Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Galliford Try Holdings' trading update for the year ending June 2024. I don't intend to trawl through the whole paper; you've all got the RNS. I'll just pick out a few highlights, I think, and then we'll go straight to questions. Really pleased with progress in the year. We've made good progress against our targets. As you see, full year revenue and PBT, pre-exceptional PBT, expected to be above the upper end of current analyst forecasts. Balance sheet remains really strong: GBP 227 million of cash at the year-end, with average maintenance cash across the financial year of GBP 155 million thereabouts. Really good outlook, driven by our very high-quality order book of GBP 3.8 billion, up GBP 100 million on the previous period. That's about 92% of this year's revenue already in hand.
Importantly, I think more than 60% of revenue already in hand for full year 2026. So that's a really good position to be in. We announced our new growth strategy out to 2030 at the Capital Markets event in May. Just to remind you of those targets: revenue in excess of GBP 2.2 billion and 4% operating margin in 2030, retaining, of course, our strong balance sheet and retaining our dividends cover of 1.8 times. Just to remind you that 1.8 times is 2 times cover on normal activities and 1 times cover or full cover on the interest from our PPP activities or investments. And that gives you a blended 1.8 times. So a really good position there, really good targets, and a good start against those targets.
Just going back to the highlights, Kris Hampson will join us as CFO on the 2nd of September this year. He'll be around for the full year results on the 19th of September, which is really good. Going down to the balance sheet, I've spoken about the cash, but in addition to that, of course, we have about GBP 42 million of public-private partnership assets. Just to remind you, no pension liabilities and no debt or associated covenants, which is important to us. Of course, the balance sheet remains really important to our clients and to our suppliers and our people and remains a differentiator. We've done some really good work recently and across the last year or last half, sorry, since December. The list is there. I'm not going to go through them all, but really good progress overall.
The Communities and Housing Investment Consortium was really important for our re-entry into the affordable homes market. There's plenty of water work there. I'm sure we'll talk about water more in a minute. And I suppose just touching on politics, I'd say that so far, so good. All the mood music coming out of the new government is positive. And historically, Labour governments have been good for the financial, sorry, for the construction sector. So all in all, everyone, we're in good shape. We expect another good year of performance, which we'll announce in September. And we're well set for the year in front of us. I think that's a good place here, and we should just go straight to questions.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, just as a quick reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Our very first question today is coming from Andrew Nussey, colleague from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, Bill.
Morning, Andrew.
Yeah, wanted to just follow up on that water point. Obviously, we saw the Ofwat draft determinations this morning. Obviously, still healthy levels of investment. Just if you had any observations around that particular end market. And then sort of secondly, when we sort of look out to FY26, and obviously you've given us a feel for the visibility. But in terms of new governments, are there any particular areas where you see that level of opportunities to fill that level of revenue coverage?
Yeah, thanks, Andrew. So the water market, I haven't had that much time, but I've seen the headlines, of course. So I saw GBP 88 billion was the headline number coming out of Ofwat this morning, which I'm really encouraged by. And of course, as you know, Andrew, that's just the start of the dance. There'll be all sorts of negotiations now with the regulator through to the back end of the year. But I thought that was a really good start. And while it's slightly down in the, was it 92 or 97 that was publicized, it's still a big, big increase. That must be GBP 30 billion increase on the previous AMP. So I'm encouraged by that initial number. And I think that the water companies too. I haven't seen a breakdown of the individual approaches to which water companies are happy and which ones aren't yet.
On the full year 2026, so from a government perspective, I think that the emphasis on affordable housing that we've seen will add good stimuli in terms of our activities, albeit even if we're successful in winning new projects now, those projects won't be on the ground for some time, given planning and the statutory process and so on. But there's a good emphasis on affordable housing. And then, of course, I've just mentioned planning. There's also quite well publicized already the fact that they're going to look at easing planning constraints. So let's hope that that does, that they can succeed there because lots of governments have talked about easing planning, and it is a difficult thing to do. But if the will is there, then hopefully that will start to free up some of these blockages in the system.
Got it. Got it. That's great. Thank you, Bill.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask any questions, please press star one. We'll now go to Alastair Stewart, colleague from Progressive Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, Bill. A couple of questions from me. Andrew picked up on water. An almost as great priority for the new government seems to be prisons. They're supposed to have run out of spaces by, I think, today. I heard on the Today program that the average cost of building a new prison is GBP 600,000 per cell. Just wondered, A, how you saw, have you been in touch with the new administration about your prison side? And B, is there any way of getting those prices per cell down by sort of off-site manufacturer or whatever? So interested in color there. And the other question more specifically was in terms of the latest PPP valuation, are there any moving parts there in terms of the cash flows and the discount rates?
Okay, thanks, Alastair. Yeah, so on prisons, I mean, it's not new news that there aren't any prison places, Alastair. I think this is just the government making a little bit of a... that news out quick while it was somebody else's fault. But we are active in the space. We're busy building a prison as we speak at Rye Hill. We're busy building 2 immigration detention centers for the Ministry of Justice. And we've got, I would say, I don't know the exact number, Alastair, but probably up to 6 sort of refurb schemes in existing prisons that are going on. So we do do a lot of work for the Ministry of Justice already. We own their frameworks, and they're a good client. And yes, I see that that market will continue. There are, of course, I think it's 4 big new prisons already in construction.
And deliberately, we're not on that framework. But more prisoner places will be coming down the line in the fullness of time, although it will take some time. So in terms of pricing that, all new modern prisons are built using modern methods of construction. The one we're building in Rye Hill is exactly the same thing. And actually, the more you look around the industry, you see that more and more. I saw it on what looks like a residential scheme in London the other day. We're using the same thing on our residential scheme down at our PRS scheme down in Cardiff. So it is becoming more and more of the norm, Alastair, so that will help to keep prices down. On the PPP valuation. Sorry, say again?
Yeah, sorry, I forgot about the PPP.
Yeah. So that's just discount rate, which ebbs and flows with, obviously, but there's no underlying change to the portfolio.
Sure. Great. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Alastair.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions, please press star one at this time. So star one for questions.
Okay, excellent. Well, I mean, if there's no questions, I'll take that as it's all very obvious, which it is.
Mr. Hocking, very sorry, sir. We have Mr. Stewart. He's back here with follow-up questions. Is that okay too?
Okay.
What was your answer? Thank you, sir. There you go. Sorry to interrupt you.
Sorry, there was a deafening silence. Just can you give us some thoughts on the trajectory of a new government's sort of ambitions actually translating into actual shovels on the ground over the five-year life of a parliament? How soon can it make a real difference? And which sectors will see the most immediate upturn, and which will have a longer lead-in time?
Look, Alastair, all big projects have their gestation periods, and they will be what they are. I think we'll see the biggest impact where projects are already held up in planning. So we saw some of that in the press recently about these two data centers, which Angela Rayner has reopened the planning. They've been declined, I think it was, and she's reopening that. So we see evidence that where there are schemes that may be ready to go, that are held up by planning, that may be unblocked. And they'll be on the ground pretty quickly, and I would have thought. So that's good. Overall, the mood music from Labour is good. But apart from schemes held up in planning, it's not going to happen overnight. All these big schemes have an 18-month to year gestation period, depending on what type of scheme they are.
Great. All right. Thanks very much, Bill.
Thanks, Alistair.
Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Okay, very sorry about that, Mr. Hocking. At this point, sir, we have no further questions.
Okay, thanks, George. No, I'll take that as a positive. Everyone nice, clear, unambiguous statement. So thank you for joining the call, and we look forward to seeing you on the 19th of September. Take care. Bye-bye.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference. Thanks for your attention. We'll now disconnect. Have a good day and goodbye.