 months, the results have been indicative of the challenges in that space. The green shoots in that commercial construction space organically will give an uplift to that CMI business, which is great news.
As importantly, in the last 12 months, we have pretty much, I won't say turned the whole sales team, but we've improved the sales team to the point now where, rather than having a reactive sales team, which were more focused on delivering revenue from existing customers and not really focused on growth, we now have a number of new people in our team that have come from our competitors around OLX and Prysmian and the like to call out, who are industry experts, and they are burning desire to get out there and grow this business. I think the actions that we've undertaken in the last 12 months hold us in really good stead to be able to capitalize.
When I talk about growing at twice the market rate, you know, with CMI being such a substantial part of the group's revenue, it'll need to grow at that rate to be able to facilitate that. I'm, you know, as a result of the commercial construction uplift and our own actions and improvements in that business over the last 12 months, expansion of some of the warehouses to be able to hold some more inventory, I think we're in a really good position, mate.
Yeah, great. Thank you. That's some good insight. You're looking to add to the team further from there where it is sort of as it sits, or are you happy with your sales team as it is?
In our internal budgets, we do have a budget set for an increase in the headcount, but it's not massive, mate. It's probably another one or two.
We've got a guy starting in September, which is materially, you know, he's come from one of our competitors, and he is attached to the utilities and infrastructure exclusively. We haven't seen that in our cost model, but we've budgeted for it, and he'll come on in September. Other than that, there might be one or two others in states where we don't have, you know, probably the region covered fully. Not a massive growth now, mate. Most of it is already online and in the business and operating and getting familiar with our organization and the market and obviously in a great position to leverage off it now.
Great. Thank you. Just the last one for me, just on debt. Obviously, I have some strong cash flow during the year and paid down some, like a large chunk of that debt. Is the plan to continue to follow a similar pattern with that and clear that debt, or are you looking to, I guess, slow down on that side of it?
Yeah, we've had a bit of an improvement there in that working capital number throughout the year. A lot of that has been on the back of increased vendor terms and diligent debtor management. We've also invested into some inventory over the last 12 months. As we continue to grow into FY 2026, we'll need to keep investing into our working capital. That'll have an impact on that cash conversion. I don't expect it to be above that 100% like it was this year, as we've had some significant movement, particularly with our vendors over the last 12 months. We'll see that normalize with increased investment into FY 2026.
Yeah, perfect. Debt repayment-wise, you considered like a similar path or?
Yeah, yeah, we're sitting at a net cash position at the moment of AUD 9.8 million. I mean, when we get to a point where we've got enough cash in the business to sustain our working capital movements throughout the quarters, we'll obviously look to repay that debt as it potentially is no need for that in the short term until our next M&A opportunity.
Awesome, guys. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Well done, the result.
Cheers, mate. Thank you.
The next question comes from Tony Shields with Gang Gang Proprietary Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hello. It's good to see you once again working on the business rather than working in the business. Just a couple of questions. In the past, or like I think back in May, you mentioned that you had an order backlog of around AUD 91 million. I was just wondering what that is now. A year ago, you mentioned your employee and customer NPS scores, but you haven't mentioned them this year.
I'll answer the second part of that question first, mate. The reason we haven't done that is that we're doing our employee and customer surveys. We're doing them next month. I don't have anything new to report to you there, but certainly when we do our AGM in November, I should be in a position, I will be in a position to talk about that then.
I do expect that we should see an improvement from certainly from an employee perspective. We put a lot of time and effort into creating our environment as a great place to work and an employer of choice. On the second part of that question, look out for that in our upcoming AGM. Jason, if you want to...
Yeah, I can cover for the order book. In terms of measuring our order book, it's not really our intention to continue to report on the order book every reporting season. The reason behind that is just simply because there are movements in your order book based on your revenue recognized. From our perspective, our order book is very consistent to what it was at the last reporting season without giving specific numbers. Hence, we haven't given that out to the market today.
As we grow into larger data center opportunities, these larger opportunities again still have longer lead times, and it will expand our order book over time as well.
Okay, then. Thanks for both those answers. Thank you.
No trouble.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Sainsbury for closing remarks.
I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank everybody for your time today. I'd also like to pay a special mention to all of my employees of the group for a fantastic year and hard work and certainly well set up for growth into the future. I thank everybody for your ongoing support in terms of the investors and our analysts that are on the line today. I look forward to positive momentum for the business in the future and catching up and talking with a lot of you one-on-one over the next couple of days. Thanks for your support and onward and upward from IPD Group.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Thank you.