Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Keller's Preliminary Results for 2022. Firstly, safety. There is no planned fire alarms today, so if the alarm does go off, then it's following the green signs down the door here and then to the left, and there's an open stairwell. There's an escort down there. Could I ask you all to make sure that your phones are switched to silent, please? I'll start the presentation. First of all, draw your attention to the header there, which indicates that the results we're presenting today are unaudited. You shouldn't get alarmed by that. That simply means that the auditors haven't completed their filing. They declared last night that they are substantially complete.
This is just a question that there's some loose ends which they need to tidy up for their filings, which they expect to do by the end of the week, by which time they will be audited. In terms of the results which we will present, and David and myself, I think we have a good set of results for you today. The markets we've been looking in have been a little bit choppy, and we've had a few self-inflicted wounds during the period. Nonetheless, through the hard work, and determination of the team, we have a, you know, what I think is a, is a good set of results to show to you. One moment. Bear with me. Normal cautionary statements. On to the agenda. We'll be following our normal agenda today.
I will talk through a summary, and then David will take you through the detail of the financial results. I'll then talk on business performance, including ESG, cover some items on strategic progress before finishing off with a summary and the outlook before opening for questions, which we will give you answers for. To the summary. Rather than follow what we historically have done, in terms of going through the highlights of the that's shown on the RNS, today I thought we'd do it a little bit differently and really signpost for you the key themes at a high level to explore what's gone on during the year. When David follows up, he'll go through some more of the detail and put some more flesh on those bones.
To that extent, you know, the first thing to say is Austral. Austral effectively, for the purposes of today, there's no new news. It's effectively exactly what we said it was on the ninth of January. The external forensic audit is complete. It's confirmed all of that, there's no cash leakage either. David will follow up with a slide later on to give you a little bit more detail on that. In terms of revenue, we've got a record revenue number, 22% organic growth overall. A lot of that's been fueled by the acceleration of the LNG contract at RECON, which has gone very well indeed. Similarly, Suncoast. Suncoast did very well through the first part of the year, edged it off a little bit in quarter four.
There's been growth across the whole of the group. Some of that inflation, but a lot of it, you know, raw volume. All of that's translated into operating profit, which has clearly benefited. That has grown by 12% organically overall. Operating profits also have been boosted by the turnarounds in Australia, Middle East and Africa, which is, if you see the profit calls a little bit later on, it's come through very strongly. Mentioned earlier, the contract performance in Keller North America hasn't been as good as it could have been. Various different reasons for that. Partly inflation, partly supply chain issues, partly project execution, frankly. Most of those issues were in the first half of the year. We have taken action, as you will see later on in the presentation.
You know, that action is bearing fruit. The margins in Keller North America, North America, the whole division, strengthened in the second half by 150 basis points from 3.5% up to 5%, evidencing the fact that some of the actions which we have taken are actually beginning to bear fruit. I'm sure that momentum will continue as we go through 2023. In terms of cash flow, you know, David will go through a little bit more detail to this a little bit later on. We have signposted for some time there will be an outflow in the year. Indeed, it came through more or less where we expected it to come through. There are 3 major elements to that.
The first one is, you know, given we are a positive working cycle company, as the revenue has grown, you know, so has the absorption working capital. That's the first element. There's been a tightening of supplier terms in terms of credit. As the, you know, the emphasis of power as it was shifted to the supply base, they've taken advantage of that. Finally, Suncoast. As the volume dipped off in quarter four, we found ourselves with some surplus strand, which, you know, I think we'll unwind a little bit in 2023. We don't expect in terms of the core business, you know, any significant movement beyond that in 2023. There's NEOM. NEOM I know is a topic, is a hot topic for all of us.
That is going operationally and indeed financially to our expectations. The execution of the first works order we'll talk about later on has done very well indeed. I think we're at now at a stage where, you know, we're working our way towards the second and third works orders. Given it's right at the beginning of the project, things remain pretty fluid and pretty dynamic. All in all, where we are at is, you know, a good but not great performance in the year. There's some things, as I said, we could have done better. Nonetheless, given the circumstances where the markets have been, you know, it's a good set of results.
All of that has given the board the confidence to move the dividend for ward with a further 5% increase. I will now hand over to David, who will take you through a little bit more of the detail.
Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everybody. The format for the financial slides today is that I'll show the income statement first and then take you through how the Austral financial reporting fraud has impacted the historical accounts, and I'll give you the status update on the incident. I'll then provide comment on the income statement for the year, looking at underlying results firstly, and then move on to provide a waterfall analysis that identifies the key bridging items between underlying operating profit for 2021 and 2022. Talk through the non-underlying items and then present the cash flows and balancing highlights, including net debt, and finally highlight some look-ahead modeling considerations for 2023. Let's start with the income statement.
This slide shows the summary income statement for 2022 with the 2021 comparator to the right that has now been restated due to the Austral fraud. Let's turn to the Austral impact slide, and we'll come back and talk about the underlying and non-underlying elements in future slides. This table shows the reconciliation of 2021 as presented last year to what is now included as a comparative in this year's accounts. From an underlying operating profit perspective, the impact to the discrete year 2021 is to reduce underlying operating profit by GBP 4.3 million to GBP 88.5 million. This is a combination of revenue and cost adjustments, with revenue reducing by GBP 1.9 million. The tax impact results in a credit to take the net impact to GBP 3.1 million.
There is further narrative in the right-hand box that explains the impact elsewhere. In our announcement on the ninth of January, we estimated the prior year adjustment to be GBP 8 million-GBP 10 million from an underlying profit perspective. This is now confirmed as GBP 11 million, GBP 4.3 million for 2021 and GBP 6.7 million for years prior to this. The opening reserves of 2021 have been reduced by GBP 8.7 million, being the GBP 6.7 million operating profit impact I just mentioned and the GBP 2 million write-off of deferred tax assets. More broadly, we include the latest status on Austral, so there's no material change from what we announced in January. The external forensic investigation is now complete and confirmed that there was no cash leakage and no further collusion across the business. Management changes have been enacted.
To reiterate, Austral is a unique business from an activity, process and system perspective and indeed from a client perspective, so there's no contagion from this specific incident. We are enhancing our management and control processes as a result of the incident. Let's go back to the income statement and look at underlying performance for 2022. Year-on-year revenue in 2022 increased by GBP 722 million or approximately 32%. This was driven by FX of 8%, creating a constant currency rate of 24%. Acquisitions contributed 2%, so organic growth, including the RECON LNG contract, was 22%. Volume was up in all divisions as we saw increased activity compared to the pandemic impacted prior year. On a constant currency basis, North America increased by 29%, Europe by 19% and AMEA by 9%.
Whilst we have improved underlying profitability in the year, we have dealt with a number of challenges, particularly contract losses, inflationary pressures and supply chain issues that impacted the U.S. foundations businesses and the trading performance of nearshore marine projects in the Austral business. Underlying operating profit for 2022 increased by 12% on a constant currency basis. Our margin rate came under pressure, reducing to 3.7% from 4%. In the next slide, I'll bridge that operating profit performance. Net finance costs have increased by GBP 6.2 million to GBP 15.1 million. That's driven by increasing interest rates and the higher average borrowing levels. Taxation of GBP 20.3 million is at an effective rate of 22%. We have maintained our level of R&D activity in the U.S. post-pandemic. This has kept downward pressure on the rate.
The underlying earnings per share has increased by 20% to 100.7p, driven by improved underlying profitability and the lower tax rate offset by the higher finance costs. The board are recommending a final dividend of 24.5p to the May AGM. That will bring the 2022 dividend to 27.7p, which is a 5% increase as communicated in our November trading update. We now move on to the operating profit bridge slide. This seeks to bring to life the movement year-over-year. Moving from left to right, starting with last year's restated underlying profit of GBP 88.5 million, we highlight the FX tailwind, which was considerable at $8.9 million, given the stronger US dollar during 2022. Coming to the North America division first, which is up north of $8 million year-over-year.
The historical claim related to claim receipts in 2021 that is not repeated. The next block is an amalgamation of the performance of the foundations business and RECON. We did have challenges in the foundations businesses with contract losses, inflationary pressures, and issues with the supply chain that impacted productivity. The RECON business performed very well in 2022, accelerating the delivery of the LNG contract beyond our original expectations. Suncoast had a great year volume wise, particularly in the residential sector, which boomed for three quarters of the year. We have seen that decline following the interest rate increases from the autumn onwards. Turning to Europe, which was GBP 4.9 million up. Northeast Europe, primarily Poland, was impacted by the Ukraine war. Elsewhere, the division proved resilient, increasing volume and profitability across the remainder.
The AMEA division was up by GBP 6.7 million, despite the issues with the marine contracts in Australia. The first block shows the trading impact as identified in the descriptor, but not the impact of the reporting fraud and relates to issues on these medium-sized contracts that are now moving towards completion. The next block relates to NEOM, where we have taken the hit on mobilization costs as incurred, and drilling did start in December, but not enough to cover these costs. On Mozambique, we have now taken our equipment from site back into use elsewhere in the division, with the block here primarily representing the reversal of an impairment we made on these assets in 2021.
The recovery in both Middle East and Africa and Australia are similar in that these regions were heavily impacted by COVID in 2021, and these improvements represent getting back to normal in 2022, along with some quality execution in the year on both these business units. Decrease cost in the center gets you to GBP 108.6 operating profit for 2022. Moving to the next slide, I'll cover off non-underlying items. Again, the income statement, this time focusing on the middle column, non-underlying items. Non-underlying operating costs increased in 2022 from the previous years. The operating costs, plus the intangible amortization elements, increased from GBP 12.2 million to GBP 14.3 million in 2022. The analysis box shows the items that make up the GBP 14.3 million, which we have split between cash and non-cash.
The big callouts are the goodwill impairment of GBP 12.5 million. That's on the cost of business driven by the uncertainty of future profitability and in Sweden, giving a reducing medium-term forecast for that business. We have commenced our ERP journey. The cost of GBP 6.3 million relates directly to the implementation, including external consultancy and the cost of the dedicated team. The GBP 3.5 million exceptional contract disputes relate to a negotiation with insurers on the historical Avonmouth claim. This has now been settled, and the GBP 2.5 million relates to a claim that has come through on a closed business. Restructuring occurred in North America and Europe. Management and property reorganization in Texas being the largest element. The Europe element related to exiting Morocco and the Ivory Coast.
Analysis of the amortization of acquired intangibles is set out in the box on the right. The big increase this year is driven by the amortization associated with the RECON acquisition, which won't repeat in 2023. We do not expect a repeat of non-underlying costs at this level in 2023. The net finance cost credit relates to us entering into an interest rate derivative on a highly probable USPP launch, which we postponed due to market volatility. The forecasted transaction did not take place, which resulted in a gain that we have taken to non-underlying as it wasn't in the ordinary course of business. The tax credit of GBP 9 million reflects the tax benefits of the above items, plus the re-recognition of deferred tax assets in Canada, which were previously written off through non-underlying.
The statutory EPS reduced by 19% due to the impact of non-underlying items. The sum of all items across the underlying and non-underlying performance gives a post-tax statutory profit of GBP 45 million. I'll now move on to the cash flow. This page shows the summary net debt flowing from underlying operating profit down to net debt. Our net debt under IFRS 16 increased by GBP 105.6 million in the year, driven predominantly by the working capital outflow of GBP 110 million. The analysis box on the side there seeks to explain the reasons for this outflow. Growth is obviously a factor, and we've calculated the impact on the constant currency rate of 24% across the relevant lines of working capital.
Our receivables is sitting below the growth rate, so our DSO has remained pretty static year-on-year. We are staying on top of our billing and collections. Payables did not increase at the same rate as receivables due to the behavior of our supply chain in the U.S. in particular. It was a seller's market for material, with payment on delivery not being uncommon. The increase in inventory beyond the 24% related to steel strand in Suncoast, which we bought when prices became volatile again after the Ukraine War. Activity levels reduced in the final quarter, which left us with a higher level of inventory that should unwind in 2023. The other callouts, our CapEx and depreciation continue to align.
The higher finance costs due to the average borrowings at higher interest rates. Tax cash payments reflecting the holdback of the U.S. tax payment and in clarity on the amortization of R&D tax credits. We now end up making a double payment in 2023. Acquisitions are made up of small bolt-ons and the RECON contingent consideration. In contrast to profits, an FX headwind of GBP 17.3 million, given the weaker GBP against the U.S. dollar. In the bottom box on the right, we highlight the net debt and IAS 17 covenant basis of GBP 218.8 million, an increase of GBP 99.4 million. Leverage on a lender covenant basis at the year-end was 1.2x within our target range of 0.5-1.5. More on net debt later. Just moving on to the summary balance sheet.
The slide shows the summary balance sheet at December 22, compared with the amounts at December 21 that have been restated. The movements are set out in the tables. The movements in assets and liabilities are reflective of the increased activity levels referred to earlier. The next slide provides some more detail on the net debt profile during the year. Looking at the trends in the graph, you can see the peak in Q3 with the reduction coming through as we get towards the year-end. As mentioned, net debt did increase by GBP 99.4 million on an IAS 17 basis, driven by the working capital outflow, with average levels of debt increasing by 70%.
We have operated well within our covenants with a leverage at 1.2 times at year-end against the minimum of 3 times, an interest cover of 15.7 times against the minimum of 4. Our facility is comprised of GBP 375 million multi-currency RCF expiring in 2025 and the $75 million USPP expiring in 2024, and a 2-year, GBP 115 million bilateral term loan facility raised in November 2022. At year-end, we have GBP 258.8 million of undrawn borrowing facilities. 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 2023. Suncoast volume on residential to reduce in 2023, offset to some extent by the stronger high rise.
Large projects, Europe will have HS2, Tangenvika, and Förstadsgärdet in Sweden, and NEOM. AMEA will have NEOM in Saudi Arabia. M&A, we continue to focus on both on acquisitions. Operating profit % improving in 2023 due to some of the items we faced in 2022. Profit phasing, usual H2 bias. Interest costs will increase given the increased rate compared to the 22 averages. Tax rates, we believe, will be sustainable around the 22%. On cash and debt, we're doing the range of 0.5-1.5. Should the NEOM project ramp up in 2023, then we will be in the upper part of that range. That's it for me. Thank you for your attention. I'll now pass you back to Mike, who will take you through the business performance update.
Thank you, David. Oops. I'm now gonna take you through the business performance, starting with the order book. The order book, the first thing to draw to your attention that whilst GBP 1.4 billion is slightly lower than the record we had at the half year, which was GBP 1.6 billion, it is in fact for the year-end, the highest level we've ever achieved. Within that, it's pretty geographically evenly spread and it's got roughly 6 months worth of coverage across the whole of the group. In North America, you can see there that it shrunk slightly. That's basically the absorption through the year of the RECON contract winding down. Europe, you've had HS2 that's been rolling off.
That's been refilled by the infrastructure projects which David just referred to, principally in Scandinavia. In AMEA, you've seen a significant step up there, which is principally the NEOM works order, the first works order, and also several infrastructure projects in Keller Australia, which is, you know, frankly set them up for a good year in 2023. Overall, you know, it's a good even balance. I think with the exception of probably the ASEAN business unit, certainly in the short term, everybody's got plenty of good work to get after in the short term. That frankly gives us confidence as we enter the year. Moving on to North America. I think it's fair to say North America has had a mixed year this year.
There's some excellent growth from RECON in the LNG contract, which has accelerated. It's been executed really well. There's been some good work in Suncoast, especially in the first three quarters. The last quarter is, you know, residential came off a little bit. Nonetheless, a good performance. Indeed, across all of the business units in North America, there's been some good revenue growth, typically year-on-year. When you move to operating profit, however, you know, contract execution in some areas has not been as good as it could have been, and indeed should have been. North American foundations, especially in the first half, you know, we suffered some supply issues. We suffered some inflation which, you know, we were slow to pass on.
Indeed some project execution issues. Now, you know, actions have been taken in the middle of the year, the second half, which are, you know, clearly beginning to take effect. If you look at the first half margin we declared, that was 3.5%. That's moved to 5% in H2, and it's those two numbers that give you the 4.3% overall in the year. You can see as we move forward, you know, that's those actions taking effect, and I expect that to build as we go through 2023. As I say, we can do better, and we will do better. In terms of, you know, moving forward and building on our success, you can see that we've also acquired GKM Consultants Inc.
This is a geo instruments business in Quebec, that not only strengthens our geo instruments, our data business, but also strengthens our position in Canada, which is from a market point of view, is a, you know, particularly attractive market. Moving on to Europe. Europe's been quite pleasing actually. It's been, certainly for me, it's been one of the divisions which has actually just quietly got on and done its business. You can see there, you know, good growth in both revenue and indeed profit. I think it's fair to say they had some pretty difficult market conditions through the year, particularly in Poland, which I think has drawn the brunt of all of the, you know, the economic fallout of the Ukraine war.
They, you know, suffered a little bit in the year. It's fair to say that, you know, they did very well in very difficult conditions, and the rest of the business units in Europe kind of made good the shortfall in Poland. Overall though, you know, I'm very pleased with the way that they have moved forward. Strategically, you can see there that there's been some, you know, pruning of what we do in terms of, and recognition that, you know, we do need to service that. We've exited Ivory Coast and Denmark. Neither of those businesses we were ever going to get to a satisfactory market share. We stepped back and recognized that and then exited those markets.
Whereas in contrast, Norway, which is an attractive market, you'll see there that we've made investment in Nordvest Fundamentering. Moving on to AMEA. AMEA, again, it's been a bit of a mixed year. I mean, unfortunately, this year will be remembered in the AMEA division for Austral, for both for the fraud and also the fact that the nearshore marine element of Austral has been underperforming in the year. Their NPI business and their rail business within Austral has performed well. But unfortunately, the nearshore marine business, through four or five contracts performed badly. And, you know, those two things were blemishes on the performance. Elsewhere, though, you know, you had some very good turnarounds in performance in Keller Australia and Middle East and Africa. Frankly, they did better than I expected.
You know, the two teams there are to be congratulated on what they've done in the year. You know, turned around from the previous year, both operationally and indeed, you know, posting recovery from COVID in some respects. They've had some very, very good performance, whereas both India and ASEAN have been pretty solid year on year. Brings me on to NEOM. NEOM, you know, I remind you all we're right at the beginning of this project, it does remain a, for us, you know, very exciting prospect. If you look at what we've done with works order 1, you know, that has been very well executed. We started slightly late because the delivery of the rigs from Europe into country was delayed.
We started work in the middle of December effectively, and gradually ramped up through January and February, which culminated in finishing works order 1 early, which, you know, is a credit to the teams, their planning and execution. We completed all of the piles. We completed on the days we said we were going to do it. There have been no quality issues, no safety issues. In terms of financial performance, you know, we've been at or better than what we expected. From that point of view, you know, works order 1 has been completed very well indeed. We're now at a stage though, where, you know, we're waiting for the next works order, and this is 1 of those situations where the client is actively planning what they're doing. They're considering different options.
I think in the next, you know, weeks and months, we will get to see more of what the client intends to do. We will, you know, have to be responsive to that. It is, you know, I stress, a pretty exciting, but at least at this term, until they get to a momentum, it's gonna be one of those situations where we have to be pretty dynamic in the way in which we respond. It will be, you know, for us, I think it will be, you know, potentially quite an exciting prospect. There are some sizable packages of work that we can look forward to. Moving on to ESG matters and starting with SDG 3 and safety and wellbeing.
We've seen some great work here done again and by the team across the world, John Raine and the safety team, and indeed the operations teams. Unfortunately, that's not really shown in some of the statistics. We've had a slight decrease in performance, which is always in this area, you know, frankly disappointing. We've had 22 accidents across our 1,000 employees, 11 of which we would classify as critical. We've had 78 total recordable incidents in the year. A lot of those of all those categories are related to hand injuries, where, you know, people have responded to a situation too quickly and they haven't been thoughtful. Hence the sand down.
We've get people to actually stop and not immediately react, but think about how they react before they do so. Similarly with PPE. Just to remind people that, you know, it is the last line of defense, but it is something which you have to have the appropriate PPE for everything which you are dealing with. Not limited to that, though. There's been some good stuff in terms of, for instance, all of our rigs now. You know, we were doing a survey during the year and realized some of our rigs were not fitted with blind spot and rearview cameras, so we rectified that during the year. There's a standardized approach to that which is great to see.
Similarly in some of the, in behavioral, wellbeing and global health matters at the end there. You know, given we have so many people working away from home, you know, wellbeing and duty of care is something we take very, very seriously. Again, that's an area of activity for the team. Moving on to carbon, SDG 13. This is an area where, you know, it's pleasing to see we're gradually picking up a little bit of steam. I mean, for us it's a huge, huge item. Scope 3 is by far the biggest of the elements of our carbon footprint, but it's the one which frankly we have the least amount of influence on at this stage.
You know, apart from designing, which we actively do to try and design elements out and save both carbon and indeed cost for our clients, it's an area which ultimately is in the decisions made by the client. Nonetheless, there are other elements, you know, scope one and scope two, which we can impact, and we are. You know, you can see there some of the activities we've done this year, but also some of the ongoing work as we move forward. Unpleasingly, you know, scope two is the one we know the most about and we've measured the most. We set ourselves a 10% goal last year and, you know, we've outperformed against that goal. This year we'll set ourselves a similar goal.
I anticipate, you know, beyond we'll gradually incorporate scope one probably the year after next, once we get our arms around that a little bit more, whilst we, you know, continue to pursue the other elements as well. Some great forward movement with this. I must say industry-wide, there's an increasing awareness on this issue, which is pleasing to see because some of these issues can only be solved on an industry-wide basis. Moving on to strategic progress. This slide, you know, is the slide which I copy and paste from presentation to presentation. It's, you know, it's frequently used, and quite rightly so.
You know, I encourage all of the management team constantly to try and orientate their decision-making, their stewardship around this which, you know, gradually is bringing more coherency to the group, and I hope you've seen that evidenced in some of the presentations so far. In terms of our progress on that in 2022, you can see there that in terms of our portfolio actions, you know, we have, you know, been busy integrating RECON into the business. I would not say that that process is complete. There's still more to go. What we are seeing is more cross-selling opportunities between, you know, the structural foundations business and the soil stabilization, which RECON does. The teams are working more and more together. Similarly, RECON is giving more access to the, to the Keller team in terms of some of the in-industry opportunities.
As I mentioned earlier, we've exited Denmark and Ivory Coast. We've acquired GKM and Nordvest Fundamentering, which is basically recognizing that, you know, markets which we can't really create a satisfactory market share on, we're prepared to exit, and the ones which we think are worth going after, we're bulking up, we're strengthening our position. We will continue that process. In terms of performance, you know, our business, you know, costs are important in our business, and performance is important. Both, you know, wherever it is in the P&L account, we will go after it. You see there the first one, we consolidated the Midwest business unit, which in some respects was a little bit subscale into Northeast, and that process has actually gone very well.
There's some initial stumbling blocks, but we've worked our way through that and that's bearing fruit now. A much longer-term issue is that of the ERP system, which we are, you know, being mindful and, you know, very considered in the way in which we're rolling out. You know, you can expect over the next few years to see that appearing more and more on our slides as it, you know, gets to be implemented. It's a, you know, it's a great program. It's a very considered program, and it's being well executed. In terms of looking forward, you know, we will continue the refinement of the portfolio. We're always looking at the business to see, you know, what fits and frankly, what bits of business would have a better owner.
We will continue to do that. Similarly, we'll continue to do selective acquisitions. I'm sure it's a topic that will come up in Q&A, but there is the environment now is something which is, you know, there are more things coming to the market. It's an area where we're not in a hurry, and we will continue to be, you know, very selective in what we do. Whatever we acquire, we will be looking to make sure we properly integrate it, because, you know, why else would we acquire it? If it's... you know, if we can't make more of it ourselves, then it's not something which should be of interest to us.
In terms of performance, and this will be a, you know, a key area for 2023, you know, we will be looking to increase our focus on performance and operating margin. You know, we've had a year of growth. We just need to leverage that now in terms of turning what was, you know, good quality into great quality, and that's what we will do. One of the projects within that is a project called Project Performance Management, and this is, you know, systemically embedding over the year best practice across the whole of the group. That will take a little while. There's some excellent project management in the group, but there's also areas where we can do better.
What we're looking to do there is to make it, you know, level upwards in a genuine way, in a systemic way, and making sure it's embedded. Then finally there, you know, we are moving towards the first pilot of VLP. We've gone through the design stage in 2022, and that will continue for a large element in 2023 when we actually test it all out. Towards the end of the year, we will be looking to go live with one of the pilot sites. Finally, moving on to the summary and the outlook. 2022, I think from a market perspective has been, you know, pretty difficult.
Certainly when we planned the year, you know, nobody had anticipated the Ukraine War and the, you know, the secondary impacts that would have on a world which was already impacted by COVID. Nonetheless, I think the teams have actually responded well to that across the globe and, you know, it's affected them all degrees to different extents. You know, some of those things have been, you know, very challenging, some of them less so. To that extent, we've faced and dealt with a number of challenges, many of them external, and frankly, some of them internal, and some of them self-inflicted, which, you know, it's those elements which if I'm sound a little bit down, a little bit disappointed.
I think overall, as we sit here, we reflect, you know, it's been a good year, but it could have been a great year. You know, that is, like, slightly humbling at this point in time. Nonetheless, you know, we are in a situation where we've had a good year, and we know we can get better. As we sit here moving into 2023, we've got a strong order book. We've got increased focus on operational performance, operational delivery, because we know what we can do to improve. We've got a good momentum as we come into the year. You know, so far so good in this year. We've actually had a good start. To that extent, you know, we'll continue to execute the strategy, which has served us well.
Through, you know, difficult 4 years, we've stuck to that, and it's worked well for us, and we'll continue to do it. That's collectively what's made us, you know, very, very optimistic for the 2023 year. With that, I will open the floor up to questions.
Mike, can you just give a little bit more color in terms of the restructuring? Can you give a little bit more color in terms of what further restructuring of the business going forward you see? You've expanded a bit in 2022. I just wonder how much more heavy lifting there is sort you're anticipating.
I think in terms of the larger elements of our restructuring, the big elements have now been largely completed, essentially completed. However, post-COVID and settling out of markets have now stabilized. The ones which are, if you like, in the gray area, we're now in a position to actually evaluate and decide, yes, this is a market worth backing, or this is a market where, you know, frankly, we will never get to a satisfactory market share. It's a question of just quietly and sort of, you know, in a considered way going through that process and figuring out what's in and what's out. You know, we are a specialist group. We have specialist resources. We need to make sure we focus those on where we can get the best returns.
You know, some of our markets have better clients than others, frankly. You know, people who appreciate what we do, have, if you like, more challenging work that we are good at, and have the, you know, the investment, the consistency of investment that actually make this worthwhile being there. To other markets where that's not true. You know, we'll continue in that process.
It's still ongoing. Sorry. Trying to get an idea as to how much heavy lifting there is to do.
It's-
It's an ongoing process?
It's an ongoing process, I think now we're, you know, in the final strokes, as it were. There's nothing that's gonna be radically cut out of the portfolio.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt . A couple if I may. Can we go back to the slide now, the waterfall chart? God, my eyesight's so bad. Is that page 9? The North American trading performance, you flagged the foundations bit. Clearly, RECON, I think, well, I'm assuming RECON was better on the back of the US LNG. If that was up, the rest of the foundations business was obviously.
Yes.
even more. I mean, that's a, you know, given the market backdrop, I'm trying to sort of explore how much that can improve this year, because clearly resi is gonna be a bit softer. I'm just trying to work out what the levers are because the industrial, commercial, and infrastructure market in the U.S. looks healthier than the resi side. As we look at that, would you expect to see that largely flip, those two, resi back and foundations up?
Yes. I mean, what you've got to bear in mind is RECON, whilst we talk about it separately, RECON and the rest of the business have got cross-selling opportunities, which is why we haven't tried to separate them all out, because I'm encouraging the team to get it more and more and more integrated.
You know, if you can get, you know, some of the soil stabilization techniques which RECON have historically then and add some of the stuff which we've got from Keller, which can actually make that slip and conquer, and add to that structural foundations and add to that all the other stuff, that's what we're looking to do, which I'm keen not to separate. From a market perspective, I think you will see a bit of a flip-flop because the LNG and the industrial market per se, some of those contracts are big and lumpy, and we're just completing one of those, you know, the LNG one. There are several more which, you know, frankly, we are bidding on, and one in particular I think we're gonna be successful on. That won't start until H2. So that's gonna be fairly lumpy, I think.
In terms of general industrial activity in North America, there's quite a lot going on in terms of prospectivity right now. Part of that, I think, is driven by certain industries renationalizing in the States in terms of their investment. There's lots of microchip fab plants, for instance. There's more battery type stuff going in there. You know, there's several other industries. There's some reasonably big investments going in. You're right. On the residential side at the moment, it's a little bit quiet. Our team think it's gonna be quiet. You know, the Simpler team think it's gonna be quiet throughout the whole of 2023. I think it will pick up in the towards the end of the year. It's.
I think one thing to stress with this, it's not the same as it was at the last downturn because there's still a shortage of housing. You know, last time this happened, there was two years worth of empty properties around the place. I don't think this is gonna be down for long. I think as soon as the function picks up and the interest rate starts coming off, it'll pick up reasonably quickly. I think the other thing to bear in mind is that most of our exposure is in the southern half of North America, and there is a net migration into, you know, that belt between Texas and everywhere east of there, which actually is beneficial to us.
As we think about pricing and cost components for this year, inevitably, given your geography, it's gonna be quite a bit different. That, it'd be useful to sort of run through certainly Europe, North America, in particular, but maybe Australia as well, in terms of how you see that balance between, you know, prices of contracts versus the input costs in terms of. Certainly I'm still hearing average materials costs are probably still gonna be up. Steel is the one that's probably down, but cement, concrete are probably still gonna be more expensive on average this year than they were last year. Be interesting to hear your take on the moving parts there.
No, I think you would have heard us previously say that, you know, we can deal well with inflationary pressures given our short cycle. In 2022, because inflation ramped so quickly, I think we were a bit slow, particularly in the North America foundations business in terms of repricing to cover that. I think the AMEA region is pretty good at dealing with inflation and making sure that that is priced in because it's always been volatile. Europe has done pretty well. I think the contractual environment in Europe is much more akin to having escalation clauses in contracts. It's contractually better.
North America, I think, is where the contractual environment isn't as strong in that, on that front. We've been slow in terms of picking it up. I think with the work that we've done this year and the actions we've now put in place, I think for that environment, which hasn't been used to inflation at the rates we've seen, I think they're now making sure that they do price that in.
If I can add to that, I mean, it's, I think, building on what Dave just said, in Europe and in North America, if you're dealing with government contracts, typically, the scope for inflation in there in terms of capture collars is normally pretty limited. You know, Poland in particular is very atrocious on that, on anything you do for the state. Similarly with DOD type contracts, quite often it's very, very limited as to what you can do, so you have to take a guess unless you build it in. And the only exception to that is union stipulated contracts where whatever the union pays automatically gets flowed through. North America, some of our bigger contracts, some of the specialty services, for instance, they were very good at actually pushing through inflation. And that's worked.
You know, they've been, they've always been good at doing that, but that's because they're dealing with big numbers over a long period of time. It's the shorter cycle work where, you know, people have got caught out to an extent. That's simply because, you know, people have deferred it, and we haven't repriced it when it's come back. All of that's dealt with. You know, the guys will talk about like a rationale, and that's because, you know, we've tried to promote a learning organization, and you, it's all right to get fraud once but not twice. That's, you know, the guys are picking up on that.
In terms of economics looking forward, it's gonna be quite interesting because if you look at what's happening to gas prices, which influences, you know, a lot of our input prices, be it concrete, cement or steel, you know, it's varying across the globe and as is the availability. You know, cement is becoming more available in North America, specifically in Texas and Florida, which had been in shortage. I think that will change the dynamic a little bit in terms of, both our productivity but also the pricing side of it. I don't doubt clients will be quick to come back to us for, you know, that to be recognized in our pricing. There will be a period of time where we'll enjoy a little bit more.
Last one I have for now anyway was on ERP system. Just in terms of as you build that out, are you planning to take those sort of costs as a ongoing sort of exceptional effectively and I suppose can you give together sort of update as to what you think those sorts of costs are likely to be over the next couple of years?
Yeah. We will continue to tag them as non-underlying. That cost this year is the consultancy and the dedicated team. As we ramp up this year and into implementation next year, that cost will probably increase on this year, and then we'll see it taper off. We do look at this as a 5-year program, but we do see the consultancies stepping off towards the back end of 2024, and then the costs of that implementation tapering off. It really is around the step and repeat into the different business units across the group.
Thank you.
Hi, sir. Hamlin, Liberum. You mentioned there's clearly still appetite for M&A. Is there a particular geography that you're looking at to carry out M&A in? I'll touch on one more question afterwards.
Yeah. I mean, clearly our M&A, as you would have seen, is gonna be focused on the markets where we want to build market share. If you think about our three divisions, and this is a bit of a generality, but it's holds true. North America and Europe, wherever we set a footprint down there, we are, you know, servicing markets which we want to be in. We wanna build market shares. Whereas AMEA, as a generality, is a very project-driven division. You know, we go into a site, we execute a project, and we come away. And you can see that typically in the likes of India, where, you know, the NRL, the SAM project, we're in mid-execution at the moment. When we complete that, you know, we took everything from that site and come away.
AMEA is very much, you know, with the footprint we've got works, and frankly, we don't need much more. Europe and North America, however, you know, at a local level, and I would stress, it's at a local market level, you know, you gain operational leverage by having more significant market shares of quality business. It's got to be quality. There's no use just being there and serving the volume. You've got to make sure that what you're doing makes a difference. That's what we will be looking for.
You know, look for typically the things which I spend most of my time looking at, are things which are in North America or in Europe, in the markets which, you know, we're already present, and therefore the risk of execution in terms of geography is minimal because we know those markets, we know the clients, we know the way in which they do business, you know, and cost base. Quite oftentimes, we also know the techniques that we're looking to buy because we'll have them somewhere else in the Group. We just won't have it at that particular location.
To that extent, in terms of risk execution from a deal perspective, the things which I find most attractive are in places where we're already present with techniques we already know, but we're just not present in that particular location, with an organization whose culture is aligned to ours. There's some businesses we compete against, frankly, they hold good positions. I could never, ever see us acquiring them or doing business with them because their culture and ours is not aligned. You have to recognize that this is not just about the numbers. This is about making stuff that worked.
Perfect. Thanks, Mike. Can I ask one more? Just on the Austral fraud, you mentioned that there's enhanced control processes now in place. Can you kind of just elaborate a little bit on what those might be to ensure that something like that doesn't happen again?
Yeah, sure. I mean, given the nature of that fraud and the nature of the people who actually perpetrated it, being in fiduciary roles, I think for us and the lessons we've learned from that, not necessarily about how we need to make wholesale changes to our control environment, but more around our checking and assurance around the execution of controls. We will be enhancing our internal audit process and team, and we'll do much more checking with evidence, in respect of the control processes that are being executed, making sure that we follow that through, with underlying evidence as well.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Just on that subject, I've been quietly impressed. I mean, it's one of those situations where, you know, a bit of scar tissue, you take all the learnings you can. People have actually been generally across the division, non-defensive, and all of them have been looking for incremental gains in pretty much everything. Behaviorally, I think has been really good. It's a horrible situation that triggered it, but it's been behaviorally quite good.
Johnny Cooper at Numis. Thanks for taking my question. Could I ask on NEOM and you flagged that the timing of ramp-up there will impact working capital investment. Can you give us sort of sense of what that working capital investment looks like? Is there a big investment in kit that needs to go in here? Was that involved taking things across from Europe or buying new kits? Are you expecting the project to be quite stop-start? I mean, how do you think about that in terms of putting investment in the ground? Thanks.
I mean, to give you a better sense and color to this, given the nature of this project, it is a huge undertaking. In terms of the client, you know, they are right at the beginning of this, and they're slowly ramping up and trying to find their way through it. I think the initial stages will be stop-start. We will be, I think, a little bit frustrated by that, and we'll have to make sure that, you know, as far as we possibly can, we are working in step with them. That having been said, you know, I think that there's positive endeavors on both sides.
I think for the next two, three months, we will be working at a low level of steady state, and my expectation is that as the client straightens out the schedule more clearly, you know, probably May, June time, we will ramp up again. Ramp up quite, you know, quite seriously at that point. My expectation is that once that ramp up starts, that it will be, you know, it will be sustained for a period of time. In terms of kit, we spent a lot of time working out what was the best equipment to do this particular job. We did that off the back of the experience which we've had in Dubai and doing similar jobs there, and elsewhere in Saudi.
It's fair to say that the guys, the work they did up front in that, selecting both that and the tooling and the methodology by which they put in the cages, has actually paid huge dividends because they've hit the production rates and indeed significantly improved them. Indeed, the quality has been, you know, absolutely spot on. All that planning up front has actually worked and has put us in a very good position with the client. There are six or seven contractors on site. In terms of operational performance, you know, we are doing very well. You know, that will not be lost on the client who is keen. You know, time is important to the client.
They're keen to actually make sure that they hit their schedule once they start it, which is of value to them, which, you know, is the sort of thing we deliver. In terms of kit, productivity is higher, so in terms of rigs, we'll probably buy a little bit less than we originally thought. I am looking to automate some of the cage fabrication because that's a bottleneck, and we knew it was going to be, but it's more of a bottleneck than we thought. That's simply because the rigs are producing faster. You know, the bottleneck becomes the cage elsewhere. That is. The CapEx, I think is perfectly manageable within our normal CapEx budget.
The thing which is gonna be more of a challenge, and frankly more difficult to call, will be the working capital because that will be dependent upon the timing of delivery, and, you know, how long they take to pay us.
Yeah. I think it goes without saying we do need to be quite measured in terms of this. It is quite a fluid situation, as Mike has said. We just need to make sure we don't get too much working capital tied up in this and stay on top of the billing and certification, look for advanced payments where we can get them. With the CapEx as well, it is new kit because these, when they are in full flow, they are going 24/6. It's the right thing, I think, to have new kit for that project.
Thanks very much.
It is I mean, operationally, just as a side, operationally, this is absolutely fascinating for me because us and all the competitors are dealing with exactly the same task and exactly the same geotechnical conditions. It enables me to look at our operational folk and just do compare and contrast, which is, you know. As an external verification of how competent they are, actually helps me a lot.
That's really helpful. Thanks. My other question is on the US, and you mentioned that you decided not to go ahead with the P3 project. There seems to be quite a lot of movement on the P3 market there. Is that something that you see as an opportunity, or is your focus very much on the private markets?
Mm-hmm.
P3, private, public-private partnership.
Oh.
Yeah.
It was a USPP.
Oh.
It was a financing instrument.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was more, textbook.
That's simply because the markets at the time when we were going to launch it were very choppy, and we just decided, actually, now is not the right time. It's as simple as that.
Right. Thanks.
Sorry, back again. I'm just wondering if you could say a little bit more about Canada and the conditions you're seeing there, particularly for this year, and also the UK around HS2 and workloads and, you know, capacity profiles on the back of obviously what is a fairly big project and pulling in a lot of command engineering workers from outside the market as well?
Okay. I'll deal with HS2 first. HS2, clearly, there's a whole stack of politics behind all of that. Frankly, the fact it's slowing down and extended over a little bit further, and this has been capping in a practical sense for a little while, I think it's actually good. I think it's good for the project because you haven't got this huge spike, which inevitably would cause even more inflation in terms of some of the key skills than has already been caused. It also means that as, you know, you silently alluded to there, that when this thing goes away, there isn't gonna be a huge overcapacity that's gonna sink the rest of the market.
I think there probably still will be a little bit of a surplus afterwards, but nowhere near as much as there could have been if C-one and C-two, C-three were all at peak at the same time. If that had happened, there would have been a massive overcapacity. That's not happening. C-one-As you know, largely, certainly from our point of view, it's largely complete. They've had some pretty difficult technical challenges, frankly, and they've done them really well. C1 in terms of government run contracts and projects is actually one of the best ones you'll ever see in the world. The contractual setup actually, you know, lends itself to that, to actually people working together.
That'll never make the press 'cause it's not good news, but, you know, it's, that's the fact of the matter. C2, C3 is now logically following on behind. Those are more structures, but they're less technically challenging, so that's more about a project management issue than it is a technical one. I think that is more likely to, you know, extend over a longer period of time. It'll be fine. That's good. 'Cause we'll just move assets and equipment and people from C1 to C2, C3, as will most of the other contractors, which will, you know, will be, will smooth it out, which will be good. In terms of Canada, I like Canada. Canada's a, is a, it's a good market. It's got a good stable economy.
You can rely on the law, you can rely on the politics, you can rely on the investment because there's, you know, some big cities now with some quite innovative, different, but innovative developments going on. It's also got, as a country, you know, they have some quiet barriers to entry for a variety of different reasons. Be it language in the case of the eastern part of the country or be it, you know, work permits and et cetera, or electrical standards and practical things like that are just slightly different. Once you're there, once you're proven, and you're competent, you know, gradually you can just quietly get, you know, better positions, better shares, and that's what we're doing.
Even a business which, you know, we turned down in the prairies as in down scaled two years ago, even now, that's doing very well. Curtis Cook is doing, you know, a very, very good job turning that business around. Indeed, his team. He's got some good guys working for him.
I've still got Mike, we've got another one. In terms of, I mean, it was probably 18 months if not, maybe 24 months ago, talking about kit bottlenecks in terms of the manufacturers. Is that largely gone now and pricing sort of settling back down in terms of the availability of machines?
That's a really interesting one because, I think in terms of capital equipment now, there is more availability in or more intent by the capital equipment manufacturers to sell you stuff. The challenge actually is spare parts. You know, the one residual thing from post-COVID now, you know, we're getting materials, we're getting, you know, labor is ebbed back. We've had, I'd say 6 instances in the last year where there'll be an element of a rig. It could be a, you know, a hydraulic pump or something like that, where, you know, historically they would be able to get parts on the shelf or the local service center, they haven't been able to get them.
PCB boards, you know, some of the control boards, simple things, have actually knocked the whole rig out for weeks. That's impacted productivity. You know, that's one of the beauties with NEOM, the fact that we've got kit there, we decided we're getting exactly the same rig and, you know, basically there's five of them, they're exactly the same spec. If something goes wrong with one, you know, it's an easy swap. More and more I think that's what we'll have to do in the medium term. You know, generally availability is beginning to pick up, but spare parts and specialist parts is a key issue right now. That's global. It's having the same problem in the States as well.
Just to follow up there on CapEx. How are you thinking about investing in new kit now given regulatory changes that are coming or expected? Are you looking to work your current kit a bit harder and wait to invest once you know what the landscape will be?
Yeah, I think I'm constantly looking at that. We do have an advantage because we're a global business where stuff can become obsolete in one part of the world. Because of legislation, it can be utilized elsewhere in places like India, and so on. We do know that particularly in western North America, there will be new rules coming in around rigs. We constantly keep an eye on it, but we don't see yet any sea change that means we need to change our principle around keeping our CapEx in line with depreciation.
From a technical viewpoint, we are consciously investing pretty much at the top end in terms of the tier spectrum. You know, if there's a tier five, tier six piece of equipment available, be it a rig or a truck, you know, we will typically make that extra investment to go that extra yard. We are actively working on environmental initiatives. For instance, HVO, this year coming up, you know, each of the business units is tasked with making sure that at least one of their projects is using HVO as a substitute for the diesel. In Europe, that's pretty easy. In other places in the world, that's not. The intent is to actually point them in that direction and put them on that train and, you know, push a little bit of demand.
The other thing which we're doing is, you know that we manufacture our own vibro and jet grouting equipment, which, you know, is... What it does is the best in the world. This year we are gonna be launching the first fully electronic version of one of those. It's got only KB0E. It's gonna be a push to get it done by the end of the year, but that's what the team are keen to do. They've been quietly pursuing this for the last 2 years or so. More and more philosophically, they're looking to actually disconnect, if you like, the execution end of a rig from the power source. I think you'll find over the next few years more and more of the, the prime movers will move to electric.
It's just a question of what is the power source? Is it a generator? Is it a hydro set? Is it plugged into the mains? You know, you'll find that bit being substituted. Well, thank you very much, everybody. Some really good questions. I was surprised the control issue came up so late. I thought that'd be the first question. But, it's a good question. It's an important question. I'll leave you all now. We will leave you all now. Thank you very much.
Thank you.