Good to go. It's spot on. Thank you. Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thanks for taking the time to jump online today to allow us to walk you through financial year results. I'm sitting here today pretty proud of what the team's been able to achieve across the year and have the opportunity to deliver what we think is a material result for the business and a direct reflection of what we've been able to achieve across the year. At a high level, if we look at actual delivery of numbers, we saw revenue increase to AUD 540 million.
Importantly, and particularly in the second half, and we'll focus on this a little bit more in the slide pack as we get through it, there was a material uplift in EBITDA, both holistically and at the percentage line as well, material uplift in EBIT, and impacts, material reduction in debt across the period, resulting in a much higher value at NTA, and gearing further reduced. From a highlight perspective, if I look across the year, that strong revenue was a combination of planning, particularly through the first half. Obviously, we reported a slightly slower first half and guided the market to the fact that we thought the second half was going to be materially stronger. As you can see by the result, that played out quite well and was managed effectively very well by the team.
When we look at what we're able to achieve through the deployment of fleet, the adjustment of rates, we did see that really delivered through the second half and incrementally really drive an uplift, both in terms of total profit delivered, but more importantly, that percentage shift to hitting that run rate of 13.5% through the second half. Really significant uplift in profit in that second half of AUD 36.8 million compared to the first half, which was really a direct reflection of that planning and delivery. The strong cash flow across the year did allow us to further invest and set ourselves up for the year to come. As I touched on previously, that purchase of fleet has really set us up. Set ourselves in a good position, strong result, and really pleased with what the team's been able to achieve across the year.
Again, they further compound growth as the business has grown across the years. We've been able to continuously deliver, as I've touched on, as we see processing hubs expand, and having a business model really wrapped around the support processing infrastructure. As every year goes by, the expansion, the distance grows, we are seeing that compound growth in the business sort of start sustained at a material level. For those of you that aren't across the story, our business is one that is really built around the support of critical processing infrastructure. If you were to break the business down into segments, and we don't operate the business this way, but if you were to break it down into segments, we have our core functions of civil mining, crushing and screening, bulk haulage and sort services, and construction materials.
We have an integrated model that is really designed to support our customers' processing infrastructure. What does that actually mean? As we have seen, particularly the gold industry, but now further resource miners such as iron ore miners and base metal miners, transition towards, we have seen a real growth in centralized processing hubs, being fed from satellite operations. To do that, you need a suite of services. You need the bulk haulage provision, you need crushing and screening, you need provision to deliver your tails management and your road management. The offering that we have is very much designed to wrap around the principal's processing facility and facilitate their business as they continue to expand their operational footprint over years. It's one that is seen as generating the capacity to have very annuitous earnings.
The processing hubs typically don't close, they run for years and they withstand the product commodity price cycle. We've been able to demonstrate that by ensuring that we can deliver services, we are very much ingrained in our customer's supply chain and become integral to their delivery. If you look at our customer base, you'll see that we are really driving our revenue through both a combination of tier 1, but also some journeys, particularly in the gold space. Fundamentally, the order book is made up by a very strong and robust customer base, and it's that have them themselves been able to deliver growth over multiple years. By leveraging ourselves back against those customers, we are very much along for the journey and continuing to grow ourselves. Importantly, you will see that gold did contribute materially across the year.
I think last time we reported, gold was sort of making up 86%. We did see the growth in gold and a slight retraction in our crushing business in the iron ore space sort of have that high graph sort of deliver materially more from a gold perspective. Importantly, the recent wins with Rio Tinto will see that iron ore piece start to grow as we see the iron ore majors really start to integrate that hub and spoke model that we've developed in the gold industry. Strong customer base, high leverage of the gold price, but importantly, some further growth potential that is coming through not only our existing gold customers, but further commodity exposure through works with the tier 1 iron ore miners.
From an operational footprint perspective, we are very much Goldfields WA focused, but have operations spread through the whole of the state and into Western Australia. The business has really worked on our hub and spoke model ourselves, where we have central hubs in the likes of Cowal, Lillian, Oramount, Magnet in then the Pilbara, and we'll service them effectively from those central hubs. A large spread, large operational footprint, very much aligned to a key customer base, and sharing assets between those relative customers in an effective way to drive routine for ourselves. If we stand back and look at the year, and look at what the business has been able to achieve, and for those of you that have been across our journey, the MLG business is one that has burned through a series of commodity price cycles and different challenges across our life.
In the last few years, we've really focused on ensuring we drive a business that is match-fit, is delivering sustainably for our customers, but more importantly, also for our shareholders. Across the year, if we look at what we've been able to achieve and where we've situated the business today, you know, we can see ourselves now north of AUD 500 million revenue run rate, over AUD 200 million in plant and equipment, strong customer base. We've really leveraged technology within the business to ensure that we have accurate oversight as to what's happening across the whole of our operations on a daily basis.
Strong cash generation throughout the period, a very flexible debt structure that really has set us up to be able to transition into the next few years in a very strong and effective way to deliver sustainably for our shareholders and also ensure that we're seeing not only the top line growth, but more importantly, that bottom line growth. It's really all underpinned by the core business that has strong annuitative earnings and a strong growth outlook. With that, I'll hand over to Phil to run through the numbers.
Thanks, Murray. As Murray indicated in the opening slide, really strong performance for the year. Pleasing to see all metrics rising year on year. As we've talked before, our margin is a key focus. We see here that both the EBITDA and EBIT percentages are stronger than even revenue growth, which is really positive. We did have a small loss on sale or a loss on sale on some equipment. That's normal for us. We will cycle our CapEx planning and sell older and used assets that we're no longer needing. That will come at ebb and flow at times. Overall, we're very pleased with the result and the strength of that position that we've had for the year. Just moving into that EBITDA position, that was a very strong performance in the second half. We did, as Murray said, indicate that would be the case.
In the first half, we had a high CapEx. That was deliberate. It was an investment in some equipment and machinery to help us for the growth projects we had, but some of the timing of those projects commencing was later in the year. What you're seeing is a result of those people that we held back in the first half and that equipment now being put and deployed into operations in the second half and delivering what is a very strong margin in the second half at 13.5%. Overall, we're delighted to start seeing that margin increase. We would like it to go faster, but at the same time, it is a whole portfolio, and we are adapting to our clients' needs at the same time. It is expected that we'll continue to see rising margins, and that's one of our major focal areas for the business.
In terms of the balance sheet, the benefit of a strong performance means that your balance sheet tends to start to improve. Obviously, with the CapEx that we delivered this year, that has increased our net assets. They're up 11% to $145 million. As Murray mentioned, the NTA is also very pleasing at AUD 107 million. Certainly, where we trade today, that represents a premium to the current share price. As Murray also indicated, the net debt did decrease significantly, lowering our gearing to just 0.88 x at the 30th of June. Talking about cash flow, cash EBITDA is a good property for us for cash flow. We do have some percentages in terms of conversion slightly up or down, somewhere between 85% and 100%. This year, there was the commencement of tax payments, which is, you know, we were making money.
We're now starting to pay tax in cash, which is a positive sign. Overall, we're very happy with the operating cash flow. There was one significant debtor that didn't come in on the 30th of June. That does happen. Had that been the case, we would have been almost 97% conversion rate. Overall, pretty happy. In terms of the CapEx, that number, as we indicated in the first half, was motivated by the investment for future growth. We'll probably see a similar CapEx number going forward. What I would expect to see in the next 12 months to two years is a greater shift towards sustaining CapEx, and that's what we're planning for at the moment. Obviously, with this growth in revenue and the market opportunity we have in front of us, growth CapEx is still a very big part of it.
As you'll see there, we have the Rio Tinto project that commenced just at the end of the year. Genesis is a business that's ramping up and delivering more volume, and we're adapting to that for them. Evolution has been very, very active with us, and we appreciate their support, and they're also a large scope that we're reacting to. Just going on to the gearing position, which is a very good story for us. Gearing is a natural part of our business because of the CapEx requirement we have, but what you're seeing here is a gradual decline in the gearing ratio, and really quite strongly, paid down debt in terms of the first half to the second half. That's a real reflection of our focus on it, but also it shows the strength of the balance sheet as it starts to build more cash over time.
We had a strong cash balance at the end of the year, and you'll see there that right at the 30th of June, we have an overdraft that we run of AUD 20 million, plus the cash on hand means that starting this year, we had circa AUD 29 to AUD 30 million of available liquidity, which is really positive for us. Murray touched on the way we finance the business. It is a very important structure for us. We do all of our debt outside of that overdraft that I mentioned, through equipment finance contracts. They are typically fixed-term, or they are fixed-term contracts, so fixed interest rates, typically for a tenor of three, four, or five years. You can see there that the majority of those is with our manufacturers, our OEMs. That's a really positive sign. We are buying equipment from those manufacturers, and they are financing it for us.
We equally use the big banks and some finance companies, so it gives us a variety of debt providers to source and to benchmark against. It does mean that we have a very flexible debt structure that means we pay debt back quite rapidly. One of the opportunities we have is that we keep that debt well under control despite quite a high CapEx level. I'll pass back to Murray to talk about our outlook.
In terms of where the business sits, as we transition out of this year and into the next year and beyond, we think we do have ourselves in a very strong strategic market position. If we look across our service offering, we're sitting there with a large modern fleet. Obviously, as it stands today, we do have a large exposure to gold, albeit now also having some further growth opportunity within the tier 1 iron ore space. We see those delivering. It is very much a unique offering in that we are an infrastructure support business that uses mobile equipment to do that. I think our strong history of growth has been able to demonstrate that as our customers invest in processing infrastructure, that has direct correlation to the capacity for our business to drive growing revenue, but also growing margins.
The key piece for that too, in terms of thinking about what that means for our underlying core business, each year that goes by, the tons get further and further from each processing hub. That is incremental growth that gets built into the business. However, we're seeing further investment in processing facilities driving material uplifts. We're seeing further opportunity coming through our existing customer base through M&A and integrating other operations in. The underlying business is in a very strong position and is now setting us up for what is going to be a material year in front of us from both an opportunity, but further growth perspective.
If we look at the outlook and what we see coming down the ship, obviously that strong position, that investment in capital, and the gold, particularly the gold price, but also that iron ore piece is really sort of driving the underlying business. We see that continuing through the next 24 months- 36 months, and incrementally growing year on year. Our focus really internally has been about ensuring that we deliver sustainably. We drive that increase in return, and getting our retail capital employed back to a sustainable level is really a sharp focus that we have been really driving through the business. We see that being delivered further as we move into the next financial year. Importantly, and over and above that, is what do we see as the next quantum shift for the business? We've spoken about this in the past, in past briefings.
Our business has now placed itself where it has a strong balance sheet, has a strong underlying customer base that's driving physical growth in the business on a day-to-day, month-to-month basis. As we transition out of that and we take those tools that we put in place and leverage that balance sheet, we do see ourselves shifting up the value chain through the ability of unlocking processing infrastructure, be it through our customers or another third-party facility, and unlocking smaller scale quality assets to drive further growth opportunity for the MLG business through both the delivery of service and the potential for profit share. We do see that playing out over the next four months.
We've been very disciplined in our approach to reviewing them as the underlying business has been very focused on delivery, and has now set itself up to continue that growth trajectory into the coming year. We've also in parallel been working on what does that potential exposure to profit share look like, and how do we unlock further processing infrastructure capacity for our customer base. We stand here today with a business that's delivered very strongly across the year, has a strong, degeared balance sheet, is in a strong position, maturity-reduced debt, generating cash, with an underlying customer base that's growing, and an opportunity to further grow the value chain for our business. We are excited about what sits in front of us, and are looking forward to getting stuck into the year ahead. With that, I might open the floor to some questions.
If you do have a question, can you please raise your hand on the app and you will need to unmute yourself. Roxy.
Yeah, hey guys. Congrats on the result. Just a question on margins. Normally, crushing and screening is the higher margin part of the business, but that really wasn't, didn't look like it was contributing much in the second half to that. What is exactly driving the margin improvement in the haulage side of things? Is it just repricing contracts or lack of churn of projects? What is it?
It's a good question. I think that the key thing to remember there is, obviously, we had a quieter first half in crushing, and that did play out with crushing delivering in the second half. Holistically across the year, crushing delivered less than it did the previous year. However, that was because of that lag through the first half. I think the underlying haulage business is delivering materially for the business, and that has been a combination of some resetting rates, some use of technology within our own teams to drive productivity gains, and just optimizing operations where we're seeing customers, sort of the M&A activity driving opportunity for us to leverage our strategic footprint and get the most out of our equipment. The combination of those things really drove that margin improvement across the second half.
Fantastic. I've got one more if that's okay. Obviously, you've announced contracts with New Murchison Gold and Fortescue, which will roll into FY 2026. How should we look at crushing and screening for the next financial year?
I think the crushing and screening piece will continue to be a material part of our business. Obviously, we had that lag in the first half. We expect it to lift on a percentile basis back to sort of where it had been in the previous year, which on an aggregated basis where you see a growing total revenue, it should contribute materially through this year and into next.
Great. Thanks, guys.
All right, Gavin.
Oh, hi guys. Yeah, thanks for that, great results. Just a quick one for me. Would we think about, very strong second half, congratulations on that one, that sort of run rate continues into 2027. Is there any reason why that wouldn't happen? Is the first thing, and the second thing is, I think, you mentioned CapEx around the same sort of levels as you spent in 2025 with a little bit of a swing towards sustaining, but still some growth CapEx. The timing of deploying that in your minds, is that a clear and present opportunity or is it spread through the year or how do we think about that?
Yeah, so Gav, CapEx for us is a good question. CapEx for us is actually consistent through the year. The reason for that is that it's not big lumps of CapEx. We tend to be acquiring equipment every month. The reason is, is because all of our equipment goes through getting established on our systems and getting set up in our environment, making sure we've got everything done to it. We almost couldn't handle getting 15 prime movers in one go. We probably couldn't, so they tend to be each month. The CapEx is relatively spread. It's a little first half weighted this year, but it's mostly spread every month through the year. Some of that CapEx, for example, won't come until the end of next year, but we also have just had the CapEx we had in the last few months. It is relatively evenly spread through the year.
Yeah, we allocate the return on that capital evenly through the year, with the second half, 2025, as the beginning point, heading into 2027, 2026?
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
I think the other piece to add to that, Gav, is obviously we had a situation whereby we had some timing misalignment through this financial year in the first half where we held onto fleet, or we'd purchased fleet in anticipation of a job starting, and that took longer to start than anticipated. Because of that, the capital weighed on us in the first half as we brought that to account. We don't see ourselves in that situation across this financial year at this point in time. The current assets that we have booked to come in will go straight into work. They're all coming into jobs that are currently in the process of coming to fruition that have been awarded, and we're ready to run on. We don't see that at this point in time, don't see that issue happening through this year.
Yeah, got it. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Steve, Davidson.
Are you there, Steve?
Sorry, my mic did not unmute.
That's all right.
Thank you for that. My question really ties on to the previous one. With that return on capital, what actually is the return on capital that you've actually seen through this last year? What do you think it's going to look like into the future year given, you know, the plants and equipment you actually do have coming onto book?
It's a good question. Our focus is on return on capital, but we're starting with the driver of profitability first, because the capital we've got is all largely fully employed. The main focus we've had of late has been on improving that margin so the return improves. When you look at our return on capital at a base level, it's only running just over 10% where we want to see it in the late teens, early 20%s. That's really where margin starts to improve. You'll see an improvement on return on capital. Our focus has been far more on the utilization of equipment and the margin that we're getting from the portfolio of clients that we have. As we drive that margin up and get more profitability, which you're seeing in this result, that return on capital will improve.
Remembering that a lot of our equipment is only just coming in in the year. As I just said, a lot of that CapEx is only just arriving. It only has a very small portion of the year to get a return on it. I think we've got more work to do before we start publishing return on capital metrics in a detailed level, but it is a very high focus at the board level for us to be making investment decisions around appropriate returns. It's a very high focus for us to ensure that the returns we're getting from the jobs that we're taking are sufficient. Across most of our portfolio, we're getting a much stronger return on capital. I'm talking about the aggregated return on capital on the total equipment.
We certainly have a lot of projects that are getting a very strong, you know, post 20% return on capital, but there are some that are not. That's what we're really focused on is optimizing that portfolio.
Thank you.
It doesn't look like we haven't got any more questions. Just to wrap up, guys, again, thank you for the opportunity to present today. I appreciate everyone getting online. Just to sort of highlight the year that was, really pleased with the north of AUD 500 million revenue. More importantly, really pleased with what we've been able to do in terms of delivery of profitability, increased % lift in the second half in particular, but overall year on year, an uplift in % of profit. I think that has resulted in a strong position for the business. That sets us up very well for what lies in front of us.
I'm genuinely excited about not only the underlying organic growth opportunities that sit in front of us now with our existing customer base as their processing infrastructure further expands, and their original footprint grows, driving underlying growth, but also the opportunity that sits there for us to further grow the value chain. Business in a very strong position, very well placed, huge amount of work done to put our balance sheet in a position to be able to maximize it, and a runway in front of us that is going to see us further grow. Really looking forward to what the next year has in store for us, and looking forward to updating the market further as we push ahead. Thank you again.