Keller Group H1 2026 Earnings Report

Keller Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 115.10
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Keller Group Revenue Results

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

Keller Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: H1 2026
• Date: 8/4/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, August 4, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 4:00AM ET

Keller Group (LON:KLR) provides specialist geotechnical services in North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. The company offers ground improvement services, grouting, deep foundations, earth retention, marine, and instrumentation and monitoring services, as well as post-tension systems and industrial services. It also provides solutions, such as bearing capacity improvement, low carbon construction, containment, excavation support, stabilisation, marine structures, seepage control, slope stabilization, and monitoring. The company provides its services to the construction sector in commercial, industrial, infrastructure, institutional/public, power, and residential. Keller Group plc was founded in 1860 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

Keller Group H1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Record H1 performance: Revenue rose 11% on a constant-currency basis and underlying operating profit increased 17.1%, lifting the operating margin to 7.3% and putting Keller on track for a fourth consecutive record year.
• Positive Sentiment: North America drove growth with revenue up 16.7% and operating profit up 17.7%, supported by data centers, infrastructure projects and the multi-year I-40 highway remediation contract. The North American order book increased 20% to £1.37 billion.
• Positive Sentiment: Data centers now account for 9% of group revenue, up from 3% in 2025, and management expects the U.S. growth trend to continue. The company also highlighted a 57% increase in the interim dividend and continued share buybacks.
• Negative Sentiment: Trading remains uneven across the portfolio: South Florida multifamily revenue fell by roughly one-third as projects were delayed, the U.K. market faces intense competition and pricing pressure, and Keller Australia experienced margin pressure from weather, project mix and pricing.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management retained confidence in achieving its upgraded FY 2026 expectations and sustaining margins above 7%, but cited people and specialist operational talent as key growth bottlenecks. Further details on longer-term growth, M&A and capital allocation are being deferred to the October Capital Markets Day.

Presentation

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Good morning, everybody, welcome to the presentation of Keller's Half-Year Results for 2026. I'm James Wroath, I'm the Chief Executive. Before I get onto the main business of the day, very sadly, since our full-year results, you'll know that my predecessor, Michael Speakman, sadly passed away at Easter, I wanted to take this opportunity to pay a final tribute to him. The results that you see today, many of the themes that come out in terms of just how great a business Keller is, lead directly from Mike's work with the management team. The changes that were made in the last five or six years have been fundamental, in my belief, to how Keller has performed. Very sad. The business will always remember Mike, he did an absolutely superb job with Keller. On with the presentation for today.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Firstly, the cautionary statement, which I'm sure is a slide that you're all very familiar with. For our agenda this morning, I'm going to take you through a snapshot of our results before handing over to David Burke, our CFO, who'll take you through the financials in more detail. I'm going to return to give you some greater color around our divisions, a view of the outlook, a reminder of our strategy. As I think you'll all know, we're going to be holding a Capital Markets Day on the 14th of October, there we'll cover our strategy and growth plans in a lot more detail. Finally, we're going to finish with a Q&A. A very brief results summary. The Keller Group continues to deliver record financial performance, with H1 2026 being no exception.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

In fact, 2026 is on course to be the group's fourth record year in a row. Revenues are up 11% overall due to significant increases in both North America and APAC. EMEA is holding steady despite the Middle East conflict and a tough Q1 due to the winter weather. Operating margin was also up on 2025, leading to an impressive 17% increase in underlying operating profit. Overall, H1 is a good demonstration of our geographic and sector agnosticism, where we've pivoted to key growth markets and high-demand subsectors to drive top-line growth whilst continuing to maintain our margin discipline. I'm now going to hand over to David for a more comprehensive overview of this excellent financial performance. Stop coughing.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Thank you, James. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another excellent reporting period. The key highlight for the first six months is, again, the power of our portfolio. North America, after going backwards in 2025, is powering forwards. Whilst EMEA is down on revenue, it is picking up on profit, APAC is up on revenue, but flat on profit. This slide shows nine of our most prominent financial KPIs and the performance of H1 2026 compared to H1 2025. Included in the appendix is a slide in a similar format that tracks these KPIs over the last four full years to 2025. For H1 2026, the picture remains very healthy, with the underlying fundamentals of the business continuing the upward trajectory we've demonstrated over recent years. The most striking feature is the level of growth momentum, with all KPIs improving against last year at quite a healthy clip.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Let's look at some detail. This slide sets out the underlying P&L for the half year. Looking at revenue, we have excellent revenue growth of 11% on a constant currency basis against a market backdrop that hasn't exactly been stable. In the box on the right, you can see North America is the driver, albeit APAC is also growing from a smaller base given the buoyant foundations markets in Australia. EMEA is down, but driven particularly by bad weather in Q1, fewer major projects, and less revenue coming through from the Trojena project in 2026. Our underlying operating profit increased by 17.1% on a constant currency basis, and we increased the margin rate to 7.3%. This again demonstrates the resilience of our portfolio, where weaker pockets are offset by areas of strength. I will bridge that operating profit performance in the next slide.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Net finance costs are slightly reduced given we have been net cash for most of H1 and the USPP cost is static. Taxation is at an effective rate of 23%, similar to last year. The underlying earnings per share has increased by 22%, driven by the improved underlying profitability and the impact of the share buyback. The board has agreed an interim dividend of GBP 0.287, an increase of 57%. This increase is driven by our revised policy announced in March to be in the range of 2.5x to 3.5x for the full year dividend and assumes we will be at three times cover for the full year, with 35% paid at the interim. We'll now move on to the operating profit bridge slide. Moving from left to right, starting with half year 2025, underlying operating profit of GBP 102.6 million.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

There is an FX impact of GBP 1.9 million due to the dollar weakness against sterling compared to half year 2025. Coming to the North America division first, which is up GBP 14.1 million versus H1 last year. This is an 18% increase in a market where not everything is trending in an upward direction. The principal driver is the foundations business with data center and infrastructure sectors driving this phenomenal growth. However, within foundations block, we've had challenges with the Miami residential market, seeing weakness with projects shifting to the right. This Miami business within foundations had been defying the broader residential trend for a number of years. However, concern over interest rates and broader macro uncertainties seem to have made developers more tentative. We hope this is a pause rather than a downward trend. Suncoast is up on a low 2025 base.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

This is the local team squeezing profitability out of what continues to be a sluggish residential market generally. The combined Moretrench RECON business is down after a strong last year. RECON has performed while executing a sizable LNG project, but the main client for Moretrench continues to limit investment given the impact the Iran war is having on its input costs. Now turning to Europe and Middle East, where operating profit was up GBP 4.2 million despite the reduction in revenue. The Middle East defied the market backdrop with improved volumes and profitability despite a temporary pause due to the Iran war. This is predominantly driven by the UAE, with strong volumes and a change order on the Trojena project also helping. Elsewhere, the market sluggishness of Europe continues. However, the team continue to execute well, increasing profitability and retaining a decent margin level.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

The exited businesses delta relates to the Mauritius and Seychelles business we exited and represents losses not repeating. We call out the U.K. separately, given the challenges in the market with high levels of competition and a low level of opportunities, giving rise to pricing pressure. In the APAC division, Austral continues to perform strongly, offset by the Australia foundation business, which is up on revenue with reduced profitability due to Queensland weather, the impact of project settlements in 2025 not repeating, and price pressure as the business transitions between transport and new opportunities in energy, data centers, and defense. Moving to the next slide, I'll cover off non-underlying items. The analysis box shows the items that make up the GBP 5.4 million split between cash and non-cash items. We continue to invest in the ERP program and are getting close with the final build.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

We are entering into a phase of extensive acceptance testing that will lead to the pilot in Canada in early 2027, followed by the subsequent rollout across the globe. The restructuring cost relates to the group's finance transformation program, which is now focused on North America. I'll now move on to talk about cash. Cash generation does tend to skew towards the second half of the year, with historic H1 levels being much lower, and 2026 will be no exception. Whilst free cash flow has marginally increased, the conversion rate has reduced, driven by increased working capital and CapEx levels as the business grows. This is offset by a lower tax spend due to the change in the rules in respect of U.S. R&D deductions in 2025.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Below free cash flow, the major increases are driven by the return of cash to shareholders with the increased dividend and increased level of share buybacks at the half year. At the half year, we are GBP 32.4 million through the GBP 100 million buyback, with the balance being what was left of GBP 50 million buyback in 2025 being purchased in 2026. In the bottom right, we highlight the reconciliation to net debt on an IAS 17 covenant basis to GBP 15.9 million.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

This slide shows the monthly profile of net cash/debt. You can see for the majority of H1 2026, we were net cash, with the final dividend payout in June pushing us to net debt. We expect the profile for the remainder of this year to be pretty similar to 2025 and hitting circa GBP 30 million net cash level after the impact of the share buyback by the year-end.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Our funding facilities are in a comfortable position from a quantum and tenor perspective. We have headroom of circa GBP 655 million. This is a very resilient position, and along with our cash generating capacity, gives us confidence as we look to the future at organic and inorganic opportunities. It is worth reiterating our margin performance and our confidence in sustaining margins above 7%. This is underpinned by the portfolio resilience referred to earlier and our continued focus and discipline and control in our bidding and execution activities. This is a snapshot of our order book with growth in North America, including the I-40 project, driving the 20% increase. We have called out the I-40 project separately due to its scale and multi-year duration, which will underpin future years' revenue rather than the current year. James will talk more about the divisional movement later.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Finally from me, a slide on capital allocation. We remain committed to this framework that we laid out in March, so no change here other than the value of numbers for H1 2026. We continue to prioritize the business first through working capital and CapEx, then continuing the dividends, and finally, the balance between capital spent on M&A and further shareholder returns through share buybacks. That's it for me. Thank you for your attention. I'll now pass you back to James, who will take you through the operational review section.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Thanks, David. Our H1 2026 results demonstrate perfectly some of the key strengths of the group. Keller continues to showcase the power of our portfolio, and these are a record set of results driven particularly by volumes of infrastructure and data center work, alongside superb Austral performance. They do also come in the context of a slow South Florida market, one of our normally strongest performers. They come in the context of challenging volumes for Moretrench, who had an excellent 2025, and they come in the context of a thriving but highly competitive Australia foundations market. Keller's geographic portfolio, aligned to our market-leading portfolio of products and techniques that enable us to win both small and large jobs, is proving again to be a winning combination. On top of this, the quality of our people is ensuring that margins are maintained despite teams being very busy.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Much of this is possible because the business has the scale to support itself where required, and advancements in the last few years have transformed internal collaboration. I'm going to cover our U.S. I-40 project shortly, which is a perfect example of how all this comes together to deliver fantastic results for customers and for Keller. Safety also remains a strength, and as market leader, Keller sets the standard in our industry. However, we're not complacent, and our forthcoming annual safety week is our opportunity to remind each other of this. Now I'd like to cover a bit of subsector analysis. We're going to cover more of this at the Capital Markets Day, but I wanted to give a bit more color at these results because I think it really illustrates the power of Keller's portfolio, our sector agnosticism, and our ability to pivot to the latest megatrends.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

This slide illustrates the top five subsectors for the group and for each of our three regions. The arrow denotes the trend versus H1 2025. Importantly, the top five represent less than 40% of group revenue, and I think that illustrates the breadth of our subsector coverage. Aside from this, I'm sure nobody is surprised by the surge in data centers. They now represent the largest subsector for the whole group, with 9% of group revenue, compared with 3% in 2025. Excluding Suncoast from the revenue numbers, they're more than 15% of our U.S. revenue year to date. Data centers are also in second place in the APAC division, driven by new buildings in Australia. While we do expect the data center trend to continue, I also have great confidence in Keller's ability to pivot to whichever construction megatrends exist in our market.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Another notable trend on this slide relates to the decline in multifamily residential. Largely because of Miami, this held up in 2025, despite an overall tough U.S. residential market. In 2026, as David just said, we've seen major developments delayed and the revenue in this subsector declining by approximately a third. All other top five group sectors were up, with mining in APAC particularly impressive due to Austral's strong performance. I'll now look at the regions in a little bit more detail. As David has already said, North America delivered a record first half performance, with revenue up 16.7% to GBP 984.4 million, and operating profit up 17.7% to GBP 93.8 million, both at constant currency levels, and margin steady at 9.5%.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Growth has been driven by underlying volumes across our foundations business, especially within data centers, as we've just heard, but also in high-value major infrastructure projects such as I-40, the Hudson River Tunnels, and the Second Avenue subway extension. Data center demand is a true megatrend. We've done more of these projects in H1 of 2026 than we did in the whole of 2025. Keller's ability to pivot fast to growth subsectors remains a key differentiator. The resultant standout contributions from our Southeast, our Central, our North, and our Canada business units through strong project execution and commercial management of the increased volumes more than offset Q1 weather disruption and the softer South Florida residential market. As David said, RECON delivered a strong performance on a major Gulf Coast LNG project, offsetting the softer Moretrench trading.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

The order book is also up strongly to GBP 1,367.9 million, reflecting our major infrastructure awards and in particular, the I-40 Highway remediation expansion. The data center megatrend continues, representing just over GBP 100 million of our work in hand. Finally, Suncoast stayed resilient despite weaker residential markets through diversification and disciplined cost management. We are confident on the outlook for the remainder of 2026 in North America, with that record work in hand and a healthy pipeline leaving us well-positioned for continued profitable growth and strong cash generation in H2. Now a little more in-depth look at I-40. I-40 is the largest project by quite a distance in Keller's history. The job is to reconstruct the highway from the Tennessee state line to North Carolina following significant damage caused by Hurricane Helene in 2024..

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

The multiple complex techniques required illustrate both the enormous technical expertise that exists in our business and the ability to marshal the resources required to deliver at scale. I think Keller has been transformed in this respect over the past few years with the One Keller initiative, a major factor in bringing the full power of the business to opportunities. This is a multi-year project involving a range of techniques critical to restoring to full operation a vital piece of American infrastructure. Moving on to EME. Revenue in EME was down 5.2% to GBP 396.1 million at constant currency level. Strong Scandinavia volumes due to the Luleå project that we talked about at full year were offset by Q1 weather disruption and fewer large projects than in H1 of 2025.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Underlying profit, operating profit was up 28% to GBP 19.2 million, with margin improved to 4.8% from 3.6%, driven by Middle East profit growth despite the conflict and also by strong European execution. The poor margin NEOM contract from 2025 has also not been repeated in 2026. Overall, the Middle East has seen resilient trading and profit growth despite the ongoing conflict. We've prioritized staff safety throughout. A brief productivity dip in March has been offset by a strong start to the year and a solid Q2. As we look ahead, Western Europe remains subdued with government infrastructure and defense spend yet to materialize. The U.K. market remains particularly challenging with volume and profits down. The order book is very healthy, though. It's supported by smaller jobs such as the two residential projects I saw recently on a trip to Warsaw.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

These are very much the bread and butter of Keller, particularly in Europe. Overall, the order book is up 16.5% to GBP 396.7 million. We therefore expect continued improved trading in H2, supported by higher Q3 volumes and a very healthy tendering pipeline. Finally, in APAC. APAC revenue was up 22.8% to GBP 227.5 million, driven by excellent momentum in Austral and record volumes at Keller Australia. Underlying operating profit was broadly flat at GBP 13.8 million due to margin pressures in Keller Australia and the non-repeat of prior year project closure settlements. Austral continues to thrive with revenue and profit both up. I witnessed firsthand earlier this year the impressive civil works this business does in the mining sector. Tendering volumes for complex high-value civil and nearshore marine projects for late 2026 and 2027 remain high.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Indeed, we will be announcing today that Austral has won a project at Parker Point worth circa AUD 90 million, which will go into our order book at the full year. Keller Australia has record revenues on the back of strong public spending demand in areas such as hospitals and data centers, but profit has been impacted by pricing pressure as well as unusually severe Queensland weather. In Keller Asia, revenue and profit were broadly flat, with India expected to see volume growth in H2 after a slow start and with investment expected in the market. Our Singapore business is benefiting from growing construction demand such as the new Terminal 5 at Changi Airport that I and our executive team visited back in March. The team is confident of maintaining recent momentum despite the order book being 18.9% lower at GBP 174.6 million.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

This is mainly due to a strong comparable period in 2025 where Austral won several major marine contracts. We still have solid work in hand, good pipeline visibility and supportive market conditions. We expect the order book to pick up in H2. It certainly helps with that recent win from Austral. The summary and outlook, beginning with our strategy for long-term value. Clearly, we'll be using the Capital Markets Day to outline our strategic plans in much greater detail. The structure we will use is the same as I described for our 2025 full year results. I believe passionately that the power of Keller's geographic and product portfolio, multiplied by the excellence of our people and their performance, can deliver a highly attractive pipeline of opportunities.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

During the event, we'll use both Keller and market data to illustrate why this is the case and to be clear on our growth ambitions. We've continued to make progress on all of our 2026 priorities. As David said, as an example, our new ERP will be ready for rollout at the start of 2027, beginning with Canada. I've hired a new Chief People Officer, Matt Stripe, to bring real impetus to our talent agenda. Clearly much more to follow in October. Hope to see you all there. For the summary and our outlook, the record results, I think, largely speak for themselves. We've continued our focus on commercial discipline and operational execution, and volumes clearly, particularly in the U.S., have been really strong. The H1 2026 results are a testament to this. We've got strong momentum entering H2 with performance as ever weighted to the second half.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

We remain confident in achieving our recently upgraded FY 2026 market expectations. Data centers prove that the business can pivot to growth sectors, and we remain confident that this trend is going to continue for some time. Even more so, we remain confident in Keller's ability to pivot to whichever construction megatrends exist in our markets at any given time. Our balance sheet remains very strong, with optionality to grow both organically and inorganically through bolt-on acquisitions. I look forward to sharing much more of these plans with you in October at our Capital Markets Day. With that, we'll pass to a Q&A. Thank you. Apologies for the constant coughing.

[Aynsley Lammin, Analyst at Investec]

Thanks very much. Thanks. Aynsley Lammin from Investec. I think I've just got three, please. I wonder if you could just give a bit more color on the kind of data center megatrends you talk about in terms of where is that all across the U.S. or are we at the very early stages of that? Do you expect that to get bigger and bigger over the next 12, 18 months? Second question, maybe mainly on the U.S. as well. Just any comment around cost inflation, whether cement, steel, higher energy cost or whether anything's changed on energy cost? Then third question, just on the EME margin. Is that step up more of a function of better execution of some of those bigger projects, or is that actually some structural improvement that we should expect to be sustained in that division? Thanks.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Shall I take the first one and you take the second two?

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Yeah. That's fine.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Data centers are pretty much all over the U.S. There doesn't seem to be a particular trend. There doesn't seem to be a particular trend in terms of rural or urban either. They pop up everywhere. We like them when they're in challenging geological conditions because they require more of Keller's expertise to make them happen. In terms of the cycle, I think we believe the projections, and I think the number that I've heard quoted is $650 billion to be spent on data centers, and I think we're still relatively early in that cycle. All the noises at the moment coming out in the U.S. are that the trend will continue.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

In terms of cost inflation, because as we've always said in the past, we are a short order business, we get the opportunity to reprice if things do increase. If we have longer term projects, we always insist on some form of protection, whether it is an escalation clause or we'll price escalation into the job as well. Actually, we're not seeing that much impact even with the fuel cost. We did a bit of an exercise in the early part of the year to understand what the impact from the Iran war was. Actually, it didn't turn out to be that material at all. We feel reasonably comfortable with that. EME margin, I think it's a combination of a few things.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

I think one aspect is the fact that the Trojena project, which we provided for fully in 2024, came through as revenue in 2025 with no margin. That's not repeating in 2026. That gives the margin a bump. Also the fact that the UAE has had good volume through its business, and at a reasonable margin rate, that has helped as well. I think the other aspect with the rest of the business is even though the market is sluggish, they are executing very well. You can see there's even a bump in profitability from the rest of the business, despite the fact that the market isn't great. There probably is a bit more to go on EME margin, particularly if the market turns.

[Clyde Lewis, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Thank you. Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt. I think I've got about half a dozen, but I'll do half of them now and come back later. Canada, no mention at all on the North American slides. It'd be interesting to get an update on where you are there and how that business is performing. Second one on acquisitions. Is there anything in the pipeline at the moment? Are you getting close to anything? Has your, I suppose, geographical preferences changed at all? The third one, I suppose, going back to Aynsley's question on data centers. It's missing from that

[Clyde Lewis, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

top five list in Europe. Is there nothing happening in European markets in terms of data centers, or are you just not in that market at the moment?

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

I can do Canada. I'll take that.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Sorry?

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

I can do the Canada bit.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

You want to do Canada? Yeah.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

I think Canada, from a couple of years back, has actually transformed its delivery. It had a very good year in 2025, and it continues to be. That's why it doesn't feature in that bridge slide, is because it's had two good half years in a row. There is a lot of infrastructure work going on in Canada, and we actually visited some sites in Toronto when we were there a couple of weeks back. Very solid performance in that business.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

It was a really inspiring bit. We have lots of young talent all around the world, but Canada in particular, we have some really talented engineers, and they're working on big projects for the Toronto Metro. Good note, we'll bring it out a bit more in the Capital Markets Day. From an M&A perspective, I think the first thing to say is, I can't keep saying I'm new. I think that's just about run out. This has been my first 12 months with the business, and I think before doing any acquisitions, big or small, you want to take some time to just really understand where we're at. Also, as you've seen from the numbers, the organic growth is terrific. I think we can afford to be patient with M&A.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

I still believe, and we'll talk about it more at the Capital Markets Day, I still believe that there are opportunities in certain geographies to accelerate our organic growth through using some bolt-on inorganic acquisitions. We do have a pipeline, and we are actively looking at things. I want to make sure that they really do make a difference to the business and don't disrupt the fantastic momentum that we've currently got. Data centers, that's a very good challenge. Again, I think that's something that we can pick up in the capital markets. We just aren't seeing the same level of opportunities in Europe for Keller as we are in Australia or in the U.S. I honestly don't know to what degree that's to do with how many are being built versus Keller's market positioning.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

I suspect less are being built, but we will pick that up and provide a bit more analysis at the Capital Markets Day.

[Ben Varrow, Analyst at RBC]

Morning. Ben Varrow, RBC. First one, just on the order book. You've called out that the duration has extended. Is that just the I-40 piece, or is there anything else to that? Can you also chat through the current visibility the group has? Within that second question, early days, thoughts on growth heading into 2027, is there any early indication there, particularly in North America? Third, just on the group as it stands today, I think the narrative has been that you're content with the areas that you are for now. From a divestment perspective, is there anything that could be done there to further streamline the group? Thanks.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Do you want me to do the order book?

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Sure.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Yeah, I think we are at pains to say the I-40 project, whilst it will chew through a good piece of that $380 million of that signed-up contract in 2026, there's an equal spread into 2027 and 2028. I think other than that, the nature of the order book remains pretty similar. In terms of visibility, we do tend to chew through two-thirds of the order book in six months, the balance gets made up by stuff that comes in and goes out during that reporting period. We don't see any change in that. From a momentum perspective, we are seeing good tendering levels. That continues, we've no reason to believe that things are going to drop off as we go into 2027.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

In terms of growth, I'm going to completely duck under that bouncer. We'll tell you that at the Capital Markets Day, but we know how enthusiastically the market is waiting to hear some of those thoughts on growth. From a group perspective, I think really happy with where we are. From a geographic perspective, David, alongside Mike, have, in my view, done a terrific job of focusing us in on the markets where we can really make a difference, get paid, collect the cash, and contract sensibly. I'm happy with our geographic splits. From a business perspective, yes, Moretrench, as an example, has had a bit of a difficult year because of the Middle East conflict, but it had an amazing 2025. Austral goes from strength to strength, RECON's having a very good 2026. I think there's enough diversity without it being too much.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Diversity in the portfolio. I'm pretty happy with where we are.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

You'll see in EME where we drop out of Seychelles and Mauritius, we continue to look at areas like that. There's not too much left in terms of small areas to drop off. We continue to look at it, I don't think there's anything material left.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

The way that the model has been set up, we're still able, particularly in Europe, we're still able to pivot to countries where there are opportunities with customers that particularly want us to go there. As an example, we've done a job recently in Iceland, we don't have a branch in Iceland, we don't have a team in Iceland, it was a particular customer that wanted us to support them, our Nordics team supported in Iceland. Within the model we have, we can do that, I don't think we need to go around putting any more flags in countries.

[Jamie Murray, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hey, guys. Jamie Murray from Bank of America. Two questions from me. First one is, what are the key bottlenecks that you're seeing, especially in North America, where the opportunity is clearly vast, and how are you managing that? Secondly, just another stab at the order book. Clearly, GBP 1.9 billion is an unbelievable record that you guys achieved. How much of that is going to be executed in the next six months versus beyond?

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

In terms of bottlenecks, look, it's always the same in this business. It's people. To a degree, it's the operational executional people, depending on what the job is. Sometimes the rig operators can be very specialist, and there's a pinch point there. Superintendents, the sort of site supervisors is always an area where there's quite a battle for talent in the industry. Even though there's a good pipeline of engineers coming out of particularly U.S. universities, there's still quite some work to do to get those people in and to get them trained up and to get the right experience. When I referenced earlier about our new CPO, that's part of having Keller does a good job at it at the moment, but I think we can do better in terms of planning that talent pipeline and planning those investments in people.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

We'll be doing more of that. Kit's not a problem, particularly in the U.S. You can rent kit, you can rent equipment. In terms of what we're doing about it is keeping up with that organic piece. This isn't a business where I could just go out and tell the team to recruit another 1,000 people so that we can do more work. I'm not even sure we'd necessarily want to, right? We want to grow cautiously with the volume that's there. In terms of the order book, as David said, we burn through. You should sort of take I-40 out, which we've publicly disclosed, the value of I-40, and then assume that the rest of it is relatively normal profile, which is that we burn through about two-thirds in the first six months.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

We actually burn through around 35%-40% in the first three months, which shows. I think one of the things when we talk in these results presentations, we like to talk a lot about the big jobs, right? The big jobs are the exciting ones. They're the ones that sort of capture people's imagination. The reality is that Keller's average size job is somewhere between half a million and a million quid, right? We are still, as what I said in the presentation, the jobs I saw in Warsaw, they are very much the bread and butter of what Keller does. 35%-40% being burned inside the first three months shows you how quickly that order book turns. Historically, we'd have somewhere between 10%-20%, 10%-15%, maybe, that is more than 12 months. That's the bit that I-40 will skew.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

We'll have a bit more in that pot because it goes into 2027 and even into 2028. I would take off I-40 and then assume that our normal profile exists. Even with that Austral job that I mentioned a minute ago, that's a decent-sized job, but that Austral already exists in those numbers I just quoted, and they do tend to have They're one of the ones that has a longer burn because they're bigger contracts with large organizations.

[Jamie Murray, Analyst at Bank of America]

Second half, part two is the tougher ones. Probably one for David. Did I miss the figure that you've got left to spend on the ERP program? Apologies if I did, but if not, could you let us know what that is? Second one around working capital. How should we think about the dynamics around inflows, outflows, probably outflows as the business grows going forward? It'd be useful to get an update on that. Have you got any material claim settlements to come in the second half of the year? I suspect those are all yours, David. The final one is probably for James around the U.S. businesses. I mean, we were talking about outsized performing probably about as well as it's ever done. You've made it into a proper holistic unit.

[Jamie Murray, Analyst at Bank of America]

Is there anything you can take from that and apply it to Europe and Australia in particular, I suppose I'm thinking about there, you just haven't had a chance yet to do it?

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Okay. Let me pick up. You didn't miss the number in terms of ERP because I didn't mention it. Yeah, I think, as I said, where we are with it is we're pretty close with the final build and doing extensive acceptance testing at this time, which we continue to run for the rest of the year. The plan is to launch in Canada. Now, I think we've got to come to a choice as to how quickly we then roll it out, I think that will drive a cost element, I think we've got to make a choice around that because we could do simultaneous rollouts in different parts of the world. We could just sequentially do it, which would be a lower cost, but longer time.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

We do think there is significant benefit for us in terms of getting it in as quickly as possible. I think the ultimate cost associated with the ERP is still something that we need to have that conversation about how we go about the final rollout. A lot of the work that we'll do in Canada in the first three months in terms of testing that system and process will drive that decision. Working capital, yep, I think you're absolutely right in terms of, I would link it to the growth of the business. You'll see that there has been an outflow in the first half compared to this time last year. I think the I-40 has a bit of an impact because there is inventory on that. There's quite a high material content, and that has bumped our inventory cost up.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Yeah, I use the normal metrics in terms of linking it to the growth of the business. Material claims settlement in the second half. Don't expect anything. We do have a claims register. Frankly, nothing is in that register that I don't think will lend from a material perspective in the second half. Never say never. We've had situations where clients do go, "Okay, let's settle," but there's nothing in the forecast in that respect.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Your question about U.S. performance is a great question. I would say that One Keller, Mike and David's One Keller program, has been pretty universally successful. I think some of the history that existed in the U.S. also existed in Europe with different regions and countries not particularly working very well together, and that's not what I see now. There's a very collaborative approach. Of course, the one advantage that the U.S. has that I'd like Europe to have more of is scale. We're massive in the U.S., and we have a good number of people, and therefore, I think that drives an overall higher capability. Some more scale in Europe would be good.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

I think in Australia, yes, there are also opportunities, we're already on the road with that because Keller Australia and Austral work a lot more together than I think they have done in the past. We've seen quite a lot of bids recently. Although Austral is more of a civils business, more of almost a general contractor, and they're experts particularly in nearshore marine. There are elements where Keller Australia can come in and work with them. We're seeing quite a bit more of that. I think the final opportunity for us is really, and this is mostly to do with how busy they are rather than how willing they are, but there is such capability in our U.S. business that I think they can help the other regions a bit more with some of the things we do.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

In fact, we've started a little bit of that in APAC, where there have been some U.S. defense opportunities in certain parts of the world that are in that region. We've seen more partnering up between the U.S. business and our other regions to drive opportunity.

[David Burke, CFO at Keller Group]

Yeah. I think there is a bit of a difference, a structural difference between North America and Europe as well in terms of the regulatory environment. One regulatory environment in the U.S. That's one factor, I think, because you have different regulations in France and Germany. You can't move a driller from France to Germany very easily. He's got to have German papers in order to do that. That's one difference. Then I think the level of vertical integration as well is a bit of a factor in terms of pricing. Not much vertical integration in the U.S., and a lot of it in Europe, which makes things very competitive.

[Company Representative at Keller Group]

We've just got three questions have come in on the webcast to finish off the Q&A. The first one is from Bruno Berry from West Yorkshire Pension Fund. He's asked, "The U.K. is a relatively small part within Keller. Any thoughts about the prospect for this market, level of competition or M&A opportunities?" Then two final questions that have come in from Rob Chantry at Berenberg. "Could you give us some more color on the economic characteristics of data centers, just in terms of resources needed?" Timings, length of bidding. And the final question, having been involved in the I-40 project, has that opened up any broader scope for major projects, deals in terms of bidding capability, technical capability, and just understanding of the process around major projects in the U.S.?

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Yeah. I think if we start with the U.K., look, we're domiciled in the U.K., right? It's a difficult market for everybody. The vertical integration that David's just described is probably, the U.K. has got some of the most of it in the world. It is an important market because of where we are and where we're domiciled. I think we see there remain opportunities in the U.K., particularly at the more ground improvement end of things rather than the straight foundations things. We're committed to the market, and we see those opportunities, and sooner or later, we believe that the U.K. market will turn and that there will be investments in infrastructure. It's worth waiting for that.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

In terms of the data centers, we talked at full year about the number of jobs we've done and how much revenue, and it's quite easy to remember because it was basically 100 jobs for GBP 100 million of revenue. Even I can work out the maths for what the average size of the job is. I think we've seen a slight uptick in this year. I think the average size of the job has gone from GBP 1 million to sort of GBP 1.5 million. I think that's skewed by one or two projects where they've been a bit more complex. In general, the thing to remember about what we do as a business is that what is being built is not the differentiating factor for the size of the job for us.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

The differentiating factor is the geology, is what we're building or the ground that we're preparing. A warehouse or a data center can have a completely different bill for ground improvement, ground engineering in one geography versus another geography, and that's got nothing to do with what's being built on them. The same applies, just in case there's a follow-up question, which is around margin. Margins are not dictated by the subsector. Margins are much more about what technique are we applying to the job and how complex is it, and therefore, what is the range of competition that we would have for a particular job. One thing I would say about data centers, which makes them particularly attractive for us, not universally, but in a lot of cases, schedule is incredibly important. Everybody is in a real hurry to get these data centers put up.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

When schedule becomes the most important thing to a client, and we have to balance resources to meet that schedule, you do tend to find that margins are a little higher. It's not universally the case with data centers, I would say schedule being important is more prevalent in data centers than it is perhaps in other subsectors. Lastly, on I-40, look, we already do a lot with roads. That's why we've got that job because we have a lot of knowledge of it. I do think it demonstrates Keller's ability to do really big jobs. I think that pre One Keller, Keller probably couldn't have done the I-40 job. It probably would've been too big.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Now that we have an organization that has all the different branches and the different regions work very collaboratively with each other, we're able to share resources and meet the demands of a large project like that. That'll definitely be useful for us in terms of referencing, I'm sure, because we'll get positive reputation from doing something like I-40. Important to say, though, that that doesn't mean that we go to a strategy of wanting that bigger is better. Because as I said earlier, Keller's bread and butter is those smaller jobs, and the smaller jobs drive the utilization of our people and the utilization of our kit. Whilst we want larger jobs, we wouldn't want to only be a large job business because that drives your productivity and your efficiency in too lumpy a way.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

Yes, great to have the reputation, great to have the opportunity to do more large projects, definitely wouldn't want to just be a major project business. That wouldn't be a good route to go down. I'm conscious that this is a very busy week for reporting, I'll let you all go. Thank you very much for joining us today. We're obviously delighted with our excellent performance in the first half. Hopefully, it's come across how much we think it reflects the strength of our geographic diversification and just how sector agnostic Keller is, supported, of course, by the brilliant people that we have out in the business.

[James Wroath, CEO at Keller Group]

As I've said a few times and ducked a few questions, we look forward to discussing our strategy in more detail at the Capital Markets Day in October, on the afternoon of the 14th of October, in this very building. James, thank you very much. Thanks a lot.

Participants

Executives

• James Wroath, CEO
• David Burke, CFO
• Company Representative

Analysts

• Aynsley Lammin, Analyst at Investec
• Clyde Lewis, Analyst at Peel Hunt
• Ben Varrow, Analyst at RBC
• Jamie Murray, Analyst at Bank of America