I think in the interest of time, we'll kick off. Good afternoon, everyone. Second strategy day that we've presented at the Mint. In the room, we've got some of our group executive up at the front here. We have the rest in the front row with Tim Longstaff, our Non-Executive Director, in the front row as well. Encourage you all to have a drink, light refreshment afterwards. Ask them the burning questions, anything you need to know, they'll answer the questions. Before we get underway, we'll try to kick off as quickly or as close to 3:00 P.M. as we can. In the unlikely event of an emergency, you'll hear the beep, beep, whoop, whoop.
The whoop whoop is the one you leave on any of the exits, meet us out the front, follow the guys with the hats. Bathrooms out that door to the right and then to the left. Otherwise, as I said, after the presentation, we'll do some Q&As, and then we'll head outside and have some light refreshments till about 6:30. On that, I'll pass over to Mark, and we'll kick off in about a minute's time. Thanks.
All right, thank you, Jeff. Good afternoon, welcome to Perenti's annual strategy briefing. Firstly, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which we meet, the Gadigal people, pay respect to elders past, present, and emerging. I'd also like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today. The picture on this slide is of a traditional smoking ceremony that was conducted at the Mint last year, I'd like to thank the Mint and the Gadigal people for allowing us to include this picture in our presentation. In attendance today are our group executives, Paul, Sarah, Peter, Ben, Raj, and Cameron. In the interest of time, you'll only hear from Paul, Sarah, and Peter today. However, the whole team will be available post the update for further engagement.
I'd also like to welcome one of our Sydney-based directors, Tim Longstaff, who is with us today and will also be available post-formalities. Slide 6: I'll commence by providing an overview of Perenti, and specifically our FY 2023 performance against our strategy. From there, I'll outline key global trends shaping the transformation of the mining industry and our unique value proposition to capitalize on these trends. Under section 3, I'll detail our sustainability imperatives and priorities that have been set in consideration of industry trends, but importantly, how we are positioning to capitalize on the opportunities. Paul will then provide an update on contract mining with a deep dive on Barminco, our global leading underground contract mining business, which is underpinning and enabling our future.
Paul will provide an overview of the work he and Sarah are jointly sponsoring, focused on inclusion and culture, and how this work is critical to supporting our people and improving business performance. From there, Sarah will outline progress and plans for our digital product business, idoba, with a case study of collaboration with the contract mining team that is adding value internally, and importantly, positioning our digital products externally. Peter will speak briefly to our value-created divestments from mining services, outline criteria for positioning our mining services division for future growth, for which Ben has recently assumed executive accountability. In support of our focus on continuing to execute our strategy, Peter will outline key changes to our capital management policy before handing back to me to summarize key points and, importantly, provide an update on our outlook.
We'll go to Q&A in the room and online before networking after the formalities. Section 1, progress against our 2025 strategy. Slide eitght. Our business is our people. Our 9,000 adaptable, responsive, and resilient people have seen us through many challenges, but importantly, positioned us for a very positive future. We operate 25 underground mines, six open pit mines, and support over 100 clients across a variety of services, with over three decades of experience in Australia and Africa, and more recently, in North America. We deliver our services through three operating divisions, covering iconic mining service brands plus new and emerging brands. These divisions collectively work in 10 countries across 4 continents, with exposure to over 60 operating mines. The contract mining division includes Ausdrill, Barminco, AUMS, and AMS as our operating brands.
This is our largest division and underpins the business, not just from an earnings perspective, but importantly, their core competence in mining is a key component and differentiator in supporting the success of our other two divisions. Our mining services division has been through quite a transformation as we have rebased the business ahead of growth in future years, which Peter will outline later in the presentation. We currently have three operating brands under this division. BTP is our Australian-based fleet solutions business, plus our African-focused businesses, Supply Direct and Logistics Direct. Our technology-focused division is idoba, which was launched in 2021 after combining several successful technology businesses. idoba is focused on leveraging the deep domain expertise in contract mining to develop digital products and services to support the ongoing shift in technology.
Since Idoba was launched, Orelogy, a technical services mining consultancy, has been acquired, and 12 months ago, Sumitomo purchased a 10% equity stake in Idoba, providing an excellent partner with global scale and reach. Our portfolio of businesses is central to the delivery of our 2025 strategy, as presented this time last year, which takes me to the next slide. Slide 9. I'll start by providing a high-level summary and recap of our strategy, with further detail on our performance since our last update. Beginning with our purpose, to create enduring value and certainty for all of our stakeholders, is at the heart of our business.
By attracting, retaining, and engaging our 9,000 employees, along with supporting the communities in which we work, we are focused on delivering value for our clients, which in turn generates returns for shareholders, thereby attracting further investment to support our growth. The outcome of creating value for our stakeholders is achieving our fundamental objective of delivering competitive TSR year-on-year. Delivering this outcome is underpinned by embedding sustainability in everything we do, and by building a portfolio of complementary businesses. Slide 10. This slide is as per what we presented last year with no changes, including the financial targets. Although, as per our release this morning, we have updated our 2025 revenue target, which I'll come back to later in the presentation.
In support of delivering competitive TSR, we outlined five focus areas and implemented a new operating model, which details how we are organized and, importantly, how we work across our three operating divisions and corporate center. The divisions are focused on developing and implementing their strategy to safely generate financial returns on their allocated capital through the products and services they offer. With the corporate center focused on key areas such as capital allocation, governance, and importantly, executive talent development across the organization. sorry, whilst the divisions are designed to be standalone, our leadership is focused on collaboration across the divisions and corporate center to generate further value. As part of our 2025 strategy, we set several targets and outlined various initiatives against the five focus areas.
On the coming slides, I'll provide an update on our FY 2023 guidance and initiatives, although firstly, I'll address our safety performance, specifically the loss of our two colleagues, Trevor and Dylan, in February at the Dugald River underground mine. The safety of our people has always and continues to be our first priority, and the loss of Trevor and Dylan reinforces the need for this focus in the most tragic of ways. Prior to this event in February, our safety statistics were improving, but as an industry, we know improvement in the traditional lag metrics, such as TRIFR and LTIFR, does not translate to an absence of fatal events. Over the last five years, the team have put significant effort into improving our safety, but clearly, we need to look at safety differently, particularly with our ongoing growth in underground mining.
Establishing the Safety Taskf orce, consisting of internal and external representatives who are world-renowned. I'll provide further detail on our Safety Journey and Taskf orce in the next section, Sustainability. Slide 11. I'm very pleased to confirm today that through the ongoing effort of our people, we are tracking to the top end of our guidance for FY 2023. We expect revenue to be just shy of AUD 3 billion, at AUD 2.9 billion, with EBITA expected to be between AUD 260 million and AUD 265 million. Given the timing of new fleet deliveries and Subika fleet sales, net CapEx will be circa AUD 290 million, with leverage at 1x . I would note, this capital number may be less if we experience any further shipping delays in this month.
Final results will be released in August, however, this updated guidance represents record revenue and EBIT for Perenti, and at the same time, our lowest leverage since Perenti was formed, thereby demonstrating ongoing progress against our 2025 strategy. Slide 12. This slide has been presented previously and now updated to include expected margins in FY 2023, based on our timing guidance, which, as I said, is at the high end of our revised guidance released in February. This chart demonstrates since COVID restrictions started to ease in the second half of FY 2022, and significant cost escalations were recovered under our contracted escalation formulas, our margins commenced recovering and have continued throughout FY 2023.
We are still focused on driving further margin improvements into FY 2024 and beyond by focusing on several categories, along with our overarching focus of generating additional free cash flow to deliver competitive TSR for our shareholders. Slide 13. Beyond our record time and financial performance expected this year, the team have continued to make significant progress against our strategic focus areas in both the near-term and longer-term initiatives. As mentioned earlier, in safety, we have not met our expectations, which I'll address in further detail under sustainability. I won't call out all items on this slide, however, it is clear much has been done in delivering excellent financial performance this year. Importantly, through various initiatives, we have also been positioning the business to create future value for our shareholders beyond just value in the short term.
Under business performance, not only have operating margins continued to improve, but the team have been recycling capital from West Africa by selling our power station in Senegal and our exploration assets in Mali. With the sale of assets in Mali, we no longer operate there, and we have further plans to continue recycling capital from West Africa. With capital management, we have bought back over 25 million shares since June last year, and we recently purchased almost $27 million of our high-yield bonds at $0.915 in the dollar. Last year, we implemented a new operating model to provide a clear platform and outline how we work together in support of our updated strategy and continue to invest in our management systems, which will be a multi-year journey.
In support of our people and cultural focus area, we implemented our Leading at Perenti program for our senior leaders, and Sarah and Paul established a Steering Group focused on inclusion and diversity, which we will hear later in the presentation. In addition, and as everyone is aware, there is a significant skill shortage across the industry and Australia more broadly, which, like others, we have also felt the impact. In navigating this challenge, our team have done a great job in attracting talent, and pleasingly, we have seen a reduction in our employee turnover, albeit it is still an ongoing challenge. Finally, data and analytics, where the team have established our data and digital foundations so we can make sense of the significant amount of data that we generate through our operational activities, which is largely an untapped asset.
Our data set offers significant value upside as we look to seek insights from the data to further improve our operational performance, including margins. Through idoba's digital and technology capabilities, this data will be leveraged for external benefit in developing new products and services. Not only are we set to deliver record returns in FY 2023 through the effort of our team, we have also been investing in our people, business foundations, and future initiatives to deliver enduring value and ultimately, competitive total shareholder returns. Section two, global trends. Slide 15. Taking a step back from Perenti and looking at the industry more broadly, the industry continues to transform, with the rate of change increasing.
With that being the focus on decarbonisation along with energy transition, the ever-increasing demand for critical minerals, declining grades, and deeper deposits, along with a focus on sourcing the critical minerals sustainably, this all points to further growth in underground mining. In 2013, 25% of minerals were mined from underground mines, with that increasing to 43% by 2020, which is a significant increase in only seven years. The ongoing shift to underground mining is expected to continue in the coming years, given the factors I have outlined and more. Why is this important in the context of our strategy presentation today? It is because through Barminco, we are one of the world's largest underground mining contractors, leaving us extremely well-placed to continue to capitalize on this ongoing shift to more underground mines, as we have demonstrated with our recent growth in underground mining.
Slide 16. Over the last five years, our underground revenue has grown at a compound annual growth rate of almost 30%. In anyone's language, this is significant growth. When this is done whilst managing a global workforce through a pandemic, starting new projects in two new countries, and dealing with other macro challenges such as skill shortages, supply chain issues, and significant inflation, this achievement is even more remarkable and comes back to the amazing people across our business. Not only have the team delivered almost 30% CAGR, we have also been executing against our strategy and evolving our co-commodity mix and regional revenues in the future-focused minerals and better mining jurisdictions, respectively.
Through Barminco, we have a dominant position globally as one of the leading underground mining contractors, which has us positioned well to capitalize on further growth in underground mining, as I outlined in the previous slide. Underground mining is more technically challenging than surface mining. The benefits of that challenge, given our scale, is twofold. Firstly, the technical challenge presents a significant barrier to new and smaller contractors from easily competing. Our focus is to primarily compete on capability and performance rather than just on price, which smaller companies generally need to rely on to win work. Secondly, the upfront capital outlay from new underground mine is generally 60% less than an open-cut mine for equivalent annual revenue.
In summary, over the last five years, we have had significant growth across Barminco, and with the ongoing growth in the global underground sector, we are extremely well-placed to further capitalize on this industry shift. Although we are optimistic and well-positioned for further growth, there are challenges we need to manage, particularly given the negative impacts of safety we have experienced in recent years in our underground operations. Slide 17. Whilst we are well-placed to capitalize on the ongoing shift to underground mines, the industry has several challenges, which, given our scale, these challenges are directly applicable to our business. Firstly, health and safety of our people to ensure they have no life-changing events from coming to work is absolutely critical to everyone at Perenti, as it is for the whole mining industry. We are focused on how we work to ensure our people are safe.
Clearly, given our recent underground fatalities, and with underground mining having almost 3x the likelihood of fatal events compared to surface mining, without further engineering and technology improvements, including automation, the exposure to this risk will continue to increase for our business and the industry as the percentage of underground mining continues to grow. Beyond the physical safety of our people conducting work, the psychological safety and physical safety associated with sexual assault, and assault more broadly, is also of critical importance. Recent government reports, mine owner reports, and our own employee survey clearly shows that this is a key area that needs to be addressed by the industry. We continue to see global warming and the impacts already being felt, we need to do more as an industry by accelerating the energy transition in support of decarbonisation.
Attracting talent has always been a focus for every industry and every business, with competition and career options for our current and future generations continuing to increase. When you overlay the industry challenges, along with the fact that mines are in remote areas, the employee value proposition to work in mining is increasingly out of favor. Whilst these challenges are very real, we also see that given our scale and position in the industry, we are well placed to respond, and it is with this in mind that we have set our sustainability imperatives and initiatives that I'll now outline. Section 3: Sustainability. Slide 19. We actively commenced our sustainability journey four years ago. Over this time, our approach to sustainability has continued to evolve.
In January 2022, a new Board Safety and Sustainability Committee, chaired by Tim Longstaff, was introduced to provide oversight and support on material sustainability issues for the business. Recently, our leadership has dedicated time reflecting on what sustainability means to our people, communities, clients, and investors, and therefore, what it means for Perenti. Through this process, we have identified three key areas we consider imperative to successfully embedding sustainability in everything we do: caring for our people and communities, valuing the environment and enabling the energy transition, and acting ethically and responsibly. These imperatives are linked and contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as shown with the colored tiles on the slide. We recognize the critical role we must play in helping the world transition to a more sustainable future, a future that demands more of us.
Along with these imperatives, the board and group executive have identified five sustainability priorities where we want to focus our effort. Slide 20. Group executive sponsors have been allocated to each of the sustainability priorities, with steering groups established to help make meaningful progress. For preventing life-changing events, I'm the sponsor. Sarah and Paul are co-sponsors for both creating safe and respectful workplaces and achieving gender balance, considering the close interconnection of these two priorities. Peter and Raj are the sponsors for accelerating decarbonisation, Cameron and Ben are the leaders for partnering with our communities. I'll now provide an overview for each of the sustainability priorities, starting with preventing life-changing events. Slide 21. Safety is an ever-present industry challenge, given our global footprint, we have an obligation to support the industry change. first and foremost, our obligation starts with keeping our people safe.
On this slide, you can see a timeline of some of the major milestones in our journey to preventing life-changing events. An important foundational element is our critical risk program, which was launched across Barminco in 2018 and then rolled out across all Perenti businesses in 2019, and includes 12 standards and a regime of verification activities. We continue to invest significantly in technology solutions to address critical risks. Collision avoidance and simulator training using virtual reality are two such examples. We introduced a No Shortcuts campaign to prompt thinking and discussion about practices in the workplace, and more recently, we have undertaken safety climate and cultural surveys within our contract mining business in partnership with a leading safety culture organization, Sentis. The safety of our people has always been an absolute priority.
We are committed to doing everything we can to ensure our people are safe in the workplace, and we are clearly looking for opportunities for further improvement. This will become increasingly important as we continue to grow our underground mining business, hence establishing the Safety Taskf orce earlier this year. Slide 22. It's only been 12 weeks since we established the Task force. However, I wanted to provide an update on progress. As previously announced, the Safety Taskf orce is being advised by two external world-renowned experts, Professor Sidney Dekker and Peter Wilkinson. In addition, Dr. David Provan is providing support direct to the Contract Mining Working Group. As mentioned earlier, I chair and sponsor the Taskf orce, along with co-sponsors Paul and Ben.
Alex Atkins, one of our non-executive directors, and a deep domain technical and operational expert in mining, is also a member of the Task force. To date, the Task force has held a number of workshops and undertaken several site visits to help identify opportunities to deliver the change in safety performance we are after. It is early days, through the involvement of Peter and Sidney, they are already tabling some insightful industry observations and how that relates specifically to our business. Human safety is a critical focus for the industry, particularly as more underground mining occurs in the future, we will openly share our learnings with the broader mining industry to improve overall health and safety performance. We already allocate significant resources and funds across our business, focused on doing work well to keep our people safe.
In support of our strategy to grow our presence in underground mining, we will also allocate additional funds focused on specific engineering and technology projects above current programs of work. We will expand on our updated capital management policy. I see this as a critical investment to explore additional ways to keep our people safe. There will also be indirect value generated, benefiting our clients, and therefore our shareholders, in positioning for further growth in underground mining. Slide 23. In complement to the critical work in health and safety, we have also taken major steps to creating a safe and respectful work environment throughout the organization. In order to address some of the challenging areas of our workplace culture, I put my full support behind gaining honest insights into the types of harmful behaviors that are occurring in our workplaces.
I was pleased that over a third of our people responded to a comprehensive survey where they shared their views and experiences. These insights have galvanized our leadership teams in committing to a range of actions to eliminate harmful behaviors from our workplaces. These actions include implementing a response and action multi-year plan to promote and reinforce positive behaviors. We've committed to a program that we've called It's Not Okay. It started with driving awareness of what constitutes harmful behavior and will evolve over time to educate and encourage positive actions from our people to ultimately create a safe and respectful workplace. To support this work, we have developed and implemented Perenti-specific leadership and management development programs for leaders across our business. Slide 24. We believe an inclusive culture is essential in achieving diversity in our workforce, which will directly support and enable delivery of our broader business goals.
Inclusive work environments are underpinned by a feeling of psychological safety, meaning that our employees are more involved and able to contribute to their full potential. We understand that our workforce needs to be reflective of the communities in which we operate and have highlighted an initial priority to improve gender diversity. By having an inclusive workplace, we will attract and retain a broader scope of talent that will help us solve the problems of today and innovate for tomorrow. Our inclusion and diversity roadmap sets out our aspiration for the future and how we'll get there. We have set gender diversity targets, starting with the board and group executive and across our whole global workforce. As sponsors of these two linked priorities, Paul and Sarah will provide a further update in their personal perspective later in the presentation. Slide 25.
I'm proud of the active role Perenti continues to play in the communities where we work. We have a track record over many years of working hand in hand with local communities, engaging with community leaders, and providing financial support and donations to schools, orphanages, sporting clubs, as well as conservation groups. In addition, we support local business development by providing areas for them to work, tools and equipment, vehicles, and business training. In September 2020, we opened a state-of-the-art training center in Botswana, which has trained over 500 local employees. Mining often occurs on adjacent, on or adjacent to Indigenous peoples' land. We are committed to respectfully and proactively engaging with Indigenous peoples in the regions we operate. For example, we recently signed a MoU focused on contracting opportunities with the Wajarri people in Western Australia. Slide 26.
Perenti recognizes that climate change demands urgent action, being one of the most significant issues of our time. Whilst the mining industry has a critical role in providing many of the commodities required for the energy transition, it is also incumbent upon us to decarbonize. The Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, TCFD, provides a useful framework for company action. We are progressively aligning with the TCFD recommendations, including publishing a climate change position statement, undertaking a phase one climate scenario analysis, implementing an internal carbon price to inform our investment decisions, setting a greenhouse gas-related measure as part of our short-term employee incentives, and establishing an executive-sponsored Decarbonisation Steering Group . We are also soon to announce our scope one and two greenhouse gas emission targets. More broadly, we see electrification and decarbonisation as a huge opportunity for Perenti.
To that end, we are partnering with several organizations to assist us in our decarbonisation efforts and offerings, including ABB, to deliver full scope electrification study for our clients. We are expecting to be able to announce an exciting development on this front very soon. I do want to emphasize that we truly believe that action on climate change and other sustainability priorities I've just covered, is not only the right thing to do, but each priority in its own right, and when combined, will deliver clear and significant business value. I'll now hand over to Paul.
Thanks, Mark, really pleased to be with you today and to have the opportunity to speak briefly about Perenti's Contract Mining Division, which I have the absolute honor of leading. Slide 28. Firstly, a brief reminder of the portfolio. Perenti's Contract Mining Division comprises of Ausdrill, Australian drilling industry pioneer and leader, African Mining Services or AMS, which is Africa's largest hard rock surface mining contractor, and Barminco, which operates in some countries in Africa as African Underground Mining Services, or AUMS. Barminco is one of the world's largest and most successful hard rock underground mining contractors. Collectively, Perenti's Contract Mining Division is unique in that it is the only global mining contractor with a large-scale capability in both surface and underground mining, operating successfully on three continents and with a history now approaching 40 years.
Barminco, via Perenti's ownership, is Australia's only listed hard rock underground mining contractor of scale. Individually, Ausdrill, AMS, and Barminco enjoy dominant positions in their own markets, when combined, they create a global powerhouse in contract mining. Slide 29. Barminco is a full-service underground mining contractor, delivering generally large end-to-end mining projects. Whilst Barminco is more than simply a development contractor, high-speed development is encoded in our DNA, it is this high-speed development capability, which is at the core of Barminco's competitive advantage. Let me explain Barminco's competitive advantage a little more. Underground mines include a complex network of tunnels or roadways to access the ore body. The construction of these tunnels or roadways is what we call development, the process of drilling, blasting, loading, and transporting ore to the surface is what we call production.
The predominant method of transporting ore and waste to the surface from underground is either by shaft hoisting or truck haulage. The former includes material being hoisted vertically up a large shaft to the surface in relatively small parcels, utilizing fixed materials handling infrastructure. Shaft construction and equipping with hoisting equipment is capital-intensive and time-consuming. In the long run, however, operating costs can be lower. For large, long-life, deep underground mines, shaft hoisting is often the optimal method for transporting ore and waste to the surface. Truck haulage, however, involves simply loading the blasted material onto a truck with a loader and hauling the material up an inclined roadway, which is known as a decline, to the surface. This is a much simpler and more flexible process with significantly lower capital costs.
Accordingly, truck haulage is typically the preferred materials handling option for shallow mines or mines with lower reserves and shorter mine lives. In the long run, operating costs may be higher than for similar shaft-hoisted operations. For the past 30 years, very few mines in Australia have developed a hoisting shaft, with miners seeking the benefits of lower capital costs, improved flexibility, and rapid access to ore, and therefore, cash flow of the truck haulage method. A crucial factor in the success of a truck haulage operation is the highly productive development of the tunnels and roadways, without which much of the benefit of rapid access to ore may be lost. I'd go on to say that highly productive development is crucial in any mine, but particularly so in truck haulage operations. This is where we come in. Slide 30.
Over 30 years ago, Barminco's founder, mining engineer extraordinaire, Peter Bartlett, and his team were early pioneers of high-speed development. At the core of this technique were small, very focused teams of the world's best operators, who employed an innovative method of installing ground support using the same development drill used for drilling holes for blasting. In this context, ground support includes rock bolts and steel mesh, which are installed into the roof and the sides of the underground tunnel to provide the tunnel with structural integrity. Using a jumbo development drill to install ground support and drill blast holes removes the need for additional specialized machinery, significantly reduces the manual handling tasks, of earlier techniques, and eliminates the lost working time, which occurs at the handover points between installing ground support and drilling blast holes.
Whilst this technique has gained widespread adoption in Australia, in many other parts of the world, including in North America, historical techniques are still commonplace. It is because of this technique and others, that Barminco enjoys a substantial productivity advantage over its global competitors and can rightfully claim to be leaders in high-speed development. Slide 31. Barminco was born in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia some 34 years ago, and WA is without doubt our home ground. Over the past 34 years, we've grown a large market share in Australia, and in particular in Western Australia and Queensland, with recent expansion into New South Wales.
Our strategy in Australia is to continue to grow, to at least maintain our market share, and generate substantial Australian earnings while focusing on optimizing our project portfolio and improving project margins, developing and deploying new technologies, and building our talent pipeline. In Africa, where we generate stronger margins due to our productivity advantage, a more favorable competitive landscape, and the increased risk inherent in Africa, our strategy is to maintain our share and continue to generate positive cash flows, while progressively seeking to de-risk the portfolio and deploy our finite capital to the best projects in the best countries in Africa. Since the formation of Perenti, in Africa, we have completed unprofitable projects, divested operating businesses which didn't meet our return expectations, and sold idle fleet and reduced inventories, reinvesting the cash generated by these initiatives into better projects, in better countries, secured on better terms.
Brings me to North America. Slide 32. We see North America as the growth engine for Barminco for the next decade, where we will leverage our distinct productivity advantage in what is the world's largest hard rock underground mining market, and a market where, until recently, we've had little exposure. After studying the North American market and being convinced of its attractiveness, we commenced our push into North America in 2019, led by Blair Sessions, who at the time was also responsible for Barminco and AUMS in Africa. Blair is a long-serving executive, an outstanding mining engineer, and an even better mining contractor, who, since 2014, has been responsible for the exceptional performance and growth of AUMS.
Over the past 4 years only, Barminco have established companies in Canada and the USA, established a regional head office in Denver, secured Barminco's first underground project at Hemlo in Ontario, followed by our second project at Red Chris in British Columbia, and grown annual revenues from nil to $100 million, contributing a new earnings source from a tier one jurisdiction. Late last year, enabled by the strong and stable performance of our African projects, and encouraged by a growing pipeline of opportunities in the USA and Canada, which now totals over $4.4 billion, Blair was reassigned to exclusively focus on North America and has relocated to Denver. There are a number of important features of our North American project pipeline, which are also worth pointing out.
The estimated size of the projects are larger than the average size of our existing project portfolio, which is attractive as it reduces the complexity and overhead cost burden, which comes with the proliferation of smaller projects. The commodity mix leans disproportionately towards future-facing metals like copper, nickel, and other base metals, which the world needs in increasing quantities to meet global warming and decarbonisation objectives, and for which the supply and demand dynamics are favorable. I'm pleased with the progress we are making in North America, and I'm excited about our prospects for the future there. Slide 33. Before I hand to Sarah, I'd like to say a final word on safety and the importance of inclusion and diverse teams. Mining is not easy. Mines are dynamic workplaces, and uncontrolled, the work can be hazardous and at times difficult. We do it because it is important.
Minerals and the metals which we drill for and mine are essential for modern life and a prosperous future. Without more mining, specifically more underground mining, the world will simply not achieve its global warming and decarbonisation objectives. While technology is increasingly augmenting the work that our people do, mining continues to be a people-intensive activity. This is why safety is so very important to us. Despite the inherent hazards which exist in mining, we believe mining can and should be safe for everyone. We are absolutely committed to our objectives of no life-changing events. Our vision for Perenti's contract mining division is to create a safety culture underpinned by strong leadership and competent systems, where safety is not thought of as a compliance activity, but as an essential condition for performing quality work.
Where we consistently maintain high standards, celebrate positive safety outcomes, and treat errors and near misses and incidents as important opportunities to learn and improve. Where we care for each other and build inclusive team environments, and where our people feel safe to speak up about safety and other matters, and where our people understand and respect the hazards inherent in mining, and we implement critical controls with discipline. In some aspects, this vision is already a reality, but in others, we have some way to go, but we are determined to learn and improve. With respect to inclusive and diverse teams, I often say that mining is a team sport, more so than in many other industries, where important outcomes, including safety and operational performance and employee engagement, rely heavily on how well we all work together.
In my opinion, an essential ingredient for excellent teamwork is the creation of an environment where team members feel like they belong, where they feel like their contributions matter. Where they feel safe to speak up and challenge the status quo. This sort of environment is created by inclusive leadership. As Mark outlined earlier, my colleague, Sarah and I, are executive co-sponsors of the very important work we are doing as an organization to create a culture of inclusion, safety, and respect, and to increase the diversity of our workforce. We do this work not just because it is the right thing to do, because it is, but because when we get this right, the impact on our culture and our performance will be profound. We take our responsibility to create positive change in this area seriously.
While I'm delighted of the progress we have made recently, I know there is much more we can and will do. I'd now like to hand over to Sarah.
Thanks, Paul. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm really happy to be talking to you today about idoba and our progress today. Slide 35. When we first launched idoba nearly two years ago, we shared the model linking idoba as an innovation hub with contract mining as the operational playground. Fast-forward to today, the five companies we've acquired, including more recently, our acquisition of Orelogy, a leading mine planning and technical services consultancy, and our partnership with Sumitomo, puts us in a unique position to bring digital transformation to life by combining our deep domain expertise and digital capabilities. Core to our early acquisition was Optika Solutions, our data science and complex mathematical modeling team, which provided us with a leading digital platform, Akumen. Like Paul touched on, it's my fundamental belief that we do not have a diversity and inclusion problem in our industry.
We have a diversity and inclusion solution to an innovation and creativity problem, and our 160 strong idoba team is all of these things: diverse, inclusive, creative, and innovative. Our team is about 40% female, over 25% neurodiverse. We have representation from over 27 different nationalities, and our team members' ages range from 17 to 72. We are diverse in every sense of the word, and it's with this diversity of thought, we are solving the productivity opportunities of today and the sustainability challenges of tomorrow in so many amazing and innovative ways. What we also know is that we are one of the only mining technology companies we are aware of who have direct access to extensive operational data sets to build our digital products upon.
While we know some large mining OEMs have access to funding and have been acquiring a lot of digital technology companies, the one thing they lack is direct access to the executional data sets. Why is this important? Well, much like ChatGPT used all of the language from the Internet to train its AI algorithms, we are using all of Perenti's years and years of operational data to train our AI algorithms and turn them into scalable digital products that can be used internally and generate annual recurring revenue externally. Slide 36. It's with all our combined capabilities, we are co-creating the future of mining operations through DiiMOS, our technology platform play, powered by Acumen. DiiMOS is a distributed, intelligent, and integrated mining management operating system.
Fundamentally, DiiMOS is about how we take the industry on a journey of digital transformation, and importantly, how we enable operators to navigate the complexity of ESG. In the simplest terms, we are taking today's data to inform tomorrow's decision-making. This will make our operators the decision data scientists of the future, improving future performance and optimizing the multiple concurrent economic and ESG value levers. DiiMOS and its first products are enabling contract mining to improve productivity and margins today in support of our 2025 strategy, while we refine our product development capabilities, allowing us to grow our annual recurring revenue externally and build on our future Software as a Service offerings. Slide 37. What is the DiiMOS differentiator, and how does this stand out from other enterprise and digital platform players in the market?
While the E in ESG tends to get most of the attention, we've instead focused on the S to begin with. The big differentiator in DiiMOS is the human and problem-centered approach embodied in the solution, which really facilitates a true shift in the way we operate in an increasingly complex world, particularly in underground mining, as Paul touched on. We're seeing ESG drive a real redefinition of core value drivers and instigating significant organizational transformation. In my view, ESG is a big revolution that's happening. Digital is a response to that revolution. Up until now, mining operations have been measured on the value levers of cost, volume, and quality. However, with the onset of ESG, those value levers and how a business is measured will increase significantly. While we'll still have cost, volume, and quality, we'll also have emissions, energy, water, social.
The levers for optimization will become far too great for the human mind alone to cognitively manage. Today's organizational constructs will need to shift. Decisions will no longer be able to be made in isolation. For example, if a maintenance manager decides to reduce costs over here, but that increases emissions over here, how do you actually manage that trade-off? All parts of the operations value chain will need to be integrated, intelligently and digitally connected, and information seamlessly distributed to the key decision-makers across all levels of the business. Many mining digital platforms have been developed with the current view of the operations on the left, a view that only optimizes for cost, volume, and potentially quality....
The current approach generally fails to acknowledge that digital transformation is not only about the data in the physical value chain, it is about how the data interacts and behaves within an increasingly complex value chain. The value of being connected to some of the world's best mining operators in Barminco and Ausdrill, is the opportunity to focus on, and digitally and mathematically model, the behaviors and interactions that really drive world-class performance. While DiiMOS is a bold vision, we are using our years of operational and technology adoption knowledge to attack it through a progressive build. Slide 38. Initially, we're focused on harnessing key performance data from the contract mining business, which is why we've started with these four products. It's important to remember that a lot of technology development focuses on building the product or the solution, and then thinks about the human at the end.
What we've been able to do is start with a human consideration and put the products into market that are designed for people to use in real-world, dynamic, not static, environments. Our productivity optimizer is an internal product that analyzes the productivity drivers of all of our fleet data against distributed historic performance to rapidly generate competitive tenders, understand productivity assumptions, likelihood, and risks, and forms a powerful database of benchmark performance data. Our Dynamic Driver Modelling, DDM, dynamically and accurately models complex operating environments for rapid scenario analysis and goal seeking. DDM functions as a powerful digital twin, enabled by visualization, AI, and a no-code interface. DDM is currently in the external market, generating annual recurring revenue, as well as being used in the contract mining business.
Gemini is our advanced agent-based scheduler and optimizer that simulates mining fleet interactions and emergent behaviors to within 98% accuracy for smarter, more efficient mining operations. Our Gemini Surface product is in pilot testing phase. Our Gemini Underground product is in development with Barminco. Our last product at the moment is Mine Performance Navigator. MPN is a leading-edge tool that digitally and mathematically maps the behaviors and interactions of the world's best underground miners. MPN rapidly optimizes decision-making using behavioral-based AI to forecast future performance. Slide 39. As you've seen, DiiMOS is really only possible through the close working relationship we have with the contract mining, enabling tomorrow by walking in each other's shoes and being genuinely smarter together. Some of you may recall having seen some of this early work when we launched idoba.
Since then, in addition to developing MPN, this work has supported the development of our arguably world-class Perenti Data Lake, making access to data seamless for both the operational business to streamline reporting and focus productivity improvements, but also for idoba to access and build our digital products. We've advanced our algorithms in Mine Performance Navigator to support commercial scaling and developed a user experience and interface that allows both the contract mining team and external clients to gain productivity insights for improved decision-making almost instantly. We've tested the products at one of our operational sites and are now ready to finalize pilot testing and commercially scale the product internally and externally. Slide 40.
The development of MPN is a great practical example of how diverse thinking, combined with the data and operational know-how in contract mining, is being used to improve productivity and increase margin in the business today, and generate future revenue streams through annual recurring revenue and Software as a Service A core premise of the idoba business model that I'm pleased to say we are proving correct, is that this approach enables us to make our platform and our products robust while substantially de-risking the products. The playground of multiple operational sites means we're able to easily trial, test, and commercialize our products with real users before we take them to market, leveraging existing client relationships. Slide 41. I'm sure you can see that the connection to contract mining and other parts of the business is having a significant influence on the quality of the products we're building in idoba.
I'm also extremely proud of some of the other ways we're working hand in hand across the broader business and being smarter together. As Paul mentioned, we've been working closely together over the last six months as co-sponsors of the Perenti Culture and Inclusion Steering Committee, something very close to my heart. This committee builds on the work Mark touched on earlier on our It's Not Okay framework, and is focusing on the elimination of harmful behaviors through the creation of psychologically safe and inclusive working environments. The power of Paul and I learning, unlearning, and relearning together is shaping up to be one of the more rewarding experiences I've had since joining the mining industry some 20 years ago. DiiMOS is also a critical enabler to our electrification future. Raj, who is here today, has been leading the charge in developing our electrification Task force.
The combined power of each of the divisions, in conjunction with our partnership with ABB, is setting us up to deliver a more sustainable future, one I'm incredibly proud to be part of. I'll now hand over to Pete to talk through our mining services division and capital management framework.
Thanks, Sarah. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me also thank you for being here today. Thank you for your interest in Perenti at what is, I think, a really exciting and positive time in the evolution of the business. Moving on to slide 43, simplification to position for expansion. To give this heading context, it's worth a quick recap of the history of Perenti. When Perenti was formed, we established a division that we called Investments. Investments housed a number of businesses that at that time, did not clearly fit into the other core divisions of Perenti. You can see those divisions or those various business on the left-hand side of the slide. Our inaugural Perenti strategy, which was outlined when we presented our December 2018 half year results, included a strategic objective to review our portfolio of businesses.
Our focus was on divesting non-core assets and simplifying Perenti. We set about delivering this objective, and I think we did a pretty good job. In fact, I think we did a very good job. Over the course of a couple of years, we ran a number of successful divestment processes that delivered a combined cash inflow to the group of AUD 108.5 million, and generated a consolidated profit on disposal of a tad over AUD 23 million. This time last year, having completed the majority of our divestment program, we renamed the investment division to become Mining Services. What's very cool, in fact, I think it's sensational, and needs to be highlighted, is that these remaining three divisions will generate notably more revenue in FY 2023 than the division did before the divestment program.
This amazing achievement is due in no small part to the commitment of our people, to their individual businesses, and to the Perenti group as a whole. Having delivered on our divestment simplification objective, the Mining Services division is now ready to expand. When we presented our strategy update this time last year, we talked about our desire to evolve Perenti, to embrace technology, to embrace the future of mining, and to expand our capabilities, skills, and services through building out and growing lower capital-intensive offerings. The delivery of this vision will require acquisitions. Acquisitions, sorry, acquisitions that are earning accretive and strategic, and we expect those acquisitions will be integrated into the Mining Services division.
To reiterate, our focus is on building Mining Services division through acquisitions that complement our existing business, that leverage the skills, people, relationships, and technologies that we have, to ensure we continue to evolve to meet the challenges that Mark ran through earlier. Moving on to slide 44. We've established a number of assessment criteria against which potential acquisitions are and will be assessed. Those criteria are set out on the slide. Whilst future-focused acquisitions will form part of our evolution, so too, do acquisitions that build on the underlying strength of Perenti through the achievement of some of the more fundamental assessment criteria, like earnings growth, cash flow generation, or strengthening our balance sheet.
Building on Mark's and Sarah's comments, where they talked about the work we're doing with ABB in the electrification space, it should be apparent that we see electrification playing a large part in the evolution of underground mining. There are many elements to electrification, from power generation, to infrastructure, to systems that enable the effective operation of an electric mine. Given the significant deep domain experience we have as one of the world's largest underground miners, we are uniquely placed to play a big part in the transition to the electrification of underground mining. When we think about future-focused acquisitions, electrification is certainly an area of interest. Too, for another example, is the optimization of mineral processing through the use of technology. The key takeaway is we have a genuine desire to grow our Mining Services division.
We have completed our divestment program, and we are focused on the future and on building a portfolio of businesses that will deliver return to our shareholders. With this vision in mind, Ben, who Mark introduced earlier, has been appointed the executive responsible for the division. For those in the room, I encourage you to have a drink and a chat to Ben once the formalities of today have finished, and I assure you, Ben enjoys both a drink and a chat. Now on to one of my favorite topics, capital management. All those in the audience who we've met with over the years will know capital management has been front of mind since the formation of Perenti. As a business, we understand our risk-weighted average cost of capital. We understand project IRRs and NPVs, and we are focused on ROCE and other similar metrics.
We understand the capital-intensive nature of our contract mining business, and we understand the importance of getting the right balance between investing in growth and generating free cash flow to ensure we achieve the optimal return for our shareholders. We believe Perenti will benefit from the development of a portfolio of businesses that have differing levels of capital intensity, which links directly to our strategy to grow the Mining Services division through acquisition. Slide 46. Back in 2019, as part of our strategy, we outlined some capital management initiatives. We've never lost focus of them, and we've delivered against those initiatives. The middle column on this slide sets out some of the highlights that we've achieved, and there are some great successes. This continued focus has delivered leverage that is on track to hit 1x well in advance of our 2025 target date.
Improved free cash flow. We are on track for further improvements in the second half of FY 2023. Improved margins, as was evidenced by the lovely margin growth we presented with our half year result and the commentary that Mark provided earlier. We've continued to maintain robust liquidity, due in no small part to our very engaged and supportive banking group, many of whom are here today. Finally, we've maintained, in fact, one of our rating agencies has increased and improved our credit ratings. Where to from here? Slide 47.
Having progressed so well against our capital management initiatives, and having regard to Mark's earlier comments around sustainability and the need to invest in the future of Perenti and in the industry more broadly, we are at a point in time in the evolution of Perenti, where we feel it is appropriate, in fact, imperative, that we invest in activities and initiatives that will enable us to deliver growth through generation of value, sorry, growth and generation of value to our shareholders. For us, sustainability has evolved into something that is much more broader than the traditional ESG construct. We also recognize that in order for us to appropriately deliver on our sustainability imperatives and priorities, and to generate the value they will deliver, that we must allocate appropriate resources to support meaningful, current, and future safety and sustainability initiatives.
To facilitate this commitment to the future and to hold ourselves to account on our allocation policy, to specifically include allocation of capital, sorry, allocation of free cash flow to future-focused investments. We see future-focused investments having three core elements. Firstly, the investment in technology and engineering solutions to more effectively mitigate and manage the risks inherent in underground mining. This commitment reflects that increasingly, mines are going underground, where there is a greater inherent risk to people. As a leader in the industry, we must invest in developing high-order controls to keep our people safe. This commitment is above and beyond the operational funds allocated to safety, and will focus on technology and engineering solutions to more effectively manage, mitigate the critical risk inherent in underground mining. Secondly, investing in the development of new services to support decarbonisation.
This commitment is to develop new service offerings that support the decarbonisation of the mining industry, with our initial focus on electrification initiatives. Once new service offerings have commenced as a growing concern, funding will be through our normal capital allocation process. Finally, investing in the development of idoba's digital products. We believe idoba is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the demand for a differentiated approach to innovation and solving for complexity. To accelerate the realization of idoba's potential future value, it is imperative that we commit to a structured investment program in idoba's digital product development capabilities. Through this commitment, idoba will continue to develop and expand its suite of technology-based products to ultimately reach sufficient scale to become a product-led, self-sustaining business.
In dollar terms, our commitment to future-focused investments is to invest between 10% and 20% of our free cash flow into these initiatives. We've always focused on being transparent in our engagement with stakeholders. We will continue this approach, and in FY 2024, we expect to disclose separately our future-focused investments, so that there is clarity around where we are investing shareholder money. Slide 49. The graphic on this slide shows the updated capital management framework. As you can see, and you can see where our commitment to future-focused investment sits in the cash allocation hierarchy. Capital allocated to debt management, shareholder, and business growth will continue to be managed in line with our existing disciplined approach, but sits below our commitment to investing in the future.
This is a conscious decision and reflects Perenti view, that to deliver sustainable and improved TSR, we need to invest in our future. I'll now hand you back to Mark, who is going to run through the exciting outlook for Perenti.
Thank you, Peter. I'll now outline the outlook for Perenti, which given, combined with what we've heard from Paul, Sarah, and Pete, the outlook is very positive. Just to recap, our strategy is to deliver competitive total shareholder returns by building a portfolio of complementary businesses to create enduring value and certainty. In support of our 2025 strategy, we included targets against several metrics, which, other than safety performance, we are tracking against extremely well. Our original FY 2025 target for revenue was set at AUD 2.5 billion. Given we are expecting circa AUD 2.9 billion in FY 2023, we have updated our FY 2025 revenue target to AUD 3 billion. All other targets remain unchanged, including our percentage margin target, which, when applied to the higher revenue number, demonstrates improved cash generation.
Beyond the specific targets, we continue to progress initiatives against our focus areas in support of delivering the FY 2025 targets and beyond. Slide 52. Looking nearer term at FY 2024, firstly, on the financial targets. In comparison to our expected result in FY 2023, we are targeting the following in FY 2024: Revenue to be in line with FY 2023, growth in EBITDA, stronger free cash flow leverage circa 1x , CapEx slightly higher than FY 2023. Although I would say, with the current uncertainty of international shipping, our final number for FY 2023 may still move, with a flow on to FY 2024 from a timing perspective. For clarity, our formal guidance for FY 2024 will be released in August, when we present our FY 2023 results.
In support of the financial targets, we will continue to progress our broader strategic initiatives in support of our 2025 strategy. Key areas of focus include our Safety Taskf orce and other sustainability priorities, extending key contracts and securing new projects in tier one jurisdictions, allocating capital to generate competitive TSR, further recycling of capital from West Africa, and ongoing investment in our people to support all aspects of our strategy. Slide 53. As already outlined, our people have delivered excellent performance across a range of areas, which has seen value upside realized in FY 2023, with further to come.
Improved financials in FY 2024, with growth in t ier one jurisdictions, particularly in underground, combined with value-accretive M&A for mining services and digital product development for idoba, along with our focus to realize significant business performance upside by embedding sustainability in everything we do, we'll see a very positive future. This slide outlines at a high level, how we see a path that delivers on our purpose to create enduring value and certainty, which ultimately achieves competitive TSR for the benefit of all of our stakeholders. Slide 54. Yes, there are challenges in the industry, and yes, we've had our fair share of challenges. However, what we have consistently done is address those challenges, seek out opportunities, and ultimately build a stronger business. The foundations of our business have never been stronger, and with clear plans and the team to deliver, Perenti is positioned for further success.
As 2025 is almost upon us, throughout FY 2024, we'll be working to finalize our 2030 strategy that we will release this time next year. In the meantime, we'll continue to deliver our near-term objectives whilst positioning for the future. In closing, I'll finish where I started, talking about our people. Our improved performance and positive momentum is because of our responsive, adaptable and resilient people, and for everything our 9,000 people have done for the business, and on behalf of the board and group executive, thank you. I would also like to thank everyone in the room and online for making time to join us today, and we appreciate the ongoing support. We'll now move to questions, starting with on the phone, and then Jeff will coordinate questions online and in the room. Thank you.
Hold on. Yep, here's one. Jordan at the back.
Hi, Jordan.
Can you hear me? Yeah, just a question on the point around acquisitions. Peter, you mentioned that electrification was a point or an area of specific focus for you. I just wanted to clarify on that. Is that you saying you want to invest in a business that's exposed to the electrification theme, or are you talking about electrifying or reducing CO2 within your own business? I'm just trying to be confused with where that sort of sits, so.
Both are certainly served, touched on. Hopefully, that's a bit clearer. Touched on electrification and large is leading our broader strategy associated with electrification across the industry. What I would say is looking at two parts, looking at how we decarbonize our own offerings. As we see a shift in the industry, we see an opportunity for us to actually look at expanding our service offering to leverage off the capability we have in contract mining and also what we have in idoba, to look at new services beyond our traditional services. It's twofold: decarbonizing our current operations, but looking at M&A opportunities, where we can actually build out new services to leverage our in-house capability already and actually have a new earning stream across the business. It's twofold, Jordan. Anything to add from your side?
No, I think that's a perfect answer.
Thank you.
Nick Rawlinson from Jefferies. Just further on from Jordan's question, just wondering whether the mining services acquisitions are embedded in your FY 2025 guidance or whether it's all excluding acquisitions?
No. In terms of our FY 2025 numbers and our strategy, we're not including the earning potential of any M&A at this stage. It's based on our current service offerings that we have within the business, and hence, given we're tracking at AUD 2.9 billion for this year, and we upgraded to AUD 3 billion. If there are any meaningful value-accretive acquisitions in the meantime, that would be above our FY 2025 numbers, and we'd put those numbers out at the appropriate time.
Just one more from me. Should we all be sort of, assuming a material mix shift through to FY 2025, with surface declining and underground increasing? Like, obviously, we all have to assume flat revenue basically to 25 and some pretty serious margin expansion.
Yeah, I'll lead off and hand over to Paul on that. I think if you look at the last few years, where, one, we've been growing revenue, but we've also been shifting the revenue mix into better jurisdictions of Botswana, North America, building out opportunities in Australia. At the same time, also future-focused commodities, and also shifting more into underground. We have already seen a shift. We will still be open to surface opportunities that deliver the right returns for us. Given our, I guess, our differentiation in our scale in underground mining, we have seen and we continue to see further opportunities align with the shift in the industry more holistically with the growth. We're still open to surface, but it will depend specifically on the returns. Paul?
I think, Mark, that's you've pretty much said it all. I mean, I explained our strategy in Africa. You know, it's been an important continent for us. It will continue to be so. Our focus on growth will be disproportionately to Australia and North America, where, you know, we have a very large underground mining business, and so it will be the beneficiary of a disproportionate amount of capital. You know, and on a obviously, on a case-by-case basis, we will assess other opportunities in Africa against a prevailing theme of, you know, investing our shareholders' capital in the best projects in the best countries.
That's it from me. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
I might just add while we're getting to the next question. Our focus is also very much, and most open for to say, around free cash flow generation. As we start to implement that strategy that Paul ran through, the cash flow we can generate out of jurisdictions like Botswana, North America, and Australia, due to the tax structures, is much, much more positive for us.
Hi, all. I'm John Scott from Macquarie. Just wondering about the North American strategy. Two projects at the moment. Is it gonna be organic growth, or are we actually looking at some M&A within the North America?
A good question. As I kind of took everybody on a bit of a journey trying to explain why we have a competitive advantage. You know, we have a distinct advantage in North America. We've come a long way in a short period of time, and there's lots of reason to be confident that we can grow organically, AUD 400 million-AUD 500 million a year business over the next 3- 4- 5 years. That's our default position. Clearly, you know, we'll be alert to other opportunities, you know, inorganic opportunities, but our default position is, as I've said, it's a very good organic, you know, growth market for us.
Just one more. Can you maybe comment or give some color on the change in contracts that have happened pre-COVID and post-COVID? Has there been change in rise and falls, any, things within the contracts that have changed since then?
not dramatically. We've always had cost, you know, rise and fall mechanisms in our contracts. The, I guess, the inherent nature of them is that they're based generally on published indices that lag the actual effect. So, you know, at the early stages, you know, we kind of incurred the cost before the formulas responded. That caught up, which is nice. But no, no dramatic changes. I mean, clearly, things like sort of global pandemics-
Mm-hmm.
... not necessarily contemplated by, you know, explicitly contemplated by things like force majeure clauses. Some of those things have changed, but to be frank, they're relatively minor changes. Yeah, I'd say.
Thanks, John.
Sorry, we've just got one on the phone line. If we could just open up the phone lines, please. They're still opening them up. Operator, can you hear me? Okay, we might come back to the room. Anyone else from the room until we get that one sorted?
Hi, Matthew Chen from Moelis. Could you just talk to the determinants of the range for fiscal 2023 guidance, that EBITDA, AUD 260 million-AUD 265 million? What gets you at the bottom and the top? Thanks. Noting that you've got revenue at AUD 2.9 billion.
Matthew, I guess given we're 20 odd days out from the end of the year, we're pretty confident where the numbers are gonna land. I guess with the range of AUD 5 million, obviously, that's been sort of tightened significantly from our update in February. There are still events that sort of may occur in the positive or from a timing perspective in terms of earnings. We do keep that sort of AUD 5 million range. Clearly, we have very good line of sight over the next 20 odd days, hence tightening. We also thought that coming to a presentation like this, it'd probably be the first question we got. We thought we ought to head that off at the pass and hence tightening the range this close out.
very positive year, record, revenue and EBIT, as I outlined earlier.
Thanks. One for the tech side of the business, the idoba. Can you kind of split out where the DDM kind of sits in terms of the profile and the contribution to revenue, how you see that kind of going into 25, that growth trajectory, some color on, you know, timing as well in terms of the other projects in the pilot phase? Yeah, thanks.
Yes, I'll lead off and hand to Pete and Sarah. I guess one of the items that Pete outlined with idoba and other future-focused investments is in FY 2024, we will be providing sort of greater transparency associated with those three categories, with idoba being one of those. We are also looking at our segment reporting into FY 2024, whereas we see growth within idoba and the change with our operating model. We'll look at how we actually do our segment reporting to provide sort of further detail associated with idoba and the sort of shift with our operating model in FY 2023. As far as how we project it out into 2025, at this stage, we've put minimal into 2024 and 2025.
Our focus with idoba is we see significant upside down the track, we're also mindful we don't want to sort of rush it too quick and actually not have sustainable earnings. It really is around working internally, leveraging the capability of contract mining, positioning the products, and then grow. When we look at the 2030 strategy that we'll deliver in 12 months' time, we will look to provide a bit more detail associated with the outlook and the sort of growth trajectory for idoba as we refine our product development. That's the broader plan. Pete, anything to add there before Sarah speaks to the products?
I think that there are a couple of points I'd add. Firstly, within the idoba business, there is a consulting arm that generates revenue, that generates a profit. The aim is to have, as Sarah said, annual recurring revenue from product development that will generate a profit. What we wanted to make sure we were doing by making the commitment that we are the future-focused investments, is to ensure that within various business or within idoba, there isn't gonna be a push to pull people off of development products to put them into consulting, generating revenue streams. It's important to note it does generate a profit in its operating businesses, and we'll show that separately to what we're investing in development. Sarah?
Yeah, look, I think, Mark and Pete, you've covered it well. I think, yeah, we're still, as you saw, one product's in market at the moment, generating a small amount of ARR. The others are in pilot stage, and we'll be taking them to market, and we'll test the market and see what that looks like. As Mark mentioned, a lot of our focus at the moment is really on internally as well and how we build that out internally before we take it externally.
Sarah. Matthew?
Thanks.
Last one, last year. Matt Griffin from MBA. Just the 10% to 20% spend on free cash flow on sustainability initiatives, like, what are you actually hoping to achieve out of that? Are you hoping to get a return on that spend, or is it better safety outcomes, and how do we, as investors, measure whether that spend is being used wisely?
Yeah. In terms of the three categories that Peter spoke to, we do absolutely see future return. The nature of our business is we want to be very clear to the market about our performance of the underlying business through the operational performance, and then call out separately where we are putting sort of future investment beyond the traditional business. Around idoba development, around new services linked to M&A and sustainability offerings. In terms of the sort of engineering technology initiatives for safety above and beyond the sort of business as usual, because we wanted to call that out specifically. We absolutely do see a return in the future. Timing of those returns goes to a bit like the question regarding idoba, where we outline more of that in the 2030 strategy.
Those investments, we do see future return. We didn't want it included in the operating part of the business. We wanted to have the transparency and call that out separately, hence updating the capital management policy. Pete, anything to add?
No, nothing to add.
Is the return more about internal efficiencies or actually developing products you can sell externally to other parties?
Combination. If we think about some of the work that Sarah outlined with idoba and contract mining, clearly, we want to see a benefit with our current sort of operations, and also then taking that to the external market. The external market is clearly significant. The benefit with digital product development is we can look at different regions where we don't have people in the, in the region, have people on the ground, and generate that annual recurring revenue. Will be significant upside in the future. Absolutely internally, but importantly, externally.
Yes.
The differentiation that Sarah spoke about.
Sure
... is most of our competitors don't have the ability to trial these products internally and then take them to the market. One of the comments that I make when I sort of think about the product development that Sarah and the team are doing is, back when I had operational accountability on mines, people would come and say, "I've got this new idea. Can we trial it?" I'd say: Show me where you've done it before. They haven't. I'd say, "No." Whereas with Sarah and Contract Mining, they can say, "Absolutely, we can show you where we've done it, and this is the value generated." That's why we see the collaboration between idoba and Contract Mining will generate significant value in time, externally.
In addition to the idoba element of that commitment to future-focused investments, the decarbonisation stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Mark talked about, hopefully something we can announce in that space in the not-too-distant future. That's about working at the moment with ABB, about generating something that could generate returns. I mentioned in the presentation that when that business gets to a point that it can be self-sustaining, it'll drop into the portfolio.
... ineffectively, safety and people, which is the first one. If that's gonna make the industry and Perenti more efficient, then ultimately the flow-through is gonna be to the, to the results we can deliver to shareholders and the ability to attract people into the industry, et cetera.
Thanks. Bill Ford from AMP. Just a quick question around the Newmont contract renewal that you had in West Africa. Obviously, had the sale back of the assets as well. Is that when you talk about taking capital out of West Africa, is that the sort of contract or the sort of arrangement you expect to be replicating in the future? Do you see that sort of changing the balance of capital commitment between yourselves and the miners for other contracts elsewhere in the world going forward?
Thanks, Bill. I'll lead off, then hand to Paul. Firstly, we'd be very happy with any client, regardless whether West Africa or anywhere in the world, to take on the capital and sort of carry that. It's not West Africa specific. Having said that, given the sort of situation with the joint venture partner, it made sense for Newmont to take that capital. We are looking at a range of ways of recycling capital, whether it be the mine owner sort of owning, or any other method beyond that. It's not bespoke just to the Newmont contract. We are looking sort of further afield. Paul?
Like you've said it, I mean, that is one option. It's a, it's a good option. It makes sense for a bunch of reasons, but there are also other ways which we continue to explore. Certainly, the mine owner, owning the equipment which we operate and maintain, like we own it, is a very good one.
Would you be pushing that elsewhere in the world as a sensible option?
Yes.
Yes.
It's something that I think.
Yeah
... every tender submission, we'll make that proposal.
Thanks, Bill.
Hey, any more around the room?
Hi. Amar from L1. Just coming to free cash and cash conversion. I mean, the business is typically targeted around 90% cash conversion. Does that still remain appropriate for 2023 and the forecast period?
Yeah, I think last time we gave guidance on cash flow conversion, I said we were targeting circa 90%. That continues to be our targeting for this year. Our long-term target, Amar, is to be plus 90%.
Just on the acquisitions, I know you'll have a range of targets, but is there a way to think through the bookends on potential size?
I guess a couple of points of criteria to consider there, Amar, and obviously, it depends upon the opportunity, it depends upon sort of how the deal is struck, is we will consider ensuring that we don't take our leverage to a point that we're uncomfortably high. We've been pretty overt with our target of getting leverage to sub 1x. We have said that for a couple of reasons. One is we see that as the acceptable level for the investment community to have sub 1x. We're comfortable, and we can service the debt above that, but we're looking to bring that down closer to peers. Secondly, we also then want the headroom to be able to do M&A, whether it be and also organic growth for that matter.
I guess to consider that, Amar, is we're not gonna do a transaction that is so large that it is a challenge for the business and locks us in for a number of years. They will be programmatic acquisitions that target our leverage, target the returns, and they will be moderate in scale. Pete, anything to add there?
No.
Just making sure I understand, Mark, you'd like to keep leverage sub 1x, even with the acquisitions?
With the acquisitions, we're happy to flex up with leverage as long as we then see a clear pathway, post any acquisition, to bring that back down to.
Yeah
... sub 1x. We have the bandwidth now by driving leverage down to be, frankly, the lowest it has been in 10 years. We do see the ability, if a deal makes sense, to actually leverage up, as long as there is a clear pathway to bring that leverage back down to one.
Just to follow up on the prior question, it's typically been very challenging to get the mine owners to take on the equipment. Has anything really changed there?
I think one of the things that's changed is, an increasing requirement to have local partners. We typically can't, in a lot of cases, fund their share of the capital. That's... I guess our position is that it's not something that we wanna do, is fund our clients' share of the capital, although in some exceptional circumstances, we might. That's, that's really the conversation starter for a lot of these projects, a lot of these clients. That's probably the key shift.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Thanks, Amar.
Just quickly from me, Harry from Euroz Hartleys. Just in the context of that AUD 3 billion FY 2025 revenue target, are you able to unpack it in terms of how much new work you actually need to win in terms of an order book roll-off? Are there any, I guess, short-term contracts that we could look for in the short term as a win, as a mile marker for you guys executing on that AUD 3 billion target?
In terms of unpacking the AUD 3 bill out to 2025, I guess Harry, we won't step through the details of the contract extensions and also the additional contracts. I think a couple of points to keep in mind is, we spoke about the pipeline in North America, over AUD 4 billion, so significant opportunity, opportunities there. If you look at what we've been doing over the last couple of years regarding sort of pivoting in geographies, pivoting in terms of the mix associated with surface and underground, and also the forward-facing commodities, we will continue to focus with that pivot moving forwards. I would also say that the team have a great track record of extending contracts.
As long as they are on the right terms, we will continue to look to extend those contracts and then supplement with other projects in the jurisdictions we've spoken about, particularly North America, that Paul outlined, and also continuing looking at work within Australia. As far as additional detail, we'll provide more of that detail when we get into 2024 guidance and then into 2025 as well.
I think what, you know, a way of thinking about it may also be that, now we're consuming AUD 2.5 billion-AUD 3 billion a year of work in hand, so to maintain our work in hand, that's sort of the order we need to win each year. Yeah, there's a, there's a decent amount. We've got a big portfolio, and as Mark's correctly pointed out, we've got a really strong track record of-
Brilliant
... of extending our, you know, renewing our contracts and extending them, which is really evidence of the great work that our teams do.
Any more around the room? No. I've got one online that came through the internet. With your high-speed development truck haulage approach, how are you planning to electrify, given that electrifying haulage trucks cannot get up a typical decline?
Oh, that's a good question.
You say you're not a major surface mining contractor. Is that really the case in Australia, particularly on the load and haul side?
Yeah, I'll lead off there. Paul outlined our major surface mining in Africa, where we are, if not, the leading, one of the leading surface miners in Africa. That is a capability that we've had for over three decades through AMS. Our surface operations in Australia are through Ausdrill, with the exploration work and drill and blast. We do have significant scale globally for surface mining. With the electrification, unfortunately, whoever's asking online, is in the room, because, Raj, who's leading the electrification work, would be able to provide a lot more detail, and also Cameron [Sydney Exum], who's electrical engineer. Paul, is there anything specifically you want to touch on regarding the comment regarding electrification of underground mines?
I think, if you cast your mind forward 5+ years, the way underground mining is performed will look quite different. We are positioning ourselves to be at the front of that. Our you know plus 30-year experience, and distinct productivity advantages positions as well. It certainly will be different. That will include a range of changes, not the least of which will be how materials are transported up a decline.
Okay, and I think that's about all we've got time for. Thank you all for coming. Guys, thank you for presenting. Sarah, thank you. We'll close up and head on in for some refreshments.