Welcome to the Ventia Half Year Results briefing. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Dean Banks, Managing Director and Group CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Darcy. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Ventia's 2024 half year results presentation. A warm welcome to everyone on the call today. I am Dean Banks, proud and privileged to be the Group CEO at Ventia. I'm joined today by Mark Fleming, Ventia's CFO, and together we'll take you through the half year results update, which we lodged with the ASX this morning.
Following the presentation, Mark and I will be happy to receive any questions. Our offices and project sites across Australia and New Zealand sit on the lands of many First Nations people, so I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and the local iwi, recognizing their connection to land, waters and community. First and foremost, I'd like to reiterate that safety is our number one priority.
During our AGM, we regretfully shared that on the 19th of March, 2024 , a Ventia employee from our transport team was involved in a tragic incident while working on a road network project in New Zealand. The investigation into the fatality is ongoing. I want to re-emphasize that safety of our people is our highest priority. It's our license to operate. We drive continuous improvement in our safety culture through the leadership shadow we cast.
We are totally committed to investment in leadership development and workforce training in our pursuit to safeguard our people and all those we come into contact with each and every day. This period, we've implemented a range of initiatives which provide a greater focus on addressing our critical risk protocols. The Elevate program is one example where we're increasing leadership accountability through refreshed behavioral standards.
The origin of Elevate is based on globally recognized safety practices. To date, almost 500 Ventia employees have participated in this training. Leader learning conversations ensure our senior leaders regularly get out on site. They increase visibility around the importance of safety, whilst proactively engaging senior management in operational safety conversations.
In respect of our lagging key performance indicators, our TRIFR rating improved by 1% and SIFR by 68%. Clearly, we must always seek to improve our performance, and we strongly believe the investment in terms of elevating our behavioral standards will be a catalyst for improved results moving forward.
Over the past six months, we've maintained our focus on the following three key considerations. Firstly, delivering upon what we say we will do, ensuring our performance matches stakeholders' short-term expectations whilst continuing to build solid foundations for long-term growth.
This period, we have successfully delivered on this commitment, demonstrated by our NPATA growth of 12.5%, which is underpinned by long-term contract stability. Secondly, realizing sustainable growth, maintaining our momentum. Here we have delivered revenue and EBITDA growth faster than market growth and achieved a 93% client renewal rate. And lastly, delivering long-term sustainable value.
We have created significant benefits for shareholders since listing, and in continuing this trajectory, I'm in a position today to announce an interim dividend of $ 0.0935 per share, growth of 12.5% over the year and 25% since listing. Our performance in the half gives the Ventia board and management confidence in the full year, and I'm pleased today to upgrade our full year 2024 guidance, moving to 10%-12% NPATA growth versus full year 2023.
The business has momentum. Our people are proud of the achievements thus far, but more importantly, they are engaged and energized by the opportunities that lie ahead of us. Now, let's look more closely at our financial highlights for half one, 2024 . The demand for essential services and the structure of our contracts has translated into strong revenue growth. Revenue in the half was just over $ 3 billion, up 10.6%.
EBITDA reached $ 246 million, up 9.2%, with our margin relatively stable at 8%. Our NPATA was $ 107 million, an increase of 12.5% year on year. Cash conversion increased materially 180 basis points to 90.7%. An excellent result, a real testament to the strong governance control the group places upon cash management.
Our work in hand closed at 17.2 billion, a decrease of 1.5% on half year 2023, and on the next slide, we'll look at work winning in more detail. Year to date, we have secured a diverse range of contract wins across Australia and New Zealand. These awards underpin our future growth ambition, the 93% renewal rate in H1 being a particular highlight and illustrating the faith our customers place in us. I'd like to just walk through a few of these recent contract awards.
The Western Power panel contract was signed in June. Ventia will provide maintenance services across Western Power's transmission and distribution network. The contract is valued at approximately $ 178 million over five years.
It's an important contract for Ventia as we look to establish ourselves as a trusted partner in the build and maintenance of transmission and distribution networks. We continue our long-term strategic partnership with Homes New South Wales through a new and improved five-year contract worth $ 570 million. We've been providing services to Homes New South Wales for over 20 years. This contract sees Ventia initially servicing more than 28,000 homes.
NBN Co awarded us a new contract under the On Demand Business Deployment module. Ventia has delivered ODM capabilities for NBN since the program's inception in 2012. This is another great example of the long-term strategic partnerships we build with our clients. We've also been awarded several smaller-scale projects during 2024, including a cross-sell opportunity with TasWater and a contract extension with Auckland Council.
Our work in hand in the half was slightly lower than expected, primarily due to delays in some large public procurement processes. That said, our pipeline is strong and growing. Indeed, we have a number of large opportunities at the latter stage of their respective procurement cycles. We're still targeting our full year 2024 work-in-hand balance to be higher than the $ 18.1 billion that we achieved in full year 2023.
We've already made good inroads into this target with both Defence Firefighting and Seqwater won post-June. Our strategy to redefine service excellence is simple and provides a clear roadmap to achieve our objectives and create value for our stakeholders. Let me bring our strategy to life a little by taking you through some examples. Client-focused. The demands and requirements of our clients are consistently changing, and so does the nature of our work.
Therefore, it is important that we consistently listen to the voice of our customers and reassess how we work to meet, if not exceed, their expectations. There is no better way to understand what a customer thinks of us than to ask them directly. This half, as part of our Voice of the Customer undertaking, we conducted more than 90 interviews across 60 of our core clients to understand their first-hand perspectives.
Here are some direct quotes from clients who participated in the survey. "Ventia is a sleeping giant with the potential to take material market share." "Ventia has really looked after customers in times of crisis." "We are open to strategic conversations with Ventia around comprehensive service offerings that deliver value." The feedback generally indicates that many of our customers see us as a trusted and reliable delivery partner.
We also heard that some clients feel there are opportunities for Ventia to move up the value chain. We are now going through a process of determining the cadence by which we harvest this client feedback moving forward. We are seeking to introduce a single digital platform to allow us to collate customer feedback and meaningfully utilize the data on an enterprise-wide basis.
Innovation ensures we are consistently curious and seeking to find smart solutions to old and new problems our clients may encounter. Our in-building coverage telecommunication solution is an innovation which more and more of our customers welcome and appreciate. It leverages our expert capabilities to design and deliver state-of-the-art technology, enabling high-speed connectivity to everyone in attendance across large-scale venues.
Most recently, we've successfully deployed this capability in iconic venues such as Sydney Opera House and Stadium Australia, which won the 2024 Edison Award for Best Mobile Initiative. To help put the scale of this work in perspective, Ventia installed more than 50 kilometers of cable and 100 antennas across these two locations. These capabilities are a real game changer for people visiting these type of large venues, particularly when there is a full house eager to share their experience.
Like the 80,000 Swifties each night at Stadium Australia, who tested out and benefited from our recently installed network. Moving to sustainability, which is firmly embedded in the DNA of our business. As a leading essential services provider in Australia and New Zealand, we have an important responsibility to lead the way on sustainability.
I'm pleased to report that our science-based targets were validated by SBTi in June. This approval formalized our commitment to significantly reduce our absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, and reach net zero across all these three scopes by 2050. The next step in our climate journey is to deliver a credible transition plan, which we are targeting to communicate during the first half of 2025.
I look forward to updating you on this in due course. I will now hand over to our CFO, Mark Fleming, who will provide greater insight into our financial performance.
Thanks, Dean, and welcome everyone. I'm delighted to be here today to formally present my first set of results for Ventia. I've now been in the CFO seat for six months, and it's been a terrific first half of Ventia as we continue to build on the sustainable growth of our business. Lots of people have asked me over the last six months about my thoughts and whether there's anything that surprised me, and there are two key things that have struck me since I started.
Firstly, the diverse nature of our portfolio, from the remediation we do in our environmental business to the rollout of fiber in the telco business. This diversity provides resilience and predictability to our performance, spreading risk, and importantly, providing a nationwide footprint and a broad range of services for our clients.
The second thing is the size of the opportunity, with a large and growing addressable market and a significant pipeline of contract opportunities. These things provide a strong underpinning for our business and a high degree of confidence in the business outlook. It's an exciting proposition to be part of. I now want to take you through our track record of financial performance.
Over the last two years, the business has delivered consistent growth. Group revenue has increased by 23% over the two-year period. Strong revenue growth from our telecommunications, DSI, and transport businesses contributed to the 10.6% revenue growth over the half. Over the last two years, EBITDA has increased by 21%, and the EBITDA margin has remained consistent in a high inflation environment.
NPATA increased by 25% since HY 2022 and grew an impressive 12.5% year-on-year due to sector EBITDA growth and controlled increases in depreciation, amortization, and net finance costs, assisted by the capital light model. This track record of performance demonstrates the resilience of our portfolio, the efficiency of our capital light business model, and the compelling value proposition we offer for our clients.
Looking more closely at our financial performance for the half, group revenue growth of 10.6% is underpinned by strong performance across three of our sectors. EBITDA grew by 9.2%, with contract revenue escalations offsetting inflationary costs during the period. Cash conversion improved to 90.7% due to continued focus on invoicing and cash collection.
Capital expenditure increased by $ 12.1 million, driven by disciplined investment in our core, including to support our rigs and wells business and to continually improve our digital capabilities. CapEx is 0.9% of our revenue. Net finance costs decreased slightly year-on-year, primarily driven by an increase in interest income due to higher cash balances. The business has momentum with broad-based growth and, importantly, resilience in margins.
Overall, a strong set of financials for the half, setting us up well to deliver on expectations for the remainder of 2024. Let's now look at the sectors in more detail. In our DSI business, revenue grew by 12.7% compared to the same period last year, and EBITDA increased by 14%, exceeding revenue growth.
The increase in revenue in the first half was largely driven by increased minor capital works from the Defence Base Services contract and the Defence Maintenance contract. Infrastructure services revenue was down slightly by 0.4% on the same period last year. This was mainly due to spending reductions by some of our resources and industrials clients. EBITDA was down by 10.9% year-on-year, impacted by the completion of certain high-margin minor capital works projects.
The revenue has just about been replaced, albeit at lower margin. We're expecting to see some margin improvement in the IS business in the second half of the year. IS is a sector in transition. We've seen a significant shift away from industrials and resources clients towards energy, water, and renewables, which today makes up 50% of the sector's revenue.
These are new contracts with new clients and a margin profile that will improve over time. Our telecommunications business continues to experience strong growth. Revenue increased by an impressive 19.5% and EBITDA by 19.3%. Telco revenue is supported by build volumes, mainly across existing work programs.
Transport revenue increased by 6.5% and EBITDA by 7.3%, with the EBITDA margin improving slightly to 7.4%. Revenue growth was largely supported by the commencement of contracts with Transurban Queensland, the West Gate Tunnel Project, and Western Distributor Smart Motorway, all of which commenced in the second half of 2023.
Overall, the strong group result demonstrates the advantage of our diversified model, with strong performance in some segments of our business compensating for less strong performance in others, delivering a more reliable and resilient overall result for the group as a whole. Our strong NPATA growth continues to deliver growing dividends for our shareholders. Our interim dividend of $ 0.0935 per share represents a 12.5% increase on the same period last year.
The dividend represents a 75% payout of NPATA, consistent with our policy to pay out between 60% and 80% of NPATA. The dividend is 80% franked and will be paid on the seventh of October. We anticipate franking to the maximum amount possible over the medium term before moving to a fully franked dividend after the benefit from our tax losses has been exhausted.
Dividends are an important way of returning capital to many of our investors, and we're pleased to continue to provide a growing dividend profile. Moving to our balance sheet, we have $ 363.6 million of cash on hand and a $ 400 million undrawn revolver, resulting in total liquidity of $ 763.6 million. In the second half, we'll refinance the $ 650 million of debt facilities expiring in 2025 and take the opportunity to assess the market, including looking to extend our maturity profile and diversify our funding mix.
Our S&P and Moody's ratings remain stable with a credit rating of triple B flat and Baa2 respectively. This investment grade rating reflects the reliability and stability of our cash flow, continued improvement in credit metrics, and consistent business performance.
Our net debt to EBITDA ratio continues to decline as the business grows. Net debt to EBITDA is now at one point one times, well within our covenants and our credit rating band guidelines. We have a strong balance sheet and are well-positioned for future growth. Over the last six months, we've reviewed our capital allocation framework, and here we lay out our long-term capital allocation settings.
We have three main objectives. Firstly, we'll maintain financial strength and flexibility, and to achieve this, we're focused on maintaining our high cash conversion and investment-grade credit ratings. Secondly, we'll invest to grow our core business. We'll do this by disciplined investment to optimize and innovate within our core business and by making selective and value-accretive bolt-on acquisitions that are consistent with our strategy.
Finally, we'll maximize total shareholder returns, achieved through sustainable dividends with a policy to pay out 60%-80% of NPATA, franked to the maximum amount possible. Subject to board approval, we will consider returning any excess capital to shareholders via on-market buybacks. The aim of this framework is to ensure we use shareholders' capital in a disciplined way to drive earnings growth and to deliver sustainable shareholder returns over the long term.
We have successfully completed three bolt-on acquisitions over the last three years, which have created value for shareholders by filling gaps in capability, geography, or client relationships. In 2021, we purchased Kordia Solutions for $ 11.2 million, and with this business came a specialized capability in in-building coverage that's complementary to our existing client offering.
The business was scalable, and we identified cross-sell opportunities where the people, client relationships, and technology could be leveraged. I'm pleased to report that since acquisition, this capability and technology has been instrumental in winning some large-scale contracts for Ventia, including the Stadium Australia and Opera House contracts that Dean referenced already, as well as the Babcock contract with Defence.
The next acquisition was ATC Energy in 2022 for $ 5.7 million. ATC is a large service provider in the Victorian transmission and distribution market, with deep experience, direct relationships, and specialist equipment. Since acquisition, this business has nearly doubled in revenue, and Ventia is now seen as a tier one lines contractor in Victoria. The acquisition positions Ventia well for further growth in transmission and distribution in other states and to participate in the energy transition as it accelerates over coming years.
This year, we purchased the New Zealand arm of Landscape Solutions, a commercial landscaping business. The acquisition cost was $ 13.4 million, with an additional $ 3.3 million payable, subject to a number of conditions. This acquisition introduces self-perform land management capability, labor, and equipment into Ventia's New Zealand offering. The business will support Ventia's Auckland Council contract and comes with deep relationships across a number of potential New Zealand clients.
This acquisition was only completed on 1 July, and I'm pleased to report that the integration and business operations are progressing as we expected. These three examples demonstrate that Ventia has a history of completing sensible bolt-on acquisitions that can support our organic growth and create long-term value for shareholders. I'll now hand back to Dean for the outlook.
Thank you, Mark. Once again, we've commissioned BIS Oxford to update our total addressable market analysis. This data illustrates the estimated growth in the outsourced component of the maintenance and services market. It looks at each of our individual sectors and captures the relevant marketplace in which we operate. Over the next four years, BIS Oxford estimates our addressable market will grow by more than 6.4% CAGR, rising from circa $ 83 billion in full year 2025 to just over $ 100 billion in full year 2028.
Compare this to last year's revenue of $ 5.7 billion, and it clearly illustrates the considerable headroom we have for organic growth. On the slide, you can see the market opportunity split by sector and the key drivers that underpin this forecast growth trajectory.
The demand drivers remain consistent versus the previous analysis, offering genuine tailwinds to help drive our future growth ambition. We have a well-established strategy. Ventia is an essential services provider focused upon redefining service excellence for our customers and the communities we serve. The essential nature of our work ensures the market is resilient, and demand for our services remains consistent despite weather conditions, pandemics, or market downturns.
We've embedded a strong customer-focused culture, illustrated by the high number of repeat clients and long-term relationships. We have a commitment to sustainability that is focused on creating a lasting and positive legacy for future generations, and we seek to drive a culture of continuous improvement across all facets of our business. People are at the heart of our success. We have a total workforce of circa thirty-five thousand, including subcontractors, who understand and align behind a common ambition.
The breadth and depth of our portfolio and expert capabilities we can provide is critical component of our value proposition. The reach of our business is vast, and our ability to attract and retain a diverse and talented workforce is critical to our success. Robust governance control are fundamental. Our standard enterprise-wide systems and operating processes are a true differentiator. The transparency and efficiency of our systems enables leaders to make better informed decisions in real time.
The Project on a Page concept, our standardized operational and financial reporting platform, funnels everyone's attention towards a single source of the truth. This methodology is a major contributor in our pursuit to drive performance improvement across our business. Finally, we operate in a market which has headroom for organic growth. Our total market share is currently sub 10%, thus, we still have a significant market opportunity to grow.
These factors, along with our expanding brand reputation, offer us the confidence we can continue to differentiate the Ventia value proposition moving forward. In summary, I'm pleased to share with you our half year 2024 financial result, a period in which we have delivered strong performance in respect of revenue, EBITDA, and NPATA. We have realized sustainable growth, and our business continues to demonstrate its resilience.
The need for essential services is structural, and our track record of success supporting long-term strategic partners offer us confidence for the balance of 2024 and beyond. Since listing in November 2021, we have delivered tangible shareholder returns and offered a growing dividend profile, and I'm pleased to be in a position today to announce an upgrade to our full year 2024 guidance. The new range will be for NPATA growth of 10%-12% compared to full year 2023.
To close, I'd like to offer my appreciation to all our stakeholders who have contributed to this excellent result. Our board, employees, subcontractors, suppliers, clients, and shareholders, your continued support is most welcome and appreciated. Once again, thank you for joining our H1 results presentation, and I look forward to updating you on the progress of the business at the full year. Darcy, I'll now open the line for any questions.
Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced... If you'd like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from John Purtell from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good day, Dean and Mark. Hope you're both well. Just have a few questions, please. Firstly, and probably more of a macro one, how are you seeing government spending, given states are in tighter fiscal positions, any areas of weakness to call out? And I suppose it's interesting that, you know, the weakness you are calling out is sort of more in the private sector in terms of industrial and resources.
Yeah, John, likewise, hope you're well. Thank you for the question. Look, I think we're pretty consistent with what we've said previously, that, you know, government is fundamental to the success of our business. It is circa 75% of our revenue makeup. There's no doubt we can see economic pressure, particularly in places like Victoria. But equally, I think that offers opportunity for Ventia.
So we've seen previously, you know, outsourcing moving at about 1% per annum. I think with the challenges from the economy, you know, government are looking for service providers like Ventia to try and give them the opportunity to understand fixed cost opportunity to deliver those services, that hopefully will deliver cost savings to government budgets moving forward.
So, there's definitely pressure, but I think that creates opportunity as well, and hopefully Ventia, moving forward, will leverage that opportunity.
Thank you. And maybe just a question for Mark, further to your divisional comments there on infrastructure services. You mentioned that the revenue's now being replaced from that sort of runoff in that higher margin work last year. So just to clarify that that's basically, or has happened already, that revenue replacement, so that gives you the visibility on that expectation of margin improvement in the second half?
Yeah, that's right. So as I said in the speech, IS is a sector under transition. We are seeing really good growth in energy, water and renewables. And we're seeing, you know, less of a proportion of that sector coming from resources, industrials going forward. And in the half, what that meant was that there was a number of minor capital works projects that we'd previously been doing in resource and industrials that are no longer continuing.
So we feel as though we are in a position now where the sector has bottomed, and we are expecting improvement from the IS sector in the second half.
And look, John, if I may just amplify, I think when we first listed as a business in November 2021, if you look at the IS sector, circa 44% of our revenue was, you know, in resource and industrial, and a much smaller proportion was in energy, water and renewables. Today, as Mark said in his commentary, circa 50% of our revenue now comes from energy, water and renewables, which I think is the market where we see a really strong pipeline of opportunity.
And I'll probably just, you know, reiterate, it was great yesterday, and I was really pleased for the business that we announced the contract award of Seqwater, which is a new client and a new contract for Ventia.
I think there'll be further opportunities for us to bring new clients and new opportunities into the IS business going forward, and equally, at the same time as those contracts mature, see the margins improve alongside it.
Thank you. And just the last one, just in terms of the Defence sector renewals, Dean, what's your latest view on timing for those? Obviously, it's sort of generally continued to push out, and just confidence around those renewals.
As ever, you know, public procurement activities are always robust and follow a very strict timeline. We are in a position now where we put our bids in for all of the remaining Defence bid, Defence base opportunities, in August, so we now await the review of those opportunities. This process, as you know, has been considerable, and I know that as a procurement entity, they will do a full value review and get to the right conclusions, I'm absolutely sure.
From our perspective at this stage, we've put forward what we believe is a compelling value proposition. And I think the best outcome now would be announcements of awards from those contract opportunities in quarter four of this year.
My expectation is probably more likely to see communication of those in quarter one 2025 , but I think it's in that time frame of, you know, the sort of back end of 2024 early part of 2025. I will just reiterate that the first component part of the eight contracts that were up for procurement was Defence Firefighting Services, and I'm sure you recognize that we disclosed the award of that particular contract in July of this year.
And I think that again illustrates the good relationship we've got with Defence. As I've said previously, we're certainly not complacent, but we believe that we continue to be a long-term strategic partner to Defence and will be going forward.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Tony Mitchell, from Shaw and Partners. Please go ahead.
Congratulations on a very good result. I'd like to ask you, when will the tax losses be exhausted, so you'll be in a position where you can pay 100% franked dividends?
Yeah, Tony, thank you for your feedback, and thank you for the question. I think that's one that's absolutely appropriate for Mark, so I'll hand it over to Mark.
Yeah, thanks, Tony. Obviously, it does depend on the earnings growth of the business. We've got about $ 63 million of tax losses remaining. We're expecting that those will be fully utilized around FY 2028, FY 2029, but it will depend on, as I said, the growth of the business and how quickly we utilize those. We're only able to utilize a certain percentage every year.
Right. Okay. Now, you've upgraded your profit numbers. How can you do that when government is 75% of your revenue? And as you've indicated, particularly in Victoria, there's pressure on how. How, what's the reasons for the profit upgrade, per se?
Look, I think the profit upgrade, you know, illustrates the breadth and depth of the portfolio and the resilience of the portfolio. I don't think the things are not necessarily directly correlate. I mean, what I would say is, you know, it is important for us that we continue to offer value for money to government assets, and in most years, we are challenged to try and reduce our cost to serve, and we've got to find the balance there between the two activities, so we've got to do these things smarter.
Equally, as new opportunities come to market, a big challenge for us is to make sure that we can do and provide that service better than the in-house options they've got.
And that's a combination of, you know, the great people we've got and track record and references we can offer, but also the systems that we can deploy to make better informed decisions and do things smarter. So hopefully, we can find a win-win scenario that means we can maintain stable margins, and that's what we've always said, that are reasonable and appropriate, that give us the return on investment we expect, but also drive appropriate value for money for government clients.
Okay. How likely is it in the foreseeable future, given your very good financial position on the balance sheet, that you'll undertake further acquisitions?
I look, I'll add to Mark, but I'll start first, Tony. I mean, I think that we've continued to do acquisitions where there's a compelling value proposition to buy the asset, and Mark in the slides today presented three of those that were bolt-on. All slightly different, either bringing capability to the organization or enhancing capability that we've already got into new geographies. So we'll continue to look at those opportunities.
I would say that our priority is organic growth, and that goes back to the point that, you know, we're a circa $ 6 billion business in a market that is $ 80 billion growing to $ 100 billion. But, certainly in organic growth, where it's appropriate and we can buy it at the right place, and we can, then add value by Ventia ownership, we will look at and, seek out moving forward. But Mark, anything further to add?
Yeah, I mean, we've been at pains to point out that our focus is on what we call bolt-on acquisitions. So, there's no intention to do anything that might be thought of as transformational in any way. So we gave those examples for that reason, just to give you some flavor as to, to the sort of things we've done and the sort of things that we might do in the future. I would say six months in and, you know, I have an M&A background originally myself as well. Ventia is a good acquirer. You know, I think we've got a good M&A team.
I think we've shown our ability to integrate and add value to acquisitions, and so I feel comfortable that we continue to supplement our organic growth where it makes sense to do so, where the financial returns are there, and we're confident in those. Where it's consistent with our strategy, I'm not scared about making more bolt-on acquisitions where it meets all of those criteria.
Yeah. Now, I don't expect you to answer this, but this just shows you the stupidity of the share market. Your stock is down $ 0.095 today to $ 4.375, yet you've upped your profit forecast from seven to 10 to 12. Why does that make sense?
I think you answered your own question and, you know, in many ways- Tony, what I would say to you is, you know, I don't think we focus on really short-term changes in the market because there are too many factors we can't influence. You know, what we really focus on in this business is, you know, delivering good business, delivering on what we say we'll do, and driving continuous improvement in everything we do every day.
And my view is that if you continue to do that over a long-term trajectory, the market will recognize your value, and that'll come through. And I just repeat, you know, this business has had brilliant trajectory since it listed on the market.
You know, in November 2021, we opened at $ 1.70, and if you're telling me the very current number is $ 4.37, I think investors who have been on that journey have done very well. And as I said, we will make every endeavor to try and drive this business forward, in 2024 and beyond.
Thank you. Well done. Keep it going.
Thank you, Tony.
Thank you. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. As there are no further questions at this time, I'll now hand back to Mr. Banks for any closing remarks.
Darcy, thank you for your facilitation of the call. You know, I say this with sincerity, and, you know, it is an opportunity publicly to say that Mark and I, we have the great privilege of presenting these results, but there are the thirty-five thousand people in our workforce who really contribute to this result, and I'd like to say a big thank you to them.
For people who have joined the call today, I'd like to say, thank you for affording us your time, and for people who are investors in our business, I'd like to thank you for the trust you've put in us, and we look forward to sharing our story as we move forward, so thank you all, and we look forward to further dialogue at the full year in February 2025 . Thank you very much.