Thank you very much, and good morning or good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our Half Year Results presentation. It's been another very strong half for us, a particularly strong one in terms of improvement in margins and a rebound in the MET business and setting ourselves up for a very strong finish to this financial year. We achieved revenue of AUD 1.43 billion, which is up 6.7% on PCP. EBITDA was AUD 157.2 million and EBITDA of AUD 92.1 million, all up on the prior corresponding period, including, obviously, normalized NPAT at AUD 58 million up 8.6%. And we continue to maintain a strong workbook of AUD 5.5 billion, AUD 4 billion of which is actually secured for FY25 and on, and I'll talk about that a bit more later. Strong cash holdings of AUD 176.7 million, slightly reduced on the second half of last year. Performance, and Richard will talk about that in the appendix section.
Remains very robust at AUD 15.6 billion, with around AUD 2.6 billion of submitted tenders that are currently active we're working with clients on. The franked dividend is an increase on PCP of 9.2%. Last period was an unfranked dividend. We have a fully franked dividend. This period is AUD 0.065 payable in April. We continue to be on track. We're reaffirming our FY24 guidance that we gave at the AGM in November, which we expect to be at the high end of our guidance range, which was AUD 175–185 million of EBIT. But as I said, our first half performance is setting us up very well for a strong finish to this financial year. So I'll now hand over to Richard, and then I'll rejoin on the operations slides.
Thanks, Jules. Good morning, everyone. As Jules noted, we had a 6.7% increase in revenue over the prior period, which is really pleasing to see. That really reflects what we're seeing operationally, which is an increase in market activity right across the business. That was also assisted by the absence of any impact from severe weather. I think as everyone would be aware, there's been an awful lot of bad weather going through Queensland in particular over recent months, and fortunately, there has not been any significant impact on any of our projects. As I'm sure you will all recall, it was a significant factor in our results in the prior period, so it's good not to have that effect again. Another key distinction between the two periods is the improvement in the rate of award of new projects.
So again, delayed awards really overshadowed the prior period results, and we've seen a noticeable improvement in the rate of awards. Generally, we're seeing delays are now diminishing. The higher revenue supported the delivery of a higher EBIT, and that grew by 9.1% to AUD 92.1 million. And as Jules noted, very pleasingly, the growth in EBIT was accompanied by an increase in the margin percentage, up from 6.2% in June to 6.5% in this period. The growth that we are discussing today is occurring across all three of our operating segments, as the generally favorable market conditions are supporting a recovery and profitability to really what we regard as long-term norms. So in this half, we've seen the margin in the Civil segment grow to 4.1%. Mining has delivered a very strong 9%, and as Jules noted, a significant improvement in the net margin to 5.5%.
Particularly with reference to the last six months, it's a huge step forward, as all of the legacy projects that the NRW segment, Primero in particular, were dealing with have now fully closed out in the prior financial year. We expect those levels of profitability to continue into the second half, and as Jules said, we're retaining our views on guidance. There were some non-recurring items in this period, which was a net cost of AUD 21.1 million. The main components of that were the Wärtsilä settlement, which we discussed and announced to the market in September last year. That was AUD 25 million. We also had some legal expenses associated with the litigation of about AUD 3.3 million. Offsetting that was a gain on listed investments, notably the 37 million Spartan Resources shares, which rose in value by AUD 0.345 per share over the period.
Interest expense in this half was 13.5% higher than the prior period at AUD 9.2 million, and that really reflects a higher level of debt with CapEx - I'll talk about it in a moment - plus also a higher incremental cost of funds on new equipment finance. That really, of course, is just a reflection of base rate movements in the market. Tax expense for the period was AUD 16.9 million. Our effective tax rate was 28.8%, lower than the notional 30% because of lower tax rates in the U.S. and Canada and also some losses that we offset. So our statutory net profit result for the period was AUD 41.7 million, and the normalised NPAT was AUD 58 million, the delta, of course, being the AUD 21.1 million of non-recurring transactions that I just mentioned.
So this operating EBIT result is in line with the guidance that we've provided and really positions us very well to achieve our full-year guidance. Jules is going to talk through the performance of each of the segments and the outlook, so I won't steal his thunder, but I will say that we're very pleased with the trajectory of each and excited by growth prospects that we can see across each segment. I'll just turn next to the balance sheet. So as Jules noted, our headline cash number for the period end was AUD 176.7 million with cash conversion of 63.4%. That's a pretty healthy cash outcome and compares favorably to the prior comparative period where cash was AUD 154.8 million with a 44% conversion. Our cash number at the period end would have been better, but for some clients who chose to pay late to really improve their own period-end cash positions.
So invoices that were due for payment and should have been paid pre-31 December were not paid until the first week in January. So all up, there was about AUD 31.6 million of late cash receipts. And had those clients paid on time, then our cash number in December would have been AUD 202.8 million with 83.4% conversion, so significantly better. And as I'm sure many of you will note, it's very similar to the cash position that we reported at June, which was AUD 227.6 million, a 99% conversion. So really adjusting for, I guess, an artificial item, it's actually very comparable to full year. Financial debt for the period was AUD 285.6 million, and if you dig into the details of that in the financials, you'll see that there's a net increase of AUD 25.2 million.
We had a net increase in equipment finance during the period of AUD 5.9 million, a net increase in bank debt of AUD 13.8 million, the biggest driver of that being the funding of the Wärtsilä settlement and also some insurance premium funding as well. So all of those factors combined to give us a net debt position of AUD 158.7 million at December with gearing of 25.7% from 13.8% at the full year. Now, if you adjust that for the late receipts that I just mentioned and also the Wärtsilä settlement, our net debt would have been AUD 102.1 million and gearing 16.6%. So we feel that that's really a far more accurate representation of what cash and debt would have looked like in the period but for those one-off items.
During the period, we had a net increase in plant and equipment of AUD 29 million, and we undertook AUD 90 million of CapEx over the six months, which, as you will all know, is pretty consistent with what we normally do year-over-year. Capital increased by approximately AUD 60 million over the period with a number of movements, so really just business-as-usual type items. Receivables were higher than at June due to the late cash receipts that I just mentioned. We also had some AUD 39 million of advance payments on our projects. And as I think many of you will have often heard me say, we always want to be building our clients' projects with their money, not ours, so that's a positive thing in our book. So as I say, nothing particularly unusual in any of those items.
They're just big movements which reflect the size of the contracts that we have underway. Our listed investments increased in the period due to the effect of the Spartan Resources revaluation. That was the single biggest driver of that. And in relation to our deferred tax liabilities, that increased by AUD 16.2 million, with the main driver being the closeout of the Wärtsilä litigation. We also had, during the period, some benefit from the taxable full expensing write-off of about AUD 11 million. That also reflected in our DTL balance. So all of those movements left us with net assets at the end of December of AUD 617.4 million. I'll just touch briefly on cash flow as I've kind of already hit the highlights, but net cash flow from operations was AUD 52.3 million. As I mentioned, CapEx of AUD 90.4 million.
Of that AUD 90.4 million, growth CapEx was AUD 21 million, and that's CapEx that we undertake to support new projects or extensions on existing projects. Sustaining CapEx was AUD 36.6 million, and that's really where we substitute our own fleet for a fleet that we've rented from a third party, or it's a replacement of end-of-life. So effectively, what we're doing with sustaining CapEx is we're improving the margin that we're achieving. And then our maintenance CapEx was AUD 32.8 million. So that's really consistent with our sort of long-term averages that we generally have. We had new borrowings during the period of AUD 62.1 million. AUD 42 million of that was to fund the CapEx I've just discussed, and then the balance was to fund the Wärtsilä settlement.
Finally, the other big item in the cash flow during the period was the payment of the final dividend for FY 2023, which was AUD 0.08 per share fully franked, and that was AUD 36.1 million. As I mentioned, closing cash was AUD 176.7 million with cash conversion of 63.4%. When you adjust that for the late receipts, AUD 212.8 million and 83.4% conversion, so a much more representative picture. That's the synopsis of the financials. I'll hand back to Jules, and of course, I'll be happy to take any questions at the end.
Thanks, Richard. If we go to the next slide, which is the segment overview, as you can see from this slide, it just continues to demonstrate the diversity of our offering and obviously the increases across Civil, which we anticipated, Mining, and MET, albeit a small increase, just demonstrate the strength of our division and our service offering. So on the Civil, obviously good news that despite any inclement weather, that every time a cyclone was on the news, I'm sure many people were in panic mode given the result we had in the first half of last year and to the fact that we had to actually put a slide in this pack.
We're pleased, obviously, to advise that we've had no major impact, that obviously it has been wet in certain areas of our projects, but it's not impacted the productivity largely on our projects across the urban subdivision or any of our major infrastructure projects as well. So strong activity across both WA and Queensland, and obviously that's reflective in improvement in margin. And then we probably expect to see that continue to improve as we go towards FY25, as we've previously advised. Forward outlook looks very good. Lots of iron ore-related expansions both in major projects and also sustaining capital projects that we're involved in pricing at the moment. As Richard said as well, we're experiencing less delays than we've seen sort of 12 months ago.
There are certain impacts across parts of our division, which we'll talk about in RCR and MET, but generally in the Civil business, we're seeing things come our way and sort of tend to go to delivery on time, which is a good thing. Importantly, the pipeline's continuing to build. The visibility's continuing to build. And if you look at it on a year-on-year basis, the Civil division was quite subdued in FY23 due partly to our discipline in pricing and our focus on making sure that we're improving returns and making sure that we can execute correctly on site, obviously, when we've had a challenge in the labor market. The other pleasing thing during the period, well, it's actually post the period, was the award of the preferred proponent status on the Reid Highway Interchanges project, public infrastructure project in Perth.
There are a number of others that were involved in terms of alliance-style consortiums that are essentially in their sort of pre-estimating phase, but lots of activity, so lots of things to look forward to in terms of our Civil business. Current order book pretty strong at AUD 0.7 billion, AUD 700 million, and AUD 200 million in active tenders that we're working on at the moment. If we go to on the Mining business, strong performance from Mining, strong revenue and EBIT growth due to the high levels of activity and, again, minimal impact from weather. Margin a little down from second half of last financial year, but we did flag that we'd see it returning to sort of more normal levels at 9%. Again, the mix of projects within that margin, some of them where we use a lot of client equipment, you expect a slightly lower margin.
So I think at 9%, it's a reasonable reflection of where the margin is at the moment. But again, we would look to improve that as we go into the second half and into FY25 when we think there's upside there in terms of margins in that business. Again, if we look at our outlook, 2024 is fully secured, and the majority of 2025 is also fully secured, so a very good position to be in in terms of outlook of our Mining business. We're looking at opportunities tailing to 2025 and into 2026. Most of those are coming out of the gold, met coal, and iron ore sector, some of which will require capital, some of which won't.
Obviously, our discipline around capital deployment in coal has been generally we only put certain items in, use a lot of hard equipment plus client-supplied items, and we'll continue to maintain that discipline going forward. In terms of any impacts from lithium-related clients, the Mining business, our drill and blast division's been operating at Greenbushes mine since 2010. Minimal impact in terms of that, certainly immaterial in terms of our business in terms of their uptick in growth from where we are currently. And in terms of our Mount Holland project, that was only in sort of phase of ramping up, but we don't expect there to be a future material impact again in terms of the division's earnings. Strong order book, AUD 3.4 billion, and active tenders at the moment of about AUD 1.9 billion. So if we go on to MET, very pleasingly, we've seen an improvement in margins.
Obviously, at the full year, pretty disappointing result. We've had some issues that we've resolved, made some major changes in terms of management and structure, and that's starting to deliver well. Primero, in particular, had a very strong performance at 6.4%. DIAB also performed strongly. So if you look at Primero's performance on PCP or even the second half of last year, it's a very strong improvement into that business. And again, as MET as a whole, we've previously said it should sort of sit between 7%-8% as our long-term margin, and we're working very hard to get it back to those levels at the moment. RCR's slightly below plan due to delayed awards in some of their projects' divisions.
A lot of their projects that they do for clients are sole-sourced or they're also equipment feeder projects, so depending on how others are performing, sometimes their product deliveries get slowed down. We do expect that to improve in the second half and certainly into FY25. The other thing we've done there is we've had increases in overheads to support the expansion of the product services business where we manufacture, supply, and maintain not only our apron feeders and our products but also third-party products. That business is an excellent part of the RCR business and strong margins, and we expect to increase that business strongly as we go forward. So part of that increase in overhead is obviously to drive the growth in the product support business, but it's had a bit of an impact on our overall margin that we're reporting in the first half.
If we look ahead, again, very buoyant iron ore, gold, particularly a big driver, of course, is in the Primero business. Multi-year visibility is the Fimiston contract, which has sort of replaced the work that we're doing in Covalent over the last couple of years as well. So very strong visible pipeline of opportunities coming at us. Current order book of AUD 1.3 billion and active tenders of AUD 0.5 billion and a building pipeline ahead of us on that. Again, on the lithium side of things, no material impact. We're largely working in a construction sense for Pilbara Minerals, and we're doing a maintenance contract work for Tianqi. And again, none of that is at risk in terms of any slowdown or changes in terms of our delivery profile. So pretty positive all-round outlook for us there. I'll quickly cover a couple of points on the ESG side of things.
Obviously, we continue to focus on reducing our carbon footprint through various initiatives that are listed on this slide. It's pretty similar to what we said at the AGM, so I won't go into too much detail on there. But on our safety performance, we've had a pretty strong performance in the year and continue to reduce our TRIFR. It's now down to 4.56, which is the best it's been for many years, so it's very encouraging. Continued focus on critical risk management programs across the group to continue to drive those recordable incidents down. Workforce total's a little bit less than last year, but as we see some of these projects come at us towards the second half of this year and into FY25, you'd start to see our workforce build again with that growth that we're expecting. So if we go to our outlook slide, very positive.
Our pipeline moves around a bit, but the pipeline number is really very near visibility. It's projects that could be in tender, be awarded, and commence construction within a 12-month period, so it's a very near-term pipeline. I did note with interest the Seven Group's pipeline, a 7-year pipeline in construction, and the sector is about AUD 1.7 trillion. So clearly, we've got a very focused pipeline of activities, and of that AUD 15.6 billion, we have current tenders of AUD 2.6 billion, as I said previously, and most importantly, about AUD 4 billion of that is for FY25 and beyond. So we've got AUD 1.5 billion to deliver in this half to hit our target of revenue in excess of AUD 2.9 billion, and we're obviously very comfortable with that position as we have reconfirmed our guidance.
So just to close on that, we have reconfirmed our guidance at the upper end of our 175-185 original target with expectations, obviously, firming at the upper end of that range and cash and gearing's consistent with long-term averages. So I think that's about the summary. With that, we're happy to go to questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on the 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. Your first question comes from William Park with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jules and Richard. Thanks for taking my question. Could I perhaps start with the guidance? Just looking at the bottom end of your revenue guidance of AUD 2.9 billion and just applying the margin that you have achieved in the first half, that sort of implies EBITDA to basically coming above the guidance range that you've reiterated today. And clearly, your comments around all three segments suggest that there's some margin improvement sequentially that could potentially come through. So just wanted to understand, is this the case of you guys being sort of somewhat conservative, or are there any sort of headwinds that you see that could potentially be a risk to, I guess, margin and potential upside to the guidance range? Thank you.
Thanks, Will. Look, I think it's conservatism, clearly, because we did have significant impact in weather last year. We've had weather events. The cyclones keep building off the Queensland coast, and obviously, it's still relatively early in the period. I suppose we're only in February. So I think that probably answers your question.
Yep. Thank you. And just on the cash conversion side, I appreciate that it's Richard's comments around what drove that cash conversion down this half, but just in terms of your conversations with those customers who have paid late after 31st of December, do you think this is going to be sort of an ongoing issue going forward? In other words, do you expect the cash conversion to be skewed more to second half going forward?
Look, I don't think so. It was unusual for that particular client to do it, so it was a bit of a surprise to us, I suppose, in terms of that. So we wouldn't expect it on an ongoing basis. It just.
That client never had.
Yeah. Never done it previously, but it's a big client, so it was obviously a material amount of cash in that particular client. So if you get a couple of others add on to that, then but as Richard said previously, at 99% cash conversion at the full year versus where we are. I did note a Downer's result yesterday. We're again where the underlying cash conversion was 87%. So I think we've never done that in the past, and I would expect it to unwind and improve in the second half, and we don't expect the clients to continue to do that on an ongoing basis.
Yeah. That makes sense. And just one last one from me. Pipeline in comparison to, I guess, what you have reiterated back at the AGM, appears to have gone down from AUD 17 billion to AUD 15.6 billion. Is this the case of projects being awarded? You talked about those delays in project awards, the risk around that is easing. Is it the case of that plus the fact that you guys are taking a more disciplined approach to the pipeline, or? Just wanted to understand the delta there, please.
Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, you need to review the prospects and obviously things you're actually bidding. You've got absolute visibility over other than what timing might happen on the ground, but the pipeline's essentially the same. Some things may come out of that in terms of they might slip beyond the 12-month win-deliver style profile. If you think of a couple of things in lithium, for example, I mean, Piedmont, we were a preferred partner there in talking to those guys. Now, that might be deferred for a period of time. So we take things out that are less certain within that limited delivery pipeline. So our pipeline isn't a 10-year have a stab. Our pipelines are very defined pipeline on prospects that are clearly visible.
Yeah. That makes sense. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Evan Karatzas with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for your time. Just focusing on that AUD 4 billion of work secured for FY25 and beyond, is there any additional info you can provide just on, I guess, what's secured specifically for FY25 of that AUD 4 billion, even if it's a, I guess, a rough guide?
Yes. Well, it's well over two. So we're well on track in terms of any FY25 assumptions in terms of what that delivery profile looks like.
Oh, maybe just quick follow-up. Relative to the I think you last disclosed it was AUD 2.5 billion. Is it similar or above that? Any additional info there?
Similar to that, Evan.
Yep.
Okay. Yep. Fine. Fine. That's fine. And then just going back to that tender pipeline, the AUD 15.6 billion, I'm just trying to get a feel for, I guess, the type of works you're really expecting to drop these next 6 or sorry, next 12 months that really help to underpin the positive tone or outlook you're speaking to for FY25, maybe by sector, if you can, just so we sort of know and know what to focus on in terms of contract awards for the next, let's say, 6-12 months.
Look, there's a lot happening, Evan, across. I mean, it could be mining in gold, mining in iron ore, mining in coal. We don't need any of that in terms of where we're looking at our current assumptions for FY25, for example, in Mining, but there is quite a lot of activity there. The Civil projects, a lot of stuff that we're doing at the moment is smaller sustaining capital projects but would offer better returns. But then there's large infrastructure projects coming as well. So we're a preferred proponent on Reid, for example, and most of that won't contribute until 2025, 2026 anyway. It's got a design phase, and it goes into construction. So there's that. And then you've got RCR working on sole-sourced and Primero working on sole-sourced opportunities in iron ore, major projects that we're not at liberty to disclose.
It's a real mixed bag across all of our divisions.
Which is a really important thing because, again, we keep harping on about the importance of the diversification of the business, and that really plays out in the tender pipeline where we've got a variety of smaller projects, as Jules says, the sort of AUD 30 million-AUD 50 million projects that will deliver a very solid margin, and then there are some very large projects in there as well, large mining opportunities. So it really is quite a mixed bag, and it's a, as you would all understand, a very diversified portfolio of opportunities that we've got, which is exactly where we want to be.
Yep. Yep. Okay. Makes sense. I'll pass it on. Thanks.
You.
The next question comes from Jakob Cakarnis with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jules. Hi, Richard. Just two from me, please. Just following on from earlier questions about FY25, is there any cost that's going to build ahead of those revenues that you're expecting for FY25 in the second half of 2024, so the preparation works that you're undertaking that we may need to consider when we look at the margin mix heading into the second half of 2024, please?
No. No. I mean, as I said earlier on the RCR slide, some of the overhead that's gone into there is really to drive the product support side of that business, which is a really important margin-generating part of that business. So that's really where we're focused on it. It's a bit of an impact in the first half, but we don't expect that to continue to build anywhere else.
Okay. And then just sticking on that, Jules, please, the net margin ambition that you spoke to of 7%-8% over the long run, what do you need to see to fall into place for that to happen? It looks as though that gets us back to kind of FY 2020, 2021 sort of levels. What needs to happen to get better surety that that's a sustainable margin base for us all to focus on for that division, please?
Well, I think DIAB and RCR generally, given the types of businesses and smaller projects, generally generate a better margin. The product sales, product support business, which we're focusing on, we're a leader in certain products. We've got a new sealed pan feeder, which is the only one in existence in the world, which we'll start to market and sell very soon to our iron ore customers. So there's various parts that will drive margin expansion, but the Primero side of the business has always been, with the exception of the sort of build-and-operates, we do a lower margin, 5%-6%, and then you'd expect higher margin contributions from the other two businesses, giving you that kind of blended margin.
So if the other two are double digits and you've got a lower but volume-generated lower margin at a Primero, then that generally kind of gets you to that target, 7%-8%.
Okay. Thanks, Jules. Sorry, just to sneak one final one in for Richard, please. Capital intensity moving forward, obviously, AUD 90-odd million of CapEx in the first half. Do we think about that as a go-forward on a half-yearly basis from here? You gave a good breakdown of the growth versus sustaining and maintenance CapEx. How do we think about everything heading into 2025 also with the position of tendering that you're doing, please?
Certainly for the remainder of the year, Jack, we're not anticipating that it's going to vary too much from the sorts of leads that we've provided to you previously. We're looking at AUD 180-AUD 200 of CapEx for the full year in FY24. Going into FY25, it will depend upon what new work is secured and starts. Now, if we haven't won that Mining contract today, then it's unlikely that we're going to be spending CapEx on it next year, just with the lead times. I don't anticipate that there will be any significant changes at this point in FY25 to the sorts of levels of expenditure that we're talking about for FY24.
Jakob, just to clarify, the margin we talked about on the MET business, I think we had publicly said that we'd expect it as a group to improve back to around 6%. So the 7%-8% is obviously a target margin for that division, but we don't expect that to suddenly happen in FY24.
Yep.
Just to be clear.
Thanks, both.
The next question comes from Nicholas Hollington with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jules and Richard. Thanks for taking my questions. Just on net, could I ask how much revenue came from Primero in the first half and how much you expect to do in the second half now that construction's ramping up?
Yeah. It was pretty small in the first half, Nick, because that was really the commencement of the engineering. So just to give you some sense of it, that job has got something like about over 3 million hours, 3.2 million hours or something is involved in that project. At December, we'd executed less than 100,000. So very, very early stages for us at the moment. Over the course of FY24, our expectation is that revenue for Primero's Fimiston would be in the order of AUD 150-160 million, that sort of size and scale. So still very early days.
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks, Richard. And I know Jules mentioned 5%-6% margins for Primero just before, but is the Fimiston project a bit of an exception there?
Yeah. The Fimiston project is a good margin for us. I think we've talked to the market about that in quite some detail previously. So it's certainly reporting and delivering margin in line with the sorts of guidance that we've provided in the past about that contract.
Awesome. Thanks, Richard. Just on Civil, you mentioned that you've been pricing some of the iron ore expansion projects, but the actual and active tenders are still very light. Could you just give us an idea of the potential size of some of the imminent projects?
Yeah. Look, I mean, none of the bigger iron ore expansions are happening at the moment. Well, we're starting to bid them now, so they haven't been.
Doing it.
Haven't been tendered. They haven't been submitted, should I say.
Do you need to see, I work on those things as well?
Yeah. Yeah. Just trying to get an understanding. Are they AUD 50 million-AUD 100 million projects, or are they sort of AUD 100 million-AUD 200 million?
Yes. Bigger.
Bigger. Okay.
But there are a lot others, obviously, the sustaining CapEx and growth on existing areas around Western Australia and around the other hubs is obviously adding quite a lot of those smaller-style contracts too. So it's a big mix, probably between kind of the 50-200, I suppose, that's probably where we're aiming in the short to medium term.
Yeah. And some of them are starting to come sort of due for tender in the next six months, I'd say?
Yes.
Yeah. That's right. It's still quite early in that cycle, though.
Yeah. Okay. Understood. Thanks. Just a final one from me. Could you just comment on trading conditions in January and February in each of your key divisions?
They've been very consistent with the results that we've just been talking about for the first half, all performing according to expectations and, as Jules said, keeping us on track for the guidance that we upgraded in November.
Awesome. That's it from me. Thanks very much, guys.
Pleasure.
All right. Thank you.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and then wait for your name to be announced. The next question comes from Matthew Chen with Moelis. Please go ahead. Hi, Matthew. You're in the call. Your line might be on mute. Oh, it doesn't look like he's there. Next question is from Roy Harrison with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
G'day, Jules, Richard. Maybe just some general comments on labor availability and productivity. I mean, I saw your headcount drop by circa 200 over the last half. How confident are you in recruiting labor should you win some of those bigger tenders that you're looking at in the next kind of six months? Thanks.
Thank you. Labor's actually stabilized a lot. We're seeing a much improved sort of situation in terms of turnover rates across the business, so particularly in Mining, Drill and Blast. Most areas of our business have seen much less turnover on an annualized basis than we've seen in the last few years. I think that's a real positive. Obviously, over the period post-COVID and through the sort of inflationary era, we've passed those costs through to the clients, and that's obviously what we're trying to be disciplined around their bid practice given that labor change, and you're seeing that in the improvement, obviously, in the margins of our business as well. We don't really have a concern on the labor side of things.
Some of the slowdown on high-profile net-related projects by others, BHP, maybe not pushing on Train 4, a few other things, will increase the labor pool, which is a good thing for us, but we have no concerns at all. We're well ahead of our white-collar labor targets on Fimiston, and we're very comfortable about our blue-collar targets that we have out there at the moment as well and getting good-quality skilled people. So we're pretty comfortable.
Thanks, guys. That's all from me.
Next question is from Matthew Chen with Moelis. Please go ahead. Matthew, your line might be on mute. There are no further questions at this time, and I'll hand it back to Jules for closing remarks.
Okay. Well, no further questions. Thanks very much, everyone, for listening, and we'll look forward to seeing most of you soon on our roadshows. Thanks very much.
It does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.