Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Service Stream 's full-year results presentation. As per the introduction, my name is Leigh Mackender, the Managing Director of Service Stream . I'm joined today by our Chief Financial Officer, Linda Kow. In terms of the agenda today, I'll kick off by covering some of the group's highlights and providing an update on Service Stream 's operational and financial performance over the year. I'll then pass to Linda, who will talk through some of the group's financial performance in greater detail. We'll then provide an update with regards to outlook for FY 2026, and finally, we'll open up the call for questions. I firstly wish to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land in which we meet today, and we pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging.
Okay, I've directed to slide three where I first wanted to touch on some of the key messages in relation to the full year. From the outset, we are really pleased to report that the financial year 2025 reflected another strong and successful year for Service Stream . The business worked diligently to execute against our strategy, aiming to deliver improved and sustainable value to our shareholders. The result is headlined by another period of strong financial performance, double-digit increases delivered across both earnings and profit. This, combined with another period of exceptional operating cash flows, has assisted to further strengthen the group's net cash balance sheet, which provides increased optionality to support our strategic growth agenda. The business has had one of the most successful periods in the company's history with regards to winning work, substantially increasing the level of contracted work-in-hand.
The business was able to successfully resecure almost all agreements which proceeded to market at the end of the natural term, in addition to securing a number of new contract opportunities, which collectively will support growth into FY 2026 and beyond. The success in these two areas over FY 2025 has significantly strengthened the group's work-in-hand balance to a record level over what reflects a high-quality work order book of lower-risk operations and maintenance revenues. The third highlight is certainly with regards to our utility operations, and performance here is one of our major priorities, which was driving improvement across the division's quality of earnings. We're really pleased to have delivered a significant improvement in the utility division margins over FY 2025 on the back of the division also exceeding the $1 billion mark in terms of revenue.
While the business still has further work to do to reach our FY 2026 margin goal, the continued positive momentum against our plan provides increasing confidence that we will continue to deliver that incremental improvement. Creating a strong platform in which the business can grow and, importantly, continue to provide improved results and returns has been a major strategic priority. In addition to a range of optimization programs and initiatives to support improved performance, we're really pleased to have further strengthened the group balance sheet during the year. This allows Service Stream to take advantage not only of a number of organic and adjacent growth opportunities ahead, but in the strategic M&A which may present over the coming period.
Finally, on the back of this positive progress made throughout a strong year, we have seen an increase in EPS, and the board was pleased to also declare an increase in the group's full-year dividend for our shareholders. Moving to the financial highlights, and firstly starting with group revenue, which over the year was $2.42 billion, was favorable to the prior year by 1.2%. We note revenue growth was lower than that previously achieved, and that's primarily as a result of the business successfully concluding a major telco upgrade project in advance of transitioning to the new programs which we've recently secured and successfully cycling off some of those lower margin utility operations. Also, the division has also mobilized new contracts. We are, however, confident we'll see revenue growth reoccur within FY 2026.
More importantly, underlying EBITDA was $146.1 million, reflecting a significant increase of 13.1% on PCP. NPATA $68.5 million was significantly up on the prior period, with the group reporting a 36.7% increase. A regular highlight at the group's heart and full years has consistently been the generation of strong operational cash flows, and we're pleased to report that this year has been no exception. The group has generated OCF bid of $148.9 million and achieved an EBITDA to OCF bid conversion rate of 104%. This result is again reflective of our blue-chip industrial client base, positive terms which span our commercial agreements, and a strong focus placed on the work for cash cycle right across our business.
The high cash flows supported a further strengthening of our balance sheet, with Service Stream 's net cash position closing at $73.6 million, reflecting an improvement of $65.7 million on PCP and $18.2 million on the first half position we closed at 31 December. We're really pleased to see another strong result in this area ahead of consensus, particularly as the business has had to cater both increased dividend payments and supporting growth across the group. Finally, as I mentioned at the outset, on the back of those strong results, the board were pleased to increase the group's full-year dividend to reflect $0.03 per share for the effect. That gives dividends for the financial year 2025 to $0.055 per share. Moving on to slide five now and some of the group's operational strategic highlights.
One of the key priorities over the last two years has been to optimize our operations, creating a scalable platform from which Service Stream will continue to not only grow but deliver improved returns. A major feature of this is to be able to drive those improvements across our utility division with respect to both its earnings and its EBITDA margins, supporting an improved and meaningful contribution to the group. We're really pleased to have delivered further increases across both of these areas during the year. EBITDA increased by 32.5% or $11.1 million on PCP to reflect $45.3 million for the year. EBITDA margins moved up by 100 basis points on PCP from 3.5%- 4.5%. We've consistently delivered incremental improvement across these areas and are pleased to see the margin performance achieving the expectations we set for FY 2025.
Importantly, we've still got further works to do and further improvement opportunities to execute. We have a clear plan and are confident that further progress and improvement will be made as we strive to meet the targeted margin of a five-handle over the course of FY 2026. We've been excited about the utility division given its ability to grow, noting in FY 2025 we broke for that $1 billion revenue mark. This division continues to reflect one of the major growth engines for Service Stream . In a similar vein, the group delivered an improved EBITDA margin of 6%, reflecting another strong result and equated to a 60 basis point improvement on FY 2024. Shifting gears from Arden and looking at the other standout, which is the significant work that's been secured and the bolstering of our work-in-hand.
We've often talked about the primary priority for all services businesses being the retention of existing contracts as they reach full term and proceed to market, as well as securing profitable new growth. We're really proud that the business had a very successful period and secured a record $4.2 billion of contract works over the year. This reflected also a strong retention rate of 98% across those agreements which reached a renewal milestone at the end of the term and proceeded to market. The group's level of work-in-hand increased to approximately $7.6 billion, reflecting 40% growth on PCP. Importantly, that number only reflects the initial term of our agreements, with many of our contracts having multi-year extensions, which I'll talk about later in the presentation.
The business has worked diligently over the last two to three years to improve the quality of our contracted operations and successfully pivoted away from major design and construction operations delivered under lump sum fixed price arrangements and instead focused our energy on securing longer-term operations and maintenance agreements. We're very pleased to see the O&M work now reflect circa 80% of the group's future work-in-hand, providing improved visibility and a lower risk profile. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, that improved balance sheet provides optionality for the business to continue to look at a number of strategic growth opportunities throughout the year, which presents across our target markets. Importantly, though, we are very confident of organic growth across our existing operations, but we also acknowledge the opportunity which may present through further M&A.
Turning now to the safety performance on slide six, and as I've stated many times, the health and safety of our workforce, our clients, and the communities in which we work with is our number one priority. There is nothing more important than the safety of our people. It's our commitment, and it forms a major focus and shared vision for all who work across Service Stream. We're very conscious of the safety of our growing workforce that extends across more than 5,200 employees and a pool of 17,000 plus skilled contractors. Over the course of the year, we're incredibly pleased to deliver substantial improvements in our key lag indicators. Despite the business growing and our operations expanding, the period marked a significant improvement, headlined by a 24% reduction in total recordable injury rates, a 28% reduction in lost time injuries, and a 42% reduction in high potential incidents.
As we move, all of this continues to focus on our high-risk work activities and ensuring that our workforce adheres to our mandatory group critical controls. We also acknowledge the critical role our supervisors, leading hands, and other managers play in supporting our field workforce, and we continue to provide support and additional training. Moving on to slide seven now, we wanted to briefly reflect on the execution of the group's strategy as we sign off on another year with some of the results that have been achieved. If we look at the three graphs there, the first on the left talks to our total revenue growth over the period. We see that the group has achieved a 15.7% CAGR, organically growing from $1.5 billion in FY 2022 to $2.4 billion where we are today.
Importantly, as I mentioned earlier, that revenue is across lower-risk annuity style O&M work as opposed to what has historically been in the portion of large fixed-price P&C projects. We've improved diversification of group revenue, so the business is no longer dependent on any single market, customer, or contract. This is a very different position to where we were several years prior. Looking at the middle graph there and talking to EBITDA from operations, which has grown from $91 million in FY 2022 to $146 million in the year just gone, it reflects a 17% CAGR over that four-year period. As I mentioned earlier, there's been a strong focus on driving improved margins, particularly across our utility operations, as well as a range of optimization initiatives across the broader business as we look to really improve Service Stream 's overall quality of earnings.
Finally, the graph on the right talks to our EPS, and creating enhanced and sustainable shareholder returns is ultimately the core focus and intent of our group strategy. At this point, we're really, really pleased that over the period we've been able to deliver a 28% compound annual growth rate in earnings per share. Not only have we seen improvement in the value and the rating of our business during this time, but we're continuing to drive consistent and incremental improvements in dividends aligned to the group's results. Moving through to slide eight, we've again provided insight into the group's diversified revenue profile, representing another positive attribute for the business and the changes that have been enacted over recent years. Over the course of FY 2025, we've seen only a slight change in the mix of works across the group, with operation and maintenance revenue reflecting a 66%.
Minor capital works, reflecting a 31%, is in line with our prior references and deals with that at the right balance. This provides Service Stream with positive exposure of our clients' capital expenditure programs, with the work most commonly delivered through multi-year panel arrangements. These offer the ability for our business to strategically review and selectively bid on specific opportunities that fit our criteria. If we look at the commercial models that govern the group's work, we continue to see that over the year, we maintain 94% being delivered under either a low-risk scheduler rate or a cost-reimbursable/aligned style model, marking a really positive transition from where the business was only a few years prior. Via contract terms and the expanded contract base, the business has an average contract term of five years, an improvement on what has historically been a three-year duration only a few years ago.
Importantly, the average contract tenure sits at 17 years, and we've got many partnerships that now have assisted over a 30-year journey, meaning that even though our clients regularly test the market, we've got a strong reputation for partnering, delivering value, operational excellence, and are therefore well positioned to secure this awareness. Finally, 67% of the work delivered was for government or government-related entities, with the remaining 33% delivered through and on behalf of a Tier 1 industrial client base of asset owners and operators. As I've mentioned previously, this is a wonderful client base who are well-funded, typically contract under a reasonable set of commercial terms, pay their bills on time, and represent little to no risk.
While Linda will shortly walk through the financial performance of each of the reporting segments in the broader group, I'll provide some high-level commentary on insight into the major activities over our three reporting segments for the full year and refer you to slide nine. Starting with telecommunications, the division commenced the second half with a strong win. We resecured one of our key material contracts reflected in the MBM field services agreement. This was in addition to several other major contract renewals and wins over the period, as per my prior slide, which accounted for more than $3.3 billion of work secured. A key priority Linda and I have discussed over the course of the year was securing additional programs of work to replace those existing upgrade projects known as N2P or node-to-premises MBM.
We're very pleased to confirm in accordance with the ASX announcements that we've released, that Service Stream successfully secured two major project allocations, one in June and another in July, which will support the continuation of those works over the next three to five years. Moving to our utility segment, in line with earlier comments, it's been a big but productive year for our utility division. Really pleased to see and report that the strategic repositioning continues to make further progress as evidenced by the increased contribution and improved margins. In terms of the improvement program, we outlined three core pillars, the first being the successful renegotiation, or in some occasions the exit of low-margin loss-making contracts, which we concluded at the very start of this year.
We continue to work diligently on our second pillar, which focuses on a broad range of optimization initiatives or improvements, which may cover areas such as labor productivity, operational and contractual performance uplifts, which can include the realization of incentives, as well as securing procurement savings, direct or indirect overheads, and property consolidation. Pleasingly, the division has had continued success in securing new and incremental growth aligned to long-term maintenance agreements, which represents that third important pillar. The focus across these three collective areas has supported a progressive uplift in the division's earnings and EBITDA margin, and has also improved the nature of their operations as we successfully pivot away from high-risk P&C works.
As I've mentioned at the outset of the call, we've still got further work to do, but the business continues to demonstrate incremental improvement over several half-year periods, and we are confident of delivering a five-handle on the division's EBITDA margin over the course of FY 2026. Finally, with regards to new growth, the business was proud to have successfully mobilized the new urban utilities maintenance agreement in Brisbane. This was announced early in early December and commenced operations on July 1. In addition to that agreement, we've also successfully secured the second five-year term with Sydney Water in support of our D2C joint venture operations, plus an additional new eight-year agreement to deliver sewer rehabilitation services for Sydney Water across the Sydney metropolitan area. For transport, we're pleased that the division successfully mobilized the agreement with Wick Road for the delivery of road maintenance operations.
It's been a successful first year and further supports what is an important capability within our business, being able to successfully mobilize new agreements as they are secured. The transport division completed the buyout of the remaining 50% of the South Australian Road Services JV. This is a JV between Service Stream and Boral. Moving forward, Service Stream takes over and maintains full delivery of all services on behalf of the South Australian Government. It's really pleasing to see the business has been able to secure an additional package of works for Transurban Victoria, associated with the upgrade of the power supply, and this follows the successful PACE lighting upgrade project we completed earlier in the year. Moving on to secure contract awards on slide 10.
I spoke earlier about the importance of the business retaining contracts that proceed to market at the end of their respective terms, as well as securing profitable new growth. On slide 10, we've outlined some insights into just a few of the major agreements that were secured across the group during FY 2025. It's certainly not an exhaustive list, and I don't intend to go through the individual detail on each of these, but there are a number of positive attributes I'd like to touch on. The $4.2 billion secured reflects a record for the group, taking work-in-hand balance to $7.6 billion. The business maintained a strong renewal rate, 98%, and I'm confident that the business will continue to make positive progress in securing new incremental works over the course of FY 2026, given the strong pipeline of opportunities that continues to present across current and adjacent markets.
Probably an appropriate time for me to mention the defence opportunity, which I know many will want an update on. That opportunity is associated with the Base Services Transformation Program and reflects one of the major opportunities our business has been working on for several years as we look to expand across an adjacent client base and into new markets. We don't yet have an outcome that I can share today, other than I can confirm that Service Stream remains in the assessment process, which has not yet reached its full conclusion. We hope to have an outcome shortly, which we can share, but as I'm sure you can appreciate, we can't go into specifics on the process stands that we're currently working through.
Finally, before I hand it across to Linda, I briefly want to touch on the business's success with regards to making a meaningful and positive contribution towards sustainability. Our business has a very clearly defined sustainability strategy that aligns to five pathways, with these being safety, people, community, environment, and governance. These areas represent those that we can not only make a meaningful contribution across, but align to the feedback taken from our stakeholder engagement over several years.
Highlights of FY 2025 include, but are not limited to, the significant improvements in safety performance that I touched on earlier, a minimum of 5% reduction in combined scope one and scope two emissions against our FY 2023 baseline year, stronger use of renewable energy across our operations, now reflecting 75%, an increase in female workforce participation with several dedicated support programs across the business, and we've also seen an increase in the number of First Nations suppliers that we have supporting our national operations. We're very proud of our achievements across each of our five pathways, and we look forward to sharing more information in the group's sustainability report due for release in mid-September. I'll now hand it across to Linda, who will walk through the group's financial performance in greater detail.
Thanks, Leigh, and good morning to everyone on this call. As Leigh touched on in his opening comments, we've had another really strong year. The business has been able to build on the great start we had in the first half, and you see it positively across all financial metrics. Page 13 outlines our financial headlines. Total revenue for the group, $2.42 billion, a slight increase of 1.2% on last year. As we switch out at half, revenue this year was first-half skewed, just simply due to the timing of work and mix of contract cycles. Very pleasingly, utilities were just able to hit the $1 billion revenue mark, something which I was not sure we would be able to achieve this year. EBITDA from operations was $146.1 million, an increase of 13.1% from last year.
As Leigh touched on, group EBITDA margin has continued to improve, up 60 basis points to 6%. This uplift was driven by improvement across all areas. The group's adjusted impact for the year was $68.5 million, up 36.7% on last year, and this equates to an adjusted earnings per share of $0.112 per share. This uplift was aided by the one-off tax credit we were able to secure in relation to historical transactions in the first half, but even excluding this benefit, underlying NPATA has increased by over 30% versus PCP. Staff net profit after tax was $59.2 million after allowing for the amortization of customer intangibles, which is detailed in the appendix. Operating cash flow for us was again a strong highlight this year. We generated $149 million of operating cash flow, which was in excess of EBITDA, resulting in a cash flow conversion rate of 104%.
Consequently, we've been able to further strengthen our balance sheet with net cash increasing by a further $65.7 million this year to close at $73.6 million. Finally, to round off the headlines, the directors have declared a final dividend of $0.03 per share, fully franked, which takes the total FY 2025 dividend to $0.055 per share, also fully franked, which is a 22% increase on last year. Now on to segment performance, starting with telco on page 14. The telco segment had another solid year, maintaining the significant step-up and momentum from FY 2024 across multiple clients and various programmed awards. Telco revenue for the year was $1.17 billion, down slightly on PCP by $34 million, or 2.9%.
This reduction was mainly due to lower N2P volumes in H2, with the progressive completion of the initial programs of works in advance of new work packages, which were recently secured and announced to the market. As expected, telco revenues were first-half skewed this year due to the phasing of work programs and a heightened level of demand. Rounding off telco, wireless operations has continued to maintain its share of telco revenues, holding steady at 25%. Telco EBITDA for the year was $103.8 million, down slightly by $1.6 million, reflecting the dip in revenue. EBITDA margin did increase slightly, though, up 0.1%- 8.9%. Moving on to utilities on slide 15. FY 2025 has been another positive year for the utility segment, with further progress made on its strategic repositioning to securing new profitable growth and strong operational execution, delivering improved quantum and quality revenue.
Revenue for the year was just over a billion at $1.08 billion, which was up $36.1 million or 3.7% on PCP. This was net of reduced revenue from discontinued operations and completed P&C projects. Segment growth was driven by water R&M and the industrial sector through both new contract wins and increased demand across existing clients. As we'll show, revenue was also first-half skewed due to the scale and phases of industrial shutdown works undertaken in the first half. EBITDA from operations was $45.3 million, up $11.1 million or 32.4% on FY 2024. The closeout of legacy projects and contracts over the past two years has progressively cleared the path for improved financial performance, which is reflected in these results. A highlight of this result is the continued improvement in EBITDA margin, which increased by 100 basis points this year to 4.5%.
Looking to FY 2026, we are expecting to see further progressive margin improvement. Slide 16 transport. The transport operations had a strong ride home, which reflects the business's historical H2 buying due to client project funding cycles, with additional project work associated with infrastructure upgrades, providing additional revenue opportunity in the second half. Revenue for the year is $245.8 million, up 12% on PCP. This includes an all-year benefit from the long-term Victorian road maintenance contract, which was mobilized at the start of the year and now performing really well, as well as the acquisition of the remaining 50% of the South JV in September. EBITDA was up $17.2 million, up 20% on the prior period. Our strong operational performance here has also enabled EBITDA margin to improve by 50 basis points to 7%.
Now, rolling that all up, we've moved to the group P&L on slide 17, which presents both the statutory and reported metrics. We've already touched on group revenue growth for the year being 1.2%, which was tempered by contract cycles and exited or completed projects across the utility and telco segments. EBITDA growth this year has therefore been largely through margin expansion, while for much of the recent focus from investors has been on the utility margin improvement, all segments and areas in our business contributed to this uplift. The group continues to maintain a strong focus on quality of earnings, from bidding for work and strategic appetite to the operational delivery and optimization, which has enabled progressive improvement in margin over recent reporting periods. We have also continued to carry cost this year to support the ongoing Defence Base Services tender that Leigh mentioned.
We note in the headlines another step change uplift in NPATA and EPS of 36.7%, which is on top of the 36% we delivered last year, materially improving our NPATA margin or conversion of EBITDA to the bottom line. This uplift includes the benefit from lower financing costs due to our strong net cash position and the refinancing completed in December last year. I should note again, part of this uplift relates to the one-off tax credit. Our corporate tax rate should revert to approximately 30% for the future cycles. Now, moving on to group cash flow on slide 18. As noted in the headline, we've again delivered an exceptional cash flow outcome for the year, achieving an EBITDA to OCSP conversion rate of 104.4%, which has enabled further expansion of our net cash position to $73.6 million.
The working capital optimization program we embarked on post-acquisition of Lendlease Services has yielded significant benefit, with FY 2025's net working capital now running at 3.7% of LTM revenue. Below OCSP, a key call-out is the lower cash tax number, which was significantly below tax expense due to the tax refund received, as well as the natural lag in tax installments paid when taxable income increases. This will require a square up in tax pay in FY 2025 for FY 2025. This current half was noted in our forays. Net CapEx, the leading cash flow for the year, has again tracked well below the expected 2%- 2.5% range of revenue. This also included this year proceeds from fleet refresh of $3 million. I have been earmarking for a while increased expenditure across IT systems as part of this target range.
This program's work has now been initiated and, while still in its early stage, is ramping up with increased expenditure expected in FY 2026. Now, turning to the balance sheet and capital management on slide 19. This slide outlines our approach to the balance sheet and capital management, which is focused on maintaining our strong balance sheet position, reinvesting in the business, and supporting growth. Balance will provide a sustainable dividend to our shareholders. Maintaining a strong balance sheet is a key priority. It de-risks our business and provides flexibility and optionality for growth. This is supported by our capital licenses model and available debt facilities, which provide ample liquidity. In FY 2026, we are expecting investment cash flows to be at that upper end of our 2%- 2.5% review range. As noted on the previous slide, we've initiated an ERP modernization program encompassing people, payroll, and finance systems.
These programs are still in very early stages with final program budget and time phase still being scoped. I should note that these IT upgrades will likely occur under a SaaS environment, with accounting guidance requiring such investments to be expensed. If that is the case, we will exclude these costs from EBITDA operations for reporting purposes for the remaining implementations. We're also continuing to invest in assets to support organic growth and mobilization of new contracts. With regards to acquisitions, we have been reviewing M&A opportunities that could present a strategic acquisition to further diversify the business and expand our market exposure. We just have one year to date. Finally, delivering standard dividends to our shareholders is important. This has reflected an increase in our final dividend to $0.03 per share, with full-year dividends $0.055 per share, up 22% on last year. That's all from me.
I'll now hand you back to Leigh to take you through the remainder of the presentation pack.
Thank you, Linda. We're now at the end of today's presentation. I'll move to the group's outlook and direct everyone to slide 21, work-in-hand. As per many of my comments, the group's had a very successful year securing record levels of works, claimed costing $4.2 billion. That reflected a 40% increase on the prior year and took the contracted works to $7.6 billion. Importantly, it reflects only the initial term of those contracts. We often have multi-year extension options available. If we account for those, that adds an additional $5 billion of work, taking our total work-in-hand to $12.6 billion. This is a great position, reflecting over 5x revenue cover as we sit here today. We're grateful to work alongside and support an enviable client base consisting of government entities and major Tier 1 industrial asset owners. As I said earlier, these clients are well-capitalized.
The work is generally contracted under a reasonable set of terms. They pay their bills on time, and the nature of their networks importantly provides opportunities to support natural organic annual growth across many of their contracts. Moving on to the next slide here, another positive attribute is the favorable markets that our business operates across. These support the essential infrastructure that millions of Australians depend on each and every day and continue to benefit from increased investment.
There are several common drivers that support continued and profitable growth opportunities for Service Stream , including the aging infrastructure requiring increased maintenance and continued capital investment, increased technology deployment and the digital transition, an unprecedented level of population growth, particularly expansion into regional areas of Australia where assets and infrastructure require significant upgrades, the renewable energy transition, and the impacts of natural disasters such as fire and floods, which require increased maintenance and improved resilience across network infrastructure. I think importantly, we possess strong service offerings and capabilities across these markets, which reflect a circa $60 billion in annual maintenance-related revenues, and that excludes capital investment. The markets grow year on year, and Service Stream , given our relative revenue, has a big opportunity to increase our market share. I've often referred to our business as being a small mouth in a very big pond.
Finally, moving to the outlook slide. In terms of group outlook for FY 2026, we're in a fantastic position. We hold that large diversified work order book. Strong momentum has been generated across FY 2025, and that is carrying through to FY 2026. We start this year with circa 85% of work-in-hand under contract, and 80% of that reflects lower-risk R&M works. The group expects earnings growth in FY 2026. It's going to be supported by our strong order book and confidence in further improvements being delivered across those utility margins as we move to meet our target of a five-handle with respect to EBITDA. That will be on the backdrop of strong and continued investment across each of our core markets. We have a clear strategy which continues to deliver incremental improvement, and I'm genuinely excited about the position of the business and the future opportunities that lay ahead. That concludes our presentation.
On behalf of the Service Stream board, I'd like to express our personal thanks to our amazing staff working right across the country for their continued efforts and dedication. I'll now hand back to the moderator to open up the call for questions from anyone joining us today.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one-one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one-one again. One moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question is going to come from the line of William Park with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thanks, Leigh and Linda, for taking my question. Firstly, with telco, can you just step through how we should be thinking about volumes in first half and second half of FY 2026? Do you expect that lower volume that you called out in second half FY 2025 to effectively rebound in first half of FY 2026 and the momentum to continue? Or is there sort of a first half, second half skew that we should be thinking about? Thank you.
Thanks for the call and for the question, Will. It's a good question. We always know that the challenges of predicting half-on-half performance, we certainly expect to see telco over the course of the year. I think we'll probably largely flat to the revenue line. There may be some bias for limited growth. I think you expect to see some improvement on the second half of 2025, but I don't think it's going to be significant. I think that there'll be incremental improvement and that will continue through. We'd expect to see a much lighter half-on-half performance for telco at slightly elevated levels.
Thank you. In terms of utility margins, I appreciate that you guys are still sort of calling out 5% in FY 2026. If I look at your second half margin of 4.8% or thereabouts, it seems to me that 5% does look fairly conservative here. Just wondering how you're sort of thinking about potential upside to the 5%. Just related to, I guess, utilities as well, I think a few months prior to you guys heading into sort of blackout, you guys have called out that utilities revenue could be below $1 billion. Obviously, it's exceeded that. Just wondering what's really changed there, please.
Yeah, no, no, it's a great question. Yes, you are correct. I mean, we delivered 4.2% and then 4.8% in the second half. We knew we weren't going to get to 5% this year, so that gave us 4.5% over the year. You are right. I think we're sitting in a great position. We have absolute confidence to get to a 5% in front of that. We haven't previously quoted whether it's an exit or an entry rate, but we certainly won't be stopping at a 5% or looking to just break in. I mean, there's a large range between 5% and 6%, and we expect to land somewhere between that level over the course of the year. Importantly, we're not going to stop there. We're still going to continue to try and drive incremental improvement across those margins.
We haven't yet discussed what that next medium-term target might look like once we get a five-handle this year, but I certainly see that there is continued opportunity for us to drive some further improvement across the utilities margin. Hopefully that gives you some understanding there, at least somewhere within that 5%- 6% range.
The $1 billion revenue, obviously, you were kind of suggesting that you were trapped below that $1 billion revenue. Obviously, it's exceeded that. My apologies if I missed out on your earlier comments, but just wondering, you know, what's changed in the space of the last month or two?
Yeah, no, it's a great, great question, Will. Yes, we were cautious to it. I mean, we delivered a strong result, I think $530 million instead of $480 million across the course of the year in terms of first half, second half. We just weren't sure that we'd see that continued performance in the second half running through. We did see some positive words, particularly across our water operations. That continues to be a major area of growth, coupled with our industrial maintenance area. Both those areas have benefited, continued to benefit. We're confident that what we'll probably see, I think, this year is growth between that 5% to 10% area for utilities whilst we continue to improve margins.
Thank you. Just thinking about transport margin again in the second half, it looks to be, if my calculation is correct, in excess of 8%. How should we sort of be thinking about transport margin into FY 2026? Is second half margin a good proxy to kind of think about margin profile for transport going forward?
Yeah. No, it's a really good question, Will. Look, we do and have previously commented on the fact that there is a bit more variability in transport. The nature of those operations often see the government coming and looking to spend money rapidly on particularly road programs, and that can work the other way as well. We're always a little cautious. Particularly, we find that we've had this sort of second half buyout over the recent period. I would expect to see our margins hovering around that current level. You are right. We delivered, I think, about 8.3% in the second half. It may not maintain that, but I think it'll be in or around that level, and we should maintain that 7% margin throughout the course of the year.
What the transport business really shows, and the same applies for all of our business, is that while we don't have guaranteed volumes, when the work is there, I think the teams are very good at making the most of it and converting that margin that's available and that scale that's available. It's dependent on the volumes. That variability does present itself in transport because it's a smaller business, but what the team demonstrated is when the opportunity presents itself, they actually make the most of it.
Yeah, I agree. I think I'd expect to see maybe a tick up a little bit in the first half, but I think we will certainly see continued improvement in the second. I think we'll still hold a seven in front of that number over the course of the year and hope that seven upwards or closer to eight, but we'll see how the year progresses.
Thank you. Just one last question for me. Looking at one of your peers' commentaries, it looks like the industry is kind of expecting decisions on defence at the end of this quarter. Is that consistent with your expectations and is there any progress or updates that you could share with us at this point?
Yeah, I can confirm that's the case, Will. We do believe that by the end of September, we should have an outcome reached that we communicate.
Thanks very much.
We're six weeks away.
Thanks, Will.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Megan Kirby- Lewis with Barrenj oey. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I've just got a question just on the telecommunications services margin. Just noting you were able to slightly increase it on the lower revenues. How should we be thinking about that into FY 2026?
Yeah, thanks for the question, Megan. I'd probably refer back to the comments that we made when we re-signed our first FSM agreement with MBM. When we re-signed that agreement, we called out the fact that we expected margins to come off slightly over the course of FY 2026. It wasn't significant, but the nature of that agreement and what we put forward meant that we're probably going to have a little bit of sloppiness in 2026 before we could try and recover and improve that. I would expect we still very much have an eight in front of it. There's probably a couple of basis points there in terms of movement from where we finish in FY 2025, but not significant.
Fantastic. I'll pass it on. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Nick Daish with RBC. Your line is, please go ahead.
Thank you. Thanks, Leigh and Linda, for the opportunity. I think the first one is just around the work-in-hand profile. Obviously, stepped up relatively meaningfully to $7.6 billion. I think what I found interesting was the composition, just minor capital works. Then also D&C, I think minor capital works went up $500 million whilst D&C went from nothing to $200 million. Do you mind just fleshing that out a little bit for us around what that is specifically? I mean, are they contracts that you've announced to market, being the MBM contracts in the pack today, etc., or are they over and above those contracts already announced, please?
Thank you, Nick. Appreciate that. Are you referring specifically to the DNC component?
In the explanation there, that amount? Yeah, I think the DNC component went to $200 million work-in-hand, and then I think the minor capital works portion increased by $500 million as well. I'm just curious about what that actually is with respect to DNC, but I'm going to.
Yeah, the DNC component, I think importantly, that references a couple of our projects that we expect or will be delivering under our D2C operation to Sydney Water. That's in line style contracts. This is not fixed price lump sum. Importantly, the first point to note, that's where we've seen a slight increase in that DNC works. Still very, very comfortable with that.
Yeah, the increase in the minor capital works is where we've classified the entity program.
Yeah, we haven't.
We just secured that work, which are two material packages of that work. That's what's led to that bump above that.
Okay, thank you. That is very clear. Just on MBM, obviously, throughout the period, there's been some consolidation of contracts and more to the point of contractors servicing MBM. I'm just curious, I mean, I would imagine at some point in time that comes with a pricing implication to the upside for the contractors still servicing MBM. Could you just give us a sense for that dynamic as it stands today? Is it something where perhaps the contractors have stronger pricing power, or are we still too early days for something like that to materialize, please?
That's a good question. We certainly always try and drive right across our business. From my earlier comments, Nick, drive and drive improvement in margin like we did this year. Please see that that happened across each division, including telecommunications services. I think specifically with the work there, it's far too early to call. What I did call out clearly when we signed the new FSM agreement with MBM was that we would see margins just drop a couple of basis points initially, and then we're confident we'll be able to try and drive and initially just try and improve those. It's not a significant move away from that sort of 8.8%, 8.9% we delivered in 2025. Yes, you're right, Brett, we always try and deliver improvements, just like we have this year.
I do expect over the course of 2026, we'll be starting a little bit behind the eight ball with telco. We'll have to try and drive a number of initiatives forward if we want to try and see that margin sort of come back to these levels next year.
Got it. Thank you. Just very lastly on defence, I realize it's a sensitive topic and take on board your comments from earlier, Leigh, but just want to confirm that you have not heard an outcome one way or the other from defence because my understanding is that, in some cases, contractors have been made aware of their position. I just want to confirm that you have not heard your outcome for Service Stream one way or the other at this point in time.
That is correct, Nick. I can confirm that we have not been told of an outcome. We are still in the process of working through Defence's timeline, their program, and we expect to have that reached conclusion at the end of this quarter, so end of September.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Beautiful. Thank you, man.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one-one on your telephone. Our next question is going to come from the line of Ian Munro with Ord Minnett. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Leigh. Good morning, Linda. Just a question around telecommunications services. Can you understand where we're at with the field services deployment? Are we at the kind of full run rate at this point in time, or is that expected to deploy sequentially over this half?
Yeah, thanks, Ian. We've been progressively mobilizing and transitioning across to our new areas, and that new contract structure. A major milestone was just reached at the end of July with us now affecting those two existing regions, being New South Wales and Queensland, and successfully taking over Victoria, SA, and the Northern Territory. That's just been reached in the last sort of three weeks.
Thank you. On the Sydney Water contract, congrats on the extension. That takes us out to 2029, 2030. Maybe just confirm that, please. If we look at the new sort of sewer rehab contract, that gives us a sense, is that sort of 5%, 10% of the overall earnings mix? Is that incremental to what revenue is getting generated at the moment? Thank you.
Yeah, that was all in. Certainly very pleased to see that extension option executed by Sydney Water under the D2C agreement. We had a further five-year option. The agreement's actually confirmed five, and the client added another two-year option after that. We've got five plus two, now ahead of us under our current D2C, which is fantastic. That continues to grow, as we've previously discussed. Throughout the course of the year engaging with Sydney Water, we've also been successful in being awarded what we're calling a void fail, and that's referenced on slide, I think slide 10 of that pack with the new works. That is around major rehab of sewer. It's actually, I think, a five plus three plus three contract. Multi-year contract. It's delivered under the same joint venture. We're effectively seeing a 50% contribution to Service Stream with our other existing JV partners.
I'd expect that to start to mobilize over the next few months here. When we reach full run rate, we'd hope to sort of generate about $50 million a year in revenue there.
Excellent. Just the final one, please, maybe for Linda, just looking at the CapEx. Expected to be sort of 2%- 2.5% sort of top end of that range FY 2026. Just confirming, does that include the ERP kind of capitalisation?
Yeah.
Yeah. You can't, there's a dot point sort of saying that the O&M component is also likely to increase. Can you maybe just confirm that, please?
Yeah, no, I think what I was trying to say is I'm going to be old school and treat that for your purposes as CapEx. You've seen them cash flow treated as CapEx in terms of, call it, the reporting and managed reporting style. For statutory purposes, we obviously need to OpEx that. I would just treat that as an EBITDA adjustment. You count it once. We count in the cash flow as CapEx. Does that make sense?
Yes, it does. Excellent. Thanks, Linda. Thanks, Leigh.
Thanks, Ian.
Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time, and I would like to hand the conference back over to Leigh Mackender for closing remarks.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate everyone joining today. We look forward to engaging over the next couple of days on our roadshow, and thank you again.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.