Okay. Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, everybody.
Welcome to Keller's interim results presentation for 2022. Firstly, to safety, there are no tests in terms of fire alarms today, so if the alarm does go off, it is for real, and we'll be following James out of the building, during the using the normal routes. Could I ask that everybody switch their mobile phones to silent as we go through the presentation? I stand before you today a happy CEO, indeed, a very happy CEO. You know, since we put together our plans for 2022 back in the autumn of 2021, the world has changed a lot. It's changed a massive amount indeed. You know, inflation is rampant. Russia has invaded Ukraine.
You've got situations where supply chains are becoming more problematic, and while, you know, labor seems to have eased a little bit, there's certainly a fair spread of material shortages around the areas where we operate. Confidence, both in our clients and indeed the markets, seems to ebb and flow reasonably quickly. All of this is, you know, something which our operations face every single day. Nonetheless, despite all of that, today we announce a record set of results for the first half of 2022, and we're confident as we look forward to the second half that we'll fulfill our expectations for the full year. Today, we'll follow our normal agenda. I will give you a brief summary.
David will then take you through the detail in terms of financial results, and then I will follow up with an insight into business update generally, a summary and outlook, and then finally we'll move on to questions and answers. To the summary. As I stated, it's a record performance, despite the environment we find ourselves in. In the first half, revenue's up 31%. Roughly, there's three components to that. First one is acquisitions. Second one is the pass-through of inflation, which I'd remind you is, you know, has been something which all of our businesses have had to deal with. And then finally, just raw organic growth across, pretty much spread across all of our divisions.
In terms of profits, profit's up 19%, and it's had exactly the same three drivers as revenue, and in addition, it's had the headwinds of the residual effects of inflation, which, you know, we haven't managed to pass on all of that. The adverse impact operationally of disrupted supply chains, and I'll come onto that a little bit later, and there's some other operational challenges. Debt at GBP 194 million. I'll leave that to David to talk about, because there's some moving parts in there. But nonetheless, a good story, slightly down on what we thought a month ago. Safety. Safety is a little bit disappointing in terms of performance.
In terms of activities, I will cover this a bit more detail a little bit later on. In terms of activities, you know, I'm very pleased with what we've achieved in the period, and I'm pretty confident we'll make continuous progress over time. Strategically, we continue our quiet progress in terms of execution. Excitingly, you know, one feature of that is NEOM, which, you know, again, I'll cover a little bit more detail later on. This has clearly got all the characteristics of what could be a huge project. Our record order book fuels our confidence that, you know, as we move into the second half and carry the momentum forward, that we'll be well-positioned for delivering our expectations in 2022.
That's really evidenced by the board's confidence in increasing the dividend for the interim. With that, I'm gonna hand you over to David, who will talk about the financial details.
Thank you, Mike. Just to add my own welcome this morning to those in the room and those joining via the webcast. The format for the financial slides today are similar to what you'll have seen in the past. I'll first provide some comment on the income statement for the half year, looking at both underlying and non-underlying items. Provide a waterfall analysis that identifies the key bridging items between underlying operating profit of half year 2021 to half year 2022. I'll then talk through the cash flow, some balance sheet highlights, including net debt, and then highlight some look-ahead modeling considerations for the second half. Let's start with the income statement. This slide shows the summary income statement for the half year 2022, with the 2021 comparative to the right.
This is taken from the income statement that was included in the announcement this morning. Let's turn to underlying profit first. Revenue between the half years increased by GBP 353.3 million, or 36%, which is the equivalent of 31% on a constant currency basis. This does include the impact of the RECON acquisition, which is about GBP 112 million. On an organic constant currency basis, the increase was 20%. Volume was up in all divisions, as we saw increased activity with markets further emerging from the impact of the pandemic. On a constant currency basis, North America increased by 39%, 22% excluding the impact of the RECON acquisition. Europe by 26% and EMEA by 7%.
The volume growth was accompanied by good profit growth with a 26% increase to GBP 49.6 million, a 19% increase on a constant currency basis. As Mike mentioned, these are record profits for us, and the fact that they've been delivered against a backdrop of significant macro, socio, and economic challenges highlights our resilience as a business and makes it all the more pleasing for the teams across the globe. Our margins have reduced by 30 basis points to 3.7%. The key reason for this is that our ability to pass on inflationary costs doesn't always result in a markup, thereby diluting margins. We did have some operational challenges in the North America foundations business, which impacted profitability and the margin rate as well. More on that later when I go through to the operating profit bridge slide.
Other highlights include the reduction in the tax rate to 25%. This is driven by the mix of profits across the jurisdictions. EPS is up 31%, driven by the improved profitability and the reduction in the tax rate. As previously notified, the interim dividend is increased by 5% to GBP 0.132, which gets us back on a growth trajectory. We now move on to the operating bridge slide. This shows the major items driving the profit movement half year on half year. This should be a format you're familiar with from previous presentations. Moving from left to right, starting with 2021 half-year profit of GBP 39.5 million, we highlight the FX impact, which was GBP 2.1 million. Coming to the North America division, which is down GBP 11.1 million on a constant currency basis.
The first item relates to the one-off claim that landed in the first half of 2021. That doesn't repeat this year. The second bar represents a net reduction in the division's business profitability caused by a variety of factors. The contribution of RECON is included in this bar, but has been netted out by the lower profitability of our foundations business as a result of some challenging operational issues experienced in the half. These include labor and material availability that has impacted productivity, cost increases. While we do pass on inflationary cost increases, there is a lag which has a bottom line impact. Finally, project execution issues that resulted in us taking some losses. There was one sizable contract issue in the first half where significant remediation and rework was required.
As is usual in these circumstances, we have prudently taken the full cost of the rework prior to submitting a claim to the client, which remains ongoing. The next bar brings out the increased profitability of Suncoast, driven by single-family home volumes remaining high throughout the half, offset by the impact of increased steel prices for the high rise business following the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Now turning to Europe, which was up GBP 8.2 million. Right across all the business units in Europe, there was healthy volume growth. Nothing major to call out, just good execution after the logistical challenges from COVID in early 2021. All the businesses coping really well with any impacts from the Ukraine war. HS2, this large project, continues to be executed in accordance with plan.
The acquisition included there relates to the NordPile business in Finland that was acquired in H2 last year. The AMEA division is having a fantastic year, up GBP 11.1 million. This is predominantly driven by turnaround rather than volume growth. Taking the bars in turn, suspended contracts in 2021 related predominantly to Mozambique. In H1 2021, we had costs with no revenue, and the settlement agreement was signed in H2 2021. Middle East and Africa were still heavily impacted by COVID in early 2021, so the recovery shown is driven by the emergence from these challenges, along with the benefit of restructuring that was undertaken in 2021. The turnaround in Australia is driven by the emergence from COVID-related challenges that impacted 2021. Minor increase in central costs gets you to GBP 49.6 million operating profit for the first half.
Moving to the next slide, I will cover off non-underlying items. Again, the income statement, but this time focusing on the middle column. Non-underlying operating costs were GBP 6.1 million for the first half. The analysis of these costs is shown in the top right-hand box. GBP 3.5 million relates to an exceptional contractual dispute. GBP 1.2 million relates to the cost associated with the ERP rollout. As this is a cloud-based software as a service solution, we are unable to capitalize and will therefore show it as an exceptional item in the coming years. The restructuring cost relates to the exit from two small non-core geographies during the half. Another highlight is the amortization of acquired intangibles on RECON, which is coming to this table for the first time.
The sum of all items across underlying and non-underlying performance gives a post-tax statutory profit of GBP 24.4 million for the half year. I'll now move on to the cash flow. This page shows the summary of cash flow from operating profit down to net debt. We had a GBP 41.6 million free cash outflow before interest and tax in the half, predominantly driven by the working capital needs to satisfy the growth in the business. I draw your attention to the working capital box on the right that has the analysis. As we have said many times in the past, we are a positive working capital business, so we should expect an outflow trend as the business grows. What is interesting with the analysis here is the differential between the growth in receivables and the growth in payables compared to the first half last year.
Given material and labor availability and the pressures this has exerted on the supply chain during the half, suppliers have opportunistically sought tighter payment terms, including payment on delivery in some cases. We expect this trend to continue in the short term with a return to normalcy next year. The other highlights are the acquisition spend of GBP 15.6 million. GBP 8.6 million relates to the contingent consideration on RECON, GBP 3.4 million on GKM in the acquisition in May 2022, and the final payout on Bencor of GBP 3.8 million following the contract settlement in North America last year. Worthy of note also is the foreign exchange movement. While we have a tailwind on revenue and profit, we do have a headwind on debt, given that it is mostly denominated in U.S. dollars.
In the bottom box, on the right, we highlight the net debt on an IAS 17 covenant basis of GBP 194 million. Leverage on a lender covenant basis at the half year was 1.1x, well within our target range of 0.5x-1.5x. We'll talk more on net debt later. Next, a look at the summary balance sheet showing the half years along with the position at the end of 2021. The analysis of the movement from the end of 2021 are set out in the tables. No real highlights to touch upon other than to point out the significant FX movements given the strengthening U.S. dollar and our volume of activity in that region. The next slide provides some more detail on the net debt profile during the year.
Looking at the trend in the graph, you can see the increase in net debt driven by the ramp up of activity levels and acquisition outflows in the first half of the year. Net debt did increase by GBP 80.6 million, with average levels increasing by 76%. As mentioned, that is driven predominantly by the working capital requirements. We have operated well within our covenants throughout the year, with leverage at 1.1x at period end against a limit of 3x, and interest cover at 27.5x against a minimum of 4x. At the half year, we have GBP 215.7 million of undrawn borrowing facilities along with GBP 85.8 million of cash and cash equivalents. The next slide shows some look-ahead modeling considerations.
This slide is intended to provide some insight into how some of the drivers of actual reported financial performance should be thought about as we step through the second half of 2022. Some closed profits. We expect residential volume to taper off, driven by the macro environment of increased interest rates. But we don't expect any further increases in steel prices for high-rise contracts. Large projects similar to H1. Portfolio, we'll continue to focus on bolt-on acquisitions. Operating profit percentage, we do expect that to improve versus H1. In terms of profit phasing, we do still expect a moderate H2 bias. Interest in H2, we expect to increase, given higher interest rates. The tax rate we declare here of, at the half is 25%, which will be, what we consider it for the full year.
On cash and working capital, we are targeting around the 1x leverage, well within the 0.5x-1.5x target range. That's it from me. Thank you for your attention, and I'll now pass you back to Mike, who will take you through the business performance update.
Thank you, David. Right, onto the business update. Starting with safety. In terms of performance, safety, you know, rather disappointingly, we slightly moved back on both AFR and TRIR. That really, I think, is a good wake-up call that, you know, we cannot afford to be complacent. We've built up a bit of momentum here. We need to keep it up. I would point out, and I'll point it out to this audience, but I certainly wouldn't point it out to the team, that those rates are significantly better than any of the industry comparatives in terms of averages wherever we are present. As I say, we set our own targets, really. It's important we continuously improve on those. If nothing else, just from the cultural viewpoint, you know, I think that momentum is important.
In terms of actions, you know, I'm very pleased with the way the safety leadership team and indeed at the divisional level, the teams at that level and BUs are actually working together. They've worked together this year and actually worked on an updated induction program, which is being rolled out at the moment, which actually sets a higher level of expectations in terms of people joining the company. This is particularly important when we go back into a growth mode and we're taking people back on. It's very important from the outset that, you know, people are given as high a set of standards and then safety is built in from the get go.
We have continued our focus on near-miss reporting to try to get ahead of incidents, and also, you know, demonstrated leadership, by making sure people are out there visually being seen doing safety leadership tours. Some practical things, you know, blind spot cameras on rigs. You know, this is not commonplace. It's commonplace in Europe, but hasn't been common elsewhere. That's, you know, for us is part of a, if you like, a leveling up program, if you will, of making sure that all of our kit and all of our new rigs, actually have the blind spot cameras fitted to them and where possible, you know, enhancements beyond that. Virgin Pulse, I think, you know, that's a good example of one of many wellbeing initiatives that we've got across the company.
David was out this morning trying to get his steps in because he's on one of the. His particular team is being particularly competitive, the Legal Eagles. It's good because it gets everybody engaged, it gets everybody talking, and most importantly, it gets everybody out there being a bit active. Continued support for UNICEF. There's more details of that in the brief. I think it is, while we do sponsor lots of initiatives locally, and indeed, we've got, you know, a trust in Europe and Poland for our Ukrainian employees to support them, things like that. I think it's also important from a corporate level that we recognize our broader stakeholders. In terms of climate change, this slide's got a lot of information on it.
It's a very rich slide from that prospect. Indeed, I think the original version of this was in four fonts. There was so much in it. There's a lot of, you know, keen activity here. A few things to draw out. You know, we've specifically said that we're working on all three of these areas. Scope 3 for us is by far the biggest, but it's also the most difficult to get at. You know, we're rolling out the education of the carbon calculator. We're getting embedded in our bidding processes. As far as practically possible, trying to influence clients in that regard, to take solutions which have a lower carbon footprint. You know, frankly, different clients in different places have different responses to that.
We will do our bit, but it's certainly not a golden bullet. On a more practical basis, the area which we can directly influence at the moment is Scope 2, and you know, we're making you know, good inroads into that from a standing start. I think and you'll notice the blue box at the bottom there, that at the moment, you know, at the half year, our level Scope 2 emissions have reduced from our 2019 pre-COVID baseline of more than 20%, which is twice what we set as a target. And that's pleasing to see. I expect you know, that momentum to continue, and I would you know, sincerely hope that we are well on track for hitting our target of 2020.
Sorry, 2030, in terms of net zero emissions for Scope 2. In terms of the order book, you know, order book is hit a record high. You know, clearly there's some inflation in there. There's a bit of FX as well. But also pleasingly, it's across the whole board. It's across, you know, pretty much all of the business. There's one or two business units which have stepped back year-on-year, but, you know, by and large, you know, everywhere has got at least six months worth of coverage, and it's, you know, decent quality coverage. More particular from my point of view, a lot of the business units have, by fair means and foul, responded to the directive of, you know, look for more secure, revenue in the short term.
Within here, for instance, you know, there's GBP 25 million on an oil and gas facility in Assam, in India. You know, that's gonna continue going, and indeed, it's in play at the moment. There are, you know, three significant infrastructure projects in Australia. There's, you know, Tangenvika, a bridge project in Scandinavia, and, you know, another couple of Polish infrastructure projects. Now all of these things for us are important because unlike some of the private and commercial work, you know, we can place reliance that these things are going to be completed in the medium term against, you know, what is an uncertain economic outlook. Moving on to the divisions. First of all, North America.
North America, the revenue was up, you know, almost 40% there, benefiting from RECON, benefiting from the increase to the pass-through revenue and inflation, and also some growth across the board. Operating profit, unfortunately, was backwards at 27%, driven by everything to do with the revenue drivers just discussed. The non-repeating GBP 7 million claim that we benefited from in the prior period, which David mentioned earlier on. You know, the residual effects of unrecovered inflation, and the inefficiencies caused by material shortages. I think North America, more than anywhere else, has actually been adversely impacted by the availability locally of cement. That has caused us significant operational challenges. Frankly, we probably underestimated that earlier in the year.
It's something which, you know, historically our sites have always had to deal with. You know, all contractors do. But it's something which in the last six months in particular, I think has become particularly problematic. And it, unfortunately, the inefficiencies you incur, you can't recover. Because if people are standing there waiting for materials to turn up, you know, that is frantic. It's not something you can recover from the supplier or indeed from the client. In terms of the other businesses, Suncoast, Moretrench, RECON, all of those businesses performed very well and very pleasingly during the period, which, you know, I think is very good to see. Moving on to Europe. Yeah, steady as she goes, really, Europe.
They've had a good rebound from the previous period in terms of, you know, 2021, the early part of that was quite severely hit by COVID. This year, they've recovered from that. They've got some, you know, wind in their sails in that regard. They've had some, you know, good wins, some good progress across the park. Northeast Europe, you know, principally around Poland, I think has been most significantly impacted by the Ukraine war. You know, several projects there early on in the year were either delayed or canceled if they were close to the border or there was uncertainty about funding. That was a little bit of a headwind.
That having been said, you know, there's some very good work and good momentum elsewhere across the region, which is pleasing to see. The one blip there we call it out is the safety performance. There's no pattern to that increase. You know, we've looked at that very carefully. But it is something which culturally the team are keen to address and make sure that they turn around. In terms of AMEA, you know, I think this one is particularly pleasing, the rebound here as you know, significant movement forward in terms of revenue, but an even greater one in terms of operating profit.
You know, clearly, compared to the previous year, we've got. Last year, we had a GBP 4.8 million write-off on the suspended contracts, which David brought out in the bridge slide earlier on. There's also a couple of million with respect to branches in Africa, which, you know, frankly, were marginal and loss-making. As part of our portfolio rationalization, we closed those last year. So, you know, that incrementally year-on-year added to it. Then you've actually had forward momentum, principally in Australia, but, you know, elsewhere as well, which all of which has got to the half one performance of 2022. I'd say in terms of margins, you know, 6% in this area is more or less what I'd expect going forward.
Also pleasingly across the whole of the region, you know, we've actually got a pretty decent spread of order coverage. You know, Australia has attracted some very good infrastructure projects which they're just on the verge of starting. Austral has got a good bank of prospects which actually replaced the Cape Lambert project, which we've now completed. ASEAN's a little bit thin, to tell you the truth. Malaysia and Indonesia, I think are still recovering from the travails of COVID. Whereas India, you know, India just goes from strength to strength. You know, they are very selective as to what they do. They pick quality targets with quality clients, and they seem to be increasingly successful in doing so. Finally, Middle East.
We've got, you know, some prospects there which we need to work through in terms of localities. The big one there is clearly NEOM. Talking of which, this slide, it's probably my most used slide. When you talk about NEOM, it really fits into our strategy and fits it very well indeed. We've used this slide with the client to exemplify why their interests and ours are very closely aligned. It is, if you look at the top section there, it is a very attractive project. It's got some very good technical challenges. It's got some good engineering, some good architecture in there, and suits what we do.
From our point of view, it is something which we can leverage our group's scale and expertise. Given the size of the project, you know, that is important to the client that we can actually mobilize, we can actually supply the resources they need. You know, in terms of giving them solutions, we can give them the full suite of engineering solutions and deliver them to site. You know, as you've seen by previous big projects we've undertaken, you know, getting resources, getting logistics in place is something which we are good at, and, you know, we are well placed for. In terms of the project itself, you know, clearly it is something that is evolving. I'm sure all of you would have seen, you know, some of the press announcements in the last two weeks.
It is very early days, and I hesitate to put numbers on this internally, let alone externally. But suffice to say that we are rapidly mobilizing for the first works order, and indeed, if it's not already there in the next week or so, the first piece of new equipment will be arriving in the country relating to the first works order. Over the next two months, the remaining kit will be arriving. It is a very big project, whichever way you look at it. The project is very ambitious. It's a very important client to us. We've got the skills and resources to, you know, meet their needs. It is something which is rapidly gaining momentum.
As we know more and, you know, we're more confident about timing and what have you, then, you know, clearly we will share that with you. That was positive news. To bring you down to earth, I thought I'd share this slide with you. Some of you I know have seen this already. I thought it was important to bring this out in terms of, you know, the uncertain world in which we live. Because Keller has gone through some uncertain times before in terms of, you know, COVID, in terms of financial crisis, both local and global. It's just weathered well. You know, there's a list there of some of the characteristics which, you know, make the company more resilient than most. We're not recession-proof. We're resilient to recession, I'd suggest.
You know, we can move between different sectors. We can move from private and commercial to public and infrastructure. We have a good geographic spread. You know, whatever Mr. Putin does in gas supplies in Europe, you know, probably won't affect our North American business that much. So we do have these natural buffers and counters to it. And all of this is evidenced by the graph on the right-hand side. You know, by the fact that we've generated cash and we've been paying dividends for effectively 28 years and growing them during that period. And that, I think, in these times of uncertainty, you know, I'd just put out there as something which people should know. Finally, summary and outlook.
In summary, we have had a record half one performance, despite the environment which we're in. We've not only delivered that, but we've also continued the execution of our strategy. You know, we haven't talked much about new M&A in this particular presentation. That doesn't mean to say we haven't been looking, but we are being very disciplined about it. What we're also doing is continuing the restructuring and just making sure the portfolio is in the right shape. We are mobilizing on NEOM, and you know, we have got a significant momentum in the business at the moment, which is supported by very strong order book. You know, clearly that's all the confidence in that is evidenced by the increase in the dividend.
I don't expect the world to get much better in the second half, to tell you the truth. There's gonna be, you know, perhaps a leveling out in the level of uncertainty, but I don't think from our point of view, it's gonna get that much easier in the second half. I think towards the end of the year, my hope is that it will begin to ease. But I think we've got enough in the tank to actually certainly deliver H2, and give us a good momentum into 2023. You know, as we get towards the end of the year, clearly the board will be looking at the final dividend as well.
Last but not least, I just reiterate the fact that, you know, the board anticipates that we will be in line with the full year expectations. We say that with increasing confidence. You know, from that point of view, it's a good place to finish the presentation. Over to questions and answers.
Good morning. Three questions if I may. It's Joe Brent at Liberum. Firstly, on LNG and NEOM, could you give us an indication of what news flow we can expect and what to look out for? Secondly, could you give us a schedule of the expected cash exceptionals? You know, what the timing of cash exceptionals going forward. Thirdly, there's a GBP 3.5 million contract disputes in exceptionals. Could you just give us a little bit more detail on that and whether it's normal for you to put contract disputes into exceptionals?
Sure. I'll deal with the first one of those. I'll ask David to deal with the second.
And third, happy to.
You can do, happy to do the third as well. In terms of LNG and NEOM. LNG, I think is really, aside from the normal, background LNG type of projects, we are now hunting for, you know, all the prospects which are out there, not just in LNG, but other energy infrastructure programs as well. You know, Germany's talking about doubling the number of wind farms out there. You know, we don't do all, depending on where they put them, you know, some of that will also be prospects that we will follow. LNG itself, you know, clearly the Gulf Coast of North America in terms of export facilities primarily, and, you know, Northern Europe are areas which we will be looking at.
There are three different facilities in Northern Germany, which, you know, the German government is looking to actually build upon. Short term, they're going for temporary facilities, but they are building out permanent ones. There'll be others around the world in terms of export facilities where, you know, there are FEED studies and what have you completed where people are looking to accelerate. We will be looking at each and every opportunity on its merits to see what we can do. Some will be more attractive than others, depending upon who the GC is and, you know, whether they have got a history of alliances or indeed self-performing. You know, we won't chase everything, but we will do it on a selective basis. In terms of NEOM. NEOM, it all depends on the client.
I anticipate as we go through quarter three and quarter four, you know, we will really be beginning to build momentum on the first works order. I expect that by Christmas, you know, we will be at run rate in terms of delivering the volume on that. I also expect, and this is pure guess, but it's, you know, it's working through the pattern of our interactions with the client to date. My expectation is that, you know, late Q3, early Q4 is when they'll start gearing up for the second round of works orders, which will be, you know, by that time, I think will be materially bigger than the first works order.
Yep. Just on the underlying, I think the focus on that, the cash side of that non-underlying is the GBP 6.1 million of operating costs. Just looking at those individual items, the restructuring is spent already. The ERP costs probably about GBP 0.2 million of that is spent, and there's some of that to go. In the exceptional contract dispute is a future outflow. In relation to that's a very old project that predates probably Mike, myself. It's just something that has come up this past six months. It is commercially sensitive, which is why we're not opening up too much about it.
Morning, Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt. I think I'll go with three as well. Just around, I suppose the materials availability now. I mean, you've obviously flagged cement, particularly in the U.S. If you could maybe update us as to where things are and how you sort of expect that to sort of flow through, and whether there have been any issues around steel, which is obviously another key input. The second one I had was around margins in the order book. It'd be useful to get a little bit of a view from you guys as to what's in there, and again, the sort of momentum upwards or downwards, on that side of things. The last one was really around the portfolio restructurings.
You've obviously sort of flagged a couple of little ones that you've done in the first half. What's left, if anything now, I suppose, on that front?
Okay. I'll deal with these, and you chip in as you see.
Yep.
In terms of materials availability, it's quite interesting. Our three biggest consumables are, you know, cement, steel, and diesel going into the rigs. If you think about those three, they have different financial and logistical characteristics. You know, fuel pretty much as the oil price went up, we got hit across the whole of our operations within a month, more or less. Everybody understood that, and you could actually get recovery on most of it. That affected everybody, but the availability was there. Steel, depending on whether it's rebar or strand, and depending on whether it's tied or welded, there was different availabilities across the world. Europe got hit by steel shortages in quarter one, but they've very quickly recovered.
You know, Suncoast with strand availability, more specifically pricing, was a bit of a problem. It has been and frankly is very volatile even now. It's leveling out and if anything is becoming more certain in terms of the orders which we are placing. The thing which is more difficult in some respects, frankly I hadn't quite got my head around this initially, is the cement. Because cement delivery and concrete, you know, the aggregate that's built up from that, is very much a local thing. It gets delivered locally. The suppliers, while they might be, you know, international names, they actually deliver and operate locally. Therefore you see different characteristics and different availability and indeed different pricing, significantly different pricing, across the world.
U.K., you pay roughly twice, and always have done, for cement than you would in France. You know, that has gone on forever. You get the same sort of thing across borders between Austria and some of the states to the east. There's peculiarities with it. Something which exaggerates it in North America is that typically we're on smaller projects there, and therefore we'll be reliant on the supplier rather than a local batching plant or a GC's batching plant. Which if you're on a big civil project in Europe, for instance, or in Australia, the client will be supplying the cement. Even if you're paying for it, they will have a facility to make sure it's there. In North America, typically with the exception of Hampton Roads, that's not the case.
Therefore, you're far more reliant on external suppliers. While it is getting better, we're still not yet out of the woods. There's still certain parts of North America where it is still even now you know, a problem. Much less so than it was in the beginning of quarter two, but you know, there's still a bit of a problem. I expect it to get better through the year 'cause you know, things will ease. In terms of margins in the order book, I think they're generally improving.
That's partly as a response to the fact that we have, you know, early part of the year as we realized that, you know, people were beginning to get up to capacity, not just us, but the market per se, you know, deliberately beginning to push it a little bit. It'll be a little while before that all feeds its way through. As you know, David mentioned earlier on, there'll be a bit of a catch-up in terms of material pricing. I think, you know, 2023, 2024, we might actually get some margin uptick, margin recognition on the material pass-through as well. But all of these things are a bit like a hysteresis effect. It takes a little bit of time to work its way through. I don't know whether you've got anything to say on that.
No, I think that's about right. I think the scarce resource is a big impact in terms of the bidding we're doing now. The availability is just where we are saying to the guys that they should put more margin into their bids.
In terms of the portfolio restructuring, I don't wanna say too much on this in terms of specifics. What I will do is talk to you about philosophy. You know, our strategy statement is very much that we want to be in positions that give us higher market share. Because when we have higher market share, we have less risk, and we have, you know, higher margins borne out in higher utilization of assets, people, and fixed costs. That's what we are pursuing. As post-COVID, it's clear to us that there's certain parts of our portfolio which are at the lower end of that spectrum, and you can't see a way to actually getting them to the higher end. Therefore, you know, naturally, we are looking to see if there is somebody else who's a better business owner.
You know, that's what we're working through.
Thanks. [Jonny Cooper] at Numis. Could I ask on the replacement ratio which reduced year-over-year in H1? Just interested to hear why you're able to be more disciplined on CapEx in the period. Thinking in terms of NEOM, if orders come through that are of the magnitude that's been suggested, what would be your expectations there in terms of CapEx? You mentioned, you know, you've got new kit arriving on site. Will that require a lot of investment in kit? Thanks.
You can talk about the replacement ratio, and I'll talk about NEOM.
Yes. I think with the replacement ratio, as coming under pressure from a working capital perspective, I think we look at the CapEx more circumspect, particularly in the U.S. We just let that play itself through in terms of whether we decide to buy or to lease. In terms of NEOM, you know, we with the utilization of equipment that we do expect on that job, we'll be working 24/6. You know, we do expect that we will actually purchase that CapEx.
It's quite interesting with NEOM because if you compare it versus, say, a European city, you know, European cities, you can work five days a week if you're lucky, and there'll be a curfew, quite strict curfew in terms of times of operations. Within that, you won't even be able to start the rigs. In terms of even doing things like maintenance, you are actually curtailed. Compare that to NEOM, you know, as David said, they'll be working 24 hours a day, at least six days a week, and if they have to, they can work the seventh. What we are planning to do is to basically standardize the rigs. You know, we will always, as we build up the fleet there, you know, we will always have one in maintenance.
The crew will be, you know, working at a much, much higher intensity. Indeed, we'll be shortening the lives of the in terms of depreciation of all of those assets to recognize that. It's quite a challenging time, though, because the way in which you work, you have to pour all and do all of the piling in terms of the pouring element of it at night simply because of the temperatures. Therefore, you have to work in a basically a daily cycle of production. That will, you know, build over time.
Hi there, chaps. Just in terms of the operating margin in North America, it sounds like there's a number of factors in the first half that were one-time in nature, and then there's obviously the questions over the availability and.
Yeah.
The supply issues. I was just wondering if you could just spell out slightly more of it. Second half margin should improve naturally from one, these one-time factors falling away. Then what do you see as sort of the medium-term operating margin? Because, you know, it's been as high as 9% historically. Presumably you don't see it going back there in the short term, but what's the sort of medium-term target?
Sure. I think in terms of our expectations for margin progression, you know, as you say, the first half did have some transient events in it. My expectation is that as we go through the second half that, you know, we'll migrate towards, you know, 6%-ish in the second half. You know, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, depending upon what happens with the cement supply. As we move forward, and you get recovery in that, you get, you know, the recognition of margin in the pass-through materials or indeed a decrease in pricing of some materials. You know, we will get over time an increase in those margins. I think, you know, 6%-7% is where I'd expect it to go up.
I wouldn't expect it to be 9%. If we have a super project sometime, it might get up there. You know, I think the business is big enough now that there's enough run rate in there that, you know, sustained at 9% is probably a little bit too ambitious even for me.
Yeah, I think the point earlier on about the order book and getting further quality into it. I think should help with bringing those margins back to where they should be.
Can you say a little bit about Mozambique and where you are with that? It looks like it's not gonna start this year, but fingers crossed for next year.
Well, it's quite interesting because two weeks ago, the French announced that they were definitely not restarting or issuing remobilization orders to anybody. The Rwandan army is around the facility and, you know, to that extent, it is semi-secure but not secure enough for the Total to remobilize. I have no expectations of anything this year, and even if it happened next year, you know, it will take time before anything happens. We are taking the increasingly hawkish view of this. You know, technically, actually building a facility on land is not the only option open to them. You know, I would have thought that given the pressure on LNG and the production at the raw end, there would actually be a bit of an imperative for them to do something.
I'm still trying to scratch my head, trying to figure out what it is they're gonna do. 'Cause naturally, you know, you would get after it, but they're not. I suppose in the round, from our perspective, we're just being a little bit cautious about it right now.
Can I ask another one about the U.S. and the sort of orders you're seeing coming in, the inquiry levels I suppose, and how that's varying by end market, you know, public sector, commercial, housing I suppose in particular I'm thinking about. Well, public, commercial, industrial.
Sure. I think. Do chip in. I mean, Suncoast is seeing a bit of a softening in terms of the individual family homes.
Yeah.
You know, the last month or so, we're gonna see that. I don't think we will see it as badly as the total statistics because, you know, most of our activity is in the Texas, Dallas area, and there's still a huge swathe of building going on there. I mean, if you know, go down there or sit down in San Antonio at the moment, there's lots of cranes, there's lots of construction going on in terms of industries and activities. You know, they will require people, and people require houses. I think, you know, it will come off, but it won't be as disastrous as it was in 2008, put that way. That said, high-rise is beginning to grow, which is fine.
We, you know, both come out the same factory. We've got a natural hedge there. Beyond that, I think we're seeing a reasonable set of activities across the patch. There's probably less compared to a year ago. There's probably less data center work and less logistics, you know, storage type of work. I mean, there's less of that coming through. Certainly if you look around the coastal areas and some of the deep basements there, in Florida in particular, there's a lot more activity there going on.
You know, I think a little bit.
Bizarrely, we are seeing a bit of recovery in the prairies. Having downsized the business in Canada, in prairies, that's actually picked up. You know, the residual fixed cost base we've got there is doing very well. Vancouver is doing well. Toronto is doing very well after, you know, the union issues across the state earlier on in the year. All of that's worked its way through. The business we've got in Quebec is just quietly picking up momentum, which is good.
Two follow-up questions from me, please. Firstly on the ERP system, I think you mentioned before it would be kind of a five-year project.
Yep.
Clearly a fair amount of investment is going in this year. Just keen to hear how that is going and whether you've kind of identified any early initiatives with the rollout. Then secondly, can I just clarify the point on steel prices? When you say you expect no further impact in H2, is that if they stay as they are and there'd be an impact if they go up, or have you hedged it?
Okay. I'll deal with the ERP. You get steel. The ERP I think is one of those things where it's a bit like building a scrum. You get everybody in the right position, you get them all bound up, you pack against the opposition, and then you take small steps. As you take small steps and you squeeze, push, squeeze, push, squeeze, push, over a period of time, you can push it over the five-yard line and score. That's exactly what we're doing because you know we are. I waste no time at all every time we talk about ERP to say, "This is all about the project manager and the site supervisor." It's not about him and his consolidation. It's not about bays. We'll get those for free if we do this, what we need to on-site correctly.
It's about making sure that this is a project manager-centric system. The logic for that is very, very simple. We do 7,000, more or less, projects every single year, and that's 7,000 mini P&L accounts. We should be driving it entrepreneurially along those lines to make sure they get, you know, the highest quality, most relevant, most accurate, most timely information we can give them, so they can make a decision every single day. If we do that, and we will, then those 7,000 projects will be successful and more successful tomorrow than they were today. That will mean that everything beyond that, which is basically cost, be it divisional overhead or central overhead, you know, we can manage more acutely, and it will be, you know, beneficial for all. But there's some very good.
We've got some great people working on it. We've got some great IT specialists who've done it many times before. We've got some great people from the business, the best and brightest actually, extracted from the business to work on the project. You know, we've got proper assurance processes in place from the board and the ExCom. We're not in a rush. We're just taking it step by step.
Just in terms of where we are on that journey, we're still at the blueprint phase. We did a piece of work last year, I think, where we convinced ourselves as an organization that given the fact that our way in which we go to market is quite similar across the globe, there should be no reason why our processes shouldn't be similar. The blueprint phase that we're going through now is us walking through those processes in more detail, as Mike says, through the lens of the project manager and site supervisor, and working out what we want those processes to be and getting the best of what people are doing in some parts of the world that they aren't doing in others, getting all of that into one process for the different areas.
We're currently in the process of doing the fit gap between what comes out of the box in respect of the system and the processes that we want. Our watch word from both Mike and myself is we want to keep the customization to a minimum in order to keep that system as agile as possible. We continue to do that blueprint phase through to the end of this year, and we'll run a pilot in early next year where we'll really test those processes and the technical side, the system that underpins it to make sure that it's fit for purpose. Then we're gonna roll out across the rest of the group.
Just on steel price, if we go back to the beginning of the year before the Ukraine war, we had a view of the steel cost curve, particularly in relation to high rise. Again, just the difference between the slab on ground and high rise is that there is a longer lead time with the high rise in respect to the steel strand you strike in respect to that contract. When the war in Ukraine broke out, we had to move that cost curve, which caused a bit of a hit in the first half of the year.
What we're saying now for the second half is now that steel prices have come back down, if they stay where they are, you know, we'll be year-on-year or half on half.
It's quite interesting, you know, your comment about hedging, though, 'cause strand as a commodity, it was very difficult to find anything you can hedge with. Effectively, the only thing you can do is actually buy it and stockpile it, because, you know, there isn't a derivative which has a strong correlation with it. Suppliers are unwilling to take purchase orders at the moment beyond three months. Yes.
Yeah. In some cases, spot.
Yes.
Spot prices.
Yeah. Domestic U.S., it is spot.
I think if you do buy it to stockpile it, you know, you need special warehouse in order to put it in, given the weight of it. Actually we think the cost benefit of that doesn't really drive us down that route. We have increased our inventory without a doubt. You can see that in the numbers. I think stockpiling is not the answer either.
Any more? Well, thank you very much. Some very good questions there. I think we'll follow this format in future, and actually try and keep the presentation a bit tighter so we've got more time for questions. So thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you everybody on the web.