Number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Michael Sainsbury, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Welcome, everybody. Great to have you here with us today, here, FY 2026 result deck. Moving forward to slide 2, I, I will talk through it so you can advance with me. Three presenters here today, although predominantly it'll be myself and Jason. Just by way of introduction, my name is Michael Sainsbury, and I'm an Executive Director, and Jason Boschetti with us, is- who is our CFO of the group, and David McFadyen, who's Investor Relations. Moving forward to slide 3, a little bit of an overview of what we'll share today, the agenda. I'll give a quick overview of the business and the performance, and then some of the financial metrics.
Jason will then hand back to me to give a market and business update, and then give a, a deeper-. We'll close off by opening up for some questions, time permitting, at the end. Moving forward to slide four, which is just a title slide for the overview. Slide five. For those of you who aren't familiar, and haven't had the visibility of the business, deep visibility of the business, it's important we start with our vision, which obviously sets the parameters for the future for the organization, and that's to help build a future where sustainable electrical infrastructure creates a better life for all. I'll go into it in more depth in the coming slides, but all of our businesses, buy into that and, and are well aligned with that vision. How are we going to do that?
Our mission is obviously to enhance every aspect of infrastructure through energy efficiency, through automation, and secure connectivity, while prioritizing the safety and wellbeing of people inside our organization and outside our organizations with the products and solutions we take out to the market. About our connected group, the group now consists of five highly complementary businesses, where we service a wide range of search to strong tailwinds, promoting a good environment for the outlook for the future. I start at the top there with the IPD business, which is the core business, the business which the group was built around. That is providing electrical infrastructure and solutions in a distribution model, with also the capacity to be able to build customized solutions to meet the customer expectations.
It's certainly 50% of the total business and the biggest part of our business. On the left there, we have CMI, which was an acquisition from the company almost two years ago now. CMI is in industrial power, cabling, and connectivity. A large portion of its revenue is derived from the sale of cable, and then the remaining revenue is done through plugs and connectivity via connectors into an industrial environment, predominantly into mining space. On the right-hand side there at the top, we've got EX Engineering, which specializes in hazardous area electrical equipment, both as components and as well as customized solutions for that hazardous area environment. That was also an acquisition for our business, and at that stage, it was a Perth or a WA-based business.
We are expanding that onto the East Coast in this financial year. Down the bottom left, we've got our most recent acquisition, which is Platinum. Platinum is a business that does critical cabling solutions for mining and resources sector. Our most recent acquisition, closing off the transaction on the 31st of December, and a really great addition to our portfolio, with the great sales synergies across the whole group. Lastly, at the bottom right there, we've got our Addelec Power Services business. Addelec is an engineering services provider for the electrical infrastructure. A very, very, very strong bias towards calibration and testing for electrical assets, but it also does have a strong specialization in the EV charging space. They are the five businesses that make up the parent company or fall under the parent company of IPD Group.
Moving to slide 7, we give a bit of a corporate snapshot there. Our ASX code is IPG, our share price at AUD 4.62, based on the 18th of February date, which was the 17th of December 2021, just over 4 years ago. We have just under 104 million shares on issue. Our AUD 0.4 million, we'll talk at more depth around that in coming slides. Our market capitalization at that share price of AUD 4.62 is AUD 480 million. The board consists of 4 Directors, 3 of them, non-Executive Directors, with the recent transition from Mohamed Yoosuff as an Executive Director to non-Executive, and then myself as Executive Director and CEO. It's a well-operating board, harmonious, a board with a good day to complement each other.
Bottom left there, we give you the share price performance from 2021, December, where we listed, showing you the performance breakdown. On the bottom right there is 87% of our shares are held by external, and a large portion of them, institutional investors, then 13% of that is held by board, management, and employees. Moving forward to slide 8, this is obviously where the rubber starts to hit the road and provides some good overview of our business. I'm pleased to say that we're reporting continued growth exceeding the top end of our guidance. Revenue at AUD 192.7 million, which is an increase of 8.9% on the prior comparative period. EBITDA at AUD 25.4, up 7.6% on the prior comparative period.
Underlying EBIT at AUD 7.0, up on the prior comparative period at AUD 21.7. Our underlying net profit after tax at AUD 14.4 million, up 8.3%. Our underlying earnings per share at AUD 0.138, up 7% on the prior comparative period. Operating cash flow, free cash flow, AUD 17.1 million. Net debt at AUD 24.4 million. Pleased to say that data center revenue represents 32.8% of our total revenue, which is a growth of 16%. I'll give some more detail about that in coming slides. Of Platinum Cables on the 31st of December, completed the acquisition, and an interim dividend has been announced at AUD 0.068 on the prior comparative period.
Overall, a very strong set of numbers and a good result for the first half of the year. Move forward to slide 9, which is a heading slide there around our financial performance, and I will hand over to Jason Boschetti to start from slide 10 for you.
Fantastic. Thank you, Michael. I'm also very pleased to announce another record performance for the half year ending 31st of December 2025. As Michael mentioned, we're on slide 10, looking at the financial overview slide. During the growth, exceeding the top end of the earnings guidance range provided in November 2025, the group delivered record revenue, EBITDA, EBIT, and net PAT results. Revenue of AUD 192.7 million was up 8.9%, underlying EBITDA of AUD 25.4 million was up 7.6% on the prior comparative period. The underlying result represents the first half of FY 2026, exclude position costs incurred for the acquisition of Platinum Cables. It was continued revenue growth across the core and traditional IPD business, up 11% on the prior comparative period.
CMI was up 2% on the prior comparative period, and EX Engineering up 55% on the prior comparative period. Excluding Kings News remained unchanged with the prior comparative period. Larger projects have contributed to revenue growth, and there is a competitive dynamic on larger projects, which has resulted in gross margins of 33.3% for the period. The first half of FY 2026 growth profit margins, however, have improved by 20 basis points on the second half of FY 2025. Operating expenses as a percentage of revenue decreased by 1.9%, which ensured that EBITDA and EBIT. With the acquisition of Platinum Cables completed on the 31st of December 2025, there was no profit contribution during the first half of FY 2026 from Platinum Cables. I'll touch on a few other highlight slides on the slides to come.
If you could advance to Slide 11, Sales and Earnings Growth. As mentioned, revenue of AUD 192.7 million was up 8.9% on the PCP. There was continued revenue growth across the core IPD business, 11% growth, IPD's diverse product offering continues to drive growth in key infrastructure sectors, including data centers, infrastructure, industrial, mining, and water and wastewater. Combined revenue from these sectors has grown 13% on the prior comparative period, with data center revenue rising 16%. We had 1 large data center order that was expected to be delivered in December 2025, which was rescheduled and delivered in January 2026. If this order, data center revenue would have been up approximately 25% on the prior comparative period. CMI revenues increased 2% on the PCP.
CMI's cable revenue grew 7.1% on the second half of FY 2025, despite being marginally lower versus the PCP, only by 0.5%. CMI Minto plugs are up 11% on the PCP. CMI's EBIT increased 8.1% on the prior comparative period, with the business ending with the period with a solid order book, which is expected to deliver ongoing growth into the second half. EX Engineering delivered 55% growth on the prior comparative period, with that growth partly driven by key oil and gas cable supply contract. Excluding this contract, EX Engineering's revenue would have increased by 23% on the prior comparative period. Again, excluding the Kingsgrove bus depot delays, Addelec's revenues remained unchanged with the prior comparative period. Underlying EBITDA of AUD 25.4 million was up 7.6%.
Continued growth for the group drives earnings above the top end of the guidance range provided in November. Operating expenses as a percentage of revenue decreased by 1.9%, improving EBITDA margins from the second half of FY 2025, and you can see that underlying EBITDA growth on the graph on the right-hand side. I'll move forward onto slide 12, which covers off the balance sheet. After our acquisition of Platinum Cables on the 31st of December, million in net assets on its balance sheet. IPD Group secured AUD 37.5 million of new debt to fund the acquisition of Platinum Cables, which was predominantly funded purely from that new debt acquired.
At the 31st of December, the group had a net debt position of AUD 24.4 million, which consisted of AUD 48.6 million of combined debt and AUD 24.2 million in cash. Net leverage at the end of December, net debt on the pro forma EBITDA being the last full financial year of FY 2025. A contingent cash payment has been recognized for the acronym of AUD 7.5 million, which is a 5x multiple on EBIT growth, ending at the 31st of December, 2026. On dividend, we've got continued investment for future growth. Net working capital now sits at AUD 88.9 million. Our inventories increased AUD 20 million on the PCP of 30th of June, 2025. AUD 12.6 million of this was acquired with the acquisition of Platinum Cables.
Additional AUD 7.4 million was procured by IPD to support current projects and our future growth. Operating free cash flow, which is the operating cash flow before interest and tax outflows, was 67.5% for the first half of FY 2026, with this increased investment in working capital in the first half. The 12-month rolling operating cash flow conversion was 92.2% for the calendar year 2025. Dividends. The underlying net profit after tax from ordinary was up 8.3% on the prior comparative period, and today the directors declared a fully franked dividend, interim dividend of AUD 0.068 per share for the first half of FY 2026. AUD 0.068 per share equates to a payout of AUD 7.1 million and a payout ratio of 50%.
Again, I'm pleased to announce another record performance. Now let me hand back to CEO, Michael Sainsbury, to take you through the next slide.
Thank you, Jason. Slide 14, there is a title slide just announcing the market and business update. We move straight to slide 15, and we talk about here, focusing on growth, innovation, and opportunity. There's 3 key sectors that we'll call out here, directly, indirectly, the, the 3 autonomous sectors, but there is a link between all 3 of these sectors. I'll start on the left there with water wastewater. A, a, massive opportunity for us as an organization and an investment for a long time. You can see some notes in there that water needs are rising. Sydney Water has estimated that their data centers could add between 15 and 2035, and this is because of the cooling, technology that's been introduced in data centers. That in itself will drive an uptake in water and wastewater.
It'll make up 35% of the non-residential drinking water demand, so therefore, the link between that and data centers. If we talk about the infrastructure investments, there's AUD 8.9 billion being committed to the National Water Grid Fund, backing over 180 water projects across Australia, covering infrastructure, planning, and constructions. This space for us is materially attached to the IPD business in the automation and control, where pumping is paramount, but not exclusively. There is opportunity, certainly in cabling and maintenance and repair, so opportunities across the whole into this vertical space. In the middle there, we talk about data center and data center infrastructure. With DeepSeek AI models claim that they'll use 10%-40% less energy.
However, the rise in AI adoption will offset those savings, and there is a significant investment into data centers. Australia is now the world number two behind the US in terms of investment into the data center space. When we last reported to the market, it was forecasted that there would be close to AUD 26 billion worth of money invested into this space. In the last six months, that has doubled to a pipeline now of AUD 52 billion in pipeline for data center projects. That is a massive opportunity, and while it was big for us six months ago, materially, it's twice as big, and we have found a niche in a, in a couple of our product portfolios. Our product is obviously well attached to this space.
I've got a product called Bus Ducts, which is a replacement for cable in the, in the white spaces in data centers and drives a significant upside for us as well, where we have a really good, strong product portfolio and well accepted in data centers. A really significant opportunity. I've called out the power switchboard systems. There is cable, there is energy management, there is a whole plethora of products that go around this space as well. The last one that I'll talk to you there is mining and resources. Materially, this is much more important for the organization now as a result of the Platinum acquisition, because most of their revenue comes from this mining and resources sector. It's experiencing steady growth. It's driven by a steady increasing investment in hard mining and the industry of electrification.
It's actually a double-edged sword, driving mining investment. You've got rising global demand, and positions us at the forefront of a data center and AI-enabled mining transformation. What we're seeing there is some of the raw materials of copper, and the likes of being mined, certainly a lot more to be able to support cables and battery energy storage. We're seeing a mining opportunity on the back of the data center demand and the raw materials that are required to deliver that. We're also seeing a massive investment from the mine sites around the electrification of their economy. We're talking about their fleets going more towards electric fleet solutions there.
Mining is, is certainly a significant part of our business now and, and certainly a significant part of our growth forecast for the future. I'll go into it a little bit deeper there. Mining, first and foremost, I'll draw to your attention the four businesses that we call out. Platinum, most of its revenue comes from that mining environment. CMI, certainly all of the Minto plugs and a portion of their cable goes into mining. EX Engineering, playing in the hazardous area space, has a significant footprint in mining. IPD with switchgear and switchboard systems and a whole lot of other products. Four of our five businesses materially attached to mining and significant. I mentioned it before, but I'll reinforce it again.
It's transforming through electrification to deliver better operational efficiency to these mine sites and sustain the accelerating of those global energy transition. We talk about the fleet transition and on-site battery storage. We talk about the introduction of micro renewable energy microgrid using wind and solar to be able to support the energy requirements of these end users. We talk about the AI-driven operations, where it requires the data centers. We talk about electrical infrastructure upgrades to support that mining electrification. There's some really key points mentioned here. Up to 86% cost reduction using an electric-powered fleet as opposed to a diesel-powered, down in the notes below.
Battery electric underground mining truck is found to be 25% faster and producing 80% less heat for it to be able to move towards that electric fleet as opposed to diesel-powered fleet. Certainly supporting the Australian Net Zero Plan with the updated target. Target aims at 62%-70% emission reduction by 2035, and that's coming upon us faster than we all can imagine, and net zero by 2050. All of this means that a, you know, a good, strong tailwind in the mining environment that will have a positive impact on our business. Slide 17. We've included this slide for the last couple of years, and it's, it's important that I highlight it here.
On the left, we have at the category for the first half of 2026, and power distribution, significantly, and a large portion of that comes from the ABB business, coming from power distribution. You can see there that it goes down to power monitoring at 4%. Down the bottom on the left there, we have the revenue by end market, and materially and historically, commercial or general construction has been our largest vertical at 31%, with mining, industrials, and that infrastructure space at 24%. Data centers at 17%, which has, as we said before, has grown at 16% and materially with that one representing 25% growth. Water, wastewater at 13%, which has been growing steadily. Others at 7%, utilities at 4%.
Food, I reinforce this, that less than 1% of our revenue comes from that residential construction space. On the right-hand side, you can see the changing nature of our portfolio as a result of the acquisition of the Platinum business. We're showing you on the right here the pro forma revenue by category. You can see a dilution of the power distribution there, as I said before, materially, a large portion of that is ABB, which means the supplier cost as a result of the acquisition of Platinum, and cables have grown from 21% of our total revenue to 29% of our total revenue to call out in that top graph.
If I go down to the bottom there, the pro forma revenue by end market, you can see now that that infrastructure, industrial, vertical segment at 31%, with buildings now coming in under. Data centers, pro forma, has reduced from 17% to 15%. That is, as I say, as a washout of the acquisition of Platinum. The rest remain not necessarily a massive amount of change, a 1% dilution across the rest, which is rolled up to the top. It gives, reinforces the changing nature of our business and the changing environment as a result of the Platinum, Platinum acquisition. If I move forward to slide 18, and I go into a little bit of a deeper dive here about the individual businesses that make up that group as presented in an earlier slide.
I talk firstly to the IPD business, Power, Control, and Automation. On the left-hand side there in the blue box, we talk to some of the initiatives and the highlights that we've been focusing on in the first half of the year. We've seen an increase in LV electrical distribution market share with the ABB product predominantly across all thousand voltage, certainly into that data center space. Strong growth of Bus Duct systems into large commercial and data center opportunities, supported by a very strong support our customers, and also project delivery through the life cycle of the order as well. We've had a focused approach on the techno low vol- into that switchboard builder channel and dedicated sales and estimation teams driving strong year-on-year growth for a product now that has a portfolio that has been growing strongly over the last four years.
We've seen strong growth in our industrial communications portfolio into key strategic segments, specifically renewables, through early engagement of our strategic sales team and the sales team focusing much earlier into projects than we have in the past. We see the Build, which is an online configurator tool. It's a web-based tool. It enables customers to be able to build up quotations and get drawings instantly from this web-based tool. It'll bring efficiencies to our business where we don't have to get our estimating teams a quote on everything. A lot of it will be owned by our customers, and that'll obviously support them, and it's a further, I guess, investment for us into digitization and process streamlining.
Some of the major projects that we've embarked on in the first half of the year, we're showing there the Firmus Data Center, which was down in Tasmania. We've done the supply of the switchboard systems and all the low-voltage switchgear through a company called JLE Group, with the parent company as Mars Group. We've continued our strong put data center. We're not only supplying the ABB power distribution into their TDUs, but we're now supplying Bus Duct into multiple sites across New South Wales and Victoria with this product portfolio of Bus Duct.
a leading retailer who we're not able to mention, but we've, we've done the automated distribution switchboard systems, the low voltage switchgear and distribution boards to that retailer in Victoria, and the Fulham Solar Farm, where we've done the battery project, which has the IO switches and a communication box package there. Some large-scale opportunities and certainly some strong reference sites to be able to leverage off for future success in associated areas. Slide 19 is give a bit of an overview for reinforcement. It's solutions for high voltage with a, with a strong focus on EV charging infrastructure. In terms of the initiatives, we've successfully implemented a technician utilization initiative, where we've seen an increase in that utilization by an average of 20% over last year.
Was one of the challenges in that business, utilization of our, our, our tradespeople was certainly one of the areas that impacted the financial performance of Addelec in the past. Pleased to say, the initiatives we've put in place is having a positive effect, effect there. We have been signed up as an authorized value partner for ABB Motion. Motion predominantly is made up of the variable speed drives and motors range, their services requirements as a value partner of them. They only have a finite amount of resources, and they use us for workflow overflow and to be able to. We've also seen that with the ABB charging business, the EV charging business. We are also an AVP for the EV charging business as well.
Pleased to say that in the New South Wales workshop of the Addelec there, where we're doing variable speed drive, repairs and servicing, and we're doing calibration, we've, we've increased that. We've grown that by over 200% in the first half of the year. In terms of major projects, we successfully delivered the first transit authority, Malaga Bus Depot, which is the electrification of that bus depot out there in the first half of the year. Delivered Sydney Airport's first EV charging infrastructure. That positions us well for, for future opportunity around that Sydney, the electrification around the airport. Our power services team have tested and calibrated over 18,000 SWA assets. Do this for utilities, we do it for the, the large electrical contractors.
A large portion of this is being done for the Victorian utilities out of our. As I said in the initiatives and highlights, we've seen the workshop in New South Wales also grow in this space. We've won the contract to provide the Anakie Solar Farm with the HV equipment, which was a big win for the business as well. That's the Addelec Power Services business. If I move forward to slide 20, which talks about the EX Engineering business, electrical safety solutions for hazardous areas. As we said before, a really strong first half result there, and some of the initiatives that we've done to underpin that. We certainly, we've a lot of time and effort put into the preparation for the transfer of the Stahl distribution.
Stahl is a hazardous area, and it's much better aligned with the EX business than it is the IPD business. A lot of preparation being done in the first half of the year to transition that over to EX. We believe that because of the nature, the specialized nature of that EX business in the hazardous space, that they will have a lot more success and drive future demand of that portfolio with a specialization in that space. We've now, we've, we've now kicked that off, that started in January.
Two warehouses and one workshop on the East Coast, where we've had no real increase in our in our cost base because we are using the CMI facility there, which is great because we manufacture Minto plugs from there, and we now have the capacity to be able to manufacture that hazardous area, switchboard systems, local control stations, also for that environment as well. There's been a continued increase in the demand for Dexon's enclosure. Dexon's enclosure goes into, which is predominantly in, in grain with the likes of CBH. Certainly a lot of time and effort being put into that space, and we've got a manager that supports that. It's a role we've created, supporting the grain industry, and additional engineering resources in there to support that, to be able to support that grain.
CBH is certainly a big part of the EX business, but we look to expand that with others in that space. A lot of cross-selling of cable supplied by CMI. There was an AUD 1 million order from EX Engineering, which was in the first half of this year, which is one of the, the, the, the res- one of the actions that are underpinning the strong result in that area. The shame of that was, it was one of CMI's competitor that was specified for the cable. We've now changed that specification, where in the future, that oil and gas site will accept CMI cables. That's a big win for us. It was AUD 1 million in the first half of the year, which was a competitor's cable.
We'll now see that through the synergies created inside the organization as a CMI opportunity as well. A number of custom enclosures manufactured has grown by 79% year-over-year in that EX business. The great part about that is building custom. It makes it harder to be price-checked. It makes it much more minute. That growth is certainly good and represents a significant opportunity for us in the future as well. If I can see CMI business, experts in electric cable and power connections. On the left-hand side there, we've got a lot of initiatives. I spoke quite excitingly in this when we last delivered to the market, and there's certainly a lot going on there.
National projects and tendering team has been expanded to enhance quotation opportunities and streamline the coordination of the large-scale project deliveries. Our ambition is to take CMI from what has been traditionally a tier 2, tier 3, tier 4 electrical contractor base, continue to embrace that environment, but also move it upstream into that tier 1 space, and that investment will certainly support that. We've signed a distribution agreement for a company called Mennekes, which is a plug-and-socket system, which is effective January 1. Mennekes manufacture a high quality, very, very, very, well-specified plug and receptacle system, C plug and socket system, which goes into refrigeration of containers, what we call reefer, and a lot of opportunity in ship-to-shore, but also in data centers.
We're not only expanding our play in our existing portfolios in that CMI business, but we are expanding the portfolio into parallel products that complement that environment as well. We've successfully relocated operations to maintain a modern. The warehouse where we used to store all of our cable for CMI was old, was antiquated, certainly not efficient. We've moved that into a new facility scale to enable us to support a larger business scale, but also much more efficient and certainly for our people, a much more comfortable environment than where they were before. We've successfully integrated a new cable manufacturing facility following a comprehensive factory audit. What this will do is expand our capacity around cable, the technical compliance coverage and the supplier resilience, giving us a more diversified supplier base and overall production capacity.
And it could, it could very well possibly drive some increase in margins with a, with a, a slightly better cost model from this newly integrated supplier as well. We've implemented a packaging recycling program where suppliers... During their delivery runs, which obviously improves sustainability and reduces waste, which is a key part of our strategy moving forward. We've developed as part of the Minto offer to meet a major customer's site-specific requirements, which will improve, improve their reliability and the operational clarity for that, for that site as well. In terms of major projects, a significant SWA cable supply contract for a major project in northwestern Australia. SWA is steel wire armored cable, so it is much stronger and it's less ability to be able to damage it in these industrial and harsh environments.
We supported a government infrastructure project in Cairns with specialized cabling solutions. We've supplied the mains and sub-mains cable for a commercial building development in Darling Harbour, which is the redevelopment of that precinct down there in Darling Harbour. We've partnered with a tier 1 contractor to provide customized termite-proof cable for a critical infrastructure project just outside of Brisbane. We've worked closely with one of our national wholesaler partners, fire-rated cable, and it's called LSZH, which is a low smoke, zero halogen cable, very specialized into a major...
We've manufactured and delivered Minto plugs, receptacles, and the dummy plugs in a very short timeframe into Western Australia mine site for substation upgrade, and they're exceedingly pleased with our performance there and at value that, that we bring to their business, continuous supply of the Minto range for a global partner in the major mining infrastructure projects across Asia. That's a number of countries that we call out there. That is the four businesses. Oh, sorry, I haven't traditionally, the IPD business. I will give a little bit of an update on Platinum. It's obviously a four initiatives and highlights that they've done in the first half of the year, obviously, we'll be the beneficiary of that moving forward. Cabling solutions for the mining and resources sector.
Their successful introduction for market, a new longwall mining cable range, strong MVXLPE, XLPE, strong volume leverage from growth initiatives and focus into that mining space. A significant investment into people development and recruitment, recruitment to further enable product development and customer responsiveness. It is one of the things that they hold themselves at the core, is their responsiveness and the customer-centric attitude in the Platinum business. The diversification issues into non-mining markets is certainly generating activity, and we talk specifically there into transport, is a big one for that space there. In the major projects, the tender submission for a WA iron ore decarbonation, decarbonization project, plus other significant strategic project pipeline upgrades.
We've designed, supplied, and secured regular new value-add comms cables and enclosures into 2 new mines that we haven't supported before, and 3 significant low voltage and medium voltage power cable projects have been supplied as well. Ultimately, Platinum have always kept their close to their chest because they don't want to be bringing that to the attention of all their competitors, which is why we keep that quite broad in there, so we don't give a leg up to our competitors in that space there. Moving forward to slide 23, which is a title slide around strategy and outlook. We'll move straight to slide 24, where we talk about our strategic pillars. Obviously, as an organization, we are committed to long-term shareholder value creation. There's 4 pillars that will support that. The top left there is around business growth.
We talk about that slight, breaking that up into 2 areas. I've got 3 points there to cover that. Organic growth, we're going to add products and solutions to our clients, the long-term value creation for those high-potential customers. The agreement with MENNEKES in the CMI business, we've just signed an agreement with a company for emergency lighting distribution in Australia, so that will also be an addition to our portfolio. We continue to add our, our business model and our customer base to be a, have a, a bigger basket to support our customers. We've invested over the last two years in what we call strategic creation team, working much earlier in a project cycle around specification and demand creation.
It's strengthening our expertise in UPS mining cables to capitalize on these high demand sectors. That team work across the group, and you can see by the inclusion of mining cables into that space, that they will certainly be working with end users and consultants about driving specification, which will have a benefit for the Platinum business. As importantly, we can, our, our funds and, and as you've seen with the Platinum business, using debt where it's appropriate, and if we find the right business in terms of scale, going to market to raise to support acquisitions. We wanna continue to invest in strategic acquisitions to increase our earnings, our market share, and our sector reach. I do say that our, our M&A pipeline is as robust as I have seen it, with lots of really good conversations going on with complementary business.
Operational efficiency, while we wanna continue to grow, we wanna do that with obviously, efficiency and scale, and we wanna leverage our shared services, the economies of scale that, that our shared services provide, and look at reducing our costs and expanding, while still maintaining and expanding our industry reach. In terms of the synergies and emerging technologies, we're gonna use partnerships and emerging technologies to develop innovative, adaptable solutions that will drive value and growth. While we wanna grow, we wanna grow our top line at a much faster rate than we do our bottom line. Our cost base, not our bottom line, our cost base. The bottom left there is around sustainability, which is a big part of our strategy. What we talk about there is reducing the environmental footprint, cutting what are we going to do?
Cutting grid energy reliance by using renewable energy. We're transitioning our vehicles to electric hybrid fleets that obviously support that and support our own product portfolio. A new lease arrangements we are demanding solar energy supply as part of that renewable ambition. We also wanna make a lasting social impact. We understand on the part of the ASX, we wanna make a large, a lasting social impact. We wanna support charities, we intend to support charities, industry initiatives, and education to support and strengthen the electrical industry. The bottom right there, I feel somewhat uncomfortable having this last because ultimately, people are the key to our business success, and our success has come on the back of being able to attract really good people to our business.
Our success depends on strong, engaged, and diverse workforce, essential in sustaining our growth. Two areas of focus, employee well-being and development, employ enhancing that employee satisfaction, the engagement and safety remains a massive focus for us as a, as a management team, while being inclusive and a supportive workplace. A strong focus around talent attraction, which we've done a really good job at over the last couple of years. I think we could put, we certain, not think, I think we can improve our retention, and we are certainly focusing on that with some introduction of some new policies and some new, really attractive investments for the organization to retain our people. It's about keeping our talent, it's about having diverse talent to strengthen our team and uphold the high standards of the organization.
Which I'm sure is the slide you've all been waiting for. The headline there around sustained solid performance. The board expects the company to deliver. This is going to be supported by several positive operational and financial indicators. The strong first half results provide a robust foundation for the remainder of the year. January and February trading continues to demonstrate positive momentum across key business segments, including the. The company enters the second half with a healthy order book, a well-qualified opportunity pipeline, both of which provide us with confidence in the sustainability of the revenue and the earnings growth into the future. Slide 26 there is just our read through that, and slide 27 takes us to the question and answer slide. I will open the floor to any questions, and hopefully, we've got all the answers for you.
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're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Our first question comes from Philip Pepe with Shaw and Partners. Please proceed.
Thank you, result, and a very positive outlook statement. Just on the outlook for margin, appreciate the business mix change, with the Aussie dollar above AUD 70, if that's the margin, can you keep the benefit of that, or do you hedge or pass it on?
Yeah, we've got a robust hedging strategy, Phil. We've got it well. The time stock goes into production and sits in our warehouse and, and comes through it, it takes some time for that currency movement to flow through our books. We'll have the ability, you know, over time to, to manage that. We've managed our vendors quite well through the tough period of, I guess, currency drops. It'll probably start to level itself out a little bit now as opposed to anything else. We've definitely got the ability to control our pricing into the market, Phil, and we've got a long lead time into that dynamic because we've, again, hedged our supply, but we also have got a natural hedge in our stock profile at the same time.
Just sneak in a second one just on the outlook for data centers. A bit of press recently about the acceleration we're expecting to see later this calendar year. Certainly, you mentioned the, the size of the price has gotten bigger. How much visibility do you have in terms of revenue, to IPD Group? Is it six months or 12 months? How much in advance are you getting orders for, field equipment?
I'll answer that question in two ways, Phil. If I talk about visibility of data centers, we are in, Bus Duct is one of the first products that need to be, there's an engineering component to it, and we do Revit drawings and that sort of thing, which means that it's customized to the site. It goes through penetrations and around piping and infrastructure that's in the build. It gets us much... If I talk about visibility of the opportunity, we're talking probably 12 months out now, or even maybe further than that. Quotation pipeline, Bus Duct is early because of the nature of that, you know, in the customization of it, and with switchgear and switchboard systems probably coming maybe 6 months before the opportunity is in front of us.
Bus Duct a bit earlier, and switchgear around six months. In terms of the actual visibility of the data center expansion, because of it - and I guess we've invested, as I mentioned before, significantly into that strategic sales, which is working earlier, and they've identified, that strategic sales has identified, you know, around AUD 350 million worth of opportunity, which is not in our quotation pipeline yet because we're trying to influence specification. You could bet your bottom dollar, Phil, that, you know, probably a significant part of that AUD 350 million opportunity is around data centers. Yeah, mate, we're in a better position than we've ever been in getting much earlier visibility in that space.
Excellent. Thank you, and well done again.
Thanks, mate. Thanks, Phil.
Your next question comes from Matthew Chen with the Moelis & Company. Please proceed.
Morning, gents. Congrats on the result. Just wanted to ask how you guys are thinking about pricing across your product portfolio and that product portfolio has been updated in recent times. Thanks.
Yeah, mate. In the last three months, in particular, growing and growing quickly, and a large portion of our portfolio now in cable, only valid for 24 hours because of the, the, I guess, the, the fluctuating nature of copper and the impact that has on the cable. We get the ability to be able to reprice that based on copper fluctuation. That, that is a massive change because we used to be, we would validate our quotes, hold our quotes valid for one month, but it's literally 24 hours now. That is having a flow-on effect even into the IPD business. We're seeing some of our suppliers look- commodity is increasing.
As Jason said before, we have really good ability to be able to use that as a positive influence on us because we have 4 to 4 months worth of stock on hand. We have another three to four months on generally, or three months on the water or on order with our customers, where the pricing is locked in. Literally, any price increase, materially, we won't tend to see it for six months. Because of the noise that goes in the market around commodities and the impact of that on pricing, it gives us the ability to be able to use that as an opportunity to increase our pricing to the market, which could give us some margin leverage. That, you know, I, I feel comfortable that we're protected. We could potentially use that as an opportunity.
We did put our pricing up, just over 4% on the 1st of March, and we will be doing some other price increases that as a result of this rising commodity pricing, but we'll do that outside of a portfolio-wide increase. You know, more, I guess, focused pricing approach on those ones that are materially affected. With any new products that come in, mate, it's the typical bell curve. You know, you've got to price it competitively to get it into the market and get acceptance and get penetration into the market. Once you build that, you can, you can certainly look to once you get it acceptance, but we've still got to be market-relevant.
You know, we understand that we're a business, puts a large focus on engineering and technical support, and, and, any new products that we bring on, we, we expect to be able to bring in, you know, gross margins equal to that of the organization or great, not, not a dilution of the result.
Great. Thank you.
No worries, Matthew. Thank you. Thanks, Matt.
Our next question is from Bruce Bennett with [Austria Enterprises]. Please proceed.
... good morning, Michael. Bruce Bennett here. I'm glad I'm able to be involved today. Thank you again for the good result. Up to the proportion of the investment in cabling and whether or not this is going to be able to provide the same level of growth and returns as other parts of the business. You know, we've got now, what? Almost 30% of the business in cables. Is, are you worried that we're going to be able to maintain the, the growth, given that there's that much involved in cabling? That's my first question.
The businesses, CMI and now Platinum, actually have a positive impact on EBIT and EBITDA margins. That actually, you know, brings a positive result to the organization. When I talk to you about growth opportunities, Bruce, materially, you know, every product that we sell in our business hangs off the end of a cable. If there's an upgrade in the product or an in, you know, or a new site where there is as much opportunity in cable growth as there is any other part of our business. The other thing is that CMI have a market share, which is actually lower than the IPD business, and our expectation is to grow it at twice the market rate. Certainly, there's plenty of opportunity to grow that the market in the CMI business.
Even in the Platinum business, while they do very well in that mining environment, expanding their cable portfolio into areas like traffic and, and other areas, but also expanding it, you know, they're predominantly in hard rock mining, but into other areas of mining, is something that the group can bring scale, can bring investment. No, I guess to summarize all that, Bruce, I'm extremely enthusiastic about the growth opportunities attached to cable and the positive impact.
All right. Another question relates to Platinum. It would appear that Platinum doesn't manufacture their cable, they source it from overseas. Is that correct?
That's correct, mate. Yes.
Yeah. I was wondering, so really, they don't have any particular, anything like that. I assume most of the money you paid for Platinum was goodwill?
Yeah, it's a fair assumption. However, a large portion of ours is a very highly engineered type environment. While they use third-party manufacturers to do that, they are working extremely and, and understanding their requirements, and understanding the technical nature, and the safety focus, and all that sort of thing of the cable requirements. A lot of the time, the products that they take to market are engineered by the, you know, the technical team in the, in the Platinum business, working with the end user to identify the requirements, and then taking that to our partners on a global scale. We're not relying upon them to provide us with, you know, the engineering. We're doing that in-house. Yeah, there is some IP attachment to it, in, just in the, in the, in the design of the product.
I think that will only grow into the future once we expand into other areas as well. It's fair to say that, you know, CMI would struggle. We said that to this space, and all of our competitors manufacture the cables that Platinum are doing offshore. Nobody manufactures it in-house. The only cable that's manufactured here in Australia, and I think it'll only be for the next two years because there's some financial limit which will expire in two years' time. I expect all of our competitors that manufacture here locally, as much as it kills me to say it, I think that they'll move that manufacturing offshore. Any cables, the equivalent cables that we take to market offshore, so we're not in any different positions than the rest of our competitors.
In the case of... You've got net tangible assets now at AUD 112 million. Just out of an indication, how much of that is goodwill? The reason I'm saying that is because we suddenly find, you know, things are going really well now, but in a couple of years' time, if things go bad, suddenly there'll be a huge write-down in the, in the goodwill of the business, and we'll be down AUD 50 million or something.
Yeah.
I'm just wanting to get the indication now of that, that AUD 112 million in intangible assets. What would you indicate? Is it half of that goodwill, or how much of that's goodwill in that intangible assets?
Now, almost all of that, almost all of that is goodwill, Bruce. There's a small amount of R&D work that we capitalize from the CMI business. We, Platinum haven't historically gone down that path, so almost goodwill. Again, from a head entity that has been quite acquisitive, you know, that goodwill balance is a number of acquisitions. That's made up of, you know, the past nine acquisitions that we've made, Bruce.
You haven't depreciated any of that goodwill. You think all that goodwill is still valid?
All of that goodwill is-
The final question I've got is, when we look at net tangible assets per share, that's a piece of Appendix 4D, they've been reaching AUD 0.02 a share. Can you explain what's happened there?
Yeah. Sorry, Bruce Bennett. We've got another call after this, no, the, the difference on that has just been the combination with the acquisition, of course. There's a bit of timing difference there around the debt that is having an impact on that tangible assets, Bruce Bennett. Whilst we've got the combination of, of Platinum Cables folding in, we've had to take fund it, and that's creating the timing difference on tangible assets. As we pay that debt down, we're going to see that, you know, that movement in, in tangible assets.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Bruce!... I think we've got time maybe for one more?
Okay, our last question will be Adam Dellaverde with Taylor Collison. Please proceed.
Morning, gentlemen. You can hear me okay?
Yeah, mate, got you loud and clear, mate.
Okay. Just, just a point of clarification, if you will. I think at one point you were referring to data centers in % and another time in, in millions.
You're right, mate.
32.8 number.
Yeah, you're right, mate. In the opening, I referred to 32.8, which is the actual dollar value. AUD 32.8 million is the dollar value that data centers contributed in the first half of the year. As I said, there was one order for Amazon, which slipped a week into January. If that had been delivered in the last week of December as we expected, it would have been 25% growth. My apologies, I did get that wrong. Thanks for the pickup.
No worries. Hey, I'll, I'll ask mine in a cluster, given, we're tight on time, if that's all right?
Yeah.
In data centers, what we've seen, I guess, from other supplying units, like, once you supply one product, you kind of saw all the counterparties, and you start trying to get other products sourced or complementary product sourced. I know you were doing some stuff with some trials with Bus Duct. I'm just curious, as you look at your partnering in data center about, you know, new contractors, is about more with the same sort of contractors or hyperscalers that you're working with, or is there sort of some other opportunities you can talk to? That's the first one. Second one is, we've noticed day-to-day is ticked up kind of for everyone, and I think everyone's sort of busy on data centers, improvement in the half and what that does to pricing.
I think quite competitive pricing was affecting some of the projects earlier on. Just to read there. Thank you.
It's a really good question, Adam, and no, it's the answer is, it's a double-edged sword there. We're working with our existing partners to expand our portfolio. We put in there, and you're right, once we build up strong relationships offering one product, we look to expand that into multiple products. That is. You'll see in that, the slide that I showed about the IPD business earlier, we're talking about the likes of Firmus, which we haven't spoken about before, with that JLE business, which is a new customer for us. It's a double-edged sword. We're gonna look to expand with our existing, but we're also talking to a number of new customers in that space to also expand our opportunity as well.
In terms of pricing, look, mate, it's a competitive market, and there's, you know, there's, there's some, there's some keen eyes on it, and a lot of people are, are working hard there. The good part for us is we get such visibility now, and the question came earlier about these data center projects, that it, while, while it might come with a gross margin realization lower than that than the, the traditional business, the, the attachment to it around working capital requirements and even, you know, delivery costs are significantly lower because we tend to not even receive them in. They go straight to the customer, particularly with Bus Duct, and it's one order entry for multiple millions of AUD, rather than being, you know, using our customer service teams or entrance.
The gross margin is, on these large, particularly these larger projects, is lower than the organization would normally see. If you roll that down to an EBIT level, because of the low cost attachment to it, it sort of washes out at the same sort of net margins, mate.
Well, that's helpful. Thanks. Just on the acquisitions are now starting to look really complementary in the sort of high voltage, hazardous space. Will you quantify any of the stuff? I know you've got sort of two warehouses on the same street now, for example.
Yeah. In, in Melbourne, we've co-located all of our, our, our businesses that are down there into one facility. We're doing that at the moment in Perth. We're co-locating all of our facilities into one area to one location in Perth. Your, your question is valid. I, I guess my thoughts on it are, Adam, it won't be a cost-saving synergy exercise. It's more about, you know, being able to expand into a growing business and a growing opportunity pipeline, but doing it with less cost attachment than it would take if we did it disparately with multiple sites.
I don't think you'll see a massive cost reduction in our P&L as a result of this strategy, but we'll certainly be able to take on bigger facilities, and you'll see the benefits in efficiency in the way we do it. Yeah, we're certainly using it as the opportunity to accommodate an expanding business, not the business we've necessarily got today.
All right. Just finally, sorry, I've taken a lot, services, How confident are you that this is the last time that segment will, will run a loss?
Yeah, I'm confident around that because I think I have to here now. Kingsgrove, we still haven't got 100% design from the end client in Kingsgrove bus depot. We've been asked to reprice the installation, which represents a good opportunity for us to increase the size of the opportunity. We've been unable to reprice it because the design is still not complete. I expect we'll recognize some revenue in this year. When I talk about the strategy, and I mentioned it earlier, we put in for that Addelec business, with the utilization issues around labor, and the initiatives we've put in place there are supporting it. It's much more of a focus and intent there around calibration than it has been in the past, which is a high-margin, high-yield business.
We're, we're certainly putting a lot of time and effort into bringing it back to a point where it's a positive contributor to the business and, and not an anchor. I, I'm confident the actions we're putting in place will underpin a result. It may actually reduce a little bit in top line as a result of that, that change, but it'll certainly have a positive impact at a bottom line.
Thank you.
There are no more further questions at this time. I'll hand it back to Mr. Sainsbury for closing remarks.
Thank you very much. Thank you to everybody for joining us today. The team and myself are really proud of what we've achieved, and it's a record result above the guidance, so we're pleased, and we're enthusiastic and proud of that. However, we're only scratching the surface at this stage. The business is in a very strong position, and our outlook statement reinforces that, some real good, positive momentum for the future and opportunity to continue to grow. Thanks for, thanks for your ongoing support. I look forward to catching up with a lot of days and over the next 6 months, and appreciate everything you guys do to support us.