I had a listen late this afternoon to the recording of the...

I had a listen late this afternoon to the recording of the investor conference presentation this morning from Steve Boland and Andrew Crowther. Even though the documentation that was released last night was very comprehensive, there is no substitute for hearing it from the horses mouth, in order to appreciate subtle nuances, out and out enthusiasm and excitement, and illustrations or amplifications of key points made in the documentation.

These are random jottings I made while listening to Steve’s presentation:

1) The sales pipeline has increased year on year from $83 million to $142 million. At the half yearly presentation Steve had said that the pipeline needed to be delivering sales of $5million to $6million per month in order to maintain momentum and trajectory. So, I think that box can probably be quite emphatically ticked..

2) Hire revenue in July FY 24 was the best month ever.

3) July FY 24 was a cracking month for the formwork business in Victoria albeit off a low base.

4) The business generally has had a really strong start to FY 24.

5) The company has bid recently for a couple of very large projects and Steve is hoping to be able to talk more about these shortly.

6) The company is excited about the prospects for the new Acrowdeck product, for which a $1million order has already been made in South Australia.

7) Good growth expected in Industrial Services in FY24. More contracts are hoped to be announced shortly.

8) Debt to EBITDA ratio is going to decline in FY24.

These are also random jottings I made while listening to Steve answering analyst and shareholder questions:

9) In response to a question about the components of the recently announced Snowy Hydro contract, it was noted that the contract was exclusively about provision of labour expertise.

10) Capex in FY 24 will be oriented towards the Jumpform business and towards the new Acrowdeck product.

11) Reference made to a substantial Industrial Services contract which is very close to being realised, but as such could not yet be included in FY24 guidance. Steve’s comment was watch this space.

12) In response to another question about whether any of the new Acrow products had been factored into FY24 guidance, Steve said they had not.

13) In relation to a question on key risks going forward, Steve indicated that bad debts remained the overarching risk for the company, but the outlook on bad debts was much better than 12 months ago.

Make of all that what you will, but for mine, there seemed to be plenty of scope for one or more guidance upgrades as FY 24 progresses.

zeno9