Good morning to all our viewers, webcast viewers, and listeners from a nice chilly foothill this morning to view the 2024 result presentation. I know this time of the year most of the investors are pretty busy and a hectic schedule given all the companies they're supporting, so we really appreciate your time to attend today's webcast. Thanks again. I'll be dealing with the business overview, a high-level touch on the highlights for the period under review, and then a quick glance at the different divisions and the strategies that's applicable to these business divisions, rather. Followed by Koos, he will give us a rundown on the technology, the progress made on the different projects. Roelof will then share with us the operational overview, and as usual, André will give us a rundown on the numbers for the period under review.
I'll be back at the end with just a quick wrap-up and how we're going to position the company in this ever-changing world given all these headwinds that's facing the industry, followed by a quick Q&A. Remember today, the Q&A will be filtered by Willem. Only those easy questions will be taken. Willem, please note. Just the business highlights for the period under review, but before we go into the detail and dwell into the detail of the highlights, maybe more important is just to step back and just the safety performance of the group for the last year.
Unlike the 2023 year where we bragged about a nice improvement on the LTI frequency rate, unfortunately this time around, a slight uptick, 0.5 to around about 0.8, which obviously suggests that there's going to be more focus and must be more focus and a renewed focus on what we must do and need to do to up the bar to get back in line with the 2023 performance. That being said, though, something to brag about is most certainly the fatality-free shifts. The first time of the history of the business exceeded the 6 million fatality-free shifts in the business, certainly a remarkable achievement by the operations. To this end, to all our operational crews, a word of thanks to all you guys and the engineering support team to support the operations for this milestone. So well done, guys.
Roelof will deal with the detail of what we will be doing, those different initiatives to make sure we get alignment and deal with those issues that obviously caused the issue for the increase in the LTI frequency rate. If we can just stand back and look at the highlights for the period under review, obviously the revenue that increased by 11% is a new milestone, but more important, I think it's now the fifth consecutive year, and André will delve into that, I'm sure, later on in the presentation, that we managed to increase the revenue. I think the company is well positioned despite these headwinds and all the issues the industry is facing to still, in these uncertain conditions, to grow the company. More important is, one, is the translation from the growth capital that's now being converted to the revenue increase.
I think that is certainly something to note. I think the second one is the operational excellence or the operational efficiency of the business, which I think is coming through very nicely. You must remember we're in a very competitive industry, and we can't necessarily just increase rates to chase revenue. We need to do fundamentally something different in the business to achieve the increase in the revenue. Again, André will allude to that later on in this presentation. Strong pipeline, most certainly one of the fundamentals of the company is diversification, and I think this goes without saying. This has been in good stead for many, many years since the onset when we started the company, and I think we're well positioned today to, one, optimize on the investment, and two, to grow the business if we consider the current order book and pipeline.
is no reason for the group, the operational teams in the short, medium term, not to achieve those financial KPIs given the order book and the quality of the order book and pipeline. The technology, the roadmap, Koos will deal with that later on, and I'm not going to steal his thunder. Just two things important on this before we move on. I think one is this is going to be key for this business going forward, more for the long term. I think what we've done for the past 40 years was okay, and I think if we look at the industry, the changes in the industry and where the world is going to, we need to do something different to be in the game.
Koos will share with you later on those milestones, if we call them milestones, the achievements in the technology space the last year, certainly something to take note of later on. The last one is the dividend payout. For the investors, guys, please relax. We did not gear the balance sheet to pay out this nice dividend. It amounts to nearly ZAR 100 million, which obviously for this size of company is quite an amount to pay out, but a nice increase, five times cover, nearly a 4% increase on 2023. I think it is really, given the balance sheet ratio, the gearing is actually a bit down, and to pay out this dividend, I think that goes without saying. I think financially, the company balance sheet is pretty strong, and again, André will deal with that detail a bit later on.
If we stand back, if we look at the highlights for the period under review, I think the takeaway is despite the uncertainties out there and all these headwinds that's facing the industry, I think the resilience of the business, I think that's evident. I don't think we need to discuss that in more detail. I really think the company is well positioned given the diversification, different commodities, different clients to benefit from that. I think the second one, which is probably worth noting, is probably the relevance of the strategy of the business. How have we set up the business the past 40 years? Again, I'm not saying what worked for the past 40 years will be working in time to come, but I think where we are today and what we're busy with in terms of different initiatives, I think the company is well positioned.
If we can just move on quickly for those who are not following the business that closely, the company is set up in these four divisions. On the left, you will see the different strategic pillars, and with our exception, these pillars that you guys would see on the left end of the screen are all relevant to the four divisions. On a high level, the two, three strategic initiatives for each of these divisions. Raised Boring, number one, I think I alluded to it last time. We need to consolidate this business. I think there is one or two opportunities out there, international opportunities, and there is a specific focus to consolidate this business. Number two is the organic growth.
We keep on building those six, seven, eight machines, and André will share the numbers for the machines that we've built the last year and that's currently in progress with you later on. Organic growth is still key to the strategy of this business. I think the last one is the remote autonomous drilling operation, and I think there's nice momentum currently, and I think Koos in his presentation will share with you some of those highlights that we've achieved the last year. On a high level, raised boring is still the backbone of the business. We don't see that to change in the medium short term, and I think the operational crews and the system to support this division, I think, is well embedded. Slim drilling, two very important things.
One, most certainly the way we're going to approach slim drilling in the world, in South Africa more specifically, and that is to sell more data, focus on data, not necessarily drilling a core hole and focus on the core to be delivered to geology or geologists, but instead make data to analyze the core, make data available, and probably analyze and give the geologist something to work from. That's one. Two, which Koos will share with you in the drilling business, is the remote autonomous rigs that we're currently busy with and which is about to be rolled out. That's going to be key for the slim drilling division. The mechanical cutting, again, we'll leave this to Koos to brag about, other than the focus and the investment focus on this division going forward goes without saying.
If we want to be in the future, we need to invest in this pillar of the business, which is obviously a function of technology that must become available, that's easily available, which we need to figure out, and two, funding. The last one is the investments that we've made in A&R and AVA. AVA will be the smaller one. We only have a 40% stake in the company, but the one that's probably flying below the radar is the A&R business. I really think what this company has been doing the last decades in terms of safety, dealing with the mobile equipment underground and with winch proximity, which is about to be rolled out, I think is something worth noting. Back to the strategy of this business, top of mind is the internationalization of this company, very important. We're already successfully rolled it out into Mexico.
We've just done a small acquisition in Chile, and I think Roelof and his slides will allude to that further on. This summarized high level, if we look at the business from a high level in terms of the highlights, the strategy of the business, and I'll be back at the end to share with you again how we want to position the business when to deal with this ever-changing world. Koos, over to you.
Thank you, Danie. Good morning to everyone. We would like to provide you with the following technology overview. In many cases, to simplify the business for myself, I think of a business, you know, it's a business about people, it's about rocks, it's about steel, it's about money, and it's about information. It is important for us to understand what the future would look like and what influence technology would have on that. What we do is we follow certain trends within our industry and then the segments within our business. We look at what could be applicable to our offering to the market. If you look at the first one in terms of infrastructure, that would basically be our raised boring business and our new technology business. It is important what we see in the industry is more mines going underground.
They need accelerated access to all bodies where all bodies are more complex. It's in more environmentally sensitive areas. It's more remote. There are bigger expectations of communities with value from these projects. Apart from these points, there are also issues around risk for the huge capital that these projects require, the availability of this capital, the depletion of reserves, the current geopolitical environment that we find ourselves in, and also the lack of small mining operations coming online. For us and what we do, it's important that we provide solutions for fast access to underground ore bodies in terms of tunneling, in terms of shafts. It's also to reduce the dilution in mining operations and reach for grade.
The work that we're doing on autonomy, autonomous, semi-autonomous operation, as well as remote operation, we see a bit of big value to the industry. If you look at exploration, we see greenfield exploration taking place in more challenging environments, being remote. If it's on land where ground cover is an issue and it's not so easy to identify the ore body and understand it. Also, more exploration is taking place close to brownfield operations where the ore bodies are better understood. There is also a push on government for faster permitting of licenses and also in making more information publicly available. For us to play an active role in this industry, if we could focus on our automation, remote operation, the robotics that we're driving in material handling, that could make a big difference.
There's also our understanding of what needs to happen in geophysics, in exploration, and in-hole data and information. That's also important. All the data, the big data that's generated, how that is treated and how value is generated from that, for instance, by AI. We see that as being important in that segment. If we move on and look at the digital segment of our business, we see a consolidation of smaller solutions in the market where it is consolidated and where clients with greater access to data would have a bigger capability to manage their operations in a safer and a more efficient way. That being said, we also see there's risk in the implementation of these solutions and the impacts that it has on operations of clients. Also the risk of solutions that is not brand agnostic.
For many of these operations, it runs completely different resources, and it's not so easy just for that to be supplied by one OEM. Where we think we must focus is around processing of big data, how we deal with AI analytics, and then also quicker processing of this large data in a localized manner. You can't have a project anymore that's operated in India and the servers are hosted in America. That becomes problematic. We want to provide you with the following update on the technology projects that we're busy with. It's important for us to have a well-balanced, sustainable, and also a competitive portfolio of projects that we're busy working on. If you look at the first one there in terms of raised boring, we're busy commissioning the Bluebot rig.
We're also busy with the commissioning of the first RD6 DC low-profile raised boring rig. It's a large capacity rig. That is the first of three rigs. This year, we will also do engineering and design work on the reverse circulation 1000 rig, which is a large capacity reverse circulation, mud flooded airlifted system that is required by industry for specific shaft infrastructure construction. We will also do engineering on the generation two LP100 slot boring equipment. If you look at slim drilling and the surface robotic core drilling rig, that rig is moving to field trials in the second quarter of this year. Shaft sinking, if you look at that, we completed a 50-meter test sink during the beginning of February. We're busy removing the machine. We're going to do improvements on it from our learnings. It's currently at a TRL level of about seven.
We are working towards having it TRL 9 by the end of the year after further testing and some opportunities that we realized for increased performance and reliability. Commercialization in next year, look at opportunities. If you look at tunneling, the 5.5-meter diameter Tunnel Borer, we're busy or completing the rework of it. We're finalizing contractual arrangements that would see the mobilization of that resource by the middle of the year to a project. The 6.5-meter diameter Tunnel Borer design that was completed, and we're waiting inquiries to apply that. We're also working with Komatsu in collaboration, identifying the right opportunity to work together.
We also, in terms of cut and break, are working in partnership with Element Six, developing technology and then also their consumables for tunneling applications where we are very excited about the potential of this technology as a low-energy method, a non-explosive method. If you look at reef boring, we are busy assembling the system. We followed a staged approach where we have been successful on the milestones that we have set. We will do surface experimental testing with this unit, and it should move to a field trial towards the end of the year. This work we are doing in collaboration with African Rainbow Minerals. You look at digitization, A&R, they have deployed and commissioned a winch proximity system with a client. Due to operational issues at the mine, the rollout of further systems was not possible.
There is a second unit that has been demonstrated and commissioned with a second client. We see the market of this being around 1,000-2,500 units. They're also working on a secure private large language module. This, to simplify it, is queries on big data. Comparison is almost like a ChatGPT solution to secure private data, enabling clients to optimize their efficiencies and reduce their safety exposures. They're busy with the design of a system. If you look at AVA, they have made available their optimized dispatch solution. This has been made possible due to the solving of multiple objectives simultaneously, giving clients a real-time view of their operations. To give you a bit of a better feel and look of these technologies that we're looking at, we'd like to take you through the following slides.
This image here is a representation of the Bluebot slot boring rig that we're currently commissioning. It's for larger diameter box holes and slots and addresses all the safety, mobility, flexibility, modular design that we see is important for the service. Maybe a step back is the LP100 that we made available commercially last year. That machine is also a more mobile rig on an articulated wheel carrier, and that equipment is currently working on a contract in Tanzania. This image shows the robotic arm for the surface robotic core drilling rig, and this is used for the material handling of the drill rods for inner tube core barrels to eliminate personnel working in close proximity to the rig and also enabling remote and autonomous processes.
Last year, we moved an underground robotic rig onto a project where we have seen approximately a 50% increase in productivity and also about a 25% use of water compared to the more conventional rigs working on the same contract. This image here shows the shaft collar for the shaft boring system experimental site where we've sunk 50 meters deep in 300 MPa rock. It also shows the machine there in the barrel and the center compartment that we use for logistics and access to the front of the machine. The concept meets conventional statutory requirements that makes it a good concept to use for deep shafts. We're also working on a larger diameter machine's design that will be more for critical infrastructure and looking at ways we can accelerate this maybe in collaboration with other stakeholders. The design that you see on the screen is the reef boring unit.
These units that's in line would basically be in the strike development. It would do primary, secondary slots on a tabular ore body, recovering only the reef. It would follow a type of a cut and fill mining method. The slots is fairly long, so it reduces the requirement for on-reef development, access development, and there is also no requirement for people to enter the stope area. We've had very good results in experimental testing of the system, but it is a complex new system, so we are developing it stage by stage. The image you see on the screen is the safe winch proximity system from A&R. The user interface on the right-hand side is basically for the operator to log into the system.
It confirms the ID of the operator, also that the training is up to date of the operator and that he's competent and licensed to operate the equipment. Against the roof, you will see antennas that would basically sense if anybody would approach it from a strike gully and then stop the equipment as soon as anybody enters the center raise where the winching is being done or scraper winching is being done, thereby eliminating potential harm to workers in sections like this. The user interfaces and reporting that you see on the screen is from AVA. It's got to do with the optimized dispatch solution. Much of this processing of data was made possible by increased computing speeds and capacity and also reduced cost associated with that. That allows the use of large language modules and the efficiencies to process all of this data.
In conjunction with the material management module, this enables clients to have a real-time look at their operations in terms of mining, also in terms of their stockpiles and the blending that is required to ensure an optimized delivery and supply of minerals from their operations. I hope by listening and having a look at our actions and our progress that we're making in terms of technology, you can agree that we are a technology company and also delivering specialized services to the industry. That concludes our technology overview. I now hand over to Roelof on our operational interview. Thank you.
Nice question. Good morning, everyone. 2024 is a year to be proud of. We've seen some significant production numbers coming through from our operations, and this helped us to significantly increase our revenue for the year, and it also helped us to improve our margins for 2024.
The real disappointment for 2024 for us were our safety performance. As we reported last year in September, we suffered a number of safety-related incidents the first half of the year. This prompted immediate and swift management intervention, which resulted in management taking a number of initiatives to improve our safety performance. We will share more with you on that during the presentation. As always, a big thank you to our employees for your contribution throughout the year. Your dedication has been a key part in this excellent operational performance during 2024. Today, in our operational overview, as always, we will start off with safety and people. We'll give you an overview of that. We'll then jump into our regional review and see what the region's performance looks like. We'll touch base on ARPOR and utilization, some good numbers to actually show there.
Finally, we'll have a look at our record order book and try and see what the future might hold with our new updated pipeline. Let's first start off with safety. Our safety performance for 2024 was weaker than our best year yet in 2023. Our lost time injury frequency rate is sitting at 0.81 for the year. During the year, we suffered five lost time injuries throughout the year. As I previously mentioned, a number of these incidents happened the first half of the year. This prompted that swift and effective management intervention, and we can report back that the number of these interventions was successful. We invested a lot of time, effort, and money into a number of training initiatives and engineering solutions for our sites on how we handle equipment.
We will continue to invest in these training initiatives in the year to come, and we encourage all our employees to participate in these initiatives. If we move on to our people overview, always a very important slide to look at. First of all, people is the cornerstone of our business, and we will continue to invest in our people in the years to come, as this part of the business will become more and more important as we drive this technology strategy that Koos earlier communicated. If you look at our workforce, just above 3,000 people, currently sitting at 3,112 people. Compared to our revenue growth, our revenue growth, which we will share with you later on, grew by almost 11%. Comparing that with a small increase in our employees, it means that we have been doing something right in the business, operating a lot more efficiently in 2024.
If you look at our investment in training, sitting at $1.8 million, that is about 20% up compared to 2023, that $1.5 million in 2023. As we move into 2025, 2026, we expect that number to increase and to invest each year as we continue to develop our people. Local employment in the country, that number of 95% is a number that we're very proud of. This means that 95% of the employees that we employ are local from the region where we operate. This means we use a limited amount of expats throughout the group. The strategy for the group has always been to use expats only when we start up new projects and over time start employing locals within the communities and locals within that region. I believe with where the world is today, this gives us a real competitive advantage.
Regarding diversity, specifically gender diversity, we're very proud to disclose that with you, and we're proud to contribute to the mining industry where this is a priority. Differently abled employees, always very important to support that. Finally, just to stand still on leadership and apprenticeship programs. Currently, today within the group, we have more than 200 employees participating in senior and high-level management leadership training down to middle management leadership training. As we invest more in our people, we will continue to focus on this leadership training. Throughout the group, we have a number of apprenticeship programs running, specifically in the technical space, and we can report back that we have more than 200 employees participating in these programs globally within Africa and within South America. Let's have a look at our revenue diversification geographically.
First of all, our revenue grew by about 11% to $270 million, quite a significant growth that we experienced, and this growth came really across the board. Let's unpack the different regions for you. First of all, Central and North America. The contribution from Central and North America was flat comparing 2023 to 2024, although we've seen some growth happening in the Canadian region that were really offset by the losses that we suffered in Mexico. The real disappointment in the different business units across the group were our Mexican business. We can report back that our turnaround plans have now been implemented at 90%. A number of initiatives have been followed to consolidate the area and some of the functions for that area to operate more efficiently under new leadership.
We can also report back that the contracts for 2024 that were loss-making have now been renegotiated or have been stopped. If we come down to South America, the South American revenue contribution dropped from 29% to 24%. The biggest impact here was really the currency. We saw a weakening in the Brazilian real and the local currency in Chile, which really drove that top line down, but still $65 million coming from that region. I think what's important to note here is that increase in that operating margin, jumping from 2% to 14% for 2024. Although we're still not at that target, 18%-20% that we target for the region, we believe that we've made already significant progress in improving our margins in that region. If we move down to Africa, this year for the first time, we are now splitting the Africa and South African performances.
Let's first talk a little bit about Africa. Our Africa revenue contribution is a touchdown from 16% to 15% in 2024. Although the region in dollar terms grew by around 9%, the contribution was slightly down, but still a significant chunk of the group with $40 million being generated within that region. Central and Eastern Africa, that is really the DRC, Tanzania, one of our strongholds, and we really believe that that region holds a lot of potential for us in the future with some of our strategic clients. Moving over to West Africa, that's the Ghana-Mali operations, a solid 2024, but we've seen a bit of a slowdown in the end of 2024 with our contracts being renegotiated. This will definitely improve come quarter two this year and a solid operating margin from the region. To South Africa, South Africa contributing $75 million to the group's revenue.
When we talk about South Africa, we need to talk about three services. First of all, raised boring, then exploration drilling, and then our technology-related businesses like A&R. Let's first share with you some insights on the raised boring side. In South Africa in 2024, we operated three of our triple X raised boring machines. These are the machines at the bigger end of the fleet doing these 1,000-meter shafts. These three rigs have been completely utilized last year, which really helped and boosted the revenue for that region. The rest of the raised boring business within South Africa, quite an exceptional performance for 2024. In contrast, the business in exploration really performed under par.
Hall Core, a lot of the business they do with Anglo Platinum, a lot of the business were actually stopped due to what's happening today in the platinum sector, and that impacted the business quite significantly. You will see the utilization numbers later on, but a lot of challenges within the platinum sector. A little bit about our MDX business. That business, we're able to redeploy some of these rigs in non-mining related services and some more specialized drilling being done by the MDX team, which really offset that performance from Holecore. Finally, A&R within the digital space. A&R had a strong performance once again in 2024.
With the high demand for collision avoidance systems within South Africa, the business performed well, and the strategy to increase the stock holding and to invest in our exceptional technical teams really paid off as we were able to support these projects within South Africa and deliver excellent service. I think what's important, this business shows also a lot of potential, as Koos mentioned earlier regarding technology and the real strategy to improve the safety of these conventional underground mines in South Africa and the platinum and in the gold space. If we move on to the rest of the world segment, this segment has seen significant growth for 2024. That contribution moving from 15% to 20% in 2024. First of all, our European business, our European business has been performing well.
The TELT project, the flagship project, have reached its peak production in 2024, so a significant contribution to the top line from that project. Maybe just again to remind everyone that probably around 50% of the revenue generated in that business is from the civil construction industry. If we move over to India, India's solid performance as always, keeping a number of machines busy within that region. The Middle East, we've seen some production coming from the Middle East in 2024, but we expect that region to become more significant in the years to come. Over to Australia, we've seen an average performance from Australia in 2024. The market still remains competitive, and we've seen a number of, let's call it, M&A activity within the region between the contractors, which can provide us an opportunity to increase our order book in the time to come.
Let's quickly have a look at our revenue per business pillar. Not much has changed from 2023- 2024. Raised boring and its support services still consist of about 80% of the revenue generated. I think really the segment to look out for the next year, two years, is really that mechanical rock excavation segment with the MTB and the reef cutting project. Once that gets going, I really believe the contribution will increase significantly from that business. If we look at commodity revenue diversification comparing 2023 to 2024, four fairly similar copper, gold, and silver lead and zinc really leading the way there. The number's almost the same. We have a strong copper business, a lot of revenue being generated in Central Africa from those copper mines, and then also in Chile, Codelco. I mean, 90% of our business in Chile is copper-based.
Africa is a strong contributor for gold. Maybe just the last comment on this is on the civil construction industry. That 5% in red that you see there moving to 8% is really a strategy that we've been working on hard the last couple of years to increase that exposure for us. Our boring utilization, this is always a very important slide to stand still at. We've seen our utilization increasing from 72% to 73%, which is just a touch lower than that targeted utilization of 75% for the group. Very good to note is that ARPOR increase from $147,000 to $167,000 a month, that is quite a significant increase. If you look at the trend for the last couple of three, four, five years, more than a 10% increase each year in those ARPOR numbers.
That has really been driven by the investment and the returns being generated from that larger end of the fleet. If we're talking about raised boring at the larger end of the fleet, the utilization is a slight drop off to 79%. We're not concerned about that number. It's still higher than that 75% that we target. More importantly, if you look at that, ARPOR now sitting at $192,000, again, quite a significant increase from 2023 to 2024. Important to note on the larger end of the fleet, we've also added seven machines during the year, and we can report back that all seven machines have been utilized at the end of last year and this year. At the smaller end of the fleet, utilization just above 62%, and for the first time ever, ARPOR moving above $100,000.
On the slim drilling side, as expected, utilization coming down to 51% and a bit of uptick in ARPOR due to that more specialized drilling that Eden's team is doing in MDX. Our order book, it's always nice to talk about the order book if it's a record order book sitting at $332 million, significantly higher than what we reported in 2023. Also a record amount of new orders that we received during 2024. A lot of these orders coming from our clients in Africa, which is clients that we've been for a number of years. Also some new orders in South America, specifically Codelco that renewed some contracts with us in 2024. Also in our European business with Boliden, awarding us quite a significant contract up in Scandinavia. Awarded orders by commodity. Here we can see silver, lead, and zinc leading the way there.
This is really on the back of our contract with Hindustan Zinc and the work that has been awarded to us by Boliden in Europe, quite a big chunk of that. Also, our Peruvian business, which is picking up speed again. Copper, that's really Central Africa and our Chile business contributing to that. Maybe just the last comment on the slide is about the PGMs. We see the PGMs dropping from 28% to 11% due to really what's happening today within the platinum sector in South Africa and potentially extending some of our other machines contracts that's already been accounted for within our pipeline. If we look at our pipeline, very important to quickly stand still at this, currently sitting at $696 million, quite significant.
Talking about 2025, we can already see about $210 million of work already locked in for this year, another $100 million, which is in adjudication, and another $44 million in our pipeline. Yes, this means a very busy 2025 for our operational teams. In conclusion from the operational review today, we believe that we have a strong pipeline, good order book. We really just need to execute now. The priorities for the year are, number one, we need to improve our safety performance, and we're well on our way with that. Second of all, we still have some opportunity to increase our margins and make our shareholders happy. Thank you very much. André, over to you.
Thank you, Roelof. Yeah, I've got a thirteenth time that we're doing full year results announcements.
For some, 13 can be unlucky, but I think for us it was a good year, very good performance by the group. Just going through the information I'll share with you today, first will be the highlights for the period. We will have a look at our headline earnings per share achievements, having a look at our revenue trends. We look at the trends in rand terms, which the South African investors always love to have a look at. We will have a quick look at the income statement and balance sheet and what the big movers have been there. We have a look at the impact of currencies, which is sometimes very difficult to predict for our business.
The main drivers of the change in revenue we'll have a look at, and then working capital and the CapEx that we've spent in the last year and the outlook for the next year. That we'll cover through the process. To start off with, highlights for 2024, obviously nice growth in revenue of more than 11%. Roelof has spoken about the reasons and drivers in that. For us, quite important to get to that double digit growth number we always talk about. On the EBITDA, a record EBITDA of $58 million, although the margin not 100% where we'd love it to be, but very proud of a record EBITDA number. Cash from operations at $42 million. It's a fantastic conversion rate, so very proud of that. I think we've discussed that a lot of times before on working capital, the management of working capital.
I think where we are today, it's the best that we've been in a decade on working capital. Very proud of the work that's been done there. Our return on capital on EBIT, 17.8%. I think it's a remarkable performance where we are today. Good numbers to report on. On HEPS in dollars and rands, up more than 20%. There was not a big change in the rand and dollar conversion for this year, pretty stable on an average base, but we'll talk about the movements a bit later. Record to record HEPS numbers to report on. On the dividend, $0.65, like Danie mentioned before, over 20% increase in our dividend number we're declaring. I think we're striking that balance between return to investors and investing back into the business, which is to achieve our strategic goals that we set for ourselves.
If we look at the headline earnings per share, as mentioned, it's record numbers for us at 17.7%, nice growth from previous years. Same in rand terms at ZAR 0.324, so a top performance on the headline earnings. That's obviously excluding the impairments that we've done. If we look at the EBITDA margin and the margins that we've made, as mentioned before, record EBITDA of $58 million at 21.5% margin. Just to take you back, I think we said we would like to be at a 25% EBITDA margin, so not 100% there, but I think with the improvement we've made in the last year, the efficiencies we're working on is starting to benefit us. Yeah, sorry. Just a slide on rand terms, performance of the business. In revenue, we're basically now at ZAR 5 billion revenue.
If we take you back to when we listed, we made ZAR 800 million revenue at that stage. The business, five times bigger than it was at that time. Also on the EBITDA, we crossed ZAR 1 billion for the first time in history, very chuffed with that. That gives us a 16% growth rate with 2020 as a base. That shows also the benefit that we have in earning currency in hard currencies and in rand terms, obviously then a special performance. If we look at the income statement, the balance sheet, you will see if you look at this, not a huge increase in our fixed assets, but we spent $40 million in assets, a record number of spent. I'll talk later about that when we get to the CapEx slide.
We also had, which we also reported at half year, the $13 million of impairment we took on the tunnel boring machine and the reverse circulation equipment. Actually good to note, and Koos mentioned it briefly, we're in commercial discussions with a client to roll out the MTB at the next site. That's pretty good news. The RC equipment, we're marketing that in other parts of the world. Hopefully soon we'll get some positive news on that as well. On the current ratio, still a very healthy 1.62. Working capital days, as mentioned, we gave guidance of 100 days, which is the target. Well within that now at the moment. Our gearing ratio down to 6.3%.
We get criticized a lot, lazy balance sheet, but I think for us as a business, we're a bit more conservative on debt, so quite happy with the numbers where we are on the debt. Quick look at the income statement. The revenue, a reason for the improvement also mentioned before is the utilization and much better ARPORs . That's the investment in the larger fleet that we've been focusing on for the last couple of years. It's a nice increase in revenue there. On the operating expenses, we see the hit there of the impairment of $13 million. We've made a forex loss of $4.5 million. That's a bit of a funny one. That is unrealized forex losses. I'll show you later, we made a $2 million operating gain on realized forex, but $6.5 million unrealized loss.
That was due to Mr. Trump's executive decisions in December causing all the major currency or other currencies to devalue. We saw even the Canadian dollar and the Swedish krona, that's quite stable over the years, having a huge impact. That was some of the debt that we have in dollars at the unrealized losses. Where we are today, I mean, that has all reversed. In the next reporting period, we should not see the same impact on that. On the share of profit from our investments, not a great performance, like mentioned before, basically a zero return on that. Although AVA actually performed quite well, much better than what we budgeted for. Unfortunately, Hall Core had not a great year, so not a great performance on our equity investments.
On taxation, $7 million through the income statement, which is roughly 27% tax rate, which is always a bit of a moving target. Given where we make the profits, as Roelof mentioned in Mexico, we made a bit of a loss, so we could not use that created tax asset. That made the tax charge a bit worse than what it was supposed to be. Just on this slide, just the normalized position, if we exclude the impairment of the equipment, and the important number to look at here is the normalized profit before tax, which is close to $40 million, which was a bit of a target for us for the year. Pretty close to that number where we wanted to be.
If we look at the impact on currency, like I mentioned, through the income statement on realized operating impact was a $2 million benefit for the group. We've made our revenue, hard currency revenue, 48%, pretty much aligned with the 49% what it was the previous year. The cost, 37% of our cost was hard currency, although a bit up from the previous year. That 11% difference between revenue and cost in hard currencies, that gave us that additional $2 million benefit, except now for the unrealized portion. If we look at the revenue waterfall, the movement from last year to this year, biggest impact there has been the fleet mix and the utilization. Bigger machines that's been utilized, our strategy of investing in the larger fleet, giving us that benefit of more than $20 million.
The additional machines that we added also in the bigger size, $9 million. Obviously that was just for a portion of the year which they were in use, so we'll see a bigger benefit in 2025. On the forex side, we lost $5 million on revenue given the currencies that invoice in local currencies, converting that to dollars. If we look at the working capital breakdown, quite a nice move in our working capital. On the inventory side, not a big move, $1 million left, a less, but that is with increasing revenue to reduce the inventory. A big target for us of being more optimized on inventory, obviously without affecting the operational performance of the business. Quite good movement there on the receivables, down by $5 million. Also on the base of higher revenue, so good position on the receivables.
We've focused on that quite a lot the last three years to get a better recovery from our clients. You'll see on the day's due, 60% of our debtors are within normal terms and 30% in one month past due. So 90% of our receivables are actually in a very good position. The other 10% is some of the clients, that's a bit naughty. On the trade and other payables, also increased by $6 million. We've made some commercial agreements with some of our suppliers. That's strategic to us to have a longer payment cycle to basically match the receivable cycle that we're having. We've got pretty much a nice match now with that, the day's receivables and day's payable pretty equal. Good performance there. If we look at our ratios, we've done the 2024 as it is and then 2024 normalized, which excludes the impairment.
Good to look at that line. On return on equity, 13% return that we've made. Obviously much better than it was in the previous years, nice improvement, but maybe not 100% of the numbers where investors would be happy with. With us being a company that likes to be lowly geared, we don't want to push the gearing up. That return on equity will always be a bit lower than anticipated. I think the good one is the return on capital on EBIT of 18%, which is pretty much aligned with our targets, maybe 1% higher than we actually aimed for. Working capital ratio is at 65 days and the gearing pretty low. I see we're running out of a bit of time, so I'll just speed up through the rest of the slides.
On the cash flow, which is good, we see the nice number generated from operating activities, $42 million. The cash outflow of fixed assets investment, $30 million. A lot of the CapEx that we incurred, some of that are funded by some of the suppliers. That is why there is not that big an outflow on cash outflow on fixed assets. Our debt, we drew down about $10 million for the year and repaid five. There is a $5 million additional debt that we incurred. The dividends and share buybacks, $6 million outflow. Just to maybe comment on the share buybacks, we will initiate the share buyback program again should the share price obviously not perform as we would like it to perform and then start buying back shares again in the future. On the capital spent, as mentioned, $42 million of CapEx that was spent, of which 77% expansion capital.
On the new machines, a lot of drill pipe that we spent money on. Not so much on Christmas projects for this period given the cycle where it was. Then on the maintenance capital, that's about $10 million of maintenance capital, which is roughly 65% of our depreciation. To keep the business alive with the same business capital required. I think overall, very disciplined on our capital spent and spending on items which give us a positive return on our strategy. That's all from my side. Just want to see, yes. Danie will give us a close and then we open to questions.
Thank you, André, and thanks for stretching it out to try and keep this Q&A as short as possible. Maybe I'm just mindful of time.
Maybe the four key areas of focus given this ever-changing world and uncertainties, I think top of mind must always be capital spent. I must say, tongue in cheek, I think management did a pretty good job the last year with the discipline around capital spent. Number two, probably the most important KPI for the group, short, medium, long term, we must commercialize what Koos's team is busy with. If we want to be in the future, quoting Lincoln way back, if we want to be in the future, we need to predict the future. I think this is very important. It might well mean that we cast this net a bit wider to make sure speed is of the essence. That is probably the number two KPI for the group that we need to focus on. The number three is this open pit business.
Still 70%-80% of the mining industry is open pit, and we need to get it by the dischargy. We are currently not really doing business in this space, but again, top of mind for the group's business units to try and enter this market. Maybe the last one is the model. We have been seen as a raised boring company for the past 40 years, but I think the world had moved on. If we want to be relevant in the long term, we need to take a step back and keep on predicting the future and make sure we are going to be relevant. I think on a high level, pretty much the focus from my level down and what we keep ourselves busy with when we have these strategy meetings. That pretty much concludes my part.
If there's any Q&A, maybe you can just call the name and the guy can come forward, please.
Okay, hi everybody. The first question is for Koos, coming from Nick from SBG Securities. The question is, could you please expand on when, where, and how you currently see the SBS as well as the MTB entering commercial production, as well as the cost to get the SBS into a level of confidence?
Yeah, Nick, thank you for your question. On the MTB's commercialization, I think it's important to note that we've already headed on two commercial projects. The project that we are busy finalizing, obviously in our classification of sales, it would feature more on a pipeline level than an awarded level. We're estimating that to be the second half of the year, but it's not confirmed. On the SBS, maybe more on doing proposals and opportunities as a sales category. We're anticipating a commercial project in next year. That also can't be, it's not awarded, it's not confirmed. Many things could still happen. If you look in your question around the capital for deploying the SBS system commercially, it's important to know that we've on purpose developed a smaller system to implement this technology first so that we can do it on non-critical infrastructure.
Also accelerating these types of technologies, it's heavy equipment, it's big projects, it comes with big capital. It is always a trade-off on the time that you take to implement these things, what is the risk, what is the learnings, and how much capital you're willing to burn on implementing these new technologies. I think from our learnings, from our initial testing, we're probably in for another, say, a quarter of the capital that we've invested to date on the project. It's important to notice that we also have another shareholder for half of the company that we're developing that technology in. It is all on the back of a potential of doubling productivity rates from our learnings and increasing reliability and availability.
Already on productivity tests that we've done, we were able to prove that we will do between twice to about three times of what conventional sinking rates would be. We've done it in hard rock that has never been done before in terms of rock boring, over 300 MPa hard rock. From our learnings, if there's a potential to further double that before we go commercially, I think it is worthwhile to delay commercialization by another six to nine months and then do a further investment and have greater certainty on performance that will be achieved. Also keep in mind that the way that we develop these things, the technology might even be easier than implementing it commercially. All of this is related to our performance and our reputation.
It is very important for us to reach a certain amount of maturity before we push these solutions into the market. Thank you.
Thank you, Koos. The next question is for Roelof. Roelof, the first question is also from Nick from SBG. You are currently expanding the fleet into 2025. Are all these being built to match contracts or on spec? How do you see the 2026 built and fleet size?
Okay, thank you, Nick, for that question. Yes, we are expanding the fleet in 2025. We currently have about 13 machines in work in progress. Just to quickly break that down for you, Nick, one of the machines in work in progress is the Blue bot that Koos mentioned earlier too. That is part of an innovation project specifically on the blind hole side, which will be mobilized to Chile during the year. As part of a contract that we have where we are executing raised boring services, we are taking over some small machines. I think it is around four or five of these machines. On the bigger end of the fleet, we have eight machines basically in work in progress.
On your question whether these machines are built for a contract or on spec, there's a lot of things that go into this, but in short, we build these machines with a very specific spec of what the market really needs. A lot of the machines that will be coming into the fleet are that new machines that Koos showcased earlier in the presentation, the RD6 machines. The benefit of these machines is that they are low profile, easy to maintain, mobile, and we're actually able to operate these machines remotely. We believe with the size of holes happening around the world, more than 4 meters, these types of machines are ideally positioned to do that work. Also, if you look at our pipeline order book, that utilization is very close to 80% for our bigger machines.
The decision was made to put more machines in work in progress.
Thanks, Roelof. The last question for you is from Andrew from 91. Firstly, congratulating us on the results. The question is, could you please let us know the loss attributable to Mexico? What should we expect for Mexico in the year ahead, given that 90% of the restructuring program is complete?
Okay, so in Mexico in 2024, we suffered the loss of more than $5 million in that country. This is an operating loss that we suffered. Regarding the turnaround plan, as we said, about 90% is completed. A number of leadership changes we've made, machines we've repositioned, and contracts we've negotiated. Mexico started this year in a normal position. The target for this year is to make sure that we don't lose money within our Mexico business. That is really the target for this year. If all the contracts play out as they should, we can even be single digits within the green for Mexico come the end of 2025. Thank you.
Okay, thanks, Roelof. Next questions are for André. The first question comes from Nick, saying, "André, once again, the operating expenses, excluding your impairments for H2, are a lot higher than H1. Can you please explain to us?" The second question is, "The Hall Core JV is not doing well. What impact on investment value and possible repayment of debt can we expect?
Yeah, thanks, Nick. Yeah, so on the operating expenses, the biggest chunk of that move has been on the unrealized forex losses, the $6.5 million I referred to. That obviously is all in the second half of the year. I would say that's the biggest portion. I also mentioned on the new ERP system we're busy implementing. There's been a lot of operational OpEx expenses in H2 that we started. We had to bulk up our center of excellence, which we call our fancy name for our IT guys. A big chunk of investment in the infrastructure, et cetera. There was quite a big cost. I would say obviously the biggest is the unrealized forex losses.
On Hall Core , yeah, I think obviously it was a period where there was a reduction in scope for them, a bit unplanned, which makes it a bit more difficult to contain the costs. They had to do some retrenchments and everything. That was a big provision in last year as well. Looking at their forecast for the year, and given that they know exactly what the scope of work is they need to execute on and the underground work that's getting momentum, I think this year might be a good year for them. I do not think there's any risk for us on the investment or repayment pressures. I think we're quite comfortable with the potential performance of all core in the year to come. That's it, Willem.
Thanks, André. Next question is from Matthew from Blue Quadrant Capital. They say, "You mentioned a 25% EBITDA target. What is the expected timeline for this to be achieved? Is it an immediate target from efficient to a more medium term?
Yeah, I think that's more medium term. I don't think one will, in a short term, get the 3.5% additional margin. I think the most important is if we can get the group to have not one company that's loss making, that will be the target to get all the companies profitable. You can also improve on the efficiencies to get you to that line. Maybe if I put my head on the block, in three years' time, we'll be able to get there. Hopefully I'm on pension then if we don't hit it.
Okay, André, last question is, "What is the CapEx expected to be for 2025? Will the expansion maintenance split remain at the current levels?
Okay, yeah, I think the guidance would be in the region of $30 million of CapEx to be spent. We've got about $10 million that was committed at year end already. Given the amount of new machines that we are busy under construction and the ERP system, it's about $30 million. I would give guidance. I think the ratio would be about one third maintenance capital, two thirds expansion capital for the $30 million.
Okay, thanks, André. Last two questions is for Danie. Danie, number one is Steven from Steven Marks Trade from Zambia wants to know, "What is the outlook for 2025 based on your current results?
Steven, thanks for the question. I think the short answer is probably if you look at the relevant KPIs from a high level, the order book pipeline and maybe the commodities we're exposed to. Maybe a last one is where on the cost curve are different clients. They happen to be the bulk right at the bottom. I think we're well positioned. Again, given the gold, given the copper and some of these commodities we're exposed to, I think we're well positioned. No reason with the current order book and pipeline why 2025 shouldn't be okay.
Okay, Danie, last question is from Nick from SBG. He says, "What do you mean by referring to spreading the net wider?
Yeah, casting the net wider is two important things. One, which we didn't probably deal with in detail, and let me just share that with you. The one, there are certain KPIs which we agreed with Koos and his team to probably meet before we pull the trigger on a larger machine. That's probably what the industry requires today. It's probably a 7, 8, 9, even a 10- meter machine. I think the honest truth on that is we probably don't have the capacity in-house to build that machine that size. Once those KPIs we've alluded to have been reached in-house, we probably need to look at the industry outside and see what can help us. It's all about timing, we can probably do it. It will probably take forever.
We need to make sure we engage then at that point in time when those KPIs are met with maybe a company outside of Fochville to see how we can get that over the line. I think that's what I meant, casting the net a bit wider.
Okay, thanks, Danie. That concludes our questions and answers session. Thanks for all the listeners. We're looking forward to speaking to you in six months' time.
Potential investors, guys, thanks for attending the webcast. Thank you.