Thank you for waiting everyone, and welcome to Mader Group's Full Year Results. I would now like to introduce your presenters, Justin Nuich, Mader Group's Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Hegarty, Chief Financial Officer, and Natasha Marti, Group Manager, Marketing and Investor Relations.
Thanks, Darcy. Appreciate that. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Mader Group's results presentation for FY2022. As Darcy just mentioned today, with me is our CFO, Paul Hegarty, and our Group Manager of Marketing and Investor Relations, Natasha Marti. We're really pleased to announce our performance this year, which speaks to the depth of talent we have across our entire team. Without them, we wouldn't be here today, diversifying globally, exceeding guidance, and launching multiple organic startups in new markets. It's just a testament to the strength of the team and the hard work that has gone on this year. Thank you very much to all of our team in the field and in the office for your dedication and efforts throughout what has been an exceptional year for the group.
I'd also like to mention a huge thank you to our board, Jim, Luke, Craig, and Patrick, for your ongoing contributions, guidance, and leadership, are all greatly appreciated by all of us. Thank you. Let's move on to slide one. I'll just give a brief overview of who we are as a business, for those who are new to our story, before we jump into the financial results. Who are we? We're a global provider of specialist technical services across multiple industries. Having started in 2005 with one man, Luke Mader, conducting field service out of his service truck in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, we now operate across the globe.
Active in nine countries, we've really grown considerably, reaching a milestone of 2,200 employees this financial year. With more than 900 field service vehicles, we have collectively supported over 350 customers in almost 500 different locations around the globe. Our technical specialists have provided 3.9 million hours of equipment maintenance through the year, supporting customers across the mining, energy, and industrial sectors. Moving on to the next slide. What we do. As you can see on this slide, we've really become a truly diversified global business. Looking at the graph below, you can see that through the years we've continued to deliver compounding results, which is a testament to our tap on, tap off business model as we penetrate new, large addressable markets.
With our latest ventures, Mader Energy and Canadian business unit now added into the mix, our growth strategy is performing well, and namely through additional service line and geographical diversifications. We're now offering support for mobile plant equipment, fixed infrastructure, and energy compressor stations, proving the versatility of our business model in new markets and new applications. We move on to the next slide, our specialized workforce. As you can see, just over half of our business consists of heavy duty diesel mechanic specialists, but we also have a spread of other qualified trades being auto electricians, high voltage electricians, light vehicle, and heavy road transport mechanics, just to name a few.
You notice that our specialized workforce consists predominantly of tradespeople between the ages of 25 and 35, and I think this really speaks to our company culture and the type of lifestyle we're proud to offer these employees. We invest in our people heavily, building careers that offer flexibility, variety, and career opportunities that are generally unmatched in the industry, whether that's through different rosters, variety of sites, and the wide diversity in equipment our people are able to work on. It also includes our Global Pathways initiative, which gives our workforce the chance to work around the globe without having to change their shirt. This program has expanded significantly over the past year and is allowing us to grow and develop our people as they explore new cultures.
Attracting and retaining the right people for our business is key to our success, and we continue to place a strong focus on building our name as an employer of choice. As always, safety is a core focus for our business, and we're pleased that our total increase significantly over the financial year with 4.48 recordable injuries per million man-hours worked. The improved figure is a testament to the leadership, safety systems, technology, and processes the whole business has worked so hard to implement. A highlight for the business included the rollout of our custom-built employee app across North America, which allows us to connect our people with an online communication, learning, and development platform. As a largely remote workforce, this is critically important to us as a business. With everything to do with safety, our work is never done in this space.
However, there is always room for improvement, and we'll continue to strive towards our goal of zero harm for our people with further investment in safety and leadership. M oving on to the next slide, number five there for the FY2022 highlights. We're now moving into the operational review. Again, I'm really pleased to be able to deliver these numbers today. The highlights for FY2022 include AUD 402 million in revenue, an increase of 32% from FY2021. Reaching the AUD 400 million mark and exceeding guidance is an incredible achievement for the group. We've had an increase in EBITDA, delivering AUD 48 million, up 34% from the previous financial year.
We've had a slight increase in net debt to AUD 26.7 million, representative of the company's continued capital investment as we expand into new regions and areas. Finally, we've declared AUD 8 million in dividends for FY2022, with dividends paid to shareholders increasing 33% from FY2021. We continue to deliver a fantastic result for our shareholders, delivering compounding returns for shareholders with a positive growth outlook for FY2023, with demand for our products remaining strong around the globe. Investment into fleet expansion remains significant, with more than 900 service vehicles around the globe. To note, this is purely growth capital for the business and typically orders are placed in anticipation of headcount growth. On to slide six, a review of our operations. Across the world and across all commodities, demand for our services continues to remain strong.
A macro view of our operations show that an assertive growth strategy is driving diversification both regionally and by service line. This strategy draws on market trends and operational strengths to capitalize on new addressable markets. In North America, our revenue more than doubled in FY2022, even with the launch of two organic startups. Both startup operations have already established a strong industry presence and delivered first revenue in the first half of 2022. Pleasingly, both of these have already broken even. Strong growth was also evident in our Australia and rest of the world segments, and I'll break down our segmental performance in the slides to follow. Moving on to slide seven, our segmental performance. AUD 342 million in revenue was delivered by our Australian business, which saw an increase of 25% from FY2021.
Demand for our core business offerings increased, representing 32% in revenue growth. A couple of areas for us to highlight in the Australian segment are our ancillary division and also our infrastructure maintenance division, which as you can see experienced a massive 120% revenue growth. We see infrastructure maintenance as one of our primary growth areas, and we'll continue to see this still grow in the coming years. I'll just quickly touch on the rest of the world segment before talking about North America. We experienced a 49% revenue growth in rest of the world, having operated in six countries across Asia and Africa. After recalling our workforce at the start of the pandemic, we're pleased with the progress that we have made towards returning to pre-COVID levels.
In saying this, however, the safety of our people has been our highest priority and we have very selectively re-engaged customers based on this. The outlook for FY2023 is looking positive, and towards the end of the financial year, we've bolstered support and added business development resources to strategically drive future growth in this area. Lastly, but certainly not least, is our North American segment, delivering $50 million in revenue, up 107% from FY2021. As I'm sure you can all agree, is an excellent result. We finished the year having provided support in 20 states across the U.S. and Canada. Our expansion into Canada was a really exciting move for the business with first revenue delivered in Q2. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, we strategically repositioned an experienced operations manager to drive the business unit.
Mader Canada is tracking strongly and has been further bolstered by our Global Pathways program, which sees us deliver highly skilled expatriate technicians into the region. Another exciting venture for FY2022 has been the launch of the organic startup, Mader Energy, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas. Launched to target the energy industry across North America and operating across major shale basins currently in the United States, we see this as being a huge addressable market for the group. I'd now like to hand over to our CFO, Paul, to run through the financial review.
Thanks, Justin. Good morning to everyone that has joined us on the call. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to follow our story in what is a very busy result season. The first point I'd like to make is that all earnings or profitability values that Justin has already mentioned, or that I will go through shortly, are underlying results. Earlier this year, Mader disposed of its 25% equity investment in Western Plant Hire. That divestment netted the group AUD 1.9 million at the NPAT line, with proceeds from the sale being reinvested in growth. The profit delivered from the investment sale has been excluded from all results reported within this presentation. Okay, onto the financial performance for the group. As Justin mentioned earlier, we delivered AUD 402 million in revenue, up 32% versus PCP.
That result was delivered with very strong growth from the most mature segment in our group, being Australia. Given restricted workforce mobility and a very tight labor market, the result from this segment was extremely pleasing. North America continued its compounding growth year-over-year, delivering 107% versus the PCP or 100% growth when excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates. Whichever one of those growth rates you consider, it was another solid year of growth in a market that is still very much in its infancy for us. The rest of world segment grew by 50% year-over-year, with both the PCP and FY2022 being very much impacted by workforce mobility and border closures.
We consider this segment to represent upside in FY2023, given we have just recently deployed business development resources for the first time since the pandemic began. Importantly, all of this revenue growth has been delivered with slightly improved margins versus the PCP. Gross margins, EBITDA, EBIT and NPAT all increased year-on-year. This is a testament to the team's dedicated focus on efficient operational delivery. Also of note is that the revenue contribution from North America has increased to 12%, up from 8% in the PCP. Given the strength of the Australian segment during the year, to be able to deliver continued diversification into North America at an increasing rate is something we are all very pleased with. From a shareholder perspective, earnings per share was up 44%.
Our profit payout ratio closed at 31% of underlying NPAT, and our total dividend payments increased by 33% versus PCP. We believe that all shareholders will be happy with the continued delivery of strong, consistent returns. Moving on to the financial position slide. As you can see, our asset base primarily comprises cash on hand, trade receivables, and property, plant, and equipment. We don't have any contract positions or any intangibles to be concerned about and therefore we consider it a relatively simple balance sheet. Our trade receivable position is largely with Tier 1 owner miners and large mining contractors and we generally, touch wood, don't have any abnormal credit risk profiles in the debtor book. Property, plant, and equipment increased year-on-year as we invested in growth.
We added over 230 service vehicles to our fleet, and we now have over 900 service vehicles deployed across multiple continents. All CapEx deployed in FY2022 was growth CapEx, with a portion of it allocated to support two new organic startups, as Justin mentioned, one in Canada and the other our Mader Energy business unit. While it was a record year for growth CapEx, a large portion of the expenditure will fund growth into FY2023 and beyond. This really shores up our supply chain in the new financial year to support our continued growth. From a leverage perspective, we continue to view our business as CapEx light, and we closed out the year with net leverage at around 0.6 times, which was stable year-on-year.
We are well supported by our lenders, with new facilities executed during the year with National Australia Bank. These facilities enable the business to act quickly as opportunities present. We are also in the final stages of establishing multiple offshore debt facilities in North America, which will position the business for growth. Now on to every accountant's favorite slide, the cash flow. Our net cash flow from operations was AUD 34, AUD 5.4 million, which is a really solid result. We maintained an intense focus on cash conversion of EBITDA, which closed at around 100% compared to operating cash flow before interest and tax. This reflects the quality of our client base and trade receivables, as I mentioned earlier. I've already spoken about our growth CapEx for the year, which was AUD 39.4 million when considering the cash flows for this investment.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, the sale of our 25% equity investment in Western Plant Hire delivered AUD 8.4 million of growth, gross cash flows back into the business. We held that investment for a little over 12 months, so the net return, which was circa AUD 1.9 million at the NPAT line, was a good result for all shareholders. Net financing cash flows and dividends round out the remainder of the waterfall, and I've already discussed the dividend profile for FY2022, so I think I'll leave it there. That's all from me. If you have nodded off during the financial section, I invite you to wake up as I hand back to Justin to discuss the outlook of the business.
Thanks, Paul. Okay, let's have a look at the next slide there around the geographical footprint. Finding myself here. Okay, if we have a look on slide 13 there, Australia, as you can see, a large portion of revenue is coming from our Australian business. Continuing to experience strong commodity markets, it's great to see that year-on-year, we're able to increase the revenue generated in this segment. We've got a very loyal customer base that we'll continue to support with a range of new service lines and our core mechanical offerings, which are still experiencing very high demand. In North America, as we said, we've seen a 107% increase in revenue to about $50 million in North America.
This is predominantly due to expansion of our services across the United States and slightly boosted by the inclusion of revenue from Mader Energy and our Canadian business unit in the second half of FY2022. We've invested heavily in service vehicles to continue growing our capacity over there in line with headcount growth. In the rest of the world, despite facing some hurdles over the year, delivered a strong result. Again, the safety of our people and ability to work around travel and permit restrictions was our key focus. If we look into our growth opportunities and addressable market, this slide gives me goosebumps every time I look at it, and that's goosebumps of excitement. Heading over the growth opportunities and addressable market slide, this really shows the exciting opportunities we have as a business.
As you can see, our current market share in North American operations is relatively small, with only 1.5% in Canada and 2% in the United States based on the number of operational sites. This makes for a huge addressable market for the group with plenty of opportunities for expansion. Again, the United States energy market is another giant addressable market for us as the world's largest shale gas producing region. If we move on to our structural growth drivers. As a business, we seek to improve the strength of our revenue base with a dedicated focus on geographic service line and sector diversification in existing and new markets. Our global expansion strategy is staggered in two key phases, primary and secondary, to ensure long-term sustainable momentum. Our primary growth drivers, North America, Mader Energy, and infrastructure maintenance, are all in high growth phases.
Our secondary growth drivers, rail services, power generation, and marine, and our other ancillary services are all anticipated to reach high growth in the coming years. Okay, we'll move on to slide 16, our outlook and guidance, which is obviously the slide you've all been waiting for. We're really pleased to announce that our current market conditions have provided Mader with the confidence to forecast FY2023 revenue of at least AUD 510 million, delivering an NPAT of at least AUD 33 million. We'll continue to refine our service offerings and deliver compounding growth and impressive returns for all of our shareholders. If we move on to slide 17. It's an exciting time in the Mader journey. For current and prospective investors, Mader presents a robust investment opportunity with many prospects ahead.
We have clear goals, a disciplined approach, and the ability to recognize our strengths. We have grown to hold a market cap of more than AUD 600 million. This is an outstanding effort since listing on the Australian Securities Exchange in October 2019. Since listing, we have been proud to report earnings that are in line with third-party broker forecasts, and I'd like to thank everybody that has supported us from day one, those who have jumped on board along the way, and future investors ready to join the journey. On behalf of the Mader Group, I would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to our team, our shareholders, our customers, and our suppliers. Thank you very much, everyone, and I'll be pleased to take some questions at this time.
All right. Thanks, Justin. I'll moderate the questions from here. I'm just working through some that have come through. A question around Canada, and the early wins there and the market perception. Talk us through early days, in that region.
Yeah, thanks, Paul. Yeah, look, we've certainly seen a massive demand in Canada for our services. We're seeing like similar skills shortage to probably what we see here in WA, if not even worse, which, you know, gives us a great opportunity to use our disruptive and flexible business model to grow into that region. That's also bolstered by the Global Pathways initiative, allowing us to run expats from other places of the world into Canada as well. Massive demand still there. Very high unfulfilled demand still to address in that market.
Thanks. Similar question here from Jono at Shaw and Partners. Good morning, Jono. USA and Canada, but USA as well, they're growing materially. Can you give us an idea of headcount in these regions? Would you expect utilization to rise? How does that come through over FY2023 in both those regions as headcount grows?
Yeah. Thanks, Jono. Appreciate your comments there. Yeah, look, expecting to continue to see huge growth rates in North America. You know, again, our ability to recruit, to have flexible people to get around the country and address these markets will continue to be there. Headcount growth now across North America, probably around that 200 mark, just probably tipping over that now. Yeah, look no sign of things slowing up. As we said, we're only, you know, still just penetrating that market.
As we're continuing to build that brand and, you know, customers' knowledge of our business, it's pretty exciting as we start to see that really snowball in that North American region.
No worries. Thank you. A few questions coming through, which I'll jump on, that's coming through from multiple listeners. Jono, Matt from Maven, I think Ari from Barrenjoey, and Joseph from Bell Potter are all asking the questions. It all centers around cash conversion, which was around 100%, particularly given the growth in revenue, how that was achieved. I'll jump on that one, Justin. It's really, throughout the year, we've been optimizing the way that we interact with our clients, and the timing of invoicing. Making sure that we submit invoices at an improved time of the month that gets us into payment runs and the like, much sooner, which then ends up with the cash in our bank account.
That's really the key driver of a lot of those or of that improvement, I should say. Working through some other questions. Trade Up Program. What's the latest on the Trade Up Program, Justin, and how does that look for FY2023?
Yeah. Thanks, Paul. Yeah, look, the Trade Up Program is something we'll continue to support and get behind. We've had over 180 people through that Trade Up Program to date with about 120 active at the moment. We've introduced that over in the East Coast as well as WA now. The uptake on both ends of the country has been really strong. Something that we can get behind, we can continue to, you know, I guess, support the industry by bringing more apprentices and more skilled people into a, you know, a very under-resourced area of the industry. We'll continue to see that grow.
Thanks, Justin. A couple other questions coming through. So many different growth opportunities. This is from Matt from Maven. So many different growth opportunities to choose from, as we talked about, how do we decide where to allocate capital and to focus on those opportunities?
Yeah. Thanks, Matt. Yeah, look, it's a good question and, you know, we spend a fair bit of time juggling that around ourselves. I guess when we look at our addressable markets really, and the regions we can sort of grow in, you know, disrupt current business and business models, and apply our business model to addressable markets is really where we sort of see those opportunities with, you know, with the right margins.
You know, I guess North America, as we know, has been a very successful startup for us, hence the further investment into energy and into Canada where we're seeing, you know, those good margins as well as large addressable markets. We'll continue to invest in those and, you know, continue to look at others as we expand. I think importantly, we continue to invest in our people, particularly our homegrown leaders that we teach the business model that we upskill and then we're.
I guess we're able to provide those opportunities to people to go and replicate the business model in different markets and different industries as we've done successfully to date.
Thank you. Thank you, Justin. A couple of more boring questions coming through, which I'll quickly just answer to tick them off the list. From Ari, from Barrenjoey, increase in other income to AUD 2.825 in FY2022. That was really related to the Scomo apprentice rebate that Trade Up Program benefited from. That's what that relates to, which will step down progressively over FY2023 and FY2024. North American EBITDA margins, second half were 18%. We've always sort of talked about a 20%+ there. The key driver, I guess, in that reduction was the investments in Canada and Mader Energy. Both those business units weighed on North American margins as they worked towards profitability, which as of today, they both are.
That was a good result there. A lot of questions around CapEx for FY2023, given the AUD 40 million odd invested in FY2022. At this stage, based on supply chains and inbound deliveries, we're forecasting AUD 25-30 million of CapEx for FY2023. Kind of works through a lot of the common themes there. A question from Marcus from Spheria. How far ahead of the curve have we invested in U.S. and Canada with those early service trucks that we've purchased there, Justin?
Yeah. Thanks, Marcus. Yeah, look, we think we're doing pretty well in that space. That's the demand and the growth in those regions, Marcus, is catching us really quickly. What we're finding in Canada, though, is we're actually able to distribute those service vehicles amongst sort of multiple tradespeople as we get these larger projects, which really helps us sort of spread out that capital and, you know, still manage great growth rates without, you know, burning the bank on service trucks. Yeah, look, we've still got a few up our sleeve with a decent pipeline that we've managed to wrangle from around the place. We think we're pretty well placed to continue those, you know, those extraordinary growth rates.
Thanks, Justin. Question from Gav from Euroz. Good morning, Gav. Thanks for joining the call. There's some inbound traffic from Gav around our guidance at AUD 510 million revenue and NPAT of 33, which puts us at a 6.5% NPAT margin, which is consistent with this year. How do we think about that as a business, Justin, in terms of FY2023? You know, is there an opportunity there for those margins to be higher, for revenue to be higher? You know, what sort of risk overlays are we thinking about right now?
Yeah. Thanks, Gav. Good question. Yeah, look, we like that guidance at 510. We think they're, you know, I'd love to be sitting here at half year providing a good upside on that. You know, that said, you know, we're still quite unsure around how the rest of the world is gonna play out. You know, it's showing some positive signs, but, you know, the proof will be in the pudding there as we grow into that space. You know, North America as well. You know, again, it's still a new market for us. Energy, although, you know, really positive signs so far.
You know, we've been reasonably conservative with what we can do there and hope to outperform that. You know, as far as those margins go, Gav, yeah, look, I mean, obviously the North American region provides some better margins for us. As that continues to scale and grow at the rates we've seen, you know, that impact on the group margins should flow through.
Thanks, Justin. A couple of other questions coming through. Jason, from Taylor Collison, thanks for joining the call. Jason, just to answer some of the remaining questions on your list. Western Plant Hire, that was reported into the corporate segment, so you'll see that in the segment note there. Other revenue increase, the AUD 5.5 million, that predominantly is the Western Plant Hire, increased pre-tax and pre-selling costs. So that's most of those questions. A question from Marcus, again, from Spheria on OEMs. Can you make any early comments on how OEMs are responding to your business model? I guess that's probably more so in the new markets such as Canada, for example.
Yeah. I guess, you know, we're seeing probably similar things to here. I mean, the skills shortage is a real thing. I guess our ability to service a market that, you know, doesn't necessarily sit in that warranty space where the OEMs are probably more predominant. You know, our ability to attract and have that flexible workforce to work across multiple regions and states, you know, makes us a very attractive employment prospect for technicians. Also, you know, provides a slightly cheaper alternative to our customers with a OEM-agnostic solution that, you know, so far has been very successful. I mean, we're actually being engaged by the OEMs at a lot of the North American regions as well.
You know, we're actually seen as a help rather than a hindrance in most cases.
Thanks. Question coming through from Sam Webb, also from Barrenjoey, around Mader Energy. Anything particular to energy that makes scaling the business easier or harder than the existing business units?
Yeah. I guess Mader Energy, we're probably seeing some more third-party activity over there than we do in the mining space. You know, that said, you know, it's really well catered to our disruptive business model. You know, we've got the service trucks, we're flexible. We can work across multiple states and multiple regions on sort of any sort of equipment. That's just in the compression space. You know, what that does is sort of starts making us a notable player in that energy space, allowing us to then scale into things like pipelines and refineries and other things outside of just the compression space.
Really just the foot in the door before we can, you know, move into bigger and more addressable markets as well.
Thanks, Justin. Again from Marcus, a question we've got a lot recently around Q4 versus Q3, the step up from three to four, Q3 to Q4, and, I guess, the structural drivers behind that, and whether that will continue into Q1 and onwards of FY2023.
Yeah. I mean, Q3 to Q4 was a pretty significant step up and most of that was marked by the opening of WA borders and really unlocking the workforce across Australia. You know, moving into Q1 looks certainly still seeing some good signs. You know, probably not quite at that rate that you're seeing there, but it's still pretty impressive. We're seeing as we scale into new service lines, you know, we're not competing for the same labor as we always have been, and also into different geographies. You know, we're unlocking a lot of potential to grow.
We'll continue to leverage off that and we should see that the business continue to scale at a much better rate.
Thanks. A lot of talk about North America in our presentation, not so much about South America. Thoughts on a possible expansion into South America, Justin?
Yeah, look, wouldn't say no. I think when we look at the, you know, I suppose the margins and the addressable market in North America, which has typically for us been an easier place to operate than South America, our focus is, you know, fairly and squarely on that at the moment. Look, if the opportunity came in there, we'd, you know, we would have a look at it for sure.
Okay. Quite a few questions on FY2023 outlook, particularly around revenue and the geographic breakup there. Those questions coming through from Joseph House from Bell Potter. I think Sam Webb also is interested in that one. I guess early days yet for us. We're not intending to break up our revenue guidance by segment at this stage. What we will say is probably that we're expecting North America to continue to grow at the rates it has done historically and the rest of the business to make up the balance of that growth. Probably the best way to answer that. U.S. EBITDA margins excluding the new divisions that's come through from Wei Min from MST Financial have the margins been maintained when you add that back?
We are calling out a sort of a AUD 1.2 million equivalent of investment in Mader Energy and Mader Canada for FY2022. When you add that back, margins are at the same levels they've been at historically there. The North American business ex those investments is going well. I think that just about wraps up all questions. Nothing else has come through. We might close it off there, Justin.
Yeah, no worries. Thanks, Paul, and thanks everyone for joining us on the call. I think we're speaking to a lot of you over the next few days, so look forward to doing those one-on-ones and, yeah. Thanks again, everyone. We sure do appreciate your support and look forward to continuing on delivering some great results for you.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.