Thank you. Welcome to the Macmahon Results presentation for financial year 2024, and thank you for joining us today during the busy ASX reporting period. As always, we appreciate your time and interest in Macmahon and the opportunity to run through today's presentation. I'll provide an overview of our results, and Ursula will run through the financials in more detail. I'll then conclude with some commentary on our strategic priorities and outlook, after which we will be happy to take questions. Starting with the financial highlights on slide two, I'm really pleased to say we had another strong year with the business again, delivering revenue and underlying earnings growth. We continued to improve our return on average capital employed, which was driven by our disciplined approach to capital expenditure and high free cash flow generation. This allowed us to again increase our dividend payout ratio to shareholders.
Reducing our capital intensity in the business has been a focus for management for some time, and we are now seeing tangible results from these efforts through increased earnings, cash flow, and returns to shareholders. We will continue optimizing our capital utilization going forward. The positive FY 2025 performance has been delivered in a period characterized by volatility in some commodity prices, from tariffs and trade tensions, as well as continued elevation in some costs. Macmahon has a diverse order book and client base, and we closely monitor and manage costs and risks. We will continue to execute on our strategy to deliver value for our clients and our shareholders. While Ursula will run through the financials in more detail, there are a few key call-outs I'd like to make.
We achieved new records for revenue and EBITDA of $2.4 billion and $171 million, respectively, and we saw improvement in our EBITDA margin to 7.1%, from 6.9% in the prior year. Strong cash flow generation was a key highlight of the result, with underlying operating cash flow up by 35% to $407 million and free cash flow up 89% to $141 million. This is where our growth strategy to increase the scale of our underground and civil businesses has been successful, supporting a more robust balance sheet with lower debt levels and increasing dividend returns to shareholders. While net debt was up 11% year- on- year, it was down over 30% from the first half position, which included the acquisition costs of Deck Mill. Importantly, it is now back at FY 2024 levels, with gearing dropping to 19% after the acquisition of Deck Mill, in line with our expectations for the year.
Total dividends for the year increased by 43% to $0.015 per share fully franked, representing a payout ratio of 31% on underlying earnings per share. ROACE was 20.5% for the year, reaching our long-term target of 20% and up from 17.5% at the half. We believe we can continue to increase ROACE through our strategy, and we have increased our long-term ROACE target to 25%. Finally, it was good to see growth in our order book with solid contributions from Deck Mill. The order book as at 30 June was $5.4 billion, up from $4.3 billion at the half year and $4.6 billion at the end of FY 2024. The order book includes $2.1 billion of work locked in for FY 2026, and that excludes short-term civil and underground churn work and future contract cost escalation recoveries as per our usual reporting practice.
Slide three shows our historic performance relative to our guidance, and I'm very pleased we've been able to maintain our track record of meeting or exceeding our market guidance again in FY 2025, now for the ninth consecutive year. During this period, we delivered a CAGR in revenue of 27% and 22% in EBITDA, underscoring our successful business strategy that has delivered reliable earnings growth over the past decade. I would again like to thank the entire Macmahon team for achieving this, and we're very motivated to maintain this track record into the future. Slide four shows some of the highlights in our mining business during the year, which contributed the majority of revenue and earnings. EBITDA and margin contributions were strong, but the main point I want to call out is that circa $2 billion of new work was won in FY 2025.
This included over $1.4 billion of work in surface mining in Australia and Indonesia. That includes a $900 million extension at Bowen and a $463 million contract at a Awak Mas gold project. In addition to this, we are pursuing a surface pipeline of $7.7 billion, of which $3 billion is currently expected to be awarded in the next 12 months. Underground also had a successful year, winning close to $600 million in new work, including a $105 million extension at Deflector, a $90 million extension at Daisy Milano , and an interim contract at the Poboya g old project that is expected to grow well over $300 million. The underground business is growing in line with our strategy and now comprises 23% of group revenue. We continue to target growth of over 50% in the next two years.
This is underpinned by an underground pipeline of $6.1 billion, of which $2.6 billion is currently expected to be awarded in the next 12 months. Now over to slide five on our civil business. The business is quickly growing to comprise 18% of group revenue and contributed 15% of EBITDA. Deck Mill performed well and in line with our expectations for the year. The business is now fully integrated, including the completion of all legacy projects. The key focus for Deck Mill was building the civil infrastructure order book, and I'm pleased to say that this was a key highlight, with over $500 million of new work won since the acquisition of the business, which includes around $100 million of wins in FY 2026 already.
I won't go through the list you see on the slide, but note that work won included a broad variety of civil works across roads, accommodation villages, infrastructure, and wind farms. We are targeting robust growth from all of these infrastructure areas, with a $10.4 billion civil pipeline, of which $2.6 billion is currently expected to be awarded in the next 12 months. I'd also like to reiterate that we have retained the disciplined tendering and risk management approach we highlighted at the time of acquisition of Deck Mill. Slide six outlines some corporate level highlights for FY 2025, outside of our operating businesses. The HomeGround accommodation village acquired through the Deck Mill transaction is our largest non-core asset. We continue to evaluate options to monetize the asset.
I outlined at the half-year result that we had commenced an orderly and considered process, and this will continue in order to get the best outcome. HomeGround achieved 27% average occupancy for the year and is supported by a favorable local environment, with several large development projects planned or in the process of commencing around Gladstone. Other corporate-related activities during the year include the replacement of our existing finance facilities with a new four-year $550 million syndicated debt facility that provides us with a simplified structure and improved pricing, governance, and covenants. Slide seven lists some of our key surface mining projects, their tenure, cost curve profile, and related commodity exposure. I won't go through the list now, but some key characteristics include the blue chip nature of the client base, including Regis, Anglo Ashanti, QCoal, and Volt.
Diversification across a number of key commodities, including gold, copper, and coking coal, and typically long life projects, including some life and mine. Slide eight shows our key underground mining projects. Like in surface, we have sought a diversified portfolio across clients and commodities, typically with long mine life. We also monitor their position on the cost curve and factor this into our risk assessments. Another point to highlight is some of the clients where we do both the surface and underground mining, such as Anglo Ashanti, Regis , and Volt. This highlights the competitive advantage of having an integrated service offering. Our list of key civil projects outlined on slide nine has grown rapidly in the last 12 months since the acquisition of Deck Mill.
I'll leave it to you to go through the details when you have time, but some key points include a quality client list with a number of repeat clients, a diverse range of projects covering roads, accommodation, bridges, and wind farms, a majority of higher margin design and construct projects, but also some construct only, where we use a more flexible contract structure. While we do some risk-assigned lump sum contracts for some of our design and construct projects, we also have a range of variable cost, reimbursable, and alliance style contracts to proactively manage contract risk. A key feature on the previous slides for our different businesses is the diversity of our client list and operations. Slide ten summarizes our revenue diversification across four key factors. I've touched on client and commodity diversification in the previous slides.
However, at a group level, this slide shows more clearly the diversity in our business. You may have noticed that our key mining projects on the previous slide were well represented by gold. This has been a longer-term feature of our order book and the markets we operate in, and we continue to have a relatively large exposure to gold and copper at around 58% of revenue. The business does have diversity in commodity exposure, and particularly by client, and we continue to monitor and manage this in our tender pipeline. We have been diversifying our business mix towards the lower capital intensive businesses of underground and civil infrastructure for many years, and these now account for 42% of group revenue. Our surface mining business was successful in winning over $1.4 billion of new work during the year, which helped maintain the surface revenue contribution when compared to FY 2024.
We have a very strong pipeline of opportunities in underground and civil infrastructure, and we expect these businesses to continue to grow strongly and increase overall share of revenue. Moving on to slide 11 on people and safety. The safety and wellbeing of our people is our highest priority at Macmahon Holdings, and we continue to invest in this area, both in the development of our people and in continued safety improvement. Our safety performance improved in FY 2025, with total recordable injury frequency rate decreasing to 2.99% from 3.64% in FY 2024. This was with a workforce 6% larger than last year at 10,220 people. Training and development continue to be a priority area, both for safety and also for upskilling and the career development of our people. At 30 June 2025, we had nearly 700 people on various training programs, from apprentices through to structured leadership training.
Specifically, under leadership and development, 350 leaders have now completed the Macmahon Winning Way leadership programme. This is in addition to the rollout of the new programs, including critical risk and psychosocial afety leadership training and an emerging leader programme. Other development initiatives included upskilling 31 ex-defense people across heavy diesel mechanic trade upgrades under an industry program for Australian Defence Force veterans. As you will know, mental health is an important part of our safety and people program. We rolled out our Strong Minds, Strong Minds Wellness programme to 22 sites, with a total of 250 wellness champions now trained and across our workforce. Our commitment to workplace safety and wellbeing includes a commitment to continue building a safe, respectful, and inclusive workplace. Overall, female representation in the Australian-based workforce was 19% across all occupations, and First Nations people represent 4.2% of the Australian workforce.
A positive culture is a key part of working at Macmahon . Slide 12 outlines some of the initiatives in the business designed to develop and promote Macmahon's culture and values, ensuring this is a key part of our people development programs. Culture and fit is assessed at recruitment, defined during onboarding, and embedded throughout the employment lifecycle. Some of these programs I have already mentioned and you are familiar with, but they include Respect at Macmahon, the Macmahon Winning Way, Emerging Leaders Programs, and Challenge Develop Growth. Operating our business sustainably is a key objective for the company, and slide 13 outlines some of our sustainability-related activities and metrics for FY 2025. I've already mentioned some of the social and people-related programs. We also continued to take important steps during the year to manage our environmental impact and maintain strong and appropriate governance.
Macmahon's 2025 Sustainability Report is available on our website and contains more information on all of our ESG-related initiatives. I am conscious of time, so I won't go through the detail on the slide now, but I will hand over to Ursula to talk through the financials.
Thanks, Mike. Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I will take you through our profit and loss, cash flow, and balance sheet over the next few slides. Before I do that, I want to take a brief moment from slide 15 to highlight our annual performance over time. The slide shows steady and consistent annual improvements in revenue, underlying EBITDA, underlying EBITDA, and return on average capital employed, all of which are at record levels. Margins have shown consistency across time, with a resumption in EBITDA margin growth on 5.9% in FY 2022 and 7.1% in FY 2025. Slide 16 shows a summary of our profit and loss statement. Mike has covered the high-level numbers, so I'll touch on some of the other figures and provide a little extra content.
The 20% growth in revenue and 22% growth in EBITDA were mainly attributed to the acquisition of Deck Mill, the commencement of new projects, including Ulysses, CPM, and WAKMAS, in addition to continuing organic growth and cost optimisation across the group. It is important to remember that the Deck Mill acquisition was internally funded, with no requirement for additional capital from shareholders. Therefore, the acquisition was earnings per share free. Underlying EBITDA growth was lower at around 10%, and this was primarily due to the inclusion of Deck Mill, which has proportionately lower capex, and also the continued reduction in the capital intensity of the business, therefore lowering the proportionate depreciation charges relative to the revenue growth.
Our EBITDA margin was back up over 7% for the year, primarily as a result of the work done during the year, moving from mobilisation and startup to steady state, and operational improvements across the business in the second half, which included the renegotiation of certain contracts. The higher margins are impacted by the inclusion of Deck Mill, with lower margins across the year, which is typical for a civil infrastructure business, however, has higher cash flows and return on capital employed as a capital-light business. The reported borrowing costs were slightly down, and with the refinancing of our debt facilities towards the end of the year on improved terms, this should help maintain lower interest expense.
Underlying NPATA excluded adjusting items of $28.4 million, which relates to the share-based payments expense of $7 million, $8.5 million for the merger and acquisition cost, plus some customer amortization with the acquisition of Deck Mill, and the software implementation costs. Our effective tax rate for the year was 32.2%, which included withholding taxes for the return of cash from Indonesia. As Australia is now fully in a tax-paying position, we do not expect the effective tax rate to deviate from the 28%- 30% range going forward. Finally, as Mike mentioned earlier, the total full-year dividend was increased by 43% to $0.015 per share, with a payout ratio of 31%, while within our FY 2025 policy range of 20%- 35% of EPS. We have increased this range to 30%- 45% of underlying EPS for FY 2026.
Slide 17 sets out our major cash flow movements between the closing net debt last year and this year, including a strong uplift in the free cash flow generation. While the chart shows year-on-year net debt increasing a little by $16.9 million- $162.5 million, this includes internally funding the Deck Mill acquisition of approximately $115 million, in addition to $221 million of capital expenditure. The net debt for the half year was around $237 million following the settlement of this acquisition. Finishing FY 2025 with net debt back towards our pre-acquisition level was an important achievement, demonstrating strong cash flows and delivering on our target for the year. Strong underlying operating cash flow before interest and tax of $407 million was the main driver to retain a consistent net debt year-on-year after the acquisition of Deck Mill.
With strong working capital management, the cash conversion for the year was 105%, which included the final payment for the FY 2024 Dawson equipment sale. CapEx of $221 million was in line with expectations and included sustaining CapEx of $186 million and $35 million of gross capital. Our CapEx target for FY 2026 is $245 million. The free cash flow generation of $140 million was up nearly 90% on last year and was primarily applied to debt reduction, but also supported returns to shareholders and investments on corporate development. I'll finish with some comments on the balance sheet movements on slide 18. We've covered the movements in depth, so the larger balance sheet numbers you will see for FY 2025 compared to the prior year primarily reflect the acquisition of Deck Mill. Our previously mentioned Macmahon has utilised its prior year tax losses in Australia.
Deck Mill acquisition included another $58 million of tax losses, which will be utilised over the coming 10 years, and $54 million of franking credits available for future dividends. You will also see that the homegrown camp is in our books at a carrying value of $52 million, and Mike had mentioned earlier that we have commenced a process to evaluate how we can best monetise this non-core asset over time. We recently restructured our debt facility to retire the legacy facilities and provide a simplified structure with improved pricing, governance, and terms. This slide provides a breakdown of our borrowings as of the 30th of June 2025, so I won't go through this in detail, other than to highlight that the business is in a very strong position with regards to our available liquidity, with cash and available committed banking facilities of $538 million at the end of June 2025.
Finally, Mike highlighted earlier that our FY 2025 return on average capital employed of 20.5% exceeded our long-term target of 20%. This target has increased from 15% to 20% only recently in the first half of our FY 2024 results. Reaching an increased target has been an excellent result and reflects our focus on reducing the capital intensity across the business. Our return on average capital employed target has now further been increased to 25%. Thank you for your attention, and I will now hand you back to Mike before we open for questions.
Thanks, Ursula. If we move to slide 20, I'm pleased to say that the numbers we've delivered today and in recent results confirm that Macmahon has achieved initial success at reducing capital intensity in the business. I say initial because we still have further opportunities here and there are still more gains to be realized. You can see from the charts on the slide the progress we've made in increasing the contribution to the business of firstly underground and more recently civil infrastructure, both with lower inherent capital intensity than surface. We have also looked at ways to reduce capital intensity in our surface business, and you have seen this in some recent initiatives. The resulting business mix we have today has been a key driver of improving our ROIC and reaching our 20% target, which we only upgraded some 12 months ago.
You can see on the slide the opportunity to further grow underground and civil, which makes up around 2/3 of our $24.2 billion tender pipeline, and of course, increasing the Indonesian contribution only improves key metrics more. In line with our strategy to continue targeting lower capital intensive projects and a more even business mix, the group ROIC target will now increase to 25%, as Ursula said a moment ago. Moving to slide 21, I'd like to briefly comment on the order book. I mentioned in my opening remark that it was good to see growth in our order book to $5.4 billion at 30 June, up from $4.3 billion at the half year and $4.6 billion at the end of FY 2024.
We saw a good level of contract awards across the business, with over $1.4 billion worth of work won in surface, close to $600 million in underground, and more than $400 million in civil infrastructure in FY 2025. The order book includes $2.1 billion of work locked in for FY 2026, and excludes short-term civil and underground term work and future contract cost escalation recoveries as per our usual reporting practices. The tender pipeline remains robust at around $24.2 billion, with considerable opportunities across all areas of our business. We have around $8.2 billion of outstanding tenders submitted that we expect to be awarded in the next 12 months. Before I conclude with the outlook, I'd like to recap Macmahon Holdings' capital allocation policy summarized on slide 22.
Our policy continues to reflect the importance of balancing dividend payments to our shareholders and retaining financial flexibility to enable the continued execution of our strategy. The charts on the slide show our track record, and you can see that we've managed our debt within the guardrails while growing earnings per share and dividend returns to shareholders. This has been a result of our focus on strategic growth, but also achieving strong business performance, disciplined cost management, and delivering for our customers. To wrap up now on slide 23, I'll conclude with some comments on the outlook. Our priorities for FY 2026 are consistent with those in FY 2025. Operate safely, continue operational improvements, drive growth in underground and civil infrastructure, and work towards our increased ROIC target while generating strong free cash flow.
We will also continue to invest in our people and in technology to build our capabilities and deliver for our customers. The outlook for FY 2026 remains positive. Mining activity remains robust in Australia and in Indonesia, and we have diversity in our commodity and customer exposure. We have a stronger order book than 12 months ago at $5.4 billion, with $2.1 billion of that already secured for FY 2026. Importantly, our pipeline of opportunities remains strong for all our segments, and we are well placed to continue growing revenue and earnings, supported by a healthy balance sheet. Relating our guidance today for FY 2026, we expect continued growth in both revenue and earnings. Revenue is in the range of $2.6 to $2.8 billion, and underlying EBITDA between $180 to $195 million. I am confident we are focused on the right priorities and remain well positioned to continue our positive growth trajectory.
With that, I'd like to hand back to our operator now and open for questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press Star, one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press Star, t wo. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from James Lennon with Petra Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question and congratulations on the result. Just two questions from me. That's a really impressive next four months in terms of tenders that are up for awards. Just keen to know what does that mean for pricing? How's the environment looking competitively?
Yeah, look, thanks for the question, James. It just feels sensible at the moment in terms of pricing, and it obviously gives both clients and contractors choices and options. The desperation just doesn't seem to be there, and clearly that's off the back of the addressable market, and that's very visible in our pipeline. I don't think you'll see the effects of previous cycles where either contractors or clients had leverage. I think everything's a lot more sensible now, so I think it plays towards longer relationships, more sensible relationships, and more transparent and contract models that made sense. As an example for us, it just gives us a choice, given the journey we're on to get net debt towards that $100 million, and we hope to get there next year pre any sale of homegrown.
It gives us an ability to be a little bit more selective within that, knowing some of our peers have appetites for different things. Yeah, it seems sensible, gives everyone choices, but of course you can never get cocky or take your eye off the ball. You need to make sure that whatever you do, you execute well.
Thank you. Just to follow on, I think you've mentioned in the past you set a longer term target of $1 billion from each segment, $3 billion in total, which you look like you're well on track to do. Do you feel the need for M&A or, organically, given what you've got in front of you, you can do it all organically?
Look, we think we could do it organically, James. The addressable markets are certainly in front of us. It comes back to execution. That's your biggest marketing tool, of course. Having said that, the success of Deck Mill, being able to internally fund it, has shown that if something comes up, we would look at it as well if it will accelerate that. We're not desperate to do it. If something comes up that makes sense, I think we're in a position to look at it and do something that would be within our means. I don't, I haven't got my finger on anything or we don't have our finger on anything at the moment. The focus is on execution and organically growing that. We've said there's the three areas in terms of civil, underground, and surface.
Don't forget that the addition of maybe Indonesia from 8% to potentially, you know, 15% really does add to our margin. That contributed a little bit to the improved margin in the second half of the financial year just gone.
Great, thank you.
Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press Star, one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. That's Star, one to ask a question. The next question comes from John Schultz from Argonaut. Please go ahead.
Hi Mike and team. Quick question just on the current projects in contract. When, I mean, obviously if you guys were at the Vault site tour and there was chat about does that continue or go to owner-operated. Can you just touch on maybe the Vault contracts, the Anglo contract with that potentially shifting hands, and just if there's an increase in work at Greenbushes with Talison as well? Thanks.
Yeah, for sure. Dawson, the Anglo American contract has come to term. John, we're providing some smaller services there, but that's come to term at the end of June. Vault, I was conversing with Luke earlier today and they're going through the process as I would of understanding what options are in front of them and what's the best way to go. We have an $8 billion pipeline in surface with $3 billion worth of contracts to be awarded in the coming 12 months. As I said earlier, there's options in front of us. If we were to stay at King of the Hills, we'd be pleased to do that as long as it's a mutually satisfactory arrangement. If it's not, we've got options. In some cases, it introduces different Ts & Cs that would be amenable to us.
We'll just go through the tender process with the Vault projects there at King of the Hills. What was the other one? Greenbushes. At the moment, it's tracking pretty much steady to the plan that was put in place when we were awarded that. I know there's some new management there. They're doing a fantastic job at Talison. If there was a need for extra scope, we're certainly sitting there ready and in the position to do it. We love working there.
Excellent, thank you.
The next question comes from Tony Greco, private investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thanks a lot, Mike and the team there for another great result. Really hitting your stats there. My only fear is you've increased your syndicate debt facility to $550 million. The question was asked earlier about M&A, and you did say you'd only look at it if it made sense. Hopefully, that keeps going. Deck Mill, absolutely fantastic acquisition by the look of it. My only fear is that with the extra level of available debt, something horrible happens and you make a mistake and undo a lot of the good work you've done in the past few years. I suppose the comment is not really a question, but hopefully everyone's keeping a really close look at any acquisitions that may come along.
Yeah, look, definitely, Tony, you mentioned the team, and I don't think we've ever had a better team than the one we've got at the moment. I'm really pleased because it's a blend of people that were here over the last nine years and know what it's taken to get credibility back in the market and know how easily it's lost. We've been able to attract some A-graders now. We're achieving scale and we've introduced the new lot model. To your point, we decided to pursue the new syndicated finance facility. Ursula can talk to it more so because it was the improved governance, the improved pricing, and the improved agility there. When we went out, it actually was oversubscribed. We decided that it was wise to take it while you can, given those other benefits.
I guess just bearing in mind, in the back of our mind, some of the macroeconomic things that were occurring, it's better to get it while you could. There are no intentions to go out and spend big on an acquisition. It would be if it fits, it would be if it accelerated a specific part of our strategy. That's all it is. We're well aware that it takes nine years to get eyes on us and we could slip up in six months. We're laser focused on execution. That's got to be our priority and doing that safely. The day we take our eye off that, obviously there'd be a problem, but I don't think the team would let that happen. Do you want to add to that, Urs?
No, that's really good. Also, Tony, to highlight that that is a four plus one, it's actually a five-year syndicated facility. It's at a really, really, as Mike said, favorable terms. That sees over for what can happen in the next five years.
Excellent. No, thanks a lot. Yeah, that's a good explanation. Again, congratulations to the team there. It's doing a great job. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Tony.
This concludes our question- and- answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over for any closing remarks.
No, look, we just appreciate everyone's time as always. We know we're catching up with many of you over the remainder of the week. If we miss anyone and there's any questions, please feel free to reach out to Ursula, myself, or Holly. We're looking forward to the year ahead. To wrap it up, whilst there's been a few texts about the great job that the team have done, and I agree with that, internally we feel that we've arrived nowhere. We've still got so much work to do and there's still plenty of opportunity within the addressable market in front of us by working well with our clients and our people and our stakeholders. We'll keep the head down and look forward to seeing everyone over the coming weeks. If we miss anyone and you'd like to see us, please reach out.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you.