Good morning, all, and welcome to Galliford Try Holdings full-year results to June 2023. I'm Bill Hocking, Chief Exec, and I'm joined by Andrew Duxbury, Group Finance Director. Here's the agenda for today. I'll take you through the highlights, Andrew will give more detail on the numbers, and I'll update you on the good progress on our sustainable growth strategy. As we go through the presentation, you'll recognize quite a few slides from previous years, and this demonstrates that we are consistent in our approach and reporting against a solid strategy. The photo shows a team-building event with some of our early careers cohort, and we're really pleased to be named the Best Graduate Employer in Construction and Civil Engineering this year. I'm really pleased with our performance in the year.
We're pleased to report pre-exceptional PBT up 23% at GBP 23.4 million, on revenues of just under GBP 1.4 billion, maintaining a divisional operating margin of 2.4%. This is despite the fallout from the mini budget, which caused a delay in the award of contracts in some of our sectors, with the resultant impact on revenue, profit, and cash. Our acquisitions are settling in well, are already providing opportunities for further growth, and we'll continue to consider bolt-on acquisitions in higher-margin adjacent markets to accelerate our progress towards our 2026 goals and beyond. Our GBP 3.7 billion order book is in excellent shape in terms of its quantum, longevity through frameworks, embedded profit and cash profiles, sensible terms and conditions, and an equitable risk profile.
This order book underpins our growth targets, and we see consistent, non-cyclical demand in all of our sectors, which I'll expand on later in the presentation. We enter the new financial year with 92% of our work already secured, and in the order of 75% already secured for full year 2025, which is an excellent position. On the back of our balance sheet strength and excellent cash position, we're pleased to announce a full-year dividend of 10.5p per share, up 31% on last year, and reflecting an improved dividend cover ratio of 1.8 times, which Andrew will explain in a minute. When you add the 10.5p dividend, the 12p special dividend previously announced, and the GBP 15 million share buyback, we have returned about 35 pence per share, or GBP 38 million to our shareholders this year.
On that note, I'll hand you over to Andrew.
Thank you, Bill. Morning, everyone. The picture on the screen is the Winchburgh Schools Campus outside Edinburgh. When I was last there, what really struck me was the collaboration through the supply chain and with the client, and the way that our digital tools helped that collaboration. This is a reminder of our investment proposition. Galliford Try is a high-quality business with leading positions in market sectors that are non-cyclical, and we're generating increasing returns for our shareholders. The growth opportunities in our market sectors remain strong, with good levels of government investment and barriers to entry based on quality. The risk profile of our portfolio of projects is very good, and we have excellent forward visibility, as Bill will cover later. Importantly, we have the culture embedded across our business to deliver our strategy, with everyone aligned to our purpose, values, and approach.
Our financial position is very strong. We're demonstrating a track record of delivering predictable financial results. It's now three full financial years since we de-merged the housebuilding business. We said at that time that we wanted to build a reputation for delivering consistent and profitable growth, and that is exactly what we're doing. Revenue is up year-on-year, profits are up year-on-year, earnings per share are up year-on-year, and dividend is up year-on-year, and this is the evidence of the strong foundations we have built and forms the basis of our confidence and our future growth. I'll come back later to what this means for shareholder value. As Bill said, we're pleased with the performance in the year. Against a very challenging economic backdrop, our performance is in line with our strategic targets.
Revenue is up 12.5%, reflecting particularly strong growth in our environment business. Our divisional operating margin has remained stable at 2.4%, including some one-off costs that I'll come back to. But two years into our five-year strategy, this is on track to achieve our 3% target. Pre-exceptional profit before tax is up 22.5%, excluding the effect of the one-off contract settlement that we announced in June this year. That contract settlement brought to an end a long-running, time-consuming, costly legal dispute at very close to the values expected in our books, and we were pleased to draw it to a conclusion. And remember, this was the final legacy contract dating back to 2015, and it's not one that would have made it through today's tender process.
Profit before tax also benefited from a sale of a joint venture investment in the first half year, and around GBP 1.5 million higher interest income on our strong cash balances. Our pre-exceptional tax rate of 15% is below the standard rate because the JV disposal is non-taxable income. The rate was much lower last year due to recognition of brought forward losses, but the underlying rate is now beginning to normalize towards the standard rate, as we indicated last September that it would do. Altogether, this means that pre-exceptional earnings per share has increased by 18% compared to last year. Delving into the segmental results in a bit more detail, we saw revenue growth in both main divisions.
Buildings revenue growth was relatively modest, held back by some delayed contract starts through 2022 as a result of inflation and then slower public sector decision making. We discussed this last September and again in March. But importantly for the new financial year, we have now seen these issues easing, and that's positive for future growth. Importantly, we retained our disciplined approach to tendering and our focus on quality and future margin. Buildings margin fell slightly, partly due to these delays and the impact of the cost of living payment we made. 2.3% is consistent with the first half year, and we're very confident that that will now grow towards 3%. Infrastructure's revenue is up 34%.
This is driven by our environment business, mainly the continued improvement in AMP7 revenues, and also the full annual benefit of the acquired NMCN business, which only really contributed in the second half last year. We're also now well-placed to grow further in highways and our broader infrastructure sector. Very pleasingly, infrastructure's margin progressed to 2.5%, showing the strength in that business. Our investments business benefited from the JV investment we sold, which was a one-off sale of a non-core management services company. It was not part of our PFI portfolio. Investments also incurred some additional costs getting our first PRS scheme over the line. Central costs of GBP 12 million are higher than this time last year, due to some increased share-based payment costs and other timing differences, and should reduce a bit into FY 2024.
We also incurred just over GBP 10 million of exceptional costs related entirely to our digital investment in a new commercial procurement, HR, and finance system, and that system is now live. Coming back to margin, the quality of our order book and the contract portfolio continues to be the key driver of our margin improvement strategy. Operating profit has increased GBP 3.5 million- GBP 21.9 million, helped by our volume growth. But what I do want to show here is that the margin also includes just over GBP 2 million of net losses from the two acquisitions in the year, MCS and Ham Baker, due to the state that those businesses were in when we bought them. And also GBP 1 million for a one-off cost of living payment that we made in October.
Without these, the 2.4% divisional margin would have been 2.6%, and that provides good confidence for our future margin growth. I would stress that these costs were good investments in our people and in our future growth capabilities. It is also worth remembering the macroeconomic environment that we've successfully managed our way through. I've already mentioned delayed starts on site. We also dealt with high inflation, materials delays, and general economic uncertainty. All in all, our performance in this environment demonstrates the quality and the resilience of the business. Our strong balance sheet, both our cash and our PPP assets, helps us in the market, in winning work and in engaging with the supply chain. It's worth repeating that we have no pension liabilities and no debt.
Our intangible assets and goodwill increased as a result of the acquisitions of MCS and Ham Baker. Other non-current assets includes leases, including property and vehicles, which increased mainly from the acquired businesses. Our PPP assets are valued at GBP 45 million at a blended 7.3% discount rate. This is a slightly higher discount rate than last year due to the market changes. But the portfolio contributed about GBP 4 million interest income in the year, similar to last year, and this is a strong annuity income stream, which we think provides value to shareholders. I'll come back to that shortly. Month-end average cash was GBP 135 million, reduced, as previously explained, due to funding of acquired liabilities on our acquisitions, the cost of our digital investment, some of the delays in building, and the capital returns to shareholders in the year.
I expect average cash in the new financial year to be similar. Year-end cash of GBP 220 million is slightly higher than last year. The movement is summarized on the cash bridge. Operating cash flow was good, supported by the contract settlement that we referred to. We invested nearly GBP 11 million of cash in our digital systems upgrade, which is now live, and returned GBP 20 million in dividends and our share buyback during the financial year. Importantly, our daily cash performance is robust and resilient, and we continue to pay the supply chain well, in 26 days on average. We paid 98% of invoices in 60 days, and for our small company suppliers, we paid close to 90% of invoices within 30 days, and that is very good in the sector. We continue to prioritize and retain a strong balance sheet.
That balance sheet provides a competitive advantage, which helps to deliver our sustainable growth plans. It's valuable to our clients who see the importance of financial stability, and it's to ensure we are a partner of choice for our supply chain. Our balance sheet also allows us to invest in future growth by investing in our PRS capabilities, our people, in digital assets, and, when appropriate, acquisitions. Our strong balance sheet gives us the confidence that we can pay a growing and sustainable dividend, and we will continue to return excess cash when appropriate. For example, the special dividend that we announced in June. As we look into the new financial year, we are confident in where the business is and continue to see opportunities for growth. We have therefore increased our pre-exceptional profit guidance to the upper end of analyst estimates, as set out in our statement.
This confidence comes from our order book, including 92% secured for the new year, our current portfolio of projects, and our current performance. So I said I would come back to shareholder value. In the three years since the demerger, we've declared ordinary full-year dividends of 23p per share, a total of GBP 25 million. We've declared a special dividend of 12p per share, and as of today, have returned GBP 14 million against our GBP 15 million buyback program and seen our share price trending upwards. Going forward, the buyback will increase annual EPS by around 7.5% compared to not having completed the program.
During the last year, we've settled a long-running dispute and, consistent with our capital allocation policy, are returning half of those funds to shareholders through a special dividend, with the remaining funds supporting growth and providing confidence to revisit our ordinary dividend policy. So today, we have improved our dividend policy to 1.8 times cover. Alongside confidence in our operational performance, this reflects the fact that our financial investments provide a secure annuity income, and we want to provide that certainty and value to our shareholders. Essentially, the 1.8 times cover reflects twice cover on operational earnings and full return of our annual PPP interest income. So today, we have declared a final dividend of GBP 0.075, bringing the full-year dividend to GBP 0.105, 31% up on this time last year.
Of course, as we deliver our strategy with revenue growth and margin growth combining, our dividends will continue to increase. The FY 2023 dividend, the special dividend and the buyback in aggregate total around GBP 38 million of returns to shareholders this year. With that, I'll hand back to Bill.
Thanks, Andrew. This photo shows a warehouse facility at HMP High Down, where we mentor and support the rehabilitation of prisoners through employment. This is not only the right thing to do for society at large, but also supports us with work winning. Here is a reminder of the broad philosophy of our business. We start with the core of the company, our excellent people. We engender a culture of discipline and risk awareness, supported by good processes and aligned incentive mechanisms. Being very selective about the type of work and the clients we take on leads to a high-quality order book, which underpins our margin targets. Most of that order book is in long-term frameworks with repeat clients, and so we get good visibility of the forward order book and can align our people and our supply chain accordingly.
This leads to a consistent and predictable operating performance, which further strengthens our balance sheet, and so the cycle continues. Our approach to risk remains unchanged and core to our culture. We have robust risk management processes at pre-qualification and bid stage, strong controls through the tenancy of our projects, and an embedded culture of risk awareness, where we only accept those risks that we can sensibly price and manage. Here's a précis of our sustainable growth strategy. We have a simple aspiration to deliver high-quality products to our clients in a socially responsible manner and provide a good return to our shareholders. There are four cornerstones of our strategy. First and foremost is people and the drive to be a values-driven, inclusive, progressive business, where the safety of our people is paramount. We focus on retaining and developing our people and attracting new, high-caliber people to Galliford Try.
We go about our business in a socially and environmentally responsible manner, striving to achieve our Net Zero carbon targets for 2030 and 2045, and contributing to the local economy around our projects through employing local people and by procuring goods and services through local companies as far as possible. We deliver high-quality products for our clients and embrace modern methods of construction, off-site build and digitalization to improve quality and efficiency. A high proportion of work is delivered through our supply chain, and so our advantage through alignment program of collaboration and our Net Zero partners initiatives are important, as is paying our supply chain promptly on average in 26 days, as you saw earlier in Andrew's presentation. All this comes together to provide good returns to our shareholders.
We're growing in our core existing markets of building, infrastructure and environment and our adjacent markets of PRS, capital maintenance and green retrofit. We've started work on site on our first PRS scheme in Cardiff and won AMP7 and AMP8 maintenance frameworks in the water sector, which also provides opportunities for our acquired water technology companies, Lintott and Ham Baker Engineering. We have also appointed a sector lead in the period for affordable, low and mid-rise housing to lead our controlled re-entry into this market through our regional building businesses. Overall, two years into the strategy period, we're making really good progress. Here are some of the metrics by which we measure our business, and there's a full schedule in the appendices. We're pleased with our progress in reducing Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions towards our 2030 Net Zero goal.
While our lost time frequency rate improved in the year, our accident frequency rate rose in the same period, and we're redoubling our efforts to address this, working towards our ambition of no harm to any people on our sites. We are very pleased with the results of our employee engagement survey, with 86% of our people strong advocates of the company, and we're delighted to be voted number one graduate employer in construction and civil engineering. These ESG metrics are part and parcel of our day-to-day business and help us to win work, as demonstrated in our quality-based work winning slide a little later on. We've all heard about the challenges in the water sector, and the reality is, in the next 10 years or so, these challenges will be solved by more investment in traditional solutions as well as more creative, technology-led solutions.
The decision to increase our presence in the water sector in anticipation of significant growth has proven well-founded, and our acquisitions of the water businesses of NMCN, Lintott, MCS, and Ham Baker Engineering over the last 18 months or so is paying dividends. You can see here the expected level of growth through AMP8, which is through to 2030, and I expect this level of spend to continue beyond 2030... We are strongly positioned in the sector and working for all of the regulated water companies well-placed to benefit from the significantly increased spend. To give you an example of our technology-led solutions, we have teamed up with Siemens to develop a number of technologies to clients, including Smart Catchments and river water monitoring stations.
This will help our clients to capture the data, which is important in proactively managing combined sewer overflows, which you've seen a lot about in the newspapers of late. We're setting up our first Smart Catchments pilot study, and we expect this market to be worth in the order of GBP 2 billion of CapEx through to 2030. The partnership uses Siemens operating platforms, and Galliford Try undertake sensor installation, operations, and maintenance, as well as the access and wayleaves required to do this type of work. Investors should be encouraged by the fundamental improvement in procurement methods by the big procuring bodies. It's generally a far more mature, sustainable environment, with high levels of collaboration and a more equitable allocation of risk. Our supply chain has proved resilient and benefits from our Advantage Through Alignment program and our good payment record.
We continue to perform enhanced financial due diligence on our supply chain for the larger subcontracts or program critical activities. The market remains robust, non-cyclical, and we can see a solid pipeline of opportunity, mainly in long-term frameworks through our 2026 strategy period and well beyond. This slide shows the procurement routes and typical scoring mechanisms in winning frameworks or individual projects. You can see that 98.5% of our order book comes through two-stage target cost, cost reimbursable or negotiated work, with a real example of a client's scoring criteria on the right-hand side, which means we win work based on quality and not price. Indeed, it's not unusual to win work from the highest price.
We have an excellent order book at GBP 3.7 billion, up GBP 300 million in the same period last year, and you can see the details of the order book in building and infrastructure on the left-hand side. The split between the public and regulated sectors and the private sector remains steady at broadly 90-10, which varies a little with the AMP cycles in the water industry, typically having the most influence. The increase in the private sector at 13% is timing, with three fair-sized private sector projects all being awarded just before the end of June. The order book has all the attributes to underpin our goals in terms of its quantum, its longevity, and sensible risk profile through frameworks and a high proportion of repeat clients.
We have 92% of this year's work secured and have already secured around 75% of work for the next financial year, which is a great position to be in. This slide is a good visual representation of the forward visibility of work that we get through our excellent framework positions across our sectors. You can see a solid pipeline of work in all of our sectors, supporting growth through the general election and well beyond our 2026 strategy period. We would also, of course, expect a high renewal success ratio as frameworks end and are reprocured, which is represented there in the lighter green color. In summary, we're in really good shape. Our growth strategy is progressing well, supported by great people and excellent long-term order book and strong balance sheet.
We've got momentum in the business and are delivering good shareholder value through growth and improved dividend policy, and enhanced earnings per share through our GBP 15 million share buyback. Together with the special dividend, we've returned around GBP 38 million, or 35 pence per share to our shareholders this year. We're confident in the outlook for full year 2024 and have guided to the upper end of current consensus. We have good visibility through 2026 and beyond and look forward to continuing to grow the business organically and possibly through further bolt-on acquisitions off our solid foundations. That concludes the presentation, and I'll hand back to the operator to take any questions. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask an audio question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please also ensure your mute function is not activated in order to let your signals to reach your equipment. So once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. We'll pause just a moment to give everybody a chance to signal. Our first question is today's coming from Joe Brent of Liberum. Please go ahead, sir.
Morning, gentlemen.
Morning, Joe.
Morning, Joe.
Can I, can I ask you three questions, but maybe, for ease, take them one at a time. Firstly, just on inflation, you provided a helpful chart on your CMD, showing how basically, there's a difference in timing between price and cost, and how going up the curve, that's negative, but going down the curve, that's a positive. Okay, where are you on that curve now?
Yeah. Well, I would say that we're on the positive side of the curve generally, Joe. That is a generalization. I think I'd also say, as we said before, that the impact of that is moderated by the fact that we've got a portfolio of hundreds of projects that are all in different stages of completion across two, three, four years sometimes. So I'd say we're on the positive side of it. My view is inflation has subsided. The impact of inflation, I mean, prices aren't going down, let's put it that way, but they're not as volatile as they were a while back. So I think we're approaching, dare I say, normal in terms of the fluctuations in materials and so on.
Thank you. And secondly, you hopefully called out the expected loss of, say, GBP 2 million on the two small acquisitions. What do you think the delta might be in FY 2024? Presumably, those become mildly profitable and therefore quite a swing factor.
... Yeah, so we would expect those businesses to contribute in FY 2024, Joe. So the reason they took a loss is one of those businesses was in administration, one was, you know, very close, too. So, and when businesses are in that kind of situation, then they just take a little bit of stabilization. So we would expect those two to contribute. I mean, you remember, they're not huge in terms of turnover, but they are, what they do is contribute as well to our capabilities, and they're really coming together with Lintott and through the NMCN acquisition. Yeah, that's really giving us a foothold in that whole capital maintenance part of the water sector, which is really encouraging.
Should we expect sort of GBP 2.5 million- GBP 3 million swing?
As a swing, yes, something of that order.
Okay. And then, finally, just in terms of capital structure, I think previously you've talked about having a cash of 10% of sales. Is my recollection right on that? And is that still... If you did say that, is that still the case?
Yeah. So the range that we said previously, which is still the case, is that we've said, you know, that as we get out to 2026, your cash in that range of kind of GBP 125-GBP 200, which is a sort of 8%-12% of turnover. So for the year just finished with, you're right in that range, you know, and so that's, you know, that's encouraging, and so we'd expect to still, you know, that range is still the way that we see it going forwards.
So can you just repeat that range for me? Was it an absolute number, or was it a percent of sales?
Well, so the range we said, the GBP 125 million-GBP 200 million is kind of 8%-12% of GBP 1.6 billion, you know, as we get to that part of the strategy, Joe. So you can read it either way. So, you know, at the moment, the GBP 135 million last year, it was about 10% of turnover in FY 2023.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, operator. Our next question today will be coming from Andrew Nussey, calling from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, good morning. A couple of questions from me. First of all, one for Bill. Just some high-level observations, if we could, around your thoughts of general election, potential change in government, and sort of given that sort of 75% visibility, in terms of year to any sort of potential risks to that delivery. And then secondly, one for Andrew. In terms of the deployment of the new systems, which you said have gone live, should we expect any further cash outflows relating to that, or is it essentially done now?
Thanks, Andrew. So, yeah, so we expect a general election in a year's time or so, I guess. The fact that we've got 92% of this year's revenues in hand, and 75% of the next year's is very good for us in that respect, of course, Andrew. And by the time we get to this time next year, those numbers would have changed quite significantly, as you'd expect. So we don't see a risk per se in the sort of the period running into a general election. Typically, as we go into Purdah periods, civil servants are acutely aware of that, of course, and they try to get contracts awarded if they are sort of politically sensitive before Purdah. So that's what we generally see happening.
All in all, I don't really expect much of a hiccup in terms of the general election. And then on a broader note, and we are apolitical, I hasten to add, but on a broader note, historically, Labour administrations have been better for the construction industry than Conservative administrations. So, so that's how I see it.
Okay.
Good morning, Andrew. Yeah, so on the new system, so they went live successfully earlier this month. So, I mean, there'll be a little bit of just mop up, you know, through July and August cost, but that's all. So nothing significant like we had last year. The hard yards were done in the year to June 2023, but, you know, importantly, that system implementation has gone live, you know, really successfully, so that will make a big difference. And remember, Andrew, that the cost we spent on that, if we'd done that three or four years ago, we'd have capitalized that and amortized it over, you know, 10 years or so. So it's only because the accounting rules changed that we had to take that all on the chin as we spent it.
So, yeah, there'll only be a little bit of mop-up cost in the current year.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you, Operator. Next question today will be coming from Mr. Alastair Stewart, calling from Progressive Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Morning, Bill and Andrew. Three questions, please. The first I imagine is for Andrew. Given that you're more confident on meeting your divisional margin targets of 3% in FY 2026, can you envisage hitting the run rate at that level sometime during FY 2025, not necessarily meeting it for the full year? So that's the first question. The next couple of questions, I think, are for Bill. On the RAAC concrete issues, you're heavily into education and health, as government or government departments talk to you about strategy, I... It's so potentially widespread. I imagine there could be a sort of framework approach, not just to fixing the problem, but to inspecting.
Has there been any conversations, and what's your anticipation of that actually feeding through to your workflow, flow? And then finally, for Bill, you said you're apolitical, but can I ask you a political question? The government's big infrastructure policy frankly seems to be in a bit of a mess HS2, you know, it's unsure whether that will go as far as Manchester or in London, in any case, London. Sizewell C seems to be on the back foot again because of the locals. And today, Ford UK's thrown the toys out of the pram in terms of the slowdown in the green agenda, or the apparent slowdown in the green agenda. Are you frustrated?
What would your advice to government be, Bill?
We haven't got some time to think about that while Andrew talks, Alistair.
Yeah, so just kicking off the first one. First, Alistair, I'm very pleased that you left the other two explicitly for Bill. So yes, we are confident on the 3% target for FY 2026. You know, if-
Yeah.
If we get a little bit earlier or if we start to get there through the second half of FY 2025, then, you know, all, all, all to the good and, you know, but I'm not going to sort of call that now.
Yeah.
You know, we're certainly confident that we're on the right trajectory and we're making good progress there, Alistair.
Certainly sounds that way. Thank you. Yeah, Bill?
So on the RAAC, Alistair, yes, we have been talking to our clients, and the biggest one being education, of course. So the first thing is that there are, at the moment, I'm told, 174 schools that are affected by RAAC. And of course-
Yeah
... if you've got a child at the schools, then it's a big issue, and it's a, you know, it's a big issue for parents, and we, we appreciate that. From a business perspective, of course, that 174 schools represents less than 1% of the school estate.
Yeah.
So there's something like 22,000 schools across the country. So, when we spoke to DfE about the possible impact on this, which we did immediately, of course, it came up. The answer they've given us is that they've got a school building program of 400, sorry, 500 schools, of which they've named 400, and they need to be building some of those 400.
Yeah.
That 400 will not be affected by this issue.
Yeah.
What they, what they will probably do is just divert some of the money allocated to the other 100 schools towards fixing the RAAC schools.
Yeah.
So if that means, and I don't want to sound blasé about this, but if that means, you know, 100 becomes 98 schools, and the X many million pounds goes to fix the schools affected by RAAC, it's not going to be material in our business. So that's where-
I suggested there might be—I mean, the inspection that was done seemed to me to be fairly quick. It was in the space of a few days. You know, do you have any worry that there needs to be a quote, unquote, "proper inspection regime"? That seemed to be an area where you could get involved as part of a wider framework.
Well, Alistair, inspecting those are not really our cup of tea. And my understanding is typically these schools might have an element of this stuff in them. So it might be a portion of the school, the sports hall or a small roof or something. It's not as if the whole school needs doing. So it's gonna be, as far as I'm aware, fairly small, bitty work, which is not really our cup of tea. Our cup of tea is if an entire school needed to be demolished-
Building a new one.
Then we would-
Yeah. Yeah, great.
On the infrastructure policy-
Thank you so much for one.
On the infrastructure policy, well, I'm not really frustrated because we're not involved in HS2 or Lower Thames Crossing or any of those.
Yeah, it's a, it's a general thing. It's a general...
I agree. So what we've been campaigning for most of my career is for politics to be taken out of big infrastructure. And that's what John Armitt and the National Infrastructure Commission are doing, and they have had some success, in terms of, for example, setting up national roads, whereby the funding that is by some of the road fund license being hypothecated and taking the funding away from government. So that has worked to some extent. But on the bigger schemes like HS2 and so on, obviously there's some flip-flopping, which does frustrate me, not because we're involved in it, 'cause we aren't, but because I do think-
Yeah
... HS2 is the right thing to do for this country, and therefore we should get on with it, is my view. On the green agenda, what we've seen in our own activities in this market is there's a strong will to make buildings greener in the public sector, but there's not the means. So, there's no CapEx budgets for this stuff. Generally, there's an OpEx budget, so we have been wrestling with that. So it does seem that, you know, people are backstepping a little bit from the green agenda. I don't think that's gonna affect the long-run plan for 2050. I think this is just a bit of a hiccup, because that, of course, is enshrined in law, the 2050 carbon targets.
Yeah, so yes, I am a bit frustrated, but it doesn't materially affect what we do in either end.
Sure. No, and it was a wider question, really. Thanks so much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart. We now have a follow-up question from Joe Brent of Liberum. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, I'm just being greedy, as I've asked two follow-up questions, maybe one at a time again. Firstly, on the margin targets, I'm hearing loud and clear, 3% on GBP 1.6 billion. Do you think both of your key divisions will perform in a similar way from a margin perspective?
Yeah, so what we see, in terms of... I know the question is on margin. In terms of revenue, we do see faster revenue growth in the infrastructure side of the business, so that will, you know, sort of continue to sort of bring the balance a little bit more in line. Still growth in building, by the way, but faster growth in infrastructure. We see the margin in both businesses will be improving towards 3%. You know, the infrastructure is slightly ahead at the moment, yeah, and has been growing quickly, and some of the bolt-on acquisitions have been helping with that. We see both businesses, you know, growing up towards that 3%, Joe.
Thank you. The second question really is in the capital you're putting into investments. You know, I think you said that you've got three preferred bidder contracts with GBP 250 million GDV. What would the equity equivalent of that 250p , and over what time would you expect to make that capital investment, particularly-
Yeah, so,
By 2024?
Yeah. No, understood. So it's relatively small compared to the value of the scheme. So typically, the way that this would work is that we pay for an option over the piece of land. Options that, you know, would be typically tens of thousands of GBP. Yeah, then the more significant investment is in the planning, the design, the development, and all the process to get to a fully consented scheme. Yeah, where you'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of GBP on a scheme. So it would be... So it's that sort of order of magnitude, and then obviously, across the number of, you know, the number of schemes that we've got.
And then, of course, you know, as we get—we've got our first one over the line, financially closed in August, so just last month. Yeah, and that, and that's really good. That's sort of proved the proof of concept, if you like, show that we can work it. We've had some good lessons we've learned from that, and so hopefully we'll take those lessons into, you know, the process for getting the others over the line as well in due course.
Is there a rough rule of thumb? So it sounds like a very small number as a percentage of GDV of your capital. Can you give us a rough rule of thumb, like?
Yeah, exactly. In aggregate, yeah, in aggregate, you'll be looking at, you know, single-figure millions, you know, across a portfolio. As a percentage of GDV, it is very small.
So, you know, 1%-2% of GDV, something like that? That would be 2.5-
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's... Yes. So, you know, potentially something like that. I mean, they'll all vary a little bit, of course, depending on the individual schemes. And then, of course, the important thing, Joe, is that we're not, you know, as soon as we get to financial close, we take that sale. We're not then taking any of the, you know, we're not funding the construction or taking any of the ultimate risk in terms of being able to let those buildings or anything like that. So, but it's that, yeah, so it's single figure millions in aggregate across the overall portfolio that we're looking to invest there.
Got it. That makes perfect sense. Thank you very much, indeed.
Thank you, Mr. Brent. As we have no further questions at this time, I return call back over to Mr. Hocking for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.
Okay, thanks, George. So just to reiterate, everyone, really pleased with our progress against our strategy, and we look forward to talking to you again in six months or so. Until then, thanks all for attending, and see some of you on the roadshow. Take care. Bye-bye.