Keller Group H1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 5, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: The group delivered a robust half-year performance, with H1 underlying profit only £2.7 m below exceptionally strong H1 2024 and management confident of meeting full-year consensus despite FX headwinds and macro volatility.
  • Positive Sentiment: Performance across divisions remained strong, with North America foundations and Moortrench Industrial driving resilience, a successful turnaround in Europe & Middle East, and record APAC results.
  • Positive Sentiment: A strong balance sheet supports a 5% interim dividend increase to 18.3 p and an additional £25 m share buyback, with net cash position targeted by 2025 even after £50 m of buybacks.
  • Positive Sentiment: The order book remains healthy and high-quality, underpinned by resilient infrastructure spending in North America and growing marine projects in APAC.
  • Negative Sentiment: The Suncoast residential business faced pricing pressure from a US housing glut and is not expected to meaningfully improve in H2 2025.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Keller Group H1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the twenty twenty five Half Year Results Presentation for Keller Group plc. I'm David Burke, the Group Chief Financial Officer. Over recent years, you will have been accustomed to Mike Speakman opening this session. Unfortunately, as previously announced, Mike has had to step down due to ill health. And on behalf of everyone in Keller, I'm sure the people in this room and the broader stakeholder group, we'd like to wish Mike all the best with his medical treatment.

Operator

I also think it's appropriate that we acknowledge and thank Mike for the huge contribution that he's made to the financial and operational performance of the Keller Group over the last few years, which we will again highlight today. The onus is on us now to build on this as we move into the next phase of development for the Keller Group. I'm delighted to acknowledge the presence of James Routh, our incoming CEO in the room, who will take on the leadership mantle from the August 18. James will introduce himself at the end of the session. Some admin, please note there is no fire drill planned.

Operator

So if the alarm does go off, please follow the instructions of the team on the floor here, and they'll lead us to safety. Non mobile phones, please turn these to silent or off. Today, I will take us through a very good set of numbers for the first half of twenty twenty five against a strong comparative period with underlying business performance remaining robust. Our performance is better than we expected to the extent we are confident to say we expect to hit full year consensus expectations despite the anticipated significant FX headwind and the macroeconomic volatility. Items worthy of note that I will emphasize as we go through the presentation: one, the performance of the North American business against a volatile macro backdrop where infrastructure spend has remained resilient, which bodes well for our future.

Operator

Our Europe and Middle East division has turned the corner. Better project execution has given rise to improved profitability, placing us very well in a market that we expect to turn in the not too distant future. Our strong balance sheet. We are announcing further returns to shareholders with an increase in the dividend and an additional GBP 25,000,000 buyback to be launched in the 2025. Even with GBP 50,000,000 of buybacks, we will still be gravitating towards net cash by the 2025.

Operator

So here's the usual cautionary statements. And in terms of the agenda, today, I will take you through a summary, the financials, the business performance, including the divisions and the outlook, and then we'll come on to Q and A. Okay. Here are the summary highlights. These are a good set of numbers and ahead of expectations.

Operator

H1 last year was particularly strong for us, so we are delighted to come so close in the first half this year. Our divisions continue to perform exceptionally well, and the margin rates achieved are surpassing our expectations, and the group is at a very healthy 7%. Our teams are very busy, tender levels are being maintained, and our order book is strong with quality work. Cash generation is reverting to the norm after exceptional cash conversion rates in 2023 and 2024. We completed a GBP 25,000,000 share buyback and announced a further GBP 25,000,000 today, which we'll execute in the coming months.

Operator

We are continuing with the progressive dividend with the intention of applying a 5% increase for 2025. This set of results allows us to say with confidence we expect to hit consensus for the full year despite the anticipated significant FX headwind and the general macroeconomic volatility. So moving on to the financial slides. This first one shows the full P and L with statutory profit of GBP 66,900,000.0, just GBP 2,700,000.0 lower than a very strong H1 2024. Let's look at underlying first.

Operator

Looking at revenue, the group is marginally up by 0.6% on a constant currency basis. Volume was up in North America by 0.8%, driven by foundations and more trench industrial, offset by Suncoast. Europe and Middle East revenue marginally decreased by 0.8%, which is a good result given the 2024 comparator had several large infrastructure projects. APAC revenue increased by 2.9%, driven by higher volumes at Austral. I'll bridge that operating profit performance in the next slide.

Operator

Net finance costs have decreased, reflecting lower average borrowings. Taxation at GBP 21,300,000.0 is at an effective rate of 23%, similar to the full year 2024. The reduction in underlying earnings per share is essentially driven by reduced profitability, partially offset by lower number of shares following the share buyback. The Board has agreed to an interim dividend of 18.3p as we look to increase the full year dividend by 5% with a 65% to 35% ratio split. We'll now move on to the operating bridge slide.

Operator

So moving from left to right, starting with 2024 underlying operating half year profit of 113,200,000.0. There is an FX impact of GBP 3,700,000.0 due to the dollar weakness against sterling. Coming to the North America business first, which is down by 21,200,000.0 versus last year. You can see this is predominantly driven by Suncoast, where the residential property market is in a glut and the pricing levels achieved in H1 twenty twenty four were not repeated. We are pleased with the resilience of the rest of the North American business.

Operator

The foundations business has done really well to replace some larger margin contracts with smaller value, equally impressive margin projects. Moortrench Industrial continues to perform very well and is the real driver of that green block with good weather in the Tampa region helping. This is all done in the North America market with a backdrop of lower construction growth rates and uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment. Now turning to Europe and The Middle East, where operating profit was up $11,900,000 This is an operational execution turnaround story with non repeat issues on contracts in The Middle East, including NEOM and the Nordics region. The GBP 4,800,000.0 Central Europe block reflects the non repeat of a major infrastructure project in Germany in 2024.

Operator

The market conditions continue to be tough, particularly in the residential and commercial sectors, but we are doing very well year to date. The APAC division continues to perform very well and was up GBP 3,700,000.0 on a record performance last year. Australia benefited from the closeout of project variations, and Austral performed very well, and Keller Asia did well with a strong prior year. Moving on to the next slide, I'll cover off non underlying items. Again, the income statement, but this time focusing on the middle column, non underlying.

Operator

The analysis box shows the items that make up the GBP 5,300,000.0, down from the 7,300,000.0 in H1 twenty twenty four, which we have split between cash and noncash items. We continue to invest in the ERP program and remain on track for a Canada pilot in Q1 twenty twenty six. The finance transformation program has now turned its attention to North America. Progress has been slower than we had initially anticipated due to finance leadership changes, and we expect the program but now we expect the program to accelerate in the coming months. The other operating income is contingent consideration receipt in respect of the sale of the South Africa business.

Operator

Now move on to talk on cash. This page shows summary net debt flow from underlying operating profit down to net debt. The difference in cash generation from H1 twenty twenty four to H1 twenty twenty five is essentially driven by the working capital movement. The box at the side sets out the analysis between the different components with inventory increase of GBP 25,000,000 and a payables increase of GBP 50,000,000. Inventory is driven by Suncoast stockpiling steel strand before tariffs kicked in and general business growth elsewhere.

Operator

The payable increase is predominantly driven by advanced payments on large infrastructure projects in 2024 in the Europe And Middle East Division being utilized and not repeating in 2025. 2025 is a more typical cash generation profile given the exceptional rates achieved in 2023 and 2024. We do expect a higher level of cash generation in the second half, in line with our typical H2 bias. Other call out is cash tax reduced against last year with the changing U. S.

Operator

Tax legislation, we held back payments until the rules were clear around the R and D deductions. The initial share buyback is included in the GBP 28,800,000.0. In the box on the bottom right, we highlight the reconciliation of net debt on an IAS 17 covenant basis to GBP 61,500,000.0. Leverage on a Linde covenant basis is GBP 200,000.0, below the lower end of our target range of GBP 500,000.0 to 1,500,000.0. Next slide is the summary balance sheet.

Operator

This slide shows a summary balance sheet with comparatives for twenty twenty four half year and full year. For reference, we set out the movements in the boxes, which are pretty standard. There's no particular callouts here, so we'll move on. The next slide shows more detail on the net debt profile. You can see from the bar charts that the net debt increased the closer we got to half year.

Operator

This is driven by the share buyback and the working capital movement referred to earlier. In terms of cash generation, we expect a second half bias and for us to gravitate towards net cash even with the impact of the share buyback announced today. No issues with any covenants, and we've got loads of capacities within our facilities to fund organic growth and any targeted opportunities in our M and A pipeline. Next slide is the modeling slide. A few highlights to draw out.

Operator

First, the divisions. In North America, foundations, we expect to be similar to H1, delivery of the quality order book. Suncoast, we don't expect a turnaround that will have any meaningful impact in H2. Europe and Middle East division, we don't expect too much from the residential and commercial market in H2, but steady delivery of smaller good margin projects to continue. And in The Middle East, a full year of turnaround with normal trading and good performance, particularly from The UAE.

Operator

In APAC, there is a softer market in foundations in business in Australia, but that will be offset by Austral and the rest of the business continues with the steady quality delivery. Other items on phasing, our more typical waiting for Page two. Tax, be 23 for the full year. And on cash debt, we expect to be approaching net cash subject to any M and A. So moving on to business performance.

Operator

First slide is safety. On safety, we're very pleased that our lagging indicators, AFR, TRIR and the number of injuries have reduced. Actions continue to drive even further improvement. Safety assurance visits are now an accepted part of the control framework. And Safety Week will happen again in September, this year with a focus on learning through engagement to aid accident prevention.

Operator

Next slide is sustainability. We continue to embed our sustainability initiatives as part of our business as usual with the four profitable projects, all initiatives are viewed through a value enhancing lens. Next slide is the order book. Really pleased with the order book in terms of size, but also in terms of quality. The North America business has done really well to maintain the order level in a slowing construction market.

Operator

The drop in Europe, Middle East is driven by large infrastructure projects in 2024. They have been replaced to a good extent with a higher number of lower value quality margin work. Austral is driving the increase in APAC now that the business is on a firm footing and is signing up sizable marine projects again. Moving on to the divisions, North America. Paul Leonard has been leading the North America business for over a year now.

Operator

He has landed really well with his people and has hit the ground running and has a firm grip of the dynamics of the portfolio. As mentioned earlier, we are really pleased with the performance of the foundation business in North America against the backdrop of a slowing market. It has proved to be very resilient. Large high margin contracts in H1 twenty twenty four have been largely replaced by smaller contracts, but still generating very good margin. Pricing has undoubtedly got tighter, but we are executing very well and maintaining a very decent margin underpinning the 9.5% achievement.

Operator

The Suncoast business was impacted by expected lower pricing in the half year compared to prior year. The residential market remains challenged in The U. S, and we don't see that changing in the anytime soon. More Trent industrial performance is very strong with increased revenue and profit driven by demand and benign weather in Florida. So yes, North America construction output is slowing, but it is biased towards residential and commercial.

Operator

Infrastructure is remaining resilient. We've done really well to keep our order book relatively flat with good quality orders. Moving on to Europe and Middle East. Peter Whiting and the team are doing a fantastic job in the division despite a sluggish residential and commercial market backdrop in Europe. The increase in profitability is a turnaround associated with execution in contracts in The Middle East and the Nordics region.

Operator

The Europe businesses have proved relatively resilient with several large Now I'm going to pause the flow for two minutes. We often get asked about sharing with you about our projects. And here's a short video on what we did at Tanganvikka, the project to build what will become Norway's longest railway bridge over a fjord at over one kilometer in length. The

Speaker 1

Tanganvika project was a major challenge for Keller Geotechnik, which holds a major significance for Norway's railway infrastructure. It entails building the foundation for Norway's longest railway bridge situated over Myosa Lake. The foundation consists of two types of piles, drilled and driven. For the project's construction, a total of 7,000 tonnes of steel were used. In order to meet the strict steel quality requirements of composite piles, all piles were welded on land in a controlled environment and then transferred on water.

Speaker 1

The next phase included the pitching procedure carried out directly from the lake's surface, a task with numerous engineering and safety challenges. Afterwards, the pile was placed onto the leader device which had been customized for the needs of the project. Once the pile was secured in the gates of the leader, the hammer was mounted on top of the pile and driving process commenced. In total, 52 driven piles were installed on the Tanganvika project with a maximum pile length of 85 meters and weight of 102 tons. To eliminate the risk of underwater landslides and to ensure the proper embedment of the piles into the bedrock, Keller installed 78 drilled piles with a maximum length of 67 metres and weight of 70 tonnes.

Speaker 1

The pitching procedure was carried out directly from the transport pontoons using a rotation mechanism designed specifically for the project, which combined with the coordinated movements of the crane and the tugboats provided safe lifting procedure. The installation of the drilling rods was a crucial part of the pile installation involving the connection of the rods at heights of up to 30 meters above the lake's surface. The concrete casting was carried out after cofferdams were installed and pumped out of water. To prevent concrete from mixing with water a treemy system was used, allowing the concrete to flow directly into the bottom of the piles. Tangenvika was a complex project that had to take into account several external factors such as ground conditions including sensitive soils and environmental factors, Keller is proud of the installed, drilled and driven piles that will provide long term support for what will soon be the longest railway bridge in Norway.

Operator

I was in The Nordics recently with Clemens Kumar, who now oversees the Nordic region and with Sami in Sweden and Dominic in Norway. It is a very interesting market with a lot of interesting opportunities. This was a challenging project that the team turned around and stands us in real good stead for future opportunities in that marketplace. Right, back to the usual flow. APAC, the best compliment I could give Deepak and the team in APAC is that after many years of volatility, their financial performance is becoming thankfully boringly predictable.

Operator

Building on the record performance of last year, revenue is up, profit is up, margin rate is up and the order book is up. All the businesses are performing well with Austral driving the step change in the order book. The Australian infrastructure market is tighter with capacity coming into the market on the back of completion of large transport infrastructure jobs. And the margin rate achievement is very good with some one off commercial settlements in the Australia businesses taking it above 7%. This is a very so coming on to summary and outlook.

Operator

This is a very resilient performance year to date. We've got strong margin performance, better than expected with relatively little one off impacts in the period. This performance further evidences the sustainability of the material step up in performance delivered in 2023 and 2024. We've got a strong balance sheet with a 0.2x leverage even after the initial 25,000,000 share buyback. From an outlook perspective, underlying business performance remains robust despite the macro uncertainty.

Operator

Our order book is very strong against the current backdrop, and we can only see this improving if residential and commercial improve in North America and Europe. We will continue to focus on project execution and operational performance. Even with the announcement today of a further GBP 25,000,000 share buyback, we will be approaching net cash by the 2025. Full year 2025 will be weighted towards H2, and we expect to meet market expectations despite the anticipated FX headwind and the macro uncertainty. So we look forward with confidence to the rest of 2025 and beyond.

Operator

Thank you very much. Now take some Q and A.

Speaker 2

Ainsley? Ainsley Lammerman from Investor. Just two for me, please. Both North America actually. On the margin, the 9.5% you delivered in the first half, is all the kind of froth or the boost you had from exceptional market conditions now largely played out?

Speaker 2

And I think in the past, you've talked about 8% to 9% structurally you can deliver from that business. Just interested in hearing an update on that? Yes.

Operator

Yes. No, you're absolutely right in terms of what we've said in the past that we've kind of moved our thought process from seven to eight. And we said with the operational changes, we would put through maybe eight to nine. We've been really pleased with how the business has performed in the first half. Obviously, the Suncoast number is margin accretive against that 9.5.

Operator

So yes, we look forward in future. We could well have an underlying margin in The U. S. That is greater than 9% if we can keep going with the level of execution that we're currently doing. There is previous years, we pulled out one offs when the margin has been high.

Operator

I can't really point to anything from a one off perspective. A lot of the fraud has gone, as you mentioned.

Speaker 2

Second question, the order book obviously held up relatively well for North America, The U. S. Just if you could give a bit more color maybe what's which areas of the end markets are resilient? And have you have to work a bit harder to maintain that order book?

Speaker 3

Or is

Speaker 2

it still the market is resilient generally?

Operator

The market is resilient generally. I mean our bidding teams are just as they're just as busy as they were twelve months ago when there was that level of froth in the marketplace. I think from a sector perspective, we are relatively agnostic and we can move depending on where items are being built. So a few years back, it was warehousing, then it was electric vehicles, now it's data centers, and we can move around with that. I think infrastructure is holding up relatively well in that marketplace.

Operator

But we're pretty agile. And I think the teams are getting really good at not chasing revenue and actually chasing profit and cash.

Speaker 4

Joe. Morning. Joe Brent from Panmure and Liberum. I'm sure I speak for everyone. I'm wishing Mike all the best in a speedy recovery.

Speaker 4

Three questions, if I may. Would you try one at a time?

Operator

Yes, one at a time, seeing as I'm up here on my own. That

Speaker 3

was my thought.

Speaker 4

So firstly, could you give us an indication of the size of the Australian settlements?

Operator

Yes, you can see them actually in the waterfall chart. That's roughly what they pan out to be. And then and the reason we bought them out there is that the trading in Australia is roughly flat and the settlements get you that bit of a boost half year on half year.

Speaker 4

And secondly, when we look at the operational performance around the group, it sounds good in most places. Are there any areas still that are underperforming that give you scope for further improvement?

Operator

To be perfectly honest, I don't think so. Actually, if you look right across the portfolio in all three divisions, the only thing we're really leaning into is that commercial settlement on the Trogina project, which we have provisioned in previous years. Yes, there's obviously operational issues, but they're relatively small and are covered by overperformance in other areas. So actually, we're not leaning into anything from a large project issue perspective.

Speaker 4

And the final one was on the balance sheet, fairly obvious question. Really, it's a very strong position. Can you just give us an update on your thinking of future buybacks versus acquisitions? And if you see any particular interesting areas in your acquisition pipeline?

Operator

Yes. So I think our positioning around capital allocation policy hasn't changed. So we have the operational parts of the business, CapEx and working capital, then the dividend, then bolt on acquisitions. And I think that hasn't changed for us. We have got an active pipeline that we are looking through.

Operator

So we have announced the $25,000,000 buyback because there is nothing on the block at the moment that we could point to. And I think people just need to expect that when we do make a decision in respect of M and A that when then we would have the flexibility to stop doing the share buybacks. Johnny, hi.

Speaker 5

Thanks. Johnny Cooper from Deutsche Numis. Can I also extend my best wishes to Michael and also congratulate him on a great job done and yourself and the team on another very good half year? Firstly, I'd just be interested to hear good you think your visibility is at the moment and whether that's changed over the past six months?

Operator

I don't think so. Our order book tends to represent six months of work. We don't see that dynamic changing. And even in some of the markets which are slowing, we seem to be quite resilient in terms of holding that up. I think what is good is we is the profitability or the quality of that order book.

Operator

It just continues to be very good, which is why we talk about the strong margins that we're actually achieving.

Speaker 5

Thanks. And you mentioned potential changes to the tax regime in The U. From R and D credits. How do you think that might impact you, Kforce?

Operator

Well, I think if you remember with Biden, they bought in the amortization in respect of R and D tax credits, which had an impact on cash flow. And that's now been reversed with the one big beautiful bill. So actually, will slow our tax payments in The U. S. In the second half of the year.

Speaker 5

Thanks. And last one would just be whether expect to see much benefit from the German government stimulus?

Operator

We'd like to think that some of that would flow our way. We haven't seen anything coming through yet. There's a lot of positive sentiment around it, but we seen anything on the ground coming to land. But as I said, I think generally in the European marketplace, we're really well positioned. And if anything does come our way, we're well set up to take advantage of it.

Speaker 3

Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt. Just looking at that chart there, I haven't seen Neon mentioned for a while. Anything happening for that to sort of popped up on that chart? Or is it just really referring to twelve, eighteen months ago when there was business going through Neom?

Operator

Yes. So that really is around we just grouped The Middle East and Neom together. So that is that existing contract. We haven't done any more on Neom and have no current expectations in any of the forecasting that we're doing to get back into Neom.

Speaker 6

Okay, perfect.

Speaker 3

Second one was on Asia. I'm just wondering as to where your, I suppose, appetite is currently to expand Asia? And do you want to invest in, again, expanding geographically or still see very much sort of India, Singapore really as the sort of two core hubs and you want to just grow the position in those markets?

Operator

Yes, I think so. I think they are markets that we have an existing presence and we just want to increase from an organic perspective. The Indian business we've grown up over the last twenty years has got itself into a very good position, generating very good cash and profit and being very selective about what it goes after, the right type of client and watching those trends. So semiconductor manufacturing plants is now something that we're going after. So we avoid the metros in India, and we tend to go to rural places in order to go after the right types of projects.

Operator

And Singapore, I think Singapore market is tight and but we're continuing to win decent work. We don't see that expanding too much in the coming years and really the driver of growth in Asia for us will be India.

Speaker 3

Perfect. Thank you. And I just wanted to, I suppose, ask about Canada and how different that market feels at the moment compared to what you're seeing in The U. S?

Operator

Not a whole lot different. Again, just going after targeted opportunities. There are some opportunities that are coming through that pipeline, which are pretty exciting for us. And so we don't see it as much of a difference between the dynamic of North America and Canada. Perfect.

Speaker 3

And the last one really was, I suppose looking at a sort of high level pricing and cost dynamic as we go through the balance of the year and into 2026. Where do you think the biggest moving parts are going to be on both of those fronts?

Operator

I think from a pricing perspective, things have tightened in North America compared to what they were. Pricing in Europe is as tight as it always is a very competitive, very competitive market, and that's similar, particularly with the Australian market for both Australop and the Australia business. And I think from a cost perspective, we are continuing to be a short order business. And anything that does come through on the cost side, we will pass it on pretty quickly. Or if we are signing up to long term contracts, we will have provisions in those contracts to protect ourselves from any spike in cost increases.

Speaker 3

And just following that up, decision to forward buy steel in The U. S, do you see a positive out of that?

Operator

Yes, I mean, the volumes in Suncoast are much lower than we would like, but they are still executing business. So actually, it isn't it hasn't turned out to be a bad decision at all.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Rob? Thanks. Rob Tranti from Berenberg. Thanks for the presentation. Could you just, I guess, talk a bit more firstly about the Nordics?

Speaker 6

You obviously showed a presentation there for two minutes, which looks a great project. You talked a bit more optimistically about the prospects in that region. Do you view that as becoming a more material part of the kind of portfolio in the coming years? Secondly, on, I guess, European margins and or EME margins. Historically, they've been quite good and they've had a period of underperformance.

Speaker 6

They've now kind of come back with a good first half. Mike Ainsley's question, I guess, on The U. S, could you just kind of remind us and talk around the medium term margin range and position in that cycle you feel in that division? And then thirdly, I guess, bit more color. I think at the full year in North America, you talked about robust pricing.

Speaker 6

Now you're talking about, I guess, somewhat tighter pricing in North America. Are any specific areas that are particularly tight or seeing pressure? And does that impact, I guess, margin considerations into the second half? Okay.

Operator

Let me talk about the Nordics first. Just Nordics is just a very interesting market. I do think there is a lot of infrastructure plans that are in place with the governments in Sweden and Norway, and I do think we're well positioned to take advantage of those. There are some medium to large contracts that are coming through the pipeline. And I think the teams there have set themselves up well in order to be able to execute those.

Operator

We've had some issues in The Nordics in previous years, which I think we've got around the other side of it. And as I talked about the team there with Clemence and Sami and Dominic, they're well on top of the operational execution. And I think they get the whole messaging that we've been driving in terms of don't chase revenue, chase projects that will give us good margin and that's in our wheelhouse that we can actually deliver. So I think Norway is an interesting market for us. I do expect that we will do more in The Nordics in the coming years.

Operator

Will it become a very big part? I think we'll just wait and see in terms of the execution that comes through there. EMEA margin. Yes, I mean, the avoiding operational issues has given us a bump in terms of that margin. And I think when we talked previous, I would have talked about if that happens, we'll get it to 3%.

Operator

We've got it's hit 3.6%. I do think that can get better. I mean it's still very tight in that marketplace with residential and commercial being quite sluggish. I think if that starts to ease, we could be doing 4% to 5% in EMEA. U.

Operator

S. Medium term margin. We as I said, we have talked in the past about seven to eight and then we took that to we'd hope to get to 8% to 9%. And now we're delivering without too many one offs or any one offs that I can point to. We're delivering 9.5% with Suncoast being decretive against that.

Operator

So we're very pleased with what we're doing. And I think we probably want to give it until the full year in respect of saying that, that could well be a trend that will carry forward into future years. But I'm pretty hopeful given what we've done in the first half of the year. I think the teams are they're bidding stuff well, and they're executing in accordance with the stuff that they're bidding. And I think you asked about pricing as well.

Operator

I think my comment on pricing was more to do with the frothiness that was there last year where clients were more interested in schedule than price in terms of building the infrastructure. That has gone away. And actually, the teams are in a much more competitive environment than what they were twelve months ago. But having said that, they are still continuing to execute pretty well. So we haven't lost that much in terms of margin just because pricing isn't is now a factor in a way that it wasn't last year.

Operator

Any more questions? Well, if there are no more questions, I'll ask James to quickly introduce himself. And then we'll wrap up afterwards.

Speaker 7

I mean, it's not very quick, but now I will make it quick. Morning, everybody. I'm James Roeth. Delighted to be here, especially on the back of such a strong set of results. Much as I'm delighted to be here, it's obviously sad circumstances, and I'd like to add my words to the tributes that you've all given to Mike and to wish him all the best with his treatment.

Speaker 7

But I also like to pay tribute to David actually because the last few months, he's basically had to wear both hats. We had a table here yesterday and then realized that there was only David to sit at it. So it would have looked a bit odd to him going between. But I think that's a good representation of just how much work David's had to do. And I know the Board are very grateful for all of the work he's done in the last few months.

Speaker 7

I'm, as I say, delighted to be joining Keller. I was really attracted by the scale and the global reach of the business and the opportunity to deliver through a really strong team of experts. I think the engineering concepts that Keller delivers are extremely complex, and we saw some of that from the video. But the positioning of the business is really clear, and I love how focused it is in terms of where it plays. I love the resilience of the global positioning backed up by the strong balance sheet and the great cash generation that, again, you've seen this morning.

Speaker 7

And then finally, the operational performance is generally excellent. And I sense just from the people that I've already met in the business as a real determination and alignment to take the business forward. I won't give you a long introduction into my career. I'm sure you can all use Google if you're that interested. But essentially, my career was built on a broad transport and logistics background across global businesses, but also including almost ten years in North America.

Speaker 7

And then latterly, I was CEO of Winghampton plc before its recent takeover. I think there are three key areas where I believe my experience can fit with Keller. Firstly, I've got considerable experience in leading and being part of diverse teams, delivering for customers and shareholders. Secondly, I'm very familiar with complex contracts, managing the risk of very big, but also sometimes relatively small relationships. And then finally, I have a passion for consistent operational delivery, leveraging group scale to ensure that the sum of the parts of a business and of a group like Keller deliver better results than local independents.

Speaker 7

So I think that was that meets the objective of Quick. Again, I look forward to talking to you all in the coming months, and I officially start in just under two weeks. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, James. And I look forward to us working together in terms of taking Keller through its next phase of development. I think I'll leave you with three things: the quantum and quality of the order book, the good quality margins and the strong balance sheet. Thank you very much.

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