Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the PWR Holdings Limited FY 2024 Results Webcast and Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Kees Weel, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for dialing in and listening to what we've got to say this morning. So, I'll get straight into it. On our first slide, particularly on our page turn, we've moved it around a little bit. Last year, we've gone straight into the numbers. This year, we've gone to achievements and highlights and et cetera. So, you know, there's four pillars that we've been looking at: innovation, profitable growth, sustainability, and investing in our people. I'm not going to go through every individual one in the most detail, but I'll certainly call out some of the areas that I think are worth talking about.
Probably the biggest outstanding thing is the aerospace and defense revenue growth. Just a tad over 100% for the year, which I think is incredible for where we've come from in that sector. And more so to get there, investing in our people, et cetera. So that's the first slide. The second slide is all about R&D. That's a significant growth opportunity, and I think what we've been able to achieve in the past two years, particularly, has given us a lot of confidence to invest in future and particularly people that we have to have for our R&D. And like we've talked internally, investing now and collecting later.
You know, the investments across 2024 and 2025, particularly for R&D growth, between those two years, it's we have 52 extra headcount just for those two years. It was 21 in 2024, and we predict 31 in 2025. There's a lot of a lot of hidden things that people don't see. I just want to explain it a little bit, particularly when we get into aerospace and defense. Of the extra quality certifications and the control processes and the cyber and IT systems, a design simulation, planning, procurement controls, production, and not least, factory space and specialized equipment.
So there, there's quite a bit of stuff that goes on behind that, to make sure that we are, what we call "race ready," going in, into the next few years, particularly in aerospace and defense. Our full year performance highlights, growth, investing in the future, which I've just talked about, and shareholder return. The growth highlights are 17.8% of revenue for NPAT. The revenue growth is in those particular order of 100% on aerospace and defense, 8% in motorsport, 9% in OEM, and 9% in automotive aftermarket. Moving along, I spoke about the investing in people.
On the shareholder return, have a full dividend of AUD 0.14 for the full year, which is AUD 0.0922 on this final dividend to be coming out shortly. Our five-year performance trend, it's certainly tracking very good for us across all sectors there. So, I'll let you look at that yourself in your own time. The total TSR, the shareholder return, against the ASX 300 excluding energy companies, we're at the 88th percentile of that over the ASX 300. Our performance overview, some key points. Revenue growth of 17.8%.
Our EBIT margin certainly impacted by employee expenses from headcount growth and the NPAT growth of 14%. EBITDA to cash to sales conversion and EBIT to operating cash. So and plus a solid cash balance to fund future growth. The revenue by market sector has altered a little bit compared to last year. The Motorsports has dropped off a tad to 48%, OEM to 20. Automotive Aftermarket was 14, Aerospace and Defense is 15, and the other is 3% to bring up the 100%. The Aerospace and Defense, as we've spoken about before, has been massive.
The growth in F1 particularly has increased in the last 12 months, and OEM the Valkyrie and the AMG X1 programs have gone off, and there are other small programs going in there. So we'll see a small or a reasonable decrease in automotive income for the 2025 year. Certainly a lot of focus on the Automotive Aftermarket going into USA and Europe. The revenue by current, I'd like to just hand over to Martin. There's three, four pages that are certainly in his wheelhouse, and I'll hand over to you, Martin.
Thanks, Kees. You'll see on the slide that we've split out the organic growth and the impact of favorable FX movements, which is always helpful. To put that into context and how that flows down to NPAT, we have an extensive hedging program for the pound, the movement in the pound. And we also have increasing pound and USD costs, which help buffer against the FX movements. So when you flow all of that through, we had an AUD 677,000 improvement in our NPAT due to the favorable FX movements in the year. We've extended our hedging now, as you will see from that, just under 20,000, so GBP 20 million to protect the balance of FY 2025.
So we've hedged all the way out through our settlements in July 2025. Moving on to operating expenses, the total operating expense, as you see, has moved or has increased by 18.7. The biggest call out there is the employee expenses, and the three main factors that have resulted in the employee expenses growing by the 21.5% is the increase in headcount, of which we, 21 of the headcount is investing ahead of the growth that we're expecting in A&D, Aerospace and Defense. Also, during the year, we start the year with a pay review process.
However, during the year, we also had the market move in certain areas, so we had to increase some of our wage rates during the year to keep competitive in the market, to keep attracting the correct skill level of people. And even some of the skill levels that we're now putting on for like-for-like roles are at a more expensive pay point. We've also over the past few years expanded the long-term incentive program to include more of the key people in the business. And that's also had a small impact on the employee expenses this year as that flows through. As far as the balance sheet goes, the net assets have increased by 13.4% year-on-year.
Our return on equity is maintained at around 25%, which is pleasing. And the other item, just to note here, is the contract liabilities has increased from June 2023 to June 2024. That relates to milestone in revenue or milestone invoices that we raised towards the end of the year, but relate to delivery of some of the items in July and August. So we've got that in as part of our trade debtors, but also a contract liability as that relates to early FY 2025. Moving on to the working capital and cash flow, so we pleasingly saw the operating cash or cash from operating activities increase by 15.9%, which is a good solid step up.
It leaves us in a strong liquid position, liquidity position with cash of AUD 21.7 million. But free cash flows also pleasingly increased by AUD 10.2 million or just on 95%. So it sets us up well for the investments that we've called out in the investor presentation into 2025 and 2026. We've also flagged in the presentation, which we're well advanced in finalizing the documentation of a new $30 million debt facility, which will provide additional headroom as we go into the 2025 investment phase. And that will replace existing facilities which are currently undrawn.
Yeah, thanks, Martin. Business outlook. Vertical integration is very strong for us, so to be vertically integrated in the three sites globally is a very big asset, particularly when you're looking at aerospace and defense, particularly in Europe and the USA. The new factory in Stapylton is obviously a lot going on here, and you know, we have started work there already to get the factory ready.
So our plan is to, excuse me, have all the internal work and offices and power and all the upgrades that we need to do, the training facility and all that sort of stuff, all the internal things that we have to do for that factory to be ready for us. We started on that, as I said, and that will go through to March next year, and then we'll start moving equipment and et cetera over to the new factory. The continued growth and investment and expanding in aerospace and defense is key to us. Motorsports, the '26 regulation on the F1 category is certainly key to us.
It's probably like it was in 2014 when they went to a turbo car. This new category regulation coming out in 2026 gives enormous opportunity for extra dollars to come in, particularly on the battery cooling side, et cetera, for that category. The OEM program, as I've said before, a few of them have dropped off. The Valkyrie and the AMG X1 program have finished now, and, well, we have started to fill them up. There'll be a bit of a hole in this year particularly. But then we'll—the next year, we have the new S650 Mustang coming in on America.
So for that, aftermarket, automotive aftermarket, obviously, we keep pushing for growth in North America, and we have just started doing that in the UK. Our UK manufacturing site has been very, very good for this last 12 months. Certainly set a very good platform for future business over there. And we have invested in a brand new furnace there that will be delivered sometime in early December. Organic growth opportunities, particularly with aerospace and defense, which is a great theme. And we're looking at an ERP investment, late 2026 onwards.
In the new building, we also have the PWR Training Academy, which will serve to be a big improvement to what we do, particularly with apprentices, et cetera, in the future. The new factory, it's nearly 90% more floor capacity on that factory site. A lot of the move, which we'll come into in a minute, a lot of the move with the CapEx, et cetera, the new machinery, and particularly machinery that will help us to improve our automation and cut down on extra staff, but also help us with more volume of the capacity of the work going through that factory.
The estimated expenditure for that, the factory upgrades internally, but it includes a power upgrade to the factory, but also solar and expansion to the offices and served throughout the factory and also data, et cetera, comes to roughly AUD 25 million. And the CapEx for equipment to the Australian facility is around about 13. Some of that may be moved into 2026 because of timing, at this stage, that's what it is. And then you've got the operating expenses there, which is fairly well self-explanatory, so I don't think I need to go through that line by line.
The pipelines for aerospace and defense, as you'll see, there's a few more there since we spoke earlier in the year, which is increasing all the time. And as these programs start coming to fruition, particularly from R&D into production, and which is starting to happen, and as that happens, there'll be more opportunities to push onto that pipeline. The pipeline for OE is very similar. As we have said, some of those have dropped off from last year, particularly those bigger ones, as in AMG and Valkyrie. Our investment in people headcount is paramount to make sure that we are, I call it race-ready.
You know, with these programs, as they start to go from R&D and prototypes and moving into production, you know, we have to make sure we are ready for that. And there are a lot of people behind the scenes that we're already invested in, and we will continue to invest that because it's what it's done, it's given us a tremendous amount of confidence to keep moving forward with that. We currently have 38 apprentices across a range of trades. That will increase. We plan, we're endeavoring to, as hard as it might be, to put on an extra 30 apprentices by the end of this calendar year, and for future trades, et cetera, that we need.
Our engineering program, our graduates from engineering program has been very good for us, working with a couple of local universities, et cetera, and going very well. Our employee secondment across the globe, particularly, you know, we have people in Europe that we've sent over there for a two-year employment secondment, which has been fantastic, and it's really put a lot of that, what I call PWR DNA, into that facility. And as we say to everybody, we are one PWR, so we want one set of rules for PWR in the three global factories.
Work experience goes hand in hand, particularly with apprentices and working with the schools and future apprentices, which has been working out very well in past years. Retaining our staff, I think everybody globally has a problem with the retirement of people and being cost effective and what have you. So, but we do offer, you know, long and short-term incentive programs to the right people. We do feed everybody breakfast, morning tea, and lunch every day. And when we're doing 400 a day when we're doing 400 a day at our current facility, it is a challenge, but the new facility will help us do that.
Employee assistance programs, we have career development planning, reward and recognition, and retaining our people. So, that all goes hand in hand. So, the rest of the stuff there on our presentation is just a little bit of stuff that might interest you in general information about what we're doing and the leadership team and et cetera. And obviously, our latest new board member. Let me just pull this here. Oh, Jason Conroy. So, thank you very much. I'm certainly, we're certainly open for questions, and hopefully between Martin and myself, we'll be able to answer those questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two, and if you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Jack Dunn from Citi. Please go ahead.
Morning, Martin. Morning, Kees. Thanks for taking-
Hey, Jack.
Thanks for taking my question. I might just start on A&D. So the second half was quite strong growth in your revenue. I remember at the half year, you thought 2025 and 2026 were gonna be really big years, even massive. So I was wondering what level of growth you're expecting in sort of doubling each year possibility given the growing pipeline?
Well, I think the growth from last year to this year, well, from 2023 to 2024, is a pretty good indication of what is achievable and what have you. You know, we have to grow people in that business, well, of what I spoke about before, to make sure we're ready for the next big phase. It's certainly for us in 2025, I don't think we can do 100% on, I'm being very practical here. I don't think we can do quite 100% on our 21% that we've just achieved. But it'll be certainly without giving any guidance- it'll be certainly a very good uptake in 2025.
We have the business there, and as I said before, as some of these programs, particularly in where we're at, doing what we're doing in those programs, on, you know, the eVTOL side of it, when those programs are starting to move from, you know, R&D and prototypes now into production. So, yeah, we are starting to see some of that come through. That will be, it'll be certainly weighted on the second half of this year. And but what we see today, I think it's going to be a very good uptake on what we've done this year.
Perfect. Thank you. So that would just mean that 2026, you're expecting that to be probably a higher growth rate than 2025, if more of those eVTOL programs.
Oh, definitely. Definitely.
Perfect. And then still on R&D. So there's a lot of new programs in one, and my thinking was most of them were likely outside eVTOL, given there isn't a large number of manufacturers. So I was hoping maybe I'd touch on where you saw some of these program wins, and maybe what is the largest total contract size in terms of revenue you saw from some of these programs?
Well, it's probably a little bit difficult to quantify. You know, certainly the eVTOL area of the business has been very strong, but also the cold plate electric cold plate business on aerospace and defense has also been very, very strong as well. So but I do think in both parts, they'll grow fairly evenly across the board.
What's pleasing is, In addition to the eVTOL and the cold plates, we also have a broadening range of programs that are in various phases of development. So it's the aerospace and defense pipeline itself is maturing as we would like it to and expect it to. So other programs outside of that will also start to mature and develop in size over the coming years as well.
Okay, perfect. Just one last quick one. Just look to understand what size of a contract would need to be for you to make an announcement to the market. Is it still that AUD 5 million per year?
Yes. Yes, if it's, if it's an individual of over AUD 5 million, I think we're, I think we, should be saying something about it, sure.
Okay, perfect. Thanks. I'll jump back in now. Thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Alex Liu from Morgans Financial. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, Kees. Morning, Martin. Hope you guys are well. Can I just start with,
Great.
Can I just start with motorsports, please? It looks like there was some pull forward of motorsports revenue into the first half of 2024, as that second half growth looks a bit soft. Yeah, just wondering if you can just talk through that please, Kees?
Yeah, it... Well, I think if you remember, the year before, it was the other way around. Which, it just, it certainly wasn't pulled forward, Alex. It, but it's hard is what it is. It's hard to do that, particularly when you're working with orders and, and, POs, particularly on, on time, sensitive and what have you, when they, when they're gonna be, produced by. So certainly, in the right area. The yeah, it was probably, you know, a, a lot of the, extra, I guess, R&D, type work that we've done for, motorsport, and particularly for F1, for the, the, the 2026 program, because that's been, that was released last year of exactly where it was going to be.
So there was quite a few of the teams that jumped in early for some of that development, which certainly led for an uptake on that first half. So, you know, that's certainly probably a very good explanation of that.
Okay. All right, thanks for that. And then on to employee costs, and, you know, that went up quite a bit in the second half, and you mentioned that was due to higher headcount and also the increased rates to remain competitive in the market. But just wondering, you know, do you expect that, that pressure on rates to continue? And also, I think, Martin, you mentioned that you're hiring more skilled labor. So are you hiring more of the higher skilled labor, you know, versus historically, where you've hired at the lower end and trained people up? I just wonder if you could just talk to that, please.
Yeah, you know, the employee cost is obviously a big thing for us. We're very labor-intensive in what we're doing. The big thing is, which I called out a bit earlier, particularly with the aerospace and defense of all the other areas that we have to have in place to qualify to do any of that work. And you know, particular certifications and quality control, procurement, cyber, a lot of that stuff that people don't see. But because we're doing it here in Australia and also doing it in America, so it's a bit of a double up of some of those wages that we're having to do.
Which is fine, and we're backing ourselves in that industry to certainly kick some goals, as we have. As we have with the equipment side of what we've invested in the American facility as well. So, you know, as far as, you know, meeting the market, look, I think everybody would know that, you know, wages have certainly gone up and we've got to meet the market. And I think we were a little bit behind early, and now that we're certainly looking for that upper skilled person, particularly to be qualified and ready to work in that aerospace defense industry side is a bit more expensive than automotive in general.
The uptick of wage and employment costs and has been mainly driven by aerospace and defense.
Just adding to Kees's comments, the people that we're putting on, as we've described it, ahead of the curve, just to give us the really solid foundation to grow from, they are, you'd probably say they are, at the higher end of the skill spectrum, and that's also reflected in their wage costs. So, that investment in the short term sets us up well, and then as we get volume through the production, we'll be able to leverage off those roles. So, it's, yeah, it is skewed somewhat to those 21 and the 31 roles that we've called out.
Okay, great. That's helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Elijah Mayr from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Kees and Martin.
Morning.
Just a couple of questions, maybe just on the results on Motorsports, and just sort of noticing a bit, a bit softer, I guess, than consensus expectations. Can you kind of talk to if there's any sort of timing impact around the results and perhaps, price rises that went through in the, in the FY 2024 year and the expectations for, for FY 2025?
Well, yeah, so as far as the year-end, end of 2024, we're not calling out any particular timing impacts. As Kees said, we had a stronger first half than expected, which was supported by some of the additional development work for the 2026 car, and I guess we have the impact of cost caps on our calendar year, cost caps for some of our customers. So there is a desire to spend, if you're below your cost, you'll spend up leading up to Christmas, and if you're above your budget, you'll hold off until the third quarter of our financial year. So we've seen it both ways in the last couple of years.
But as far as, just trying to remember the last part of your question, sorry, Elijah?
Just talking about price rises going into FY 2025.
Okay.
Sort of noting that you guys have had to sort of, I guess, increase wages and increase employees on your side, on the cost side. Should we expect any increases in price to sort of claw back some of that margin into 25?
We apply a price rise to our customers ideally once a year. There is a little bit of a difference in when the price increases apply to different customer categories. Our aftermarket and some of our essentially the aftermarket and perhaps some motorsport is first of July price increases, but the majority of motorsport categories operate on a calendar year. So the ability to pass price increases on is really for the next calendar year's parts, which we start delivering in circa November. So they're sort of a little bit delayed. And then the OEM programs, depending on the length of the program, have different rise and fall mechanisms in them.
So we do tend to pass on costs, or we do pass on costs, and this year we're also doing that in circa around the, you know, 5% range.
No problem. Thanks. And just with, I guess, the commentary around OEM, with a few programs rolling off, does that mean there's capacity there for some of the other markets that can sort of, I guess, fill the gap? And just with the transition into the new facility during FY 25, is there any disruption we should expect from the top line across some of the other markets?
I think that, if we're sitting here, we're saying there won't be any disruption. That's in a perfect world, obviously. But, you know, obviously, if there is disruption, that's out of our hands, there will be, so we're gonna be cautious of that. But, you know, we have got a plan, a very structural and educated plan put together of the move and how it'll be less disruptive to the business. So, from where we sit today, we think it's gonna be little, you know, as little as possible disruption. But I'm sure there'll be something out there that might grab us, but I don't think it's going to be huge.
But I think, you know, we've, we're certainly being upfront about it, that we'll, yeah, we feel that next year's gonna be fairly flat, because of what we're doing. It's a big move. It's a lot of a lot of moving parts that have to work and make sure we get there. And then also, you know, looking towards the the 2026 year, we want to make sure that we are very, very ready for 2026, because there's a lot of programs that will be rolling in, particularly with Aerospace and Defense, and also there's a new OE program coming in 2026 in America, and what have you. So we wanna make sure that we are very ready for that.
And particularly on the automation side and the efficiency side, that we wanna gain out of this new building.
The extra capacity, as you call out, are the OEM programs that are coming off. We constantly assess and move capacity around to various programs. And we do have, I guess, a lot of cross skilling to be able to service different markets with the same team. So that will be a constant focus to make sure we're getting the maximum productivity out of the team we have and the machines we have.
No problem. Just to clarify, Kees, just from your comment of sort of next year being fairly flat, is that in relation to, I guess, NPAT year-on-year?
Correct.
Is that including the one-off costs that you've guided to in the presentation, or on an adjusted basis?
No. Adjusted.
Then maybe just one final one, if I could. Just in terms of the ramp-up profile, obviously FY 2026 has a lot of programs coming through. Should we, I guess, expect then a material step up, or is this going to be a slower sort of ramp-up profile as you sort of get used to the new facility?
I think it'd be certainly a material step up, 2026.
No problem. Thanks for the questions.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tim Piper, from UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning, Kees and Martin. Just first one on.
Morning.
The CapEx. Good day. For the new facility, what's the delta between the AUD 22 million you called out in October last year and the AUD 38 million today?
Well, the CapEx for the new for next year is actually AUD 19 million. AUD 13 million of that is here for Australia, there's AUD 3 million for the U.K., and AUD 3 for the U.S. And what was the rest of the question?
I was just going back to the release when you announced the new facility last year. I think you called out AUD 22 million of CapEx associated with the new facility. So what, this AUD 38 million is not just solely new facility CapEx?
Correct.
The factory upgrades are circa 2025. And through the process, there's been a lot of planning and a lot of thought and analysis put into what do we invest now, given it now is, will be, there's a lower cost way of setting ourselves up for success, given this factory is in place for the next, yeah-
Twenty years.
20+ years. Whereas if we don't set it up correctly now, we have to come back in a few years' time, there's disruption and higher costs. So it's taking a view as to what we need to establish now to set us up.
Got it. Thanks. Can I just clarify? Sorry, the last question you sort of dropped out a little bit choppy, the line. Did you say you're expecting NPAT to be flat in 2025 versus 2024?
Yes.
Okay, got it. Thanks.
That's excluding those additional factory-related move costs.
Yep, understand. Just a question on the receivables balance. You called out some additional sales you made in the fourth quarter. What segment of the business were those strong sales made in the fourth quarter?
It was across different sectors. A highlight of it would be Aerospace and Defense. It did finish the second half of the year strongly, including the last quarter.
Was that a bit more R&D prototyping revenue or actual production-type revenue from aero, from A&D?
B oth, a mixture of both, mixture of both. Yeah.
Got it. I might just ask one last one, then jump back in the queue. Just thinking about the balance sheet from here, you've obviously got a new debt facility. You've called out the estimated interest expense funding from drawing down on that. What sort of a minimum level of cash that you would look to sort of carry on the balance sheet as a minimum from here, given the scale of the business?
We're focusing on carrying in the order of AUD 10 million of cash.
Great. Got it. Thanks.
Plus maintaining the headroom in any debt facility, so we can adjust as needed.
Yep. Got it. Thanks for taking the questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sarah Mann, from MA Moelis Australia. Please go ahead. Apologies, your next question comes from Ray Tollefson, a private investor. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Kees and Martin. I'm also a member of Teami nvest, which you spoke to last year. First up, thanks very much for posting the results last night. I wish more companies would do that. First question relates to the Moon to Mars grant. Whereabouts is it shown in the financial pages? Because I can see in section B2, which talks about government grants, but that's only AUD 35,000. So whereabouts did that near AUD 1 million get shown in the accounts?
We've received more of that grant over a number of tranches. So we've received the first.
Uh-huh
T ranche of that, the first portion of that, and it sits in, deferred income. Because it's funding or supporting the funding of CapEx.
Mm-hmm
W e only recognize that grant revenue over the life of that asset. So that will trickle in over the next 5-8 years, depending on subject to which asset we're referring to.
Okay, thanks very much. Now you've mentioned a couple of times the new Formula 1, 2026, well, regs or whatever they are. Do you see that as a potential threat, in other words, an opportunity for other suppliers to get a foothold in, and particularly with a couple of new teams likely to be around?
No, I don't see it that way. No, we're certainly dealing with every team and also the, you know, Audi, who's coming for next year as well. So, you know, we're very well entrenched with those guys, and certainly don't see the We certainly see it as a opportunity.
Mm-hmm.
A huge opportunity for that with the you know the battery program on that vehicle is huge. It's twice the capacity of what they're using now. We are very, very much into what we call the cell carrier program right now. And for prototypes and some production types, that's being tested by all teams currently testing out. So it's gonna be a big focus on electronic cooling for that car. So yeah, for always they spend heaps of money.
Great. Thanks. And just out of curiosity, you, you've talked about, investing in people ahead of the curve. What are you, what are you presently utilizing them for?
Come again?
The different roles for the new people.
Oh, different roles for the new people is various, particularly, you know, particularly on the quality side, like certification, even certifications we need for brazing and heat treatment, and the like. But also the, you know, the CMM machines, that's the measuring machines for our quality department. And it's not only here, we're doing the same in America, so we are getting a bit of a double whammy in some of those people costs as well. So but, you know, cybersecurity and IT is a huge one, that's taking quite a bit of, you know, money to finance that.
And, you know, simulation and our procurement, particularly, everything's got to be traceable and, and, and certified. So, you know, there's a lot of that stuff that goes unseen. People think it just happens, but it doesn't. And, yeah, that's, that's where a, a lot of the people are, you know, as well as designers and, CNC programmers and et cetera, et cetera, as we step up. And you'd be surprised when you get into that level of machining, of how few, you know, how few, you know, qualified machinists here in Australia are up to it. So we've certainly had to import some people, particularly from the U.K. And, that's, that's an extra cost as well. So yeah, there's a fair few hidden costs that, that aren't seen.
That's why we want to call them out, so people do understand what the depth of infrastructure we have to have behind the scenes to do, to get into this market. The key thing there too us , as we expand that part of our business, the majority of these roles don't expand at the same rate. They're functional roles that are needed to allow us to actually be able to deliver into the market in a successful way, but we can scale up more efficiently.
No, I guess just actually what I was being a bit wondering about was if they're, if the excess at the moment, what are they doing? But what you're, you basically haven't got people sitting around doing nothing, which I assumed you wouldn't. But so they're sort of starting on that sort of stuff now, are they?
Getting our systems and processes upgraded, it's getting the foundations there to allow us to expand robustly.
Righteo. Thanks very much. And, I'm a happy investor, and, well, I actually just bought some more, so thanks for your time. Bye.
Thank you. Thanks, Ray.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jack Dunn from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Kees and Martin. I just wanted to just probably follow up on a couple of questions before. Just on the impact being flat comments, trying to understand if you're expecting large revenue growth in A&D and motorsports to still be your flat 10%-15%, sort of implies that you're expecting margins to fall to sort of 15%-16%. Or am I misreading something here?
No, I don't think we don't expect the margins to fall. We just don't want to be overconfident, because we've got a lot on this year, with other costs, and as we just rolled out and keep talking about, particularly with.
Mm.
People costs and what have you, you know, just for a matter of fact, that, you know, the 21 people we put off R&D in 2024, there's a cost of a little bit over AUD 3 million for those. And then, you know, we're doing, and maybe not get to that high level, but we have in our budget for 31 extra people throughout the 2025 year. So, you know, it's close on another AUD 4 million just for that. So, you know, we, there's a lot of expense incurred at an early stage of getting ready for the uptake of, particularly in the aerospace and defense. So we're just being cautious, Jack.
We don't want to be overconfident and what have you, because some of these programs are difficult to get and, you know, we don't know exactly, as time does move around a little bit, of when they go from prototype into production. We've got a fair idea by working with these companies, but as you know, things slip a little bit here and there, and we don't want to be giving the market or yourself the wrong impression.
Okay. Okay, perfect. Thanks for that. The other one I wanted to clarify, with the CapEx comments, you mentioned AUD 19 million spend in, I think it was FY 2025 on machinery, being AUD 30 million, and that was AUD 3 million each of the U.K. and U.S. Is that how you're expecting to spend your CapEx in 2025?
That's correct. That is correct.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then there's the AUD 25 million for factory upgrades on top?
Yes.
All in 20?
That's correct.
That's all in 2025, so there'll then be a large step down in 2026?
Sorry. Yes, that's correct also.
Okay, perfect. Thanks, Martin and Kees. Appreciate your time.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sarah Mann, from MA Moelis Australia. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Sorry about before. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can, Sarah.
Yeah, we got you there now, Sarah.
Perfect. My apologies. Just wanted to ask, I guess on margins, once you are in the new facility, so given, you know, you're starting from scratch, you can probably optimize the floor plan, you can invest in stuff that will drive better automation. Do you think it's reasonable to kind of start to move back towards the historic, you know, 19%-20% NPAT margins, or because you're going into new margins where maybe- new markets, sorry, where maybe, like, the, the margins are potentially not as attractive as motorsports. Like, how should we think about where that, kind of, normalizes out?
I think once we get in there and sort of particularly at the end of the 2026 year to give us a good year to bed that down, we feel very confident to bring the margins up to where certainly from where we are today. So it'll take some organizing, but that's what the whole deal is. We certainly want to, you know, investing all this money, we need to have a return. And you know, the best way we can get a return is being efficient and being more profitable. So efficiency is key and efficiency and productivity and cost. So we're, you know. Can we get, you know, 20+?
It'll be a struggle. Can we, can we get, you know, through that 19 and 20? I think it's certainly doable.
That's helpful. And then, just on the aerospace and defense result, which was continuing very good, can you give us a rough split in terms of what % of that kind of came from EV takeoff, landing work versus everything else?
Yeah, Martin.
Yeah, uh.
Martin's got it.
40% was EV, eVTOL.
Yeah.
30% from cold plates and 30% other.
Got it. That's really helpful. Thank you. And then I guess also just thinking about the ramp up, I mean, looking at the pipeline, and the fact that you're investing ahead of the curve means that clearly the pipeline's very large, right? Just wondering, how much visibility do you have around the timeline of those programs ramping up? And like, how, I guess, reliable have, some of your potential customers been around the timelines they've given to you versus what's actually transpired, if that makes sense?
Well, I think the timelines that we've been given obviously move around from different players in the market, which is difficult to sort of work with at times, but particularly on the eVTOL side, that there's pressure on for those companies to deliver. And you know, there are... There have been some announcements over this last 48 hours that different companies that we deal with are certainly planning to produce aircraft in the last half of this financial year.
So, early next calendar year, there are some players in the market that are happy to announce that they're going to be building aircraft that will be, you know, moving from a prototype to an actual aircraft that's going to fly.
Great. Thank you. Last question from me, just on aftermarket. So obviously around that Red Bull marketing campaign earlier this financial year, just wondering how that's kind of flowed through to kind of new interest in your aftermarket product? If there's any kind of positive lead indicators and is that kind of mainly coming from, I guess, Europe and the U.S., like you flagged kind of target growth areas for that product?
Yeah. Yeah, a little bit of both, really. It's been very well received, for sure. And, we're starting to see that, particularly on the online store and what have you. So the good part about that is that we've, you know, we've dialed down the discount rates that we're offering to different people, and it certainly hasn't put a dent in the volume of revenue. So, yeah, we're all the same, probably a little bit more profit than last year, but with our value to the bottom line and the profit margin, that has certainly stepped up quite a bit.
Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thank you. You have a follow-up question from Tim Piper from UBS. Please go ahead.
Oh, thanks. Just to follow up on the Queensland grant award that you've got, that almost AUD 9 million. Sorry, Martin, can you just confirm what's the timing around starting to receive that? Will that start contributing in FY 2025, and what does the cadence of that look like? I assume it'll be recognized in other income in the PNL and the underlying profit figure. Is that right?
Correct. It will. It comes in two parts. There's 3.5 of equipment related grants, and the balance is payroll tax abatement. So we'll get payroll tax relief over the course of a 10-year period for increasing headcount above where we started FY 2024. So in the early years, that will trickle in. The bulk of that is in the back half of the 10-year period. But the equipment finance or the equipment support will come in in early FY 2027. Once we've completed all of our installations in the new factory and we've verified that everything we had committed to has been done, and then that will show up over the life of that equipment.
So the majority of that AUD 9 million will be backended in the from sort of year 4 onward.
Great. Thanks for that.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Weel for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks very much, everybody, for getting on the call this morning. We appreciate it. And, those who haven't been to our AGM, certainly, big opportunity to see the factory working and whatever. We have factory tours, et cetera, for the AGM. So, please keep that date free, late November. Is it, Martin?
Uh, October.
Late, late October. Thank you, Martin. And, well, that is so. All right. Thank you very much, and, we'll see everybody soon.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.