Great. Good morning and welcome to the Ashtead Technology 2024 Results Webcast. I'm Allan Pirie, the CEO, and I'm joined this morning by Ingrid Stewart, our CFO. I'll start with going through some highlights for the year and a reminder of our differentiated business model. Ingrid will talk us through the financials, and then I'll follow with the market and operational review. Delivering on our promises, positioned for growth, is a great summary of where we are. It's an exciting time for the business. We're trading strongly, and the market is creating a strong growth runway for us. We're delighted to present another excellent set of financial results. In 2024, revenue increased by 52% to GBP 168 million. We achieved organic growth of 14%, outperforming market growth of 10%.
Adjusted EBITDA margin for the year at 29.9%, delivered against our high 20s guidance, and adjusted EPS growth at 35%, delivered an adjusted EPS for the year of GBP 0.45 per share. Looking forward, we've got confidence in our sophisticated and diversified business model. We have got a unique portfolio of equipment and services, strengthened further by the acquisition of Seatronics and J2 Subsea in November last year. We are adding value to our customers daily through the flexible offering delivered globally, and we're well positioned to support both the oil and gas and renewables markets with 85% of equipment fungible across both markets. Our outlook confidence is underpinned by an increasingly supportive market backdrop. Structural tailwinds include energy security and affordability and an increased recognition that all forms of energy will form part of the transition driving market growth forecast at 9% CAGR through 2028.
Our outlook confidence is underpinned by record customer backlogs. Executing our strategy will drive long-term sustainable growth in our business. We've got confidence in continuing to deliver low double digits organic revenue growth and resilient strong margins. The board is encouraged by the group's performance in Q1 2025, and our full year expectations remain unchanged. Turning to slide four, the integrated capability we've built at Ashtead Technology in recent years has increased significantly. We operated one Ashtead Technology in a highly flexible differentiated way to provide critical services to our customers. We operate across the lifecycle of offshore infrastructure from project development to decommissioning. Last year, 28% of our revenue came from offshore wind. The focus there is on site characterization and installation and construction support currently. Our oil and gas focus continues to be on late life inspection, maintenance, repair, and decommissioning activity.
As a reminder, we've got three service lines Survey & Robotics, which is electronic equipment rental and ROV tooling. We've got Mechanical Solutions, which is a combination of cutting, dredging, coating removal, lifting, pulling, deployment, and pumping solutions, and Asset Integrity, which is more akin to consultancy where there isn't any ready-made solution off the shelf. On a pro forma basis, 56% of our revenue came from Survey & Robotics, 39% came from Mechanical Solutions, and 5% from Asset Integrity. That is a bit of a change from last year, increasing Survey & Robotics as a consequence of the Seatronics deal that we did in November. We're outperforming the market because of the capability that we've created and the unrelenting focus that we have on customer service. We've got a unique consolidated offering that delivers significant benefit to customers. The scale of our equipment fleet is unrivaled.
We've got deep domain knowledge and experience to really add value to our customers. We've got the increased global reach, strengthened local presence outwith the U.K., again, because of the acquisition that we've just done, and we continue to innovate, bringing new technologies to market that have been designed, engineered, and assembled in-house. The platform we have creates a great opportunity to drive financial performance and further scale this business. I'll now hand over to Ingrid, who will talk us through the financials.
Thank you, Allan. Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to present another excellent set of financial results demonstrating strong returns from the investment we've made in recent years. We've delivered revenue of GBP 168 million in FY2024. The 50% growth on prior year has split 39% inorganic growth. Within these numbers, we have the full year trading of ACE Winches that we bought in November 2023 and one month trading of Seatronics and J2 Subsea that we bought in Q4 last year. We also achieved 14% organic growth, as Allan already said, and there was a small headwind, - 1% from FX. Our adjusted EBITDA of GBP 50.3 million represents a continuation of our strong margins at 29.9% at the top end of the guidance of high 20% that we provided earlier in the year.
This falls to an adjusted EPS of GBP 0.45, which is up 35% on prior year and is in excess of 3x what we delivered in 2021. Our return on capital remains strong at 24.3%, ahead of our four-year average of 22.5%. Finally, we funded our latest acquisition through RCF, and our pro forma leverage has increased to 1.6 x. The risk remains well within our 1-2x range. Moving on to slide seven, our compounding model has delivered revenue growth both organically and inorganically during the year. Our 14% organic growth is well within our low double digit target. We remain confident that we can continue to grow our business organically and continue to deliver on this low double digit growth target in the medium term.
Our growth came from both markets and 58% of our growth, 58% growth in our oil and gas revenues, in part supported by the M&A completed, and 40% growth in our renewables revenues. We also grew our business across all of our geographic segments as we continue to expand our operations globally, increasing the robustness of our operating model. As mentioned earlier, our EBITDA of GBP 50.3 million represents an excellent margin delivery of 29.9%. We've continued to broaden our revenue mix, and we maintain our guidance of achieving high 20% margins in the coming years. Our adjusted profit after tax of GBP 36.1 million is 35% up on prior year and falls to an adjusted EPS of GBP 0.45. Turning to slide eight, we've continued strength in our balance sheet.
Through 2024, we continue to invest in our equipment fleet through both CapEx and acquisition, and the gross book value of our equipment fleet is now GBP 188 million. We increased our RCF facility during the year to GBP 170 million, plus a GBP 40 million accordion, and we added RBS into our banking syndicate to take our lender group to five. Having funded all of our investment through cash flow and RCF, our leverage has increased to 1.6 x on a pro forma basis, and through our strong cash flow, we are targeting to be less than 1.3 x by the year end.
We continue to deliver strong returns on capital with ROIC at 24.3%. Our balance sheet strength gives us flexibility and optionality to keep investing in our growth. Looking at slide nine, our opening net debt was GBP 62 million, representing a pro forma leverage of one times.
We've utilized our free cash flow and our RCF to continue to invest both in organic and inorganic growth, spending a combined GBP 96 million on these growth initiatives, which has resulted in our net debt increase to GBP 128 million in the year. The working capital outflow in the year was due to our continued growth. Working capital of circa 13% of revenues at year end, and that's on a pro forma basis, was due to timing of revenue and CapEx spend. Our target for 2025 year end is low double digit % of revenues. Our business continues to demonstrate strong cash flow generation, which will support the delivery of our net debt target by the year end. On slide 10, we talk about our capital allocation. We maintained a disciplined approach to our deployment of capital, and our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged.
We are focused on continuing to build a larger and increasingly more robust business through organic and inorganic investment. During 2024, our CapEx was GBP 29.4 million, of which GBP 28.3 million was in our equipment fleet. We plan to spend GBP 40 million in CapEx this year to support further growth. This continued investment demonstrates our confidence in the market and in our continued growth.
Our spend on M&A was GBP 67.1 million in 2024. M&A remains a key growth driver for our business, and we continue to review opportunities while remaining mindful of our one- to two-times net debt range. We plan to continue with our sustainable progressive dividend, with a recommended final dividend of GBP 0.012 per share for 2024, which we'll put to shareholder vote at our AGM on the 22nd of May. I will now pass you back to Allan to cover our market and operational review.
Great. Thanks, Ingrid. Turning to slide 12, the market continues to provide a strong growth runway for the business, as I said earlier. Ashtead Technology's total addressable market is expected to grow by 42% to GBP 3.6 billion by 2028. That is a combined CAGR of 9%, supporting our low double-digit organic revenue growth target. Starting with the left-hand chart, despite recent headwinds, the offshore wind market is forecast to grow by 17% CAGR through 2028. Ashtead Technology is very well placed to benefit from the offshore wind market because of the transferability of our skills and equipment from oil and gas. As everyone in the room knows, it is supporting pretty much the same customers with the same types of equipment from existing locations. We believe oil and gas is very much part of the energy transition.
Oil and gas inspection, maintenance, repair, and construction support on this graph is forecast to grow at 5% CAGR through 2028. Turning to the left, or sorry, the right-hand chart, this shows key regional addressable markets for Ashtead Technology, which are global, excluding China. We support our customers' operations across all key offshore geographic regions. Given the platform we are building and our focus on delivering for our customers, we believe we can continue to outperform forecast market growth. Turning to slide 13, increased subsea market activity is resulting in customers building record multi-year backlogs. The graphic shows how the backlog of three subsea contractors, TechnipFMC, Saipem, and Subsea 7, have more than doubled since 2021. Focusing on 2025, backlog for execution in the current year is at $19.6 billion, which is 12% higher than the prior year.
Over the past four years, actual revenue generated in the year has been 34% higher than backlog at the start of the year. If you look closely at the chart, there are the orange blobs that signify the difference between actual revenue at the end of the year and backlog at the start of the year. This suggests there is substantial actual revenue upside potential in 2025 compared to the backlog at the start of the year. The key theme here is increased multi-year backlog. Not only is there higher backlog, importantly, the duration profile of that backlog has materially changed, providing stronger future visibility for our business. In 2020, there was GBP 3.2 billion of backlog for execution two years in the future, against GBP 14.3 billion at the end of 2024. That is almost four and a half times higher in less than four years.
Multi-year customer backlogs provide stronger visibility, underpinning our confidence in our market and our ability to successfully execute on our strategy. Turning to slide 14, we're a highly mobile business supporting the global offshore energy market, which builds significant trading resilience into our model. Not all regions or end markets will grow at the same rate, which can be impacted by multiple factors, including differing political approaches to offshore energy. As everyone is aware, the new U.S. administration has made it known that they're pro oil and gas, but not fans of offshore wind. That's in contrast to the U.K. government's approach, who are pro offshore wind and not so favorable to oil and gas, albeit comments at the weekend that they were going to support Rosebank and Jackdaw is a positive move.
In contrast to the high U.K. oil and gas taxation regime, the Norwegian government has deliberately stimulated domestic oil and gas production through tax incentives. There are a number of things that will move regional activity. As highlighted in the slide here today, our business is international. We're highly flexible. We're not tied to any one geography or end market. Not only is our equipment fungible across both end markets and highly mobile, so are our customers' vessels, which are the platforms from which our equipment is deployed. Ashtead Technology has got a flexible and geographic reach, and we can follow our customers wherever the work is. From a sample of 55 vessels across seven customers during 2024, 62% of the vessels moved between countries and 40% moved between regions. To portray this pictorially, we've got this graph on the screen, which shows five customer vessels.
The lines on the global graph are tracking the movements over a four-year period, 2020 through 2024. You can see that with the exception of the TechnipFMC vessel, which remained in Brazil for the whole period, every other vessel moved around the world. That gives us real confidence that our equipment will move with our customers' vessels, and we will follow the work wherever it is. In terms of geographic split of revenue that we have just reported, 68% comes from Europe, 15% from the Americas, 9% from Asia-Pac, and 7% from the Middle East. Just as a reminder, this reported revenue is from the locations that the work is mobilized from. It is not the location where the work takes place. Importantly, when we look at Europe, which is 68%, that is not just Europe. It can obviously be Europe.
It can be West Africa, it can be the Gulf of Mexico, it can be Brazil. If we take an acquisition like Ace Winches, which we did at the back end of 2023, when we acquired that business from one single site in Scotland, 79% of its revenue came from outwith the U.K. That is a really important factor to remember. Turning to slide 15 and M&A. M&A is a key growth driver for us, and our strategy remains unchanged. It is to consolidate a fragmented market, expand geographically, broaden our service offering, and expand into renewables. We will look at five key attributes when considering acquisition opportunities, which are on the screen: strong cultural fit, market-leading expertise, long-term customer relationships, growth opportunities, and revenue synergies. Since 2017, we have completed nine acquisitions. We have got eight in the chart.
The first one, TES, was in 2017, so that's tucked into the GBP 7.1 million of EBITDA. We've consolidated the survey and robotics space with the acquisition of TES in the Middle East, Forum Subsea Rentals, which was international, and Seatronics, again, international. We added to our Asset Integrity capabilities through the acquisition of Welap tega, based in Nova Scotia, and we've built out our Mechanical Solutions capability through five acquisitions. Geographically, six or two-thirds of the deals that we've done have included non-U.K.-based operations. Obviously, expanding geographic reach can also be done through internationalizing U.K.-based capability, leveraging the Ashtead Technology geographic footprint, and I'll provide an example of that later. We're building a range of highly complementary capabilities to achieve a compounding effect. We fully integrate the businesses that we acquire to drive revenue synergies and increased value to our customers.
In terms of the pipeline, we continue to see increased process opportunities, but our preference remains to do off-market deals directly with business owners. We continue to build a business which is deeper, broader, and more capable to support our customers through a one-stop-shop approach. Turning to our latest acquisition, Seatronics and J2, we're delighted to have completed that acquisition. As a reminder, we paid GBP 63 million consideration at a 5.2 EBITDA multiple. In terms of strategic alignment, the deal ticks all the boxes. We strengthened our footprint in Singapore, in Abu Dhabi, in Aberdeen, and in Houston. We increased the size of our equipment fleet by approximately 30%. We added highly skilled technical expertise to the team, and we deepened customer relationships. Integration is going better and faster than we expected. From the start, all new business was written through Ashtead Technology entities.
We've transferred all the activity onto the Ashtead ERP system. We've consolidated roofline in Abu Dhabi, in Aberdeen, and in Houston, and have exited the former Seatronics facilities. The teams are fully integrated and are working well together. There are multiple opportunities for value creation through this transaction. The regional capabilities have obviously been strengthened across the Ashtead network, providing a catalyst to allow us to do more for our customers. We're working to optimize the fleet that we've acquired, reducing cross-hires and low-quality revenue activity. Cable molding and ROV manipulator servicing repairs are two new added services which are highly complementary to our existing portfolio. We're driving revenue synergies through increased fleet utilization and cross-selling. This is a classic Ashtead Technology executed deal. We've been tracking this business for years. We knew exactly what we were buying.
We bought it at an attractive multiple, and we have fully integrated this business at pace. Turning to slide 17, the capability that we now have in Ashtead Technology has significantly increased in recent years. We deliberately focused on M&A to build out the capability in the Mechanical Solutions space. A great example of what we do with an acquired business is what we've achieved with Underwater Cutting Solutions. That's a business we acquired in 2019. Like any other business we acquire, we fully integrated it, and it's now adopted the Ashtead Technology brand. At the time that we acquired that business, it was a very U.K. North Sea oil and gas-focused niche decommissioning player. Through leveraging the Ashtead Technology geographic footprint, fleet investment, and product innovation, we've created a business that is significantly different to that which we bought.
The graphic shows the global projects, or some of the global projects, that we were operating on in January this year. We were doing decommissioning jobs in the U.K., in Norway, in the Ivory Coast, in India, in Australia. We did wind farm site clearance work in the Netherlands, and we undertook maintenance work in Saudi Arabia. We have properly internationalized this U.K.-based business. In-house product innovation is central to our success across our Mechanical Solutions business. Again, looking at this sample of projects, the ring saw that we used on this highlighted U.K. project and the subsea recovery tool on the Norway project were two new technologies which were designed, engineered, and assembled in-house for the first time in 2024. The project in India was our first large-scale abrasive cutting job, which was a great success.
Leveraging our geographic footprint and customer relationships to internationalize businesses while deploying capital to strengthen capability is how we drive value from M&A. Finally, positive trading momentum has continued into 2025, supported by a strong market backdrop. The board is encouraged by the group's performance in Q1 2025, and our full year 2025 expectations remain unchanged. The business is well placed to support the energy transition. We've got a clear growth strategy, and we're executing that plan. Our equipment and service offering is highly differentiated, adding real value to our customers. The market we operate in has got strong growth fundamentals. Customers are benefiting from record multi-year backlogs, creating a strong growth runway for us. Our highly flexible business model is creating multiple geographic and market growth opportunities. That all gives us real confidence, making further progress during the year to build and grow our business.
Finally, as some of you may have read in the RNS this morning, the board is assessing a potential move to the main market and will issue a further update following further consultation with the company's advisors and largest shareholders. We will now open up to questions. Given that Deutsche Numis have been kind to host us this morning, why do we not start with you, David?
Thanks very much. Yes, David Brockton from Deutsche Numis. Can I ask two questionnaires? Firstly, just could you touch on what you are seeing from a sort of pricing outlook and also backward-looking as well, please, relative to the cost inflation in the business? Then the second question, when I look at the Rystad Energy industry forecast, it looks like, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the decommissioning growth rate is starting to pick up relative to where it was a few years ago. You touched on your capability in UCS, but can you just maybe give a bit more insight into how big decom work is within the group and whether you feel you've got the complete sort of skill set that you need there? Thanks.
Great. Firstly, on pricing, I think what we see on that is that we are achieving pricing increases above the rate of inflation. We have also successfully been able to pass on U.K. employers' NI increases to our customers. It is a further progression of what we have done in recent years.
In terms of decommissioning, I think the example that we gave in the presentation around Underwater Cutting Solutions is exactly focused on decommissioning. We deliberately bought Underwater Cutting Solutions to move into decommissioning, and it's been a great success. Our U.K. business that we've internationalized through the Ashtead network, I would say we're two years behind plan.
The reason for those two years behind plan is because of COVID. It's very difficult to internationalize a business when you can't travel. We have made really good progress through 2024. Just even seeing that snapshot of opportunities across the globe, we see great opportunities in Asia, in Australia. Through a combination of geographic reach and taking new technologies to market, we believe we're really well placed to benefit from that uptake in decommissioning. There is further work to do, and we've got lots of other opportunities to grow and strengthen that business further.
Would it be sort of low single-digit % of revenues?
Yeah, I think that's fair.
Okay, thanks.
Harrison Lock of Stifel. Firstly, you've obviously been under the bonnet now of the J2 Subsea acquisition for four months. I just wondered, is there any surprises there on the good or the bad side? More generally, what's happening with the integration process at the moment? Secondly, obviously, subsea has been hot now for maybe three years, four years. How is the market playing out, though, with the acquisition side? Are you seeing more players in the market, and is it harder to compete?
Firstly, on Seatronics and J2 Subsea, as I said, classic piece of Ashtead M&A. We've been tracking that business for years. We felt that we knew the business well. It was obviously a competitor. We knew what we were buying.
In many ways, the similarities between it and Forum Subsea Rentals that we acquired in 2018 are significant. We have been through a large multi-jurisdiction integration before, and we have taken those learnings. I would say the pace of integration has been faster than we expected. The quality of the equipment that we acquired is better than expected, and it is going faster and well. We had to integrate it fast because it was a competitor. We are supporting generally the same types of or the same customers. There is a bit of difference. I think it has the potential to be one of the best acquisitions that we ever did. The Forum deal that we did was really the kickstart of Mechanical Solutions. It brought ROV tooling with it, which has been a great addition to the portfolio.
This deal brings cable molding, which is central to the survey and robotics activity that we do, and ROV manipulator servicing, which is something that we wanted to get into. Without that domain knowledge, it's quite difficult. The barriers to entry are high. That is going really well. Really happy with it. Obviously, further work to do, but progress has been great so far. In terms of M&A, what are we seeing? We're seeing a lot more things come across our desk in processes. I would say we haven't seen that much that has spiked our interest. We know the market well. As we've said multiple times, the reason why we focus on off-market direct deals is it's not just about buying businesses. It's about knowing what you're buying.
We believe that engaging with owners early and understanding them and understanding their business means that we can de-risk the integration. As an example, Seatronics, we completed that four months ago. The first approach we made for Seatronics was in 2016. We've been tracking that business for years and years and years.
Good morning, Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. Again, a couple of questions. First one for Ingrid. CapEx guidance, GBP 40 million this year. I think you'd previously indicated maybe around GBP 10 million of that was to look at the Seatronics fleet. Is that still the case? Should we expect CapEx to sort of normalize in sort of year two, year three in order to deliver the growth aspirations? The second question, when we look out to the medium term and the double-digit organic growth aspirations, what do you think the shape of the business might look like in terms of Mechanical Solutions, Asset Integrity, and Survey & Robotics? Thanks.
Do you want to go first? First of all, yeah, on CapEx, we've indicated GBP 10 million, and that's still for Seatronics and J2, sorry. That's still the plan. We've obviously completely merged the two fleets, so we now no longer call them Seatronics or Ashtead Technology. Across the piece, we will spend GBP 40 million this year. The guidance remains at sort of 18% of revenue going forward, and that is really just an indicator of our strength, our confidence in the market outlook in terms of the medium-term growth.
I think in terms of the shape of the business going forward, Andrew, on a pro forma revenue basis, 56% of our revenue last year came from Survey & Robotics, 39% from Mechanical Solutions, and 5% from Asset Integrity. The increase in Survey & Robotics has obviously been driven by growth, organic growth in that business through the year and from the Seatronics acquisition. I would say we've got opportunities across all three service lines. There is a great opportunity to further consolidate the Mechanical Solutions space and to broaden the capability beyond what we've currently got. If you take Ace Winches as an example, Ace Winches increased our addressable market by about 30% and added a completely different but highly complementary capability to our business through lifting, pulling, and deployment solutions.
There are other things out there of a similar nature that is going to increase or could increase if we did them, both the technical and geographic capability of the group.
We have had a few questions on the webcast. First one is from Victoria McCullough from RBC. Some of your key customers on their conference calls have highlighted the importance of their supply chain, which you are part of. How would you say the relationship with customers are evolving, and how much greater visibility of work are you getting compared to 12 months ago?
Thank you, Victoria, for that question. On customers, given the breadth and depth that we now have within the business, we are having a different type of conversation with some customers.
In the last few weeks, there's at least two examples where we could discuss how we've engaged with the customer and the customers actively engage with us around how can we provide the whole suite of Ashtead Technology capability to reduce supplier interfaces, which is a key risk for them. We have talked to the analysts in the room about this previously, where the risk for our customers of going to multiple places means that the risk of the vessel not sailing from the dock because they're using multiple freight forwarders, or if something goes wrong, they have got to call multiple people, has got significant risk. The equipment that we provide is a small part of the overall value of the package that our customers are providing, but it's absolutely mission-critical. They have to get it right.
I think by continuing to build the capability that we've got within the business, not only in terms of the equipment fleet, but the domain knowledge that we've got in the business and the geographic reach means that we're in a far better place to support our customers going forward. If we look at our customers in terms of them building their backlog, that's not necessarily increasing our visibility because some of the conversations are very close to mobilization, but it gives us the confidence that the work absolutely will be there. However, in some of the more challenging engineering aspects of the work that we do in terms of decommissioning or lifting, pulling, and deployment, we are seeing greater visibility.
As an example of that, Ace Winches, for example, the inquiries that we get this week, I'm sure will be pretty much the same as we've had for the last 52 weeks. The majority of those will probably have a mobilization date six months in the future, which is very different to the characteristics that we've got in the survey and robotics business. A combination of our customers building backlog and the changes within our business means that we do have more visibility than we had in the past.
Thank you. A follow-on question from Victoria from RBC. You mentioned in the release and presentation that you think the market for M&A is very attractive. Does your current leverage put any restriction on what you can do this year? Do you want to do that?
Yeah, so we've always said that our target range is sort of one to two times. We know that's a level that the market's comfortable with. We have capacity within that. Our leverage does decrease very quickly because of our cash flow. We're going to be in a position where we're targeting less than 1.3 x by the end of the year. We've got five very supportive banks who would provide more debt to us if we were looking for it. We feel that we're going to be in a good position by the back end of this year that we could potentially do some further M&A.
Yeah, I don't think as a management team, we don't feel constrained about leveraging this business. It's more about finding the right deal at the right price that is going to be accretive. As we've said multiple times before, we integrate everything that we buy. That naturally slows down the pace of M&A. Having said that, the traction that we've had on Seatronics and J2 has been better and faster than we expected. We are in a better place to continue M&A than we may have been. It is about getting the right deal and remaining disciplined.
Thank you. The next question is from Thomas Streeter from Streeter Research. How might the proposed Saipem-Subsea 7 merger impact Ashtead Technology?
That was obviously big news in our customer base. That deal is obviously subject to antitrust clearances, which is probably more than a year away. We are well placed with both Saipem and Subsea 7, and we believe that is a positive for our business. A larger business that is going after more complex projects needs a strong supply chain, and we believe that we are well placed to continue to support them.
Superb. No further questions from the webcast. There's no further questions in the room. I'll hand back to you, Allan, for any closing remarks. Oh, one question in the room.
Sorry. Sorry to disappoint. A couple of questions. Just on the acquisition, sorry, Toby Thorrington from Equity Development. On the acquisition, Seatronics J2, it sounds like that's a top-line growth story to get EBITDA out from the 12-odd million that you inherited. There's a bit of churn, I think, from the presentation, a bit of churn to be done in fleet. Sounds like about 7,000 assets, some to be slowed off and others to be added to. Just wondering kind of what the utilization was of the sector assets you're going to be retaining, what the upside is from that in the first instance, please.
Sure. I think that there is work to be done on the revenue mix in that business. That was one of the reasons why the margins in that business were lower than the margins that we get in our survey and robotics business. We are putting CapEx to play to reduce cross-hires and to increase that quality. We have got that benefit. That is part of the fleet churn. There are also operational improvements that we can and are making in that business. Focus on what we would call core activities like inspection days and repair days, getting the equipment through our facilities faster, turned around faster to increase utilization has been very much the focus.
In terms of what we're doing with the fleet, like we did with the Forum deal, everything that we provide to our customers is mission-critical. Everything goes offshore. It goes to remote location. We have to be absolutely sure that the equipment is in top-quality condition. We are actively going through the fleet that we've acquired to inspect and repair every single piece of equipment before it goes out the door to Ashtead Technology standards. When we did that with Forum, it took us about nine months. We are about 80% of the way through of the fleet. Given that Christmas and New Year got in the way, that's gone a lot faster than we expected.
I think through a combination of deploying CapEx, looking at how that business operates or has operated, and getting more focus on the quality of revenue, all that will drive both top-line and in margin accretion from that business.
Great answer. Thank you. One more to close. Difficult to tell, but I think from the slides presented in oil and gas, South America looks like the fastest-growing market, not the biggest market for you currently. Just wondering if the proposed access to that sector or that geography is through existing customers or whether the local players are different and you need to break in in a different way, please.
Sure. If we talk about Brazil in particular, we support activities in Brazil both from the U.K. and from our Houston facility, depending on where the vessels are mobilizing from. It is the normal names.
It's TechnipFMC, it's Subsea 7, it's the survey contractors that we contract with. We are confident that we can continue to support that market from outwith Brazil because Brazil is not the easiest of places to do business in. However, there is increasing interaction with the customer base and the local customer base there, again supported from outwith the region. It is an absolute key focus market for us. The amount of investment that is going into oil and gas, not only in Brazil, but in the likes of Guyana, is tremendous.
No further questions. Maybe back to yourself, Allan, for any closing remarks.
Great. Thanks very much. Thanks everyone for joining us this morning. As I said at the beginning, this business is really well placed for growth. We believe that we continue to deliver on our promises, and we're looking forward to seeing what we can do through 2025. Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.