Forterra H1 2025 Earnings Report

Forterra EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 5.80
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Forterra Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Forterra Announcement Details

• Quarter: H1 2025
• Date: 7/29/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:45AM ET

Forterra (LON:FORT) is a leading UK manufacturer of essential clay and concrete building products, with a unique combination of strong market positions in clay bricks, concrete blocks and precast concrete flooring. Our heritage dates back many decades and the durability, longevity and inherent sustainability of our products is evident in the construction of buildings that last for generations; wherever you are in Britain, you won't be far from a building with a Forterra product within its fabric. Our clay brick business combines our extensive secure mineral reserves with modern and efficient high-volume manufacturing processes to produce large quantities of extruded and soft mud bricks, primarily for the new build housing market. We are also the sole manufacturer of the iconic Fletton brick, sold under the London Brick brand, used in the original construction of nearly a quarter of England's housing stock and today used extensively by homeowners carrying out extension or improvement work. Within our concrete blocks business, we are one of the leading producers of aircrete and aggregate blocks, the former being sold under one of the sector's principal brands of Thermalite. Our precast concrete products are sold under the established Bison Precast brand, and are utilised in a wide spectrum of applications, from new build housing to commercial and infrastructure.

Forterra H1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Revenue growth: Group revenue rose by just over 20% with adjusted EBITDA up 23% to £29.9 m and a 30 bps margin improvement in H1 2025.
• Positive Sentiment: Strong cash flow & deleveraging: Operating cash flow reached £30 m, reducing net debt before leases to £69.4 m (1.4× adjusted EBITDA) and supporting a 90% interim dividend increase to 1.9 pence.
• Neutral Sentiment: UK brick market dispatches grew 14% YTD driven by medium and large housebuilders, while RMI demand remains subdued; Forterra has recovered share via volume builders but still lags 2022 levels.
• Positive Sentiment: Capacity expansion: Strategic investments at Desford, Wilnico and Accrington boost installed capacity by 15%, with full kiln operation and new brick rail system Omnia due in H2 2025.
• Positive Sentiment: Non-core exits: Closure plans for loss-making Bison Bespoke Precast and Formpave will cut over £2 m in capex, unlock land value and add c.2% to segmental EBITDA margin.

Presentation

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Good morning and thank you for joining us and welcome to Forterra's twenty twenty five Half Year Results. My name is Neil Esch and I'm the CEO of Forterra. And I'm joined today by Ben Guyatt, who is our CFO. 2025 has started well and I'm pleased to announce a strong set of H1 results that give us the confidence to increase our full year expectations. I'd like to take a brief moment to thank our employees whose hard work underpins these strong results.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Our revenue increased by just over 20%, driven by volume growth and modest selling price progression. The UK brick market grew by 14% year to date to the May, and the recovery in the market demand has primarily come from house building with RMI activity remaining subdued. Our exposure to volume housebuilders has led to market share recovery, though our share remains below twenty twenty two levels. Profitability was strong with EBITDA growth outpacing revenue and reaching just under GBP 30,000,000. Operating cash flow exceeded expectations, supporting better than expected debt reduction.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Net debt before leases reduced to £69,400,000 equivalent to 1.4 times adjusted EBITDA. Our interim dividend will increase to 1.9p per share, reflecting both improved trading and the strong reduction in debt. I will now hand over to Ben, who will present the financial review.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Thanks, Neil. Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you all here again. Delighted to be here for our first time actually at Investec, delivering a strong set of H1 results that reflect the benefit of improved demand for our products, particularly from the housebuilding sector. Firstly, as always, just to clarify that unless otherwise stated, I'm talking about adjusted financials.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So these adjustments are made to give the fairest and most comparable assessment of our underlying trading performance. There's a slide in the deck where I'll explain the adjustments to the statutory numbers. So turning on to the performance. So we have seen improved demand across our product range and are reporting a 20% increase in revenue in the period. We're reporting a 23% increase in H1 adjusted EBITDA at GBP 29,900,000.0, with a 30 bps improvement in our EBITDA margin.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

With a broadly fixed depreciation charge and falling borrowing costs, this drops through to an adjusted profit before tax of GBP 16,600,000.0, a healthy 82% increase on the prior period, with our EPS also showing a similar level of increase. We've delivered a strong adjusted operating cash flow of GBP 30,000,000 in the period, with this driven not only by our strong trading performance but also continued disciplined management of working capital. Encouragingly, we have reported a further meaningful reduction in our net debt before leases, with this falling to GBP 69,400,000.0 from the year end figure of GBP 84,900,000.0, countering the normal H1 seasonal trend. This performance, along with our expectations for the remainder of the year, allows us to declare an interim dividend of 1.9p per share, which is an increase of 90%. So moving on to the P and L.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

As always, this slide gives me the opportunity to provide a clarification on a few of the more technical aspects of our numbers. Depreciation will increase a little in H2 as we begin depreciating the new at Wilnico and Actrington with an expected full year charge of GBP 21,000,000. Finance expense of GBP 3,400,000.0 has fallen from GBP 4,900,000.0 in the prior period due to a reduction in both the level of borrowing and the rate of interest paid. Our finance expense is stated after capitalizing borrowing costs of GBP 1,400,000.0 attributed to our projects at Wilnico and Accrington. Whilst the capitalization of borrowing costs will cease in H2 twenty twenty five as the two factories are fully commissioned, reduced debt levels, a lower margin payable on our facility as the leverage reduces and expected future reductions in interest rates are all expected to lead to an H2 borrowing cost, which is close to or slightly above the H1 figure.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Our effective rate of corporation tax was 26.1%, which as expected and in line with our normal trends, is slightly above the statutory rate of corporation tax of 25. So moving on to the adjustments to statutory results. This slide clarifies these adjustments in getting to the adjusted financials that we're presenting today. As you can see, the net upward adjustment to the statutory result in the period is GBP 6,700,000.0, with the adjusted result being higher by this amount. We've added back GBP 4,000,000 of exceptional costs associated with our cash and margin accretive proposals to close the loss making noncore businesses of Bison Bespoke Precast and Formpave, which manufactures block paving.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Together, these businesses contribute less than 5% of group revenue and neither has been profitable in recent years. Closing Formpay removes the requirement to invest over GBP 2,000,000 of capital expenditure with no certainty of return and the exit from Bison bespoke precast creates the opportunity to realize material land value. In addition to the mainly noncash closure costs recognized to date, we expect to recognize cash redundancy payments of approximately GBP 1,700,000.0 in the second half. As previously discussed, the energy adjustments remove the volatility of fair valuing energy derivatives, where reduced output dictated that we had contracted for more energy than we subsequently needed. So in essence, that's simply a timing adjustment.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

As always at the half year, we have an adjustment to spread the benefit of our free carbon allowances across the full year in line with our production, whereas statutory results account for all of the free carbon allowances in H1, creating a somewhat false imbalance in our result. So now looking at our operating segments. So look in more detail at the trading performance, where as always, bricks and blocks is the primary driver of the group's performance. We've seen a significant improvement in trading during the period with demand for all of our core products increasing relative to the prior year. As we said earlier, the improved demand is driven by housebuilding with RM and I remaining subdued.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

UK brick industry dispatches to the May increased by 14% relative to the prior year, although they still remain 27% behind '22 levels. Mechanically, through our greater exposure to housebuilding, Forterra has outperformed the wider brick market in the period, reversing the pattern seen in 2023, although our market share remains below twenty twenty two levels as we maintain our pricing discipline. Despite continued competitive market conditions, we've implemented necessary price increases across our product range to broadly offset cost inflation. Price increases have, to some extent, varied by product with Aircrete Block, where supply and demand dynamics are most favorable, seeing the greatest level of increase. Whereas we often talk most about brick, it is worth highlighting the strength of the Aircrete performance in the period.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Brick pricing in the period is subject to a customer and product mix effect, which increased demand with increased demand for cheaper extruded bricks favored by our large housebuilding customers. With extruded or wire cut bricks, as they're also known, representing around twothree of our production capacity and with government support for increased housebuilding focusing on the affordable end of the market, we are well positioned to meet future demand. Our cost base remains consistent with our previous expectations with underlying low single digit cost inflation, coupled with the increase in employers' national insurance contributions. Energy prices remain stable, with the group now accessing the full financial benefits of the fifteen year solar power purchase agreement from the 04/01/2025. Energy markets have generally stabilized, and we have taken advantage of this in securing good coverage of our gas requirements for the next three years.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

And we have recently extended our contractual arrangements, providing us with the optionality to secure gas out to 2030 as market opportunities allow. We increased the production of aircrete blocks in the period and with brick output to increase in H2. Our H1 results show the early benefits of our operating leverage, but our cost base does include a degree of inefficiency in ramping up production, including the training of new members of staff. In addition to this, we do have some additional cost in 2025 as we postpone some non time critical spend in 2023 and 2024. With current demand varying significantly by market sector, until demand improves across our entire product range, including our RMI focused London brick range, our ability to fully benefit from operating from our operating leverage will remain partially constrained.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So we move on to bespoke products. So our Precast Flooring business comprises the bulk of this segment, and that business sells almost exclusively into new build housing. So therefore, has also seen a significant uplift in demand during the period. Floor beam sales benefit from the strongest volume recovery in our whole product range with the improvement in demand for hollow core flooring also. Floor beams are not generally stockpiled, so this provides some comfort that the brick demand we see is supported by construction rather than just a restocking of housebuilder inventories.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Again, we have implemented modest selling price increases on a customer by customer basis during the period. And like the bricks and blocks, the cost base in this segment has remained broadly stable. In response to improved demand in the period, we have increased our production output, allowing us to do increased dispatches as we move into H2. Bison bespoke precast revenue in the period was GBP 6,200,000.0. And despite increasing revenue by 18%, the business remained loss making.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

The proposed exit of this business will add around 2% to the segmental EBITDA margin before overhead allocations. So moving on to working capital. As I said previously, we maintained our disciplined management of our working capital during the period. Improved demand for our products has allowed us to reduce our brick stocks in particular, driving a reduction in total inventories in the period of GBP 5,900,000.0. This helped us offset the normal seasonal pattern of increasing working capital in H1, leaving us with a broadly static working capital position relative to the previous year end.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Moving on to CapEx. So investing through the cycle and addressing our brick capacity constraint, we have spent around GBP 140,000,000 of capital on strategic projects since 2019. With these projects now being completed, we are seeing a marked reduction in our current levels of capital spend. We spent a total of GBP 7,300,000.0 of CapEx in the first half and of this spend, 5,000,000 related to our strategic projects. Our maintenance CapEx remains carefully controlled with GBP 2,300,000.0 spent in the period, with a greater spend of around GBP 5,000,000 expected in H2, driven by the timing of factory shutdowns.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

We envisage rather spending a total of approximately GBP 17,000,000 of CapEx in 2025, leaving just over £9,000,000 to spend in the second half. We expect around £9,500,000 of our total 2025 CapEx spend to be directed to the completion of our three strategic projects at Desford, Wilnico and Accrington, although there remains some uncertainty regarding the timing of these final payments. In future, we expect our maintenance capital spend to be a maximum of GBP 14,000,000 per annum, although this will vary significantly year on year. At this stage, we've not committed to further strategic spend, although organic investment remains a key lever in our strategy. By virtue of the timing of projects, we expect future capital spend to be lumpy in its nature.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

However, we do not anticipate the same level of elevated capital spend that we have seen in recent years. So we look at our cash flow performance, and that's the strength of our first half performance is further emphasized by our cash flow. Adjusted operating cash flow increased to GBP 30,000,000, an increase of 126% on the prior period, demonstrating a 100% conversion to adjusted EBITDA in the period. We see a net cash inflow from adjusting items being the sale of surplus energy. In the second half, we expect the cash outflow of around GBP 1,700,000.0 in respect of proposals to exit the non core businesses.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Ultimately, both exits will be cash positive either through freeing up land for potential disposal or through avoidance of CapEx. Interest paid relative to the prior period is adversely influenced by timing of payments, although does benefit from lower borrowings, lower margins driven by reduced leverage and also falling interest rates. Whilst we only paid a net GBP 600,000 of corporation tax in the first half, This is due to the receipt of a GBP 2,300,000.0 prior year tax refund. We expect a tax outflow of around GBP 4,000,000 in the second half, bringing the full year net outflow to just over around GBP 6,000,000. This adds up to a GBP 15,500,000.0 decrease in net debt before leases in the period at a time when recent seasonal patterns would have suggested a smaller reduction.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So looking at the balance sheet. So as we said previously, we ended the period with net debt before leases of GBP 69,400,000.0, and that's reduced from GBP 84,900,000.0 at the last year end. Our borrowing stood at GBP 85,000,000, which is GBP 15,000,000 lower than December 2024. With exactly half of our facility drawn at the period end, this leaves facility headroom of GBP 85,000,000 against our GBP 170,000,000 RCF. Supported by our lending banks, we exercised a seventeen month extension option in the period, taking our committed facility to the June 2028.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Closing leverage, as stated on a pre IFRS 16 banking basis, was 1.4x, down from 1.9x at the last year end. We expect to continue our deleveraging in the second half with leverage expected to fall to just above 1x adjusted EBITDA on a banking basis by the end of the year. So this now concludes the financial section of this presentation, and I'll hand you back to Neil as he takes you through our markets, our continued strategic delivery and then the outlook for the rest of the year.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Thank you, Ben. So moving on to our markets. Now we all know that The UK needs to build more homes. And based on the CPA forecast, housing starts are expected to increase continually over the years to come. It's encouraging to see the year to date increase in activity, which is mainly coming from medium and large house builders.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

According to NHBC data, June year to date housing starts are up 12% versus the same period last year. And if you exclude flats and apartments and look at homes with their own front door, so to speak, they are up 26% compared to the same period last year. As I mentioned, brick volumes are up 14% year on year with extruded brick seeing even stronger growth. The table on the right shows that imported brick volumes have remained stable as a percentage of the total market on a MAT level. However, if you compare May year to date 2025 with the same period in 2024, imports have only risen by 9%, which is lower than the 14% growth in domestic brick sales, So pleasingly, imports have lost their share in the last five months. Thank you. Let's hope this works. Yes. Good. Right.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Taking a look at brick capacity now. If I first draw your attention to the chart on the left, you can see how domestic brick capacity has evolved since 02/2007. UK installed capacity reached a low of 2,000,000,000 bricks before a round of investments that has seen in installed capacity increased to 2,200,000,000 bricks. You can see on this chart two dotted lines. The blue line shows the demand in 2022, which is when we built just over 200,000 homes, and the black line shows the estimated number of bricks if we were to build a target of, let's say, 300,000 homes per year.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

So it's clear, domestic capacity will be more than saturated by the time we get back to 2022 levels. Now if we move to the other chart, we have Forterra's capacity evolution since 2021. Due to the slowdown, we currently have 66% active capacity. And as the market continues to recover, the first step will be to run our active capacity at 100%, which includes shutter rate in Desford before bringing back Claphton, our mothballed brickworks. The other important message on this slide is as a result of the Desford and Wilnerco investments, we have increased our installed capacity by 15%.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

No other UK brick manufacturer comes close to this level of additional capacity, and this puts us in pole position for when the market recovers. If we take a look at strategic imperatives now. So our strategic imperatives are twofold. And the first one is all around strengthening the core. We have a fantastic business, but all businesses can be even better.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

We've made key capital investments to strengthen the core. We've also looked at different parts of our business and decided to consider closing Colford and Summer Coats. But it doesn't stop there. We're also making progress in our commercial excellence and operational excellence programs. The second driver of growth is beyond the core.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Here, we're trying to think of the products and solutions for the buildings of tomorrow. To achieve our growth plans, we also have what we call strategic enablers, and I'm pleased to say our safety and engagement results continue to improve. And we're also making good progress on sustainability, and we will update you on that during the full year results presentation. So as already announced, we are preparing to increase the output of Desford by running both kilns at the same time. This is expected to start from September this year and having already run both kilns individually, we're confident in achieving this next important milestone.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

This will be a key step in Desford's ramp up on its way to produce 180,000,000 bricks. But to be clear, due to market demand in 2025 and 2026, we will not need all of that capacity just yet. At Wielnakeote, I'm delighted to say we've lit the kiln and started commissioning the extruded side of the factory, and we expect to be producing saleable product in Q4 of this year. At Atkinson, the slip line commissioning went incredibly well. Activity is currently focused on range design with an initial launch of 14 slips expected in the second half of this year.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

We will also be launching Omnia, our new brick rail system, which will complete its external testing certification in the coming weeks. Omnia offers improved speed of installation versus our previous Shawbrick product. If we take a look at capital allocation now, with an improving balance sheet, capital will be allocated to the following priorities: strategic organic capital investments that deliver compelling returns. And I would point out that our Brick business is now very well invested. However, our current pipeline of projects includes a potential Air Creek factory, and we are continuing to explore opportunities in calcined clay.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

We'll talk more about our dividend policy at full year results, and we remain fully committed to ensure it stays attractive for investors. We will also consider bolt on acquisitions where suitable opportunities arise in adjacent or complementary markets and supplementary shareholder returns as appropriate. So looking ahead, we're encouraged by the group's year to date performance and pleased to see the demand of all products ahead of almost all products ahead of both the prior year and previous expectations. We expect adjusted EBITDA will be modestly ahead of the H1 figure and therefore full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA to be exceeding our previous expectations. This will translate to adjusted PBT being significantly ahead of the previous expectations due to the broadly flat depreciation and amortization and reducing financial costs.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

While we currently anticipate the present demand pattern to continue in the coming months, we remain cautious as to the fragility of The UK economy and the impact it may have on the new housing market. Looking beyond the current financial year, the Board remain confident that our recent investments in new production capacity leave the group in an excellent position to benefit from the market recovery in the key markets we operate in. We'd now like to move to questions and answers. For the purpose of the recording, please state your name and where you're from. Thank you.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

First off, of gentlemen, that was very quick. So just on the right hand side there.

[Lewis Roxburgh, Equity Research Analyst - Industrials at Goodbody]

Lewis, Roxborough, Goodbody. And just on your expectations of H2 being ahead of H1, I was just wondering what the key drivers of that. Is a further volume acceleration in new build or is an improvement in the efficiency capacity ramp up? And then just the second part to that and meeting out those sort of operational inefficiencies, just kind of see what's your thoughts on what an optimum margin can look like given normalized level of demand? And secondly, just more volume growth being helped by the volume house builders.

[Lewis Roxburgh, Equity Research Analyst - Industrials at Goodbody]

I just wondered if you've noticed the kind of shift in your customer mix and what that kind of feeds through to in terms of pricing? Thanks.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Thank you. So I'll take the one around kind of the capacity half and assumptions and maybe you cover off the margin and I'll come back to customer mix, Ben. So look, market has started very, very well and we are very exposed to the large and medium sized housebuilders and our strong position is in extruded brick. And as I mentioned earlier, that is ahead more than the overall brick market. And we expect that to continue for the rest of the year.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

We don't expect further increases, okay, but we expect the current levels to carry forward for the remainder of the year. Not everything is absolutely perfect. As we mentioned, the RMI market where we have our iconic London brick is still quite depressed. And overall, from a pricing point of view, although we've increased prices of products to cover price over cost, we haven't achieved our overall price because of the change in mix profitability of products. That kind of touches on your third question a little bit.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

I'll pass it over to Ben, who maybe wants to talk about operational margin and drop free.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Yes, of course. So look, what we're seeing so far is just the start of our operational leverage. So most of the extra volume we've sold this year was product that was made previously at higher cost of production. So we've started ramping up production. So in the period, we ramped up Air Crete in two stages.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

We also increased production of concrete floor beams right at the end of the period. And then the brick business, we get the big uplift at Desford in September. So this is going to take a while for this operational leverage to come through. So in terms of optimal margins, I'd sort of refer you back to 2022 levels and then add a little bit for Desford on top of that. But we're a long way away from that.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

But yes, you will see further kind of operational leverage through this year and into next year as we increase production and gain efficiency.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

And just on customer mix, I kind of touched on it earlier. We don't have the kind of the highly profitable high price London brick sales that we would like because of the depressed market. And also soft mud isn't performing in the same way as extruded brick. So whereas we're quite strong in extruded brick, we do have a soft mud business as well. And that's where pricing has been a little bit more challenging because the type of house builders who are building more homes at the moment are generally looking at cost and they're choosing to use an extruded brick rather than a soft mud is a bit of a pattern we're starting to see.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Which is to our advantage because two thirds of our production capacity is extruded. So if you look going forward, obviously, the government want to build more houses. Where they apply support it's going to be at the affordable end of the market. So I think kind of we're well placed to meet that demand with our extruded footprint going forward. You. Hainesley, I think you were next and then we'll go to

[Aynsley Lammin, Equity Analyst - Building & Construction at Investec]

Hainesley Lammerer from Investec. Just two for me. Just on the imports being displaced, is that just kind of the economics, they're not particularly favorable or imports more soft margins? Any color on the kind of dynamic there? And then I think you'd previously spoken about Desford's at an incremental $25,000,000 of EBITDA.

[Aynsley Lammin, Equity Analyst - Building & Construction at Investec]

Is that still what you would expect as the kind of recovery comes through and matures?

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Okay. I'll take the imports. Can you take the Desford question? So yes, the imports a lot of the imports coming in are soft manners. I mentioned just now that's been quite a competitive part of the market.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

And it's not where the volume growth has really been coming from. So we're seeing that growth, like I said, in extruded brick. And that's where imports probably, from a price point probably struggle to get to. And that's not because it's a low price. It's just a domestically produced product in a cost effective way.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

So yes, we're putting that down to it. Also, as we move through the cycle, a lot of the imported products were going into not only housing high end, but also some commercial buildings. And the commercial side of things is probably a little bit behind the housing in terms of a recovery as well, but we're not that massively exposed to that market from a brick point of view. So I think that's all the noise within the imports. Ultimately, volume customers don't want the complexity of dealing with imports.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

They want assurance of supply. They want a reliable supplier who can give them the volume they need as their business grows and develops. And that's absolutely what our business can do because of its round of capital investment that it's made.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Yes. And just to add to that, yes, just to add to what Neil was saying as well. So we previously talked about where kind of major house builders generally don't want that extra complication of imports. It was the merchanting sector who were maybe willing to kind of invest in imports and buy bricks kind of more speculatively. But as we've talked about through this presentation, it's the merchanting sector that's really struggling at the moment. So that's probably weighing on that as well.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

And yes, to your second question of the GBP 25,000,000 at Desford. So yes, Desford, our target is that basically we think Desford will add an incremental GBP 25,000,000 to our business. Obviously, the timing of that has been delayed since we've kind of opened the factory driven by the market. But notwithstanding the fact that we have had a few teething problems and challenges, we did a detailed kind of exercise sort of earlier this year. And we still maintain that all of the challenges and complications we've seen, we're working through them and none of them change that the actual kind of end goal will be that we still believe that factory will add GBP 25,000,000 to EBITDA.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

The unknown bit is when because we need the supportive market to warrant that level of production. And as Neil said, we're going to increase production. We're going to run two kilns simultaneously for the first time, but we still won't need 180,000,000 bricks a year. So there'll still be some latent inefficiency in operating, but it's a good step in the right direction. Do want to go to Ami next to Ainsley, just Yes. To pass

[Ami Galla, Director at Citi]

Ami Gala from Citi. A few from me. The first one was just as we think about the sort of medium term recovery, at least back to 2022 levels of brick demand for the industry. I wonder if you could give us some sort of color in terms of how much potentially is there risk of, say, mainstream bricks being dislodged because house builders will use more timber frame. Is that at all a risk that we need to consider?

[Ami Galla, Director at Citi]

And also, as we think about the current consumption, how much inroads has concrete bricks made in the market to date? My second question was just on energy costs. Now that we've got the visibility, can you give us some guideline or colors to how should we think about the energy cost line over the next two to three years? And the last one was on brake slips and the new product that you've been launching in the system side of it. How is the actual process of specification or marketing that product?

[Ami Galla, Director at Citi]

Is there a separate channel that you're pursuing to kind of get that specified more intensively as you think about the market ahead?

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Right. So I'll talk about one and two. Ben, do you want to take three and I'll come back to me for four. So look, the midterm recovery 2022, we don't really see any kind of change around what people are using to build homes. You're absolutely right to say timber frame is increasing its penetration and that gives us a slight challenge for aircrete, but we should consider a lot of aircrete is used below ground and timber frame buildings or homes still have aircrete in the foundations below ground.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

We spent a lot of time talking to the house builders and trying to get involved with their innovation plans and what they're looking to try and see how they build the homes of tomorrow. It's part of our Beyond the Core strategy. And we're comfortable today that we don't see a massive swing or change away from traditional brick. You could say what would drive a change, it could be cost, it could be labor. But many of the house builders are very convinced that we can get back to the twenty twenty two levels without having to address too much the labor challenge.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

People have moved away from the industry and they'll move back in. Concrete bricks, they've found a little bit of a place in the market. There are some house builders who believe in them. We've done some in-depth studies from our side that see the complexity required in terms of building with concrete bricks is not impossible, but it's more challenging than clay brick, expansion joints, all those types of things. There are some questions about ongoing longevity of the facade, the color and all those types of things.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

And I think what we see is many customers actually sticking with traditional clay brick. Even with Marshall's recent announcements, they touched on that a little bit. And we've also had one housebuilder switch away from concrete brick to go back to a clay brick product because they want to go back to that pleasing aesthetic. And we really believe in the merits and the value of concrete bricks from that point of view. Ben, do you want to pick up the third one?

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Yes. So as we said in the sort of my script, so energy prices have broadly stabilized. So we see kind of we don't see a return in the short term to the spikes that we've seen over the last few years. And we've got good energy coverage looking forward. So on the electricity side, effectively, the solar farm derisks that for the next fifteen years.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So we've got good certainty on our electricity. And on gas, we've got the sort of the forward contracts. So we've forward purchased. We're pretty much fully covered for this year. We're about 75% covered for next year and then about 60% covered for the year after.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

And then that takes us into 2028. And as I said, we've literally just extended our contract, and we're looking at the opportunity to buy gas for 2829% now because you can buy it at pretty competitive prices, which if you strip out the inflation element, kind of take you back to kind of pre COVID prices. So yes, where we've always benefited from kind of forward purchasing, where we've been able to forward purchase a long way in advance, we've generally done pretty well, and you can eliminate a lot of risk. Where we got caught, along with a lot of other people, was the kind of post COVID into Ukraine, where we didn't have the forward coverage. So yes, we kind of see energy being relatively stable.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

As long as you manage it well and forward purchase, then we don't see a repeat of the challenges we've had over the last couple of years.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

So just to come on the last question around bricks slips and how we take them to market. So our first range will be relatively narrow 12 or 14 slips. And predominantly, we'll sell those to the EWI providers, so the external wall insulation type companies. So think of KREND, who were recently bought by Sangaban Webber, which is a Sangaban company. Those types of businesses where they're renovating the outside of the existing buildings to improve the thermal performance and they're stuck on.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

So we will sell directly to those EWI providers. But we will also specify and try and get slips into probably new build rather than renovation, multi residential high rise buildings. And you're absolutely right, we will need to develop and build a specification muscle because today we push bricks to a customer base who are very, very used to buying bricks and know and understand how to install them and how to specify them. So we've already recruited a team of specification people. They've been in the business for the last six months building the pipeline and starting to generate steels from a specification point of view.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

But that's where we'll need Omnia, which is the rail system. So the high rise buildings because of certain fire requirements, you can't use stuck on bricks generally. So you have to use a rail system. And that's where that system performance and test in is very, very important. So we'll have accreditation for that in the next couple of weeks.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

And then we can really push forward with driving the specification side. And specification slips will be extruded from Accrington or they may also be in some occasions cut slips, which we will also have the ability to supply from our range.

[Alastair Stewart, Construction & Property Analyst at Progressive Equity Research Limited]

Alastair Stuart from Progressive. Question. What was the drag on RMI during the period? Was it mainly interest rates or wider economic uncertainty? What do you think could be the what could kick start or revive demand there, particularly for your higher margin London Brick products?

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Yeah. It seems to be wonderful. But maybe take that one together, Ben, you can contribute to anything you feel I miss. I think the thing which is holding back the RMI side of things for us is we're mainly in the extension market, which is quite an expensive investment for homeowners. And I think consumer confidence has been a challenge around there, all the uncertainty we hear when we turn on the news.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

And also very often those extensions are funded by maybe taking a little bit of equity out of your home to increase your mortgage and interest rates have been a little bit high of late. So people are probably watching and stepping back and saying, do I want to invest in that right now? And I think those are the things which somehow will have to start to change for us to see a pickup in our side of RMI. Bel, don't if you want to add anything to that or?

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

No.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

No? Okay. Good stuff. Kristen at the front.

[Christen Hjorth, Equity Research Director at Deutsche Numis]

Christian Yoch from Deutsche Bank. Three questions for me. First of all, just on sort of house building, getting mixed messages. New outlets seem to be a bit of a challenge, but brick sales are up significantly. What are your housebuilder customers saying to you in terms of volumes as you look forward?

[Christen Hjorth, Equity Research Director at Deutsche Numis]

And are you sort of slightly worried about an air pocket at some stage with a lack of new outlets opening? The second one, quickly, just touch on current trading, which would be quite helpful given the guidance. And then finally, just on the Air Crete markets, just a bit more detail in terms of what's going on there and perhaps sort of moving into you touched on a bit of a negative aircrete from timber frame, but you also touched on new capacity. So just declaring that circle as well would be super helpful. Thank you.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Okay. Do you want to I'll take one and two, Ben, and then you come in at the back end of two and three. So yes, mixed messages from house builders. I would say when we talk to the house builders away from the city in terms of the pipeline and volume in terms of their build programs, we've got a very, very strong pipeline of volume coming through. So from that point of view, we're quite confident that as long as their build program sticks for the remainder of the year and they don't start having cancellations, etcetera, we're confident about where we're going there.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Already booking volume for next year. So people are starting to realize that they need to use more bricks and buy more bricks. I think the other thing which is coming through is we're seeing this real change into the sweet spot of our products and our business and where our share is. And as we mentioned already, we're not massively exposed to housing in London and the Southeast. And that's the most depressed part of the market from the house building or the HPC starts point of view.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

We're very exposed to the extruded bricks, obviously, and the enjoyment from that point of view. We've got overall confidence that the market will continue. Now if suddenly there's a change, we know that the house builders can stop very, very quickly. So we're measured and guarded around that. But yes, we're not looking at a further uptick.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

We're just looking at a continued demand that we've seen repeating in the second half of the year. Current trading, Ben, do you want to pick up on current trading? I mean month to date in terms of volumes, we're doing very, very well. We have a revised forecast and we're on target to hit our revised forecast for the month. But anything else on current trading, Ben?

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Yes. I mean

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

I was just going say just on the house building kind of and is there a void? I mean the other thing is I sort of mentioned that our sales of floor beams are particularly strong and that floor beams are built by ground workers. They don't have the cash resources or anything to start hoarding floor beams. So unlike in the past where people stockpile bricks, there's no real concept of stockpiling a floor beam. So that's a kind of reassuring point as well.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

And the other thing is just to look at the data. You've got to remember that housing kind of housing starts fell by a lot more than housing completions through 2023 and 2024, and brick dispatches fell by even more than housing starts. So as it starts to recover, it's not illogical that you kind of do get a bit more of an uptick in brick demand than you do in housing starts, and that housing starts increases again by more than completions. So yes, I mean in terms of current trading, on top of that, so we're still seeing kind of a continuation of the trading conditions we've seen through the last three months. So if you look at Brick, I think relative to the prior year comparator, I think June was the second strongest month in the first half of the year.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

July looks equally strong in terms of the volumes that we're seeing. We're only a couple of days away from the end of the month. So as we sort of said, our outlook for the rest of the year is based on a continuation of these trading conditions up to sort of November. Obviously, you always get a tail off into December. But yes, we're just expecting to see what we've currently got continue for the rest of the year.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Maybe before we go to Aircrete, just on that, the other thing which is quite interesting, which gives us the confidence, I mean, Ben mentioned about the bison flooring side of the business. But although we endeavor to get all our product on time in full within the customer expectations, if we happen to be late, customers start screaming, where are my bricks? So it's not that they're taking these bricks and kind of putting them in the field for the future. They're genuinely wanting them. They've got people waiting to start laying them.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

So that also gives us some reassurance that this is actual demand rather than a bit of stock building. Aircrete, Ben, do you want kick things off and I'll follow-up?

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Yes. Mean, as I think Neil has already talked about, we're seeing strong performance in Aircrete. As I say, we've already invested GBP 140,000,000 in our brick business, so we've got a very well invested brick business. The Aircrete business in The UK is not there's a lot of old factories, and we've got one that could ideally need replacing. And the efficiency benefits of actually replacing that old factory are really significant.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Yes, you have to look at the market. And as we said, kind of, yes, there is a threat from timber frame. But on the counter to that, the latest building regulations in terms of Part L of the building code mean that actually you need more aircrete underground to get the necessary thermal performance. So although you lose a bit on the timber frame, you gain a bit on the new energy kind of the building regulations and coupled with a significant efficiency benefit in terms of replacing an old and tired factory, we do see a significant opportunity there. But unlike bricks, where we've previously talked about, we've got an oven ready site at a place called Swillington, where we could start building a brick factory this afternoon if we wanted.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Aircrete is a little more challenging because we have to make sure we've secured the raw materials. Currently, we make all our aircrete with PFA, so kind of power ash from power stations. Obviously, there are no coal fired power stations in The UK anymore, so we're currently excavating kind of historically stockpiled ash. I think if we build a new factory going forward, whereas it may still use ash, we'll also want to secure a supply of sand. So sand is another way of making aircrete.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

And obviously, we think that's the future. So we've got a lot more moving parts before we can kind of commit to an aircrete factory, but it's certainly something we're very interested in.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

I think the only thing I would add to that is we've looked and mapped the dynamics of what the house builders have invested in timber frame capacity. So we've got a pretty clear understanding of where they will be and where they will saturate and also the type of homes that lend themselves to being built from timber frame. Last time, I wasn't in the business, but the technical team informed me that in the past there wasn't enough aircrete to go around in 2022. So people were using aggregate block and they could do that because regulations haven't changed. Fast forward today, the regulations have changed.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

They can't use aggregate block in the same ways as they were using below ground. So there will be growth, okay, in the market, but it won't grow to the same extent as the total number of new homes built because there will be a growth of timber frame. But we modeled that through. And yes, we're not ready to commit yet, but we've started to build a compelling case that the investment makes sense.

[Stephen Rawlinson, Director at Applied Value Limited]

Stephen? Stephen Rawlinson from Applied Value. Just one question from me. You built up inventory in the first half of last year, 97,000,000. It's come down quite considerably.

[Stephen Rawlinson, Director at Applied Value Limited]

And obviously, in terms of inventories to sales ratio, it's quite low compared with where we were last year. We know the reasons some of the reasons behind that. What do you consider would be the optimum inventory level, as I say, a percentage of revenue? And that's a broad brush figure. But during the second half, you'll probably be building up stocks as Desert goes on, second kiln comes on capacity, Accrington comes on.

[Stephen Rawlinson, Director at Applied Value Limited]

So you'll building that up. And I'm looking partly in the inventory level, but partly also at year end net debt and the impact of more inventory that might be coming through. And the danger that you've outlined as well. The market is a bit fragile. So just talk us through your thinking on that, if you can, just in case that there is an inadvertent increase in inventory again in the second half. I hope not, but you never know.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Yes. Ben, do want to pick that one up?

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Yes.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

I mean in terms of what's an optimal level of inventory, it depends on what part of the business you're looking at. So in brick, we'd normally say three months of inventory. So I guess that's 25% of sales if you're looking on a full year basis. At the moment, the strong demand for extruded brick means we've got significantly less than three months already. If you look at, for example, our London brick, we've got more than three months.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So at the moment, our inventories aren't balanced. In terms of Desford, I mean, at the moment, the intention is bringing Desford back on is not to build inventory. As if we don't bring it back on, we will be letting customers down because of that really strong demand for extruded bricks. So yes, we're certainly not intending to build significant industry inventory in the second half. We have some flexibility in that.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So for example, we have factories that are still not running for the full twelve months a year. So that's very easy to flex in terms of if you want to run a factory an extra two months or so or not. And even with Desert, we're not as I say, we're not bringing it back and we're not going to run it at 180,000,000 bricks a year. So there is some ability to flex that. Yes, there is a bit of cost inefficiency, the less you make.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

But look, we've worked really hard capital to get our inventory down, to get our debt down. We're not talking about doing anything that would kind of see us back in 2023 levels of kind of inventory build or anything. So I think it's at the moment, if we don't increase production, we'll be actually losing sales. And then on the concrete side of the business, generally, inventories are lower anyway, kind of one to two months inventory is generally what we'd carry on the concrete side of the business.

[Sam Cullen, Equity Research Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt. I've got a couple.

[Sam Cullen, Equity Research Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Just a follow-up to Neil on your points around the mix shift that you're seeing in terms of extruded. Just to clarify what you're saying. Are you saying is this purely a reflection of geographical demand and product demand in terms of tenure? Or are you seeing house builders where they can subject to planning and value engineering and moving away from soft mud towards extruded brick as a cheaper product to try and take cost out of the build process? That's the first one.

[Sam Cullen, Equity Research Analyst at Peel Hunt]

And then Ben, I think you mentioned a land value in terms of the buy some precast site? Can you put a number on that? Is it significant?

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Okay. So this mix shift in demand and mainly around the soft mud side of things and discussion with house builders. So soft mud as a percentage of the market isn't dropping away massively. But with the discussions we're having with house builders, we've been going in because actually the one thing we're not selling enough of at the moment is soft mud product. Our Mieschen factory isn't running all year flat out.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

So when we have discussions to try and improve our mix, the response of the housebuilder is very, very often when we're looking forward, we're looking to see if we can use less soft mud and more extruded products. So we're not seeing that in actual sales yet, but that's a discussion that's coming through from our discussions with the customers.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

In terms of land value, I'm not going to give you an exact number because it's commercially sensitive and the people we might want to sell the land to might be listening. But yes, certainly, it's worth north of GBP 5,000,000, maybe significantly north of GBP 5,000,000.

[Clyde Lewis, Deputy Head - Research at Peel Hunt]

Clyde Lewis at Beal Hunt. A couple of questions as well, if I may. The businesses you're shutting, I think you gave the first half number for Bison. How much bigger is or smaller is Formpay? I'm trying to get a total when we're we're sort of looking at models for next year in terms of the change.

[Clyde Lewis, Deputy Head - Research at Peel Hunt]

In terms of the strategic investment, as you flagged, you haven't got any major plans on the books at the moment. And obviously, sounds very much like Aircrete is maybe the first one out of the blocks. Can you maybe give us an idea as to what would be the catalyst to make you press the go button on that? And what sort of scale and timing are we looking at there?

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Do want to do the Yes.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So Formpave is smaller than the buy some bespoke business. So full year Formpave would generate about GBP 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 of revenue. So on a half year basis, it's kind of it's £2,000,000 £2,500,000 of revenue, and it's really not that large at all. And as say, neither business was profit making. They both made small losses.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So profitability wise, fairly inconsequential for your model. But over the full year, you're probably losing £17,000,000 of revenue across the two businesses, which is still less than 5% of the group number.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

And from the Air Crete investment point of view, if you if I kind of break your question down to the what's the trigger? When do we go with it? I think it's very much around raw material supply and location of the factory rather than the dynamics of the market and how it will develop and grow. We've done a lot of work on that. We've done a deep dive study last year in fact on timber frame and the evolution of it.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

So it's just around where do we put it, what's the right location for delivered costs. We plan to use an existing site that we have is our intention today. So no land purchase from that point of view. And the raw material. And it kind of lends itself to another part of our capital allocation and strategic projects around calcite and clay.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

What we've discovered from the calcite and clay side of things is as an SCM, ash will become more and more in demand because the cement players will also want to use it. So we're really considering at this stage whether it's time to switch away from ash in the new factory and go with sand. So those are the kind of the things we're trying to work through, Klein, from that point of view.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Just to add to the point, terms of a capital investment for a new Aircrete factory, 50,000,000, 55,000,000. But it's worth adding that the current old Aircrete factory that we've got, which we would close if we did this, is sat on a pretty valuable piece of land. So actually, the net spend would be a lot lower than that. So you might be looking at a net spend in the region of GBP 30,000,000 over a period of a few years. So I think the point we're making is kind of don't assume there will be zero strategic spend going forward.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

It won't be anything like the GBP 140,000,000 that we've done over the last five years. But we've still got the balance sheet, the kind of the cash generation of the business easily allows us to kind of make that sort of 30,000,000 or so investment recovering the cost of the old factory land, reducing the net outlay. So it's kind of easily affordable for us.

[Harry Dow, VP - Equity Research at Redburn Atlantic]

Thank you. Harry Dodd from Rothschild and Co, Redburn. Just on the volume comment for June and July, should we read that as a similar year on year growth rate or kind of the activity stayed at a similar level? I know the comparison base, I think, may be tough as we go through the year. So just a clarification on that.

[Harry Dow, VP - Equity Research at Redburn Atlantic]

And then how that sort of intertwines with H2 at the kind of EBITDA level, maybe only being modestly better than the first half. So if the kind of operating leverage is maybe improving as well in the second half and the volumes are still pretty strong. And then if I think you maybe mentioned that the operating leverage is being kind of pulled down by some products, maybe predominantly the RMI focused ones as well. Should we therefore maybe expect in 2026, for example, if we hope maybe we get bit of an RMI recovery that operational leverage could be higher than usual given that maybe in the first half and I think the implication for this year, operational leverage is maybe lower

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Ben, there's a lot of numbers behind those. Do you want do those?

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

I'll maybe help let you with try one volume, more. If want. In terms of look, the volumes we're seeing at the moment, we've seen a consistent run rate from the last three or four months. As I said, I think June was the second best month of the year so far year on year. You do make the good point that comparatives do improve in the second half of the year.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So the year on year delta will narrow. That's kind of that's pretty certain. But yes, at the moment, what we're saying is we've based our expectations on this current level of trading that we're seeing continuing as we run up towards the end of the year. Yes, in the November and into December, it will slow down. But until then, we're kind of expecting a similar run rate to what we're seeing today.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

In terms of operating leverage, yes, you picked up on a couple of points there. Look, we won't get operating leverage takes time. So for example, we've got the cost of inefficiencies. At the moment, we're employing people with Desert to run this extra kiln. Kiln is not going to start running until September, but we're paying some of them now because they've got to be trained.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

They've got to be kind of they've got to basically get the skills. It's very important from a health and safety point of view that everyone's obviously fully trained. So you carry that inefficiency. Similarly, we did the same in the first half of the year when we ramped up the Air Crete factory in two stages. You've always got cost beforehand before you get the efficiency.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So we've factored that into our numbers, and that's obviously one drag on why you get a drop through that might be lower than you anticipate. The other one is that actually, look, this business was in a fairly tight space kind of fifteen months ago. We were worried about covenants. We'd had to get covenant relaxations. We managed our spend accordingly.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So we did have some non urgent spend that we didn't spend in 2023 and 2024 that we're now more confident in spending again. So this is just stuff that's kind of wasn't critical. But in terms of keeping the business well invested and assets repaired over the longer term, we're now catching up a bit on that. So there's a bit of extra spend in 2025 because of that, which again will weigh on the kind of the perceived drop through that comes through. And then in terms of kind of yes, as we put a statement in the announcement or a sentence in the announcement in terms of yes, we will only get the full benefit of operating leverage as all of our markets recover.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So for example, at the moment, we're in a slightly unique position whereby we're increasing production So we've got a shortage of extruded bricks. So if we don't increase production, we'll run out of extruded bricks. But frankly, we've still got too many London bricks. And we might have to if the RMI market doesn't improve soon, we might even have to make further adjustments at the London brick factory, which incur additional efficiency.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

So it might end up being that, yes, we get more efficiency next year from the kind of the housing focused side of the business. But until the RMI and the London brick catches up, we might have some inefficiency that offsets it. So there's a number of moving parts. And we've got to see the whole business and all of our markets recover until we get the full benefit of our operating leverage.

[Neil Ash, CEO at Forterra]

Thanks, Harry. Any other questions? No, it looks like we're done for. So thanks for coming along. For those of you who haven't had summer holidays, enjoy your summer, and we'll see you in the next update. Thank you very much.

[Ben Guyatt, CFO at Forterra]

Thanks, everyone.

Participants

Executives

• Neil Ash, CEO
• Ben Guyatt, CFO

Analysts

• Lewis Roxburgh, Equity Research Analyst - Industrials at Goodbody
• Aynsley Lammin, Equity Analyst - Building & Construction at Investec
• Ami Galla, Director at Citi
• Alastair Stewart, Construction & Property Analyst at Progressive Equity Research Limited
• Christen Hjorth, Equity Research Director at Deutsche Numis
• Stephen Rawlinson, Director at Applied Value Limited
• Sam Cullen, Equity Research Analyst at Peel Hunt
• Clyde Lewis, Deputy Head - Research at Peel Hunt
• Harry Dow, VP - Equity Research at Redburn Atlantic