Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Hunting 2024 presentation. My name is Bruce Ferguson. I'm Finance Director for Hunting, and I'll be taking you through the annual presentation today alongside Ben Willey, our Head of Investor Relations. Unfortunately, Jim Johnson, our CEO, can't make the presentation. He suffered a recent family bereavement, and we wish Jim and his family well at this time. Now, we are going to go through the numbers today, and they're a strong set of numbers. I just want to pay tribute to our workforce and our management team for delivering those numbers throughout 2024. If we kick off by looking at the operational highlights for the year, we made a big play at a Capital Markets Day when we were talking about how we're going to refocus the business towards the strong international offshore and subsea markets.
That came through nicely when we saw our record KOC contract. That was the delivery of $231 million of OCTG to Kuwait Oil Gas. That started in July last year. We're halfway through that delivery. Daniel Tan and his team out in Asia-Pacific have done a fantastic job delivering tens of thousands of joints. Customer is very happy. That's a real record highlight for us during the year as well. Our subsea business has performed really well. It's up 49% year on year. We're seeing real growth in terms of our Guyana business, the titanium stress joints, and also in areas such as Turkey as well. Nice to see our Indian joint venture doing well. That contributed over $2 million to our EBITDA. We received our API license back in May last year. Very strong joint venture partnership.
Really excited about the opportunities for the Indian market as well. We also announced a five-year agreement with Chevron. That is for our completion business and, again, shows how we can land these long-term agreements with our position engineering for key companies such as Chevron for the Gulf. We are making good progress on non-oil and gas in terms of low carbon and transition sales. We are relatively flat in terms of year-on-year sales at $75 million, but it is a key focus for us to get to that 25% of our sales being from non-oil and gas and energy transition. We are up to $60 million of orders for our organic oil recovery product. Very excited about that. We are engaging with over 71 customers already. It is really starting to land the benefits of enhanced oil recovery, the reduced H2S for a low-cost solution.
We're really looking to push that one and commercialize that throughout 2025 and beyond. $14 million of energy transition sales booked. A lot of that's in geothermal, carbon capture. That's on mainland Europe, also down to the Asia-Pacific and also the States. It's an area we're looking to grow. I'd say it's a little bit slower as some of these projects are taking a little bit longer to come to fruition, especially on the carbon capture side. We're well placed. We've got good relationships and partnerships with CR Tubulars. We've done our connection testing as well. When that does take off, we're well positioned to benefit from that at the same time. We made a small investment, further investment in Cumberland Additive. That's our 3D additive manufacturing partner. We've now got 30% of that equity. It's an area we like. It's an area that's growing.
It's something that we believe can add value down the line. We are keeping a watch and brief in that area through our partnership with Cumberland Additive. As ever, we are always looking to take costs out where we can and be more efficient. The couple of areas that we will see that did struggle this year, a lot of successes, but there is a couple of areas that struggled. One was in our MEA operating division. Very little drilling going on in the U.K., as we all know. That has resulted in a resizing of that business. Now, that is ongoing. We will not be able to talk too much about that today. We talked about that in January, about up to $8-9 million of cost savings out of that division. That will be taking place throughout March. Titan as well with the U.S. onshore.
Being quieter last year, we saw gas prices go to negative. We have got to restructure that and right-size that for the U.S. completion market. That took place in October last year. There was about $6 million-$8 million of costs came out there as well. Good to see Rival. That was our drilling business. We went into a joint venture alongside Schlumberger there. We announced in March that we have disposed of our share. That is $13 million of receivables coming through that divestment. That is good. Again, we are just recycling capital out of commoditized product lines. We can put that back to work into higher margin areas. Again, our strong QHSE.
We do take a lot of pride in our stewardship in terms of QAHSE, in terms of statistics there, and also our increased scope in terms of emissions and hitting targets on that side. If we move on to financial highlights, and there are a few of those there, many very much in keeping with what we announced in January. We did see, despite the, I'd say, challenging market conditions, we still managed to get an increase of 13% on our top line, just over a billion dollars. EBITDA up nicely, 23% to $126 million. A lot of growth in that international offshore and subsea segments that we talked around. Our order book has come off slightly, but still very strong at $500 million. That is as we are working through our KOC orders. We are working through our subsea orders as well.
Behind that order book, we've probably got a billion dollars of pipeline. Very strong in terms of OCTG tenders that are out there, subsea tenders. The outlook for 2025 and beyond looks very strong. As the year progresses, we're going to replenish that order book with those tenders that are out there as well. I think one of the highlights has been the free cash flow. We've got over, we've generated over $140 million of free cash flow, which is well ahead of our targets that we set out there in our Capital Markets Day. In many ways, it's exceptional. I'd love to do that every year, but it's probably not going to happen. The timing was right in terms of the way we had self-help. We worked down our balance sheets. We took over $30 million of inventory out of our Titan balance sheets.
We also were very smart with our treasury use of working capital instruments, LC discounting, which accelerated payables in our KOC contract. We used bank acceptance bonds to delay payments to the Chinese mills as well. All that came together in a very strong cash, free cash flow generation. That has left us with over $100 million of cash on the bank. With that strong cash position, we then increased our year-on-year dividend to $0.115. With our net assets, there was an impairment that we'll talk around in terms of the Titan division. We're still left with over $900 million of net assets. If we look at the revenue profile, just really direction of travel here.
If we're looking at, as we talk around our subsea international business growing, the decoupling from the U.S. onshore, we can see that the increase on our offshore business going from around about 40% in 2022 up to 60% in 2024. We believe that trend will continue, along with less reliance on the North American market. Still our most important market, but the reliance on that U.S. onshore completion market is becoming less and less. If you look at our EBITDA growth, again, this pie chart here mirrors the strength in our OCTG. That's the big green slice there, along with our subsea. That in total is over 86% of our EBITDA coming from the OCTG and the subsea groupings. That really mirrors and validates our pivot towards that offshore subsea business. That is where the deepwater projects are. That's the ultra deepwater long-term.
It's not just the top line. It's also where the better margin profile is as well. We'll see that address once we get the recovery coming back through Titan this year and beyond. We'll see that perforating slice of the pie increase as well. The other side of the chart is our EBITDA margin. We set out a key target was a 15% EBITDA margin. That is reflected in that red dotted line across there. You can see some of the product lines are already achieving it in terms of the subsea at 20% and OCTG at 17%. A couple of others are lagging behind. Advanced Manufacturing is walking up there. And we'll get there once the sales prices kick in and we get operating leverage. The key focus for us is getting that perforating systems up from 1%.
We really believe we can get that to 10% this year. That's a combination of the cost reductions we talked around for the leadership change. We've got international sales focus coming through the likes of Saudi, Argentina, and also Mexico. We believe we can walk that up towards 10%, then ultimately get back to that 15% target we're looking for as well. Okay. I'm going to pass this over to Ben. He's going to take us through our product groups and also through our Capital Markets Day targets. I'll come back to talk about finance and our guidance.
Thanks very much, Bruce. Good morning. Just walking through our product groups and our 2030 Capital Markets Day ambitions that we talked about. Bruce has talked about the $231 million KOC order. We obviously announced that back in March, sorry, May of last year. We started to deliver it in September. That was four deliveries in the year. There are four deliveries to come in the first half of the year. Supporting the first half of 2025 will be the good, strong margins that we're getting through on that order. You can see how the KOC contract has actually transformed the margins in the year. EBITDA increasing from $48 up to $80 million, which is an increase from 11% up to 17%. Supporting that as well is the progress that we've actually made in North America.
We're already going to be talking about the impact on perforating systems. Through our TEC-LOCK W edge Connection, both in the onshore U.S., but also into Canada, that also has seen really good progress. We'll talk about that on the next slide. Our accessories manufacturing as well has been doing sales down into Guyana of Rexon as well. Our well completions packages have supported that. That's good margin work going into a high growth area as well. We're really, really pleased with the performance of OCTG in the year. As you can see at the year end, there's a $250 million order book. Obviously, that's still got quite a bit of KOC within that. As Bruce says, we'll be replenishing that as tenders come through. Just digging a little bit deeper into OCTG.
I think what we're trying to say on this slide is that with regards to our ambitions to grow our international profile, both in the Middle East, but also in West Africa and Asia-Pacific, and also within our JV in India, the number of threads cut by the group has actually increased 80% since 2022. Whether it's a SEAL-LOCK Connection going to KOC, whether it's the India joint venture, which was cutting the SEAL-LOCK threads, or the TEC-LOCK progress we can see in the blue bar at the bottom, there's good progress across all geographic areas. Again, really good area of growth contributing to the results in the year. That's also been supported by, as Bruce says, the great growth within our subsea business. That's been across all three businesses. That's M-Pro, our Spring business, and our Stafford business.
Our Stafford business does the valves and couplings for the likes of TechnipFMC. The real superstar of the year has actually been the Spring business completing titanium stress joint orders down into South America and Guyana. We completed on the Yellowtail. We are continuing to progress work on the Uaru and also the Whiptail orders as well, which will continue sales into 2025. M-Pro as well has successfully cross-sold through our Spring, with the help of our Spring business into Exxon, where we've sold a flow intervention system as well. All businesses there are sort of firing on all cylinders. What we're sort of signaling to the market as well is that the smoke signals coming out from South America is that late 2025, early 2026, there will be a new cycle of sort of orders coming through for our stress joints as well.
We are looking forward to hearing from Exxon then. You can see that the sales order book has come off a bit in the year. That is just the strong completion of spring during the year. As Bruce says, we will be looking to replenish our order book as the year progresses. Advanced manufacturing walked up. EBITDA margins flat at about 9%. I think the key story here is that there is still a very real pivot to non-oil and gas sales, which we are achieving through our advanced manufacturing business. The electronics business, which does the printed circuit boards, still predominantly oil and gas, but securing new defense and medical sales. The Dearborn business, on the other hand, they have got a sales order book of $100 million, of which 80% of that is now aviation. That will be completed in the year ahead.
Here is another one of our CMD targets to pivot our revenues to non-oil and gas, particularly through the advanced manufacturing business. Again, great pleasing results. We look to further improve that going into 2025. Bruce has talked about the perforating systems headwinds. The restructuring, which has generated savings of $6.5 million in the year, has been added to by a further restructuring headcount reduction in the year ahead. As we have already mentioned, we are trying to aim for a 10% EBITDA margin in the year ahead. International sales, which predominantly are components down into South America and also particularly into the Middle East, are high margin work. We have increased our international sales in the year on year. Again, we are looking forward to sort of restoring profitability there. Other manufacturing, this is where our organic oil recovery revenues are going to be recorded.
We announced the $60 million of orders back in August. You can see that the EBITDA contribution has sort of fallen off between 2023 and 2024. That's because we actually sold our 10K exploration and production business in 2023. You can see the impact of some of the OR contracts coming through in the sales order book. Again, Chris Bensky, who's leading that business unit, is looking to enter new markets. We'll talk about that in a few moments' time as well. Just looking ahead into our capital to markets day ambitions that we announced back in September 2023, here is just a sort of a few sort of tombstones that we think is important for investors to understand. OCTG is now 44% of group revenue. That shows the improvement in our international sales.
The $463 million of revenue, 200 of that is in the Western Hemisphere, North America. 261 of that is actually Eastern Hemisphere with the likes of the KOC orders. Very much delivering on the ambition to grow international sales into key African, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific markets. Subsea continuing its long-range sales target, which is on track and has been delivered. The $14.7 million of geothermal and carbon capture sales shows that the customers are there, the markets are real, and they're across the key geographies that we talked about. We're continuing to walk up our EBITDA margin. It's 12% this year. That's despite the drag that we've seen from the Emir and Hunting Titan operating segments. We've had a stellar year in terms of free cash flow conversion. We anticipate it normalizing back to 50% going forward.
Just going to OR for a few moments. Hunting's getting very excited about the technology. This is just a little bit of a reminder of the sorts of clients that we're trialing and piloting the technology with and in the jurisdictions that we are doing. The production enhancements is starting to see good customer acceptance. That is sort of reflected in the $60 million of orders that we sort of announced last year. We continue to do so. We're continuing to accelerate that. The yellow blobs in America show these are new markets which Hunting wants to access over time where we see this technology being applied to. Energy transition, we've talked about it already. I think the most important point about this slide is that it's not just between Europe and Asia-Pacific and the US.
This is across all product lines where Hunting Titan has actually contributed to the actual carbon capture sales. The geothermal is actually with OCTG in Asia-Pacific and in Europe. The markets are there. It's very, very real. As Bruce has already said, despite carbon capture probably being more the end of the decade, geothermal is continuing to accelerate, which again, Hunting continues to test new connections at our facility in Houston to make sure we're qualified for the right projects as and when they're presented to us. We're probably going to get a lot of questions about M&A. I think I'll just give a little bit of an overview before those questions. We're still looking at subsea well completion and non-oil and gas opportunities, okay? We're looking at numerous opportunities which Jim and Bruce are looking at, focusing, as Bruce says, on subsea.
There are also some really good businesses. We believe that we can capture them for attractive multiples. In the context of oil and gas, that is probably between four to six times EBITDA. We are also happy to pay a little bit more if the non-oil and gas opportunity fits the group's growth profile. With the cash and the new borrowing facilities that we have secured in the year, we have plenty of firepower to achieve that in the year ahead. I will just pass back to Bruce. Thank you.
Thanks, Ben. Just again, just a little bit more detail around the financial figures coming through. I would highlight on here, obviously, the revenue despite the tough markets headwinds, up 13%. Other key areas there that we have that restructuring continuing throughout the year, following on from the Titan cost restructure. Emir's going to be a big part of 2025 going forward. We're also doing a bit more RIFS in electronics and tidying up some of the cost space in the States as well. A key highlight is the working capital cycle. That's something we particularly haven't been criticized for in the past. I think it's great to see us getting to grips with that working capital metric as well. Working capital cycle down from 215 days to 109.
A big thing that Ben touched on there was the strength of these new banking facilities that now have been placed from October last year, which gives us that firepower and that optionality going forward for M&A and other capital allocations. A little bit more on the cost reductions and restructuring. The EMEA, I can't talk about that too much. That is ongoing. We'll give a bit more details in April. Needless to say that the results have been poor for a number of years in EMEA. Market conditions are not improving given the fiscal regime. We need to take some action there as well. That restructuring process will happen over the next few months. Also, it's a bias moving from the quieter U.K. and European markets, putting assets down towards the Middle East, which is more active and it's closer to the customer base.
That's the direction of travel for the region there. Also, again, looking at central costs, looking at shared services, efficiency savings, getting that margin back, addressing the drags on that EBITDA margin we were talking about earlier as well. Some other efficiencies going out throughout the group. That will continue throughout the year. I think what was quite heartening to see was that disposal of Rival in terms of we talk about returning capital, improving that, getting that up from the current 9% up to the 15%, which the capital markets they target. It's just trimming that capital base and making that capital work better for us. Taking that out of commoditized product lines and putting that into the higher margin product lines or M&A down the track so we can get that returning capital back to where it needs to be.
Again, just to reinforce the strong revenue growth we've seen over the year, the real stars there being the OCTG and also the subsea. Out of the five product groups, we've seen growth in four out of the five. The perforating system reflecting the still heavily correlated to that US onshore market. Less frack crews, less drilling going on. Gas price and the premium was down to negative last year due to the pipeline capacities. That is starting to change. We are seeing the Henry Hub price back up to $4. We are seeing a doubling of LNG capacity. We're seeing a more supportive administration. We do think combined with our cost restructuring, focus on international growth that that perforating performance will improve. In terms of our P&L, just to highlight some of the key areas there as well. We've been through the revenue growth.
Good to see the gross profit up a point to 26%. If you think about some of those product lines that have been challenged in terms of perforating, in terms of the Emir group, that blended gross profit, 26%, does take that into account. We're still showing growth there as well, which is good to see. 13% higher EBITDA. Our tax rate around about 26%. We do have some shelter in the U.S. with deferred tax assets. A 55% increase in EPS, which is good to see, allowing us to pay the $0.115 declared there as well. We did talk at the Capital Markets Day about being more transparent in terms of our product groups.
You want to give more flavor and transparency around how we perform all the way through from a product line to the operating segment along the top and take that right down to EBITDA margins. Allows people to perhaps model a little bit easier and perhaps realize the value of the company, what's in there. Again, I won't go this in great detail. You do see the EMEA group that has had a negative EBITDA. That is why we're taking signal write-off. There was not an adjusting item that comes to the underlying numbers. That will not continue going forward. It does need attention along with perforating systems as well. Other groups are approaching. We've got the metrics out there. 50% EBITDA margin is the hurdle we're looking for. We believe we'll achieve that in a number of those areas going forward.
We're already there in a number of those areas as well. Balance sheet very strong in terms of the cash generation that we've been talking around. We did have a write-down, a non-cash impairment on our Titan business. That was a function really of modeling our future cash flows going forward. Obviously, market conditions aren't as strong as they have been. It is very sensitive, that modeling, to things such as the risk premium, discount rates, and also growth rates going forward. It is quite a complex modeling, let's call it that way. That resulted in a $109 million non-cash impairment to the Titan business. It only leaves around about $6 million for Goodwill in our Titan business. Strong balance sheet, working capital reduced by $60 million, which is great to see. We've got our cash sitting there at $104 million. Okay?
That allowed us to pay that dividend. That allows us to give us that optionality going forward with our capital allocation. Whether that's shareholder returns, whether that's on M&A, or whether that's supporting some big projects that we're seeing in the likes of KOC and subsea as well. There is a returning cap edging up towards the 9%. In terms of working capital, a bit more detail here. We can see the sell fell. The top line, I guess, is the one I'd point to, the $140 million of inventory at the end of 2023 coming down to $108 million. You just see consistently good inventory days, receivable days, extending the payable days. That allowed us to generate that cash. Our working capital metric, we set a target of 40% for the year. We got that down to 29%.
We see a more normalized metric around about the 35% mark going forward. Good progress being made by the whole team. The cash flow generation, moving on from that working capital, you can see the EBITDA coming through with that working capital movement positive, which is nice to see, of 53. CapEx is fairly light. It is below depreciation. It is at $30 million. We are guiding towards $35-$40 million for the upcoming year. A lot of that is maintenance spend. It is in areas such as capacity increases in the likes of for Wuxi as well and just some more efficient machinery going forward as well. Our net cash is down from 2023 to 2024. It is at $3.5 million. That is the benefit of the shelter from the deferred tax assets. All that comes through to $140 million of free cash flows.
We've got dividend payments going out there and some share awards that we're paying for for the employee trusts. All that comes together to give us a movement in cash of $105 million, which is a really great performance. In terms of our guidance for 2025, we're much in line there in terms of our EBITDA, $135 million-$145 million in terms of our growth. We're looking at EBITDA margins between 12%-13% going forward. We'll give some details on our effective tax rate and CapEx there as well. We've put our free cash flow conversion at 50%, which is back to our previous targets. That should give us a cash in bank of around $135 million-$145 million for the year. Good progress being made in 2025. In terms of the phasings of the year, we obviously have KOC coming through for the first half.
We're confident we're going to land a lot of these tenders in OCTG and subsea towards the back half of the year. I think a lot of things are coming together to, as Jim mentioned in his last presentation, to make 2026 a real bumper year as well. That's the culmination of all our cost restructures coming through. It's market conditions. It's the LNG pipelines coming on stream, opportunity for M&A coming through as well. That's what we're buoyant around, not just 2025, the progress in 2025, but also the conditions for 2026 as well. Just to, I guess, give the background of why we're confident about 2025, order book still at $500 million with that's not including our Titan $250 million there as well. That's a good, strong order book that gives a good coverage. 90% of that will be delivered in invoice through 2025.
We will replenish that through the course of 2025 as well from that tender pipeline we have talked about. Another strong market is North America. We are seeing improvements in the rig count in the frack crews. That does give us confidence. The price of Henry Hub at $4 does not do us any harm either. That will improve our U.S. business. We just talk about some of the positive signs of the market, whether that is carbon capture, electricity demand. We are seeing the data centers driving energy demand. That will require LNG. That will require domestic gas production in the States. The States, although we are still pivoting, we are talking about international offshore, is a key market for us. It is the biggest market in the world. We are well positioned to take advantage of that.
We believe these statistics, geothermal will be there as well once they get the projects sanctioned and permitted. We are well positioned for our traditional oil and gas and that non-oil and gas as well. South America, again, really good example. We are now doing $24 million of revenue. Five years ago, that had been less than 10. The continent really touches every single product line. Guyana is the U.S. completions. It is the titanium riser joints. Suriname coming on stream. That will be a similar reservoir stream. That will be similar product lines. Argentina, we have got our Titan product lines going in there as well. Brazil, we have got OCTG with tubersex along with subsea as well. It is a real growth area for us going forward. That is only going to increase. Our Middle East, India, and Africa is very buoyant in terms of our tender activity.
We talk about our billion-dollar tender pipeline. A lot of that is emanating from this region. We're seeing areas such as Bahrain. We're seeing the Abu Dhabis. We're seeing Turkmenistan and also down the west coast of Africa. A real strength in terms of activity. Looking for energy security. We've got guys down in Iraq last week. There's some real strong potential tenders coming through there as well. We are seeing more unconventional sales for the Titan division into Saudi and Abu Dhabi at the same time. It's a real prime market for organic oil recovery in places like Oman and Qatar. Some real good success in there. We're going to build on that at the same time. India will be big for us. Growing market. Great joint venture. We're already making profit in our first year.
We'll double that going forward into 2025 and beyond into 2026. Really strong area for us. In summary, 2024, very strong year. Really pleased with that. Considering the market conditions, delivered a really strong set of results. We are on track in terms of delivering on our strategic milestones. Our liquidity, our cash in the bank puts us in a really strong position going forward as well to deliver on that strategy. Our 2025 guidance indicates another good year of growth. With that, I'll open up for questions. Ladies first.
Thanks very much, Victoria McCulloc at RBC. Could you just start with maybe talking about how the execution of the KOC contracts has impacted your approach to tendering and what you can tender for going forward? Secondly, since it's you, Bruce, it's an OR question. What's in your 2025 guidance for OR?
Where could this go by 2030? Because it was not something we talked about really at all in the Capital Markets Day to the degree. Where could that business go in terms of magnitude?
Okay. I'll take my favourite first. I'll take organic oil recovery. For 2025, it is quite conservative. We have $10 million of sales, $3 million or $4 million of EBITDA in for the 2025 numbers. Just because it does take a little bit of time for that commercialisation of that product. I think the upside is huge given the nature of the technology, the fact it does enhance recovery. It is low cost. It ticks all the boxes for the operators. There is no reason for them not to adopt it. We have been cautious in terms of how we have modelled that in the 2030 numbers. The upside is there.
Very difficult to see where that can go. But we've got ambitions, let's say, well above the $10 million. I think given the traction we're getting in the market, I think there is a really good opportunity. We could well exceed that $10 million. It's more a timing issue from our side. I think that's an organic oil recovery. In terms of what KOC's taught us, there's a $230 million order that we're now at the top table. We won that tender. More importantly, we've executed that tender. It's a tough customer. They're a demanding customer. Very grateful for that work. We've turned around that whole tens of thousands of joints from the mill, threaded in Wuxi, shipped that to the customer. Customer delighted with the performance.
That can only help us win and demonstrate we can win more tenders of that size going forward in that region. That has certainly not done us any harm. That is what our ambitions are now. Jim, we talk about a $10-$40 million order was a good order back a couple of years ago. We are now in a different quantum. We want to continue doing that. We have proven to the market and ourselves we can do it.
Thanks.
Thank you. Richard Dawson from Berenberg. I just want to pick up on 2026. I know you are not guiding to it. If you look at sort of how the business is growing at the moment, sort of everything is running pretty solidly except for Titan and Emir. They are being addressed across 2025. The setup into 2026 looks very strong.
I suppose firstly, do you agree with that? But equally, when we look forward, what are the key risks sort of for 2026 and actually potentially hitting that 15% target?
Yeah. First of all, I do agree. I think 2026 is set up very well for those reasons. I think the US market will continue to improve. I think our cost restructures will address the drags in the business, if you like. There'll be more opportunity for M&A coming through. There's long tenders coming out there, which is great to see. The subsea business, we're going to see tenders, I believe, being awarded in 2025, but the revenue being recognised in 2026 beyond. That's just a timing issue as well. The things we can control, we're confident in that outlook for 2025 and 2026 and achieving the 2030 numbers we set at the Capital Markets Day.
Now, if something happens, geopolitical, oil price goes to $30, all bets are off. We do not believe that will happen. Within our control, what we can see, order books, pipeline, market fundamentals, our balance sheets, things we can control, we are confident in that '25. '26 and beyond being even stronger.
Okay. Maybe a quick follow-up just on M&A there. You have mentioned you continue to evaluate those opportunities. Are we any closer to a deal?
Yes, we are. Always difficult to tell. As Jim says, it is not like Walmart just going to take our three M&A targets off the shelf. We are actively engaged, let us put it that way, with a number of potential candidates. Some of that is in an official process. Some of that is through discussions. It is never easy until you get it over the line.
I would say the hopper, really good quality candidates. The advantage we have is that we do have the cash. We have the reputation in that market. There's not a lot of private equity sniffing around in the sector. The multiples are sensible. Really, we've got everything sort of aligned to do a couple of deals this year.
Perfect. Thank you.
I think I've got four, Bruce, if that's okay. Thanks. First of all, on Titan, can you help us bridge FY2024 to FY2025? I think you're saying 10% margin, which is an increment of probably $11 million-$12 million, something of that order. I think Ben said that cost savings delivered in 2024 was about $6.5 million. Not sure how much of that annualizes into next year. I think you said another $6 million-$8 million benefits. Is it mainly cost saving benefits?
There are probably three or four things. One is the cost benefits of the restructure we saw in October last year. We will get the full benefit of that $6 million-$7 million. There are further cost reductions happening in terms of looking at distribution centers and some further headcount reductions. There is a pivot away towards a more international business, which will help as well in terms of the Saudi, the Abu Dhabi's, Argentina, and Mexico as well. The benefit of that is it is top-line improvement. Also, the margin profile is better than our US domestic market. There really are efficiency savings. There are production variance savings as well. The comfort I also get is we have had a couple of months in 2025, and we are ahead of budget.
We are looking at that $20 million EBITDA turnaround to go from basically 0 to 1% EBITDA margin up to the 10%. We are on track with the new management team in place as well to deliver on that turnaround for 2025.
Okay. That sounds encouraging. I guess this feeds into the next question. When do you think, absent M&A, the group will get to an EBITDA margin of 15%, which is the target?
I think that's almost been we're hopeful to get there by end of 2025. I think it's almost a timing issue. The 15% EBITDA margin by end of 2025.
I think that's by end of 2026 in terms of the cost takeout, addressing the EMEA and the perforating systems drag, along with an opportunity to look at M&A, reinvesting that capital into high-margin products, whether that's organic oil recovery, into other product lines as well. The subsea, you're looking at 20% EBITDA margins already there. OCTG is 17%. It really is a question of just diluting the drag and reinvesting capital into the higher margin areas and continue looking at cost efficiencies, structures, shared services. The crystal ball, EBITDA margin crystal ball, we'd say I'd be hopeful in 2026 we could get there.
Okay. Being generous, sort of run rate by the end of FY2025?
We're looking at 13. We're at 12%, up to that 13-13.5% by the end of this year.
Okay. Thank you.
India looks as though it's hit its straps pretty quickly, actually. $2.3 million profit after tax contribution. Can you just give us a sense of the scale behind that revenue, sort of EBITDA for the entity as a whole, if you like? I think I saw some reference to a second site under review. What are your aspirations?
It has hit the ground running. Joint ventures do not normally make profit. It is in your business plan for the first year. It does not normally happen in the third or fourth year. It has been great to hit the ground running. Great partner. We have got the benefit of being first adopter, first entry. We have gotten there early by a really good partner. There is a market there with the likes of ONGC and Reliance that is really kicking off. We have managed to benefit that. We have got the API licensing quickly.
That allows us to put that product and package that product to market. We are looking to double that next year, Toby. We are looking to get up towards the $4 million and $5 million of contribution. That will continue to grow in terms of that joint venture. It is a threading plant. Where we are looking for the breakthrough is we are looking at a second facility. There is offshore drilling on the East Coast. That would require us to build a threading facility on that East Coast to service that market. It is still very early days. We have not modelled that through. We have not agreed that with the partners, etc., the structure. That would look to double that type of business again.
You are looking, if you are getting up to next year, say this year up to four to five, could we do the same again over a couple of years with the East Coast as well? It is a sizable contribution from a growing market.
Okay. Thank you. Too many positive questions. I want to ask you about tariffs, please. I mean, difficult to call because no one knows where the cards are going to land. What would you say, which product groups are potentially most exposed where you have a cross-border supply chain, I do not know, Canada or aerospace or something like that?
Yeah. I think we are fairly fortunate. We are pretty sheltered from direct tariffs. There will be a couple of areas. One is that Canadian, we do sell perforating systems in Canada. That is going from the likes of Milford and Texas up there.
Now, we do have got a lot of stock on the ground. We've put stock on the ground, relocated it there just to give us nine months. By then, nine months, who knows what's going to happen with tariffs? That's one exposure I think we can mitigate. I think the other one is on perforating systems. We're buying in material. There has been chat around some of our competitors raising prices on the back of their prices increasing coming in if they're importing from Germany, etc. Again, we've got $108 million of stock there as well. Really, Mexico, we've got a manufacturing facility in Mexico that does $14-$15 million of manufacturing work, but not significant. I think from a direct tariff point of view, we're fortunate and sheltered. It's more of that indirect impact in terms of inflation, recessions, etc., which we can't control.
From our perspective, our supply chains are set up in the right area, onshore in the right area to make sure that's pretty well mitigated.
Okay. Good answer. Thank you.
Okay.
Hi, it's Alex Brooks at CannaCord. And I too am going to get multiple questions. First one is on aviation. That $80 million backlog you highlighted on the way through at Dearborn, was that a series of very small contracts or have I missed a major order?
It's multiple contracts on that one, Alex. Yeah, it's a lot of it. It's a course key. It's a lot of the for that aviation business as well. But it's not one major chunky contract there. That's more sort of fragmented.
Okay. Can I come back to the threading capacity? Because obviously, you've added a substantial mill in India. We're talking about a second.
There's a finite number of threading facilities in the world. Are you basically adding all of the incremental capacity at the moment or are other people adding as well?
There's not a lot of mills and threading capacity being added in terms of new threading capacity. Obviously, shifts are a big thing. People can put in, add on a second, third shift. They can add on an additional threading line, squeeze another threading line at some of these big steel mills like Vallourec and Tenaris. We are adding new capacity in terms of India. We are looking at adding capacity, for example, in our Chinese plant. That's within the footprint of the existing plant, but just adding a separate threading line because that will give us more capacity there as well. To answer your question, there's not a lot of new capacity coming on stream.
It's mainly already there. It's just more variable threading capacity that competitors are adding. We are adding incremental in the likes of India and also in China as well.
Jumping around a bit, on the Goodwill, obviously, you've had a significant write-down on Titan this year. Can you remind us what's left in that Goodwill bucket?
Yeah. There's about $46 million in total for the group. I think $6 million of that is what's left of Titan, the remnants of Titan. We've got some of the subsea acquisitions in there as well. It's diminished on that front. The majority was obviously the Titan, and that's really been addressed now.
On that Titan write-down, there is a significant tax impact. Can you just walk through what that is? Because obviously, you and I have talked about it.
I think the high-level answer is the one thing that's slightly different in the U.S. is you do get tax shelter. You can write off your Goodwill impairment in the U.S., which you can't do in other jurisdictions. There is a $26 million deferred tax benefit to that, which will improve our cash tax going forward. I think that's the best way to look at that one.
That's all I had. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Okay. I think that's all the questions. I'd like to thank you for all your attention and your questions. I look forward to catching up later. Thanks.