and CFO Andrew Bendall. They'll go through the presentation that was released this morning on the ASX.

To ask a question, please submit them via the Q&A button at the bottom of the screen, and we'll do our best to get through as many of those as possible. I'll now hand it over to Bruce.

Thank you, Ben, and yeah, thanks everyone for attending our half-year update. In May this year we're going to come to the end of our 30th year of of operations.

Across that period, we've delivered $1.2 billion worth of infrastructure and services globally to modernize around 2 million hectares of of the irrigated land globally. Big numbers, but it's only 1% of the the market we're chasing, and, we're we're our the effort we've made in recent years has been is in setting ourselves up to pursue that bigger global market, will come to fruition, and we're excited about the future.

In terms of last financial year, revenue of $29 million was down about 9% on the previous year, and that was impacted by a number of factors. We are now an export business, we are exposed to the Australian dollar exchange rate.

Whilst that does move up and down, the first half this year was disordinately impacted by movements in the exchange rates. That's because a lot of the contracts, many of the contracts that we signed last year, we had progress last year in terms of costs and revenue recognition, those contracts were paid for this year, and the gap between incurring the costs and in and recognizing the revenue and getting paid for that, incurred a a a real appreciation in the Australian dollar, and that impacted not only revenue, but that that impact was also felt directly into the bottom line.

The bigger impact though for us was the was the the government shutdown in the US and the funding freeze in the US. That impacted more than just, our target was not to not the $32 million of the last comparable period.

Obviously we were planning and expecting significant growth on that, and the major contributing factor to to not achieving our goals was that US funding. As I said, that those impacts come across to and gross margin and underlying EBITDA, Andrew will delve into that.

As a as an example of the US market impact, four projects in the US that had been approved by the previous administration remain approved by the new administration, but because of the funding freeze have not been given the funding allocations to allow the notices to proceed to to be issued. We those projects remain approved, we expect them to come through, and what we are hearing is positive news as we enter the new financial fiscal year in the US that funding is starting to be allocated, we're hopeful that we'll see that come through.

Offsetting the that the the project funding in the US is the significant number of major projects we've won around the world, particularly Chile, Costa Rica, and Italy, totaling $11.9 million in the first half. We'll we'll delve into a bit more detail in those in in the in the coming slides.

Significantly though, we have we have tenders underway for our major pro- projects of focus of a combined value of more than $30 million, and we expect those tenders to be won in time for us to for them to make a a material contribution to FY '26 results. That's a that's a real movement in that pipeline from to the final stages of tendering and and and some of those tenders close in March and and we we remain very very strong in our position on those.

Added to those pipeline of jobs, particularly those large priority projects coming through, we had a really strong start to to to the second half. January, February are traditionally low-order months for us, post-Christmas, start-up in start-up of fiscal years in other parts of the country, but this year it's been strong, notably strong: $9.3 million of new contracts signed since January 1, and that compares with $3.9 million in the previ- prior comparable period.

That $5.4 million obviously is albeit or- orders rather than revenue, but it's compares with the the $3 mil undershot on revenue from prior comparable period. Also really importantly for the business, and we do spend a bit of time we're going to spend a bit of time talking about corporate funding.

This is a this is a a fast-moving pace fast-moving space, and we have won our first direct contract from from corporates looking to achieve water savings for their ESG goals. There's there there's a lot there's a lot happening in that space.

We also recently were awarded a $2.7 million contract in Australia for our offering into floodplain management, not a space we've really been in in Australia before, and it's really quite exciting for us in in that market, both in Australia and globally. Why are we confident when we talk about those tenders in the market?

Why are we, confident in in our ability to secure that contract? It's because of our unique end-to-end value proposition.

When a customer or a tender enters the market looking for an end-to-end solution to modernize an irrigation district to save water and increase agricultural production across a gravity-fed irrigation district, we really don't have competitors. We've got the and not only don't we have live competitors, we've got the demonstrated track record and reference sites that deliver that solution around the world now.

We're that's why that unique proposition value proposition is why we express so much confidence that when the tenders get to that stage, we're we're we're very well-placed to win them. We're going to go through a few of the global highlights now that that that we did achieve this year, obvious and I'll go through those one by one.

As I said, the United States, negatively impacted by the funding freezes and the record shutdown. It's fair to say we did not anticipate that there'd be, the the biggest funding we have for our projects in the States historically has been US Department of Ag and USBR.

We did not anticipate at the, at the start of this financial year that we would be sitting here in February with no funding released from either of those agencies into our place. That's not been in our history that in the US that has happened.

Obviously it's a unique situation in the US. We are hearing budget allocations now that in the new fiscal year things will start to move, we're and we're looking forward to that.

Importantly, our base business in the US has remained strong. We have we have achieved year-to-date $9.2 million ac- across of signings, across 81 separate orders from our existing client base.

That is not it underpins the the the business, not just in the US but elsewhere. When we have when we deliver our solutions to a customer, there is ongoing work.

That that $9.2 million in the US across those 81 contracts is from existing clients, either en- enhancing, extending, or maintaining their existing systems. Total year-to-date signings in the US $11.6, but that includes a privately funded project around ESG water savings, and we'll talk about that soon.

Importantly as well, we've the reference sites continue to build, particularly in the US. Chaffin Farms, has implemented our system over the last 12 months, and we've made some really impressive results there.

Chaffin Farms has, in the areas we've modernized, has increased their yield by 18% while decreasing their water use by 35%. That's that's nearly a doubling of the productivity of irrigation water for that farm.

I encourage you to have a look at our website. There's a there's a a video detailing the work we've done at Chaffin Farms.

Grant Chaffin himself talks to the talks to the benefit around our technology. Also, Turlock Irrigation, is the one of the largest and the oldest irrigation districts in the Central Valley, California.

They've been a long-term customer of ours, and they're now moving to full automation of their system, right from farmers ordering all the way through to the delivery and and measurement of the water. First part of that is the Ceres Main, which is which is going live as we speak.

Irrigation is about to start over the next few weeks. The system is live.

Farmers are ordering their water through our technology, and that's a fantastic reference site for us. In Europe, continues to be really strong for us: $6.9 million in contract signings in the first half and $8 million year-to-date.

Part A big a good part of that is is Spain, $2.4 million. Importantly though, that that that is two customers there, Bardenas and Alto Aragón, which are two of the largest districts in Spain.

Entry points into two of those very large districts for us, we see that as a as a as a good opportunity. By far, the most exciting exciting part of the our EMEA business is Italy.

We On the back of Agro Pontino last year, our largest-ever European contract, we've had really solid signings, building on a, $5.5 million of contracts secured so far, and that is expected to continue to flow. Additionally, again, reference sites.

Angela Soresina, Canale Secco, and Ottomulini, these contracts we've delivered are delivering significant water savings in in an audited sense, which provide fantastic reference sites. The other really, equally or probably more exciting about Italy is is the funding.

Italy itself is investing huge funds into their National Recovery and Resilience Program, €880 million of that is aimed at reducing water loss in distribution networks, in our space. We are already seeing that come to the fore in in tenders in our space, and and contracting in our space.

That that that secures the funding over the next few years for a continued expansion of our business in Italy. LatAm as well, has has been an exciting space for us.

Costa Rica, we've spoken about that a few times, we've last year we won stage one of the of the project in in Costa Rica. This year we secured the second phase, and we are in the process of delivering that.

Importantly though, the third phase now has been fast-tracked on the success of the first two phases. The the third phase is a much larger phase and deals with our core technology.

Phases one and two are about dealing with the headworks, automating the storages and the main feeder canals with our technology. The it's our software, it's our comms networks, it's our instrumentation.

Stages three, four, five, and six over the next few years are are then dealing with the broad-scale deployment of our core technology on much larger projects. Chile as well, our largest-ever project in Chile, importantly with the Department of Hydraulic Works.

Francisco Rivas is is the contract. Department of Hydraulic Works is the is the federal funder in in Chile for the large infrastructure projects, and this is the second of our projects with the Department of Hydraulic Works and sets us well up for the future.

We've also been deploying the project we won last year in Argentina, and despite the the economy in Argentina, we do see that as a as a growing as a growing market for us as well. Now, with the In particularly in the the Italian and the and our Florida markets, we've there's an opportunity around the dual use of these canals.

In Australia the the canal systems are are pretty much around delivering water to farm for irrigation, and that's a primary use in say the Po Valley in Italy. However, though in in in places where that are susceptible to flooding and and heavily urbanized areas, that same infrastructure is used then to to get rid of floodwaters.

In Italy, the summer storms particularly, the increasing number of summer storms with climate change, they these systems have to very quickly flip from delivering water for irrigation to getting rid of floodwaters. We've been working to develop solutions and business cases there around what our technology can do.

Part of that has been we've developed a new product called the FloodGate. It's a dual-acting gate that allows overshot flows for irrigation deliveries and then can remove itself completely from the waterway to get rid of floodwaters.

That that product has been instrumental in us winning the the project in Australia for in the Murray-Darling Basin for for flood the environmental water across priority floodplains. That's part as part of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the better use of the Commonwealth environmental water allocations to strategically apply to floodplains.

That's we see that as a really strategic win for us here in Australia as well, and in a in a in a growing market, but with with global applications. If I move on to corporate funding, as I said, this is a an exciting space, and, this is where corporate entities are making ESG commitments not just about carbon credits and and energy, but are around their water use and and and sustainability.

Making there's a there's, around the globe, but particularly US entities, we're seeing a major move in this space. Corporate funding in the in the States, as I mentioned in the summary, we we received a contract this year where we were directly funded by a corporate entity to provide a solution for Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District to modernize part of their network, save water, and then provide the audited results of those water savings for 10 years.

Importantly, that project was different in that it that it contracted Rubicon directly, which these funders are keen to do rather than fund various entities and individual irrigation districts. They're looking for vehicles like Rubicon that can deliver technology to to be more efficient in the rollout of of their funding.

We did have two other projects as well which were funded where the funding from corporates went directly to irrigation districts who then contracted us for the work. That's in in Arizona in Gila River Farms and Bear River in Utah.

Those two contracts with over over the last year have been funded by corporates. We are engaged with several of the top 30 comp- US companies by market cap as they look to increase their their investments to meet the water stew- stewardship goals.

Importantly, when we say engaged, we're not, we are we are not talking about swapping business cards or a pitch at a conference. As an example, one of the world's the the GM of sustainability for one of the world's largest company has requested us to provide details of what our of the projects that where our technology can make a material difference to water savings across the Colorado River Basin, and they're requesting us to provide that that summary by the end of March.

This is a a a fast-moving space for us. This chart here really shows the history of that water stewardship commitments.

Coca-Cola back in the in the early 2000s was one of the first to come on board. You can see by this chart the number of corporate entities that are that are signing up, and there are initiatives and guidance and standards that and commitments that are being made.

First stage of which many organizations are saying 2030 is a critical is a critical period. That's why and obviously at 2026, we're getting close.

We have one of our we have a a business development executive dedicated to this space now. He's been in the States for a week-long conference called GreenBiz in Phoenix, Arizona, last week, where he has been engaging with many of these many of these corporates.

Importantly, that conference, GreenBiz, did a field trip to Gila River Farms to view our technology making a mate- making water savings efficiencies. It was one of the few field trips that was actually able to demonstrate and visualize exactly the water savings that they're chasing, and it's Rubicon technology for Gila River Farms.

That's a a bit of a summary, and I might throw to Andrew now to lead through the results.

Thanks, Bruce. Look, I'll make a couple of brief comments around the financials for the first half.

The top line reduced $3 million period-on-period. $1.7 million of the shortfall was as a result of the stronger Australian dollar on translation of our offshore revenues, particularly against the US dollar and the Indian rupee.

The other $1.3 million was the net effect of lower volumes in the US and Australia, partially offset by Europe. The gross margin percentage was down 6.7 percentage points compared with the first half of FY '25.

4.8 percentage points of this gap was attributable to the revenue shortfall, of which the FX translation impact at 100% gross margin was 3.6 basis points, and 1.2% for the volume impact. A further 1% was as a result of the lack of new-price contracts in the US in the first half to fully absorb the tariffs imposed.

Operating expenses were $1.2 million higher during the period, predominantly on the back of higher employee cost. The business also incurred extra legal services as we resolved a number of issues in exiting our old joint venture in China and setting up the new one.

As a result of the impact of the gross margin and operating expenses, the underlying EBITDA was $4.2 million less than the previous corresponding period. The A-dollar strength also generated an adverse unrealized FX impact on the revaluation of our intercompany loans of $2.1 million versus the first half of '25.

The bottom-line loss for the period was $6.4 million, $5 million less than the previous corresponding period. Onto cash flow: despite receivables being reduced during the period on solid collections, including the last part of the Indian LBC project debt, overall operating cash flows for the period were an outflow of $2.9 million, driven by the lack of sales and ultimately the negative profit result for the first half.

The business has kept up its investment for the future by maintaining spend on our next-generation software, NeuroFlow. Key movements on the balance sheet since 30 June were: reduced cash and receivables whilst stock and contract assets were stable, combining to see a reduction in current assets of $6.4 million.

An increase in the deferred tax assets on the back of the loss increased non-current assets. Net debt rose by $5.2 million to $19.5 million as a result of the operating and investing cash outflows.

Now onto the projects pipeline. This slide captures the progress of our major projects of focus.

The pie chart on the right represents our project pipeline as of today. The chart on the left was as of the date of the AGM, the last time we showed our pipeline.

The won segment, being the left, the light green, has grown by the inclusion of the Chilean project and an expansion in the scope of the Italian Villoresi project. As has been mentioned earlier in the presentation, we now have a number of priority projects that have entered the tender phase, and as such, are within our closed category, the purple, which has now grown to $61 million from $42 million.

Some of the projects in our likely and possible categories have moved to closed whilst others, as we would expect as the year progresses, move out to the gray next year category. Overall, we believe our pipeline still looks very healthy, with 18 priority projects totaling $189 million in our sights.

Back to Bruce.

Thanks, Andrew. In summary, we are confident in H2 FY '26 and FY '26 in general.

That's based on improved market conditions and conversion of several of these near-term projects we're talking about, but also importantly, our base business. Australia is our base business, and as I spoke about those $9.2 million year-to-date on 81 different customer orders from our existing customer base in the US.

That base business that we rely on is solid. The new funding avenues, as I've spoken about, are quite exciting for us.

Moving away from government funding to more corporate timelines and decision-making is obviously a positive for the business, not replacing, but supplementing and extending. The proven customer outcomes become really compelling.

The results of the work we've done in the US in Italy are seeing the amount of interest in our projects and tenders and our pipeline expand there. That is the case around the world.

The examples we've got in the US now with Turlock and Chaffin Farms and Fondomonte are really powerful in driving the pipeline. This near-term pipeline is very strong.

As I said, we've got tenders about to close to in excess of $30 million that we expect to materially impact FY '26 results. The contract signings we have around the world as well demonstrating relatively small countries in terms of the global scale of our opportunity.

A country like Costa Rica is only small, but the opportunity there for Rubicon is close to $30 million over the coming years, and we're embedded in there now with stages one and two, and that will flow on. We obviously have been spending some time here talking about corporate funding.

That's new and additional. The government funding, the reform, as was done in the Murray-Darling Basin, as we're seeing in the US with the Colorado Basin, and the reforms happening there, and as we're seeing in Italy with the need to achieve water efficiencies and that €880 million dedicated to improving the efficiency of these broad distribution networks.

All that goes to our optimism about the future. I thank you for your time, and I'll throw back to Ben, happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Bruce and Andrew. Just a reminder: if you'd like to ask a question, please do so via the Q&A function at the bottom of the screen.

First question here: "The prior strategy to reach profitability required growing to a certain level of sales, which will cover opex at constant gross margins. Given growth has faltered, is there an opportunity to be more assertive on pricing and capture higher gross margins?"

Bruce, I'm happy to answer that. I guess there's a couple of points I'd make.

The prior strategy is still our strategy. We do intend on growing our sales line.

Certainly the first half is not where we wanted to be. Like all listed companies, we have a hard close at 31st of December.

I don't think our growth has faltered. As Bruce has pointed out, if you were to extend it to an eight-month period as distinct from a six-month period, we're actually ahead of the same time last year.

Some of those markets which were slower than expected, like Australia, in fact in the first six months, in the last two months picking up the FloodGate work along with a whole lot of base spare parts type of business, that's back ahead of where it should be. Then, the priority pipeline that we spoke about of some $61 million in the closed, we still very much targeting growth this year.

In terms of the gross margin, look, there's always going to be elements that are going to be outside of our control. The currency piece on translation does have a big impact because obviously you reduce your revenues, but nothing happens to your cost base, and therefore, it becomes quite effective.

We have said before, and this absolutely holds true, that volume, and this is because not all of our cost of goods sold are truly variable, volume certainly will pick up that margin from where it is, and we're expecting to have higher volumes in the second half. On top of that, and whilst it wasn't in the question, we are taking a number of operating costs measures across the business to be able to reduce costs in the second half also so we can return to profitability.

I think the only thing I'd add there is pricing as well. As that uniqueness does allow us some flexibility in pricing, or a good amount of flexibility to increase prices.

The environment in the US does facilitate that at the moment with tariffs and a range of things. The one thing, it's not an immediate effect on pricing for us because we're building these opportunities that are contracted, we're setting the price and the business cases sometimes, or always months, but sometimes years ahead of when the works are actually contracted.

We continually look to use our advantage in being unique to be able to push our pricing to the extent that's practicable as long as we're meeting the business case objectives of our customers. All

right, thank you. I've got two separate questions here, once they're both sort of along the similar lines: one for India and one for Egypt, just wondering what the situation in those two regions are and whether there's any update.

Yeah. India, we still have large projects being delivered in India.

The Right Bank Canal and several other contracts in Karnataka, of a smaller scale, and there are significant pipeline opportunities. We're still very bullish about India, but as those that have heard me speak before, it's the largest opportunity for us globally in terms of the scale of the infrastructure and the investment that's being made.

We expect to be able to make some announcements on the next stage of our growth in India and expect India to be a material part of the near-term revenues coming to Rubicon. Egypt, we're still well-engaged.

We have an office in Egypt, and we have a manager for that North Africa region. There was a project in our near-term pipeline, which was a substantial part of our pipeline.

That's been pushed back a bit, mainly because we've had to change partners for that project. We are still engaged with the Future of Egypt Authority, which is a government authority around what our technology can do, and we are working through that.

Again, we see Egypt is still a big part of our future, and we will hope to be making announcements in the medium term around the scale of what Egypt will mean for us.

Thank you, Bruce. Next question: How are you managing FX risk, given a rising Aussie dollar, which has impacted the first-half results?

Thanks, Ben. Look, we're always looking into what we could do differently in terms of the foreign exchange piece.

It's certainly front and center in this last half because of the impact it's had. I guess with FX management and hedging, hindsight's always a wonderful thing.

We will look at it. It's not, by the nature, transactional hedging, which typically allows you to be more specific about volumes and timing.

Translation's an interesting one, and it's effectively unrealized, if you like, until something's actually transferred back in terms of the intercompany loans. We will look at it and work out whether there's not some sort of hedging that would not put the business in more risk rather than less risk.

The primary way on the foreign exchange is pricing, I suppose. Again, as I said, timing sometimes on that is difficult, but clearly as an Australian business, we're pricing these projects internationally based on our expected exchange.

Over time we get to flex that pricing in line with exchange rates and other things like tariffs and so forth.

Right, thank you. Just regarding the corporate water stewardship, can you tell us why Rubicon is positioned to be the technology partner of choice for the major corporates?

I think it comes, for those that have seen previous presentations, I suppose one of the things I've gone to in previous ones is if you break up pie chart of the world's water use in a year, a third of the water is used on urban and industry, a third of the water is consumed by irrigation crops, and most of the remaining third is lost by getting the water to those crops. That's the biggest opportunity.

When we're engaged with these corporates, some of the investments they've make are things like leak detection in urbans, the scale of the water savings they can get out of that is a fraction of what they can get out of investment in irrigation efficiency. The GreenBiz conference that visited Gila River Farms saw a scale of water savings that is not achievable by other investments.

If you're looking at the big opportunities for creating new water globally, it's desal, which comes at high energy costs and pollutant cost, or it's fixing that link between supply and the root zone of irrigation crops, which is Rubicon's business. We're established not only with the unique technology IP protected, but with the reference cases and the customer base that's demonstrating that.

I think getting briefing from our business development manager that was at GreenBiz, jaws drop when we're talking to these corporates around the scale of water savings we can achieve. One of the metrics there is the dollars per thousand cubic feet of water.

Compared to what they're achieving in the urban side with things like leak detection or enhancement of parks and gardens, we're less than 10% of the cost per thousand feet cubed across many of our projects. It's just a compelling case.

If you want to save large amounts of water, you go to where the biggest inefficiencies are, and you look at the company that's got the best record in improving those efficiencies. All

right, thank you, Bruce. That concludes the Q&A segment of the webinar.

I'll now hand back to Bruce for closing remarks.

Thanks, Ben. Clearly $29 mil and the underlying results below that, even more so, is not where we wanted to be for the first half.

However, I hope this presentation has shown the confidence we have in the future. In the future being H2 FY '26, that corporate funding, as I've spoken about, these contracts that are in the market that are of scale and are going to make a material difference to H2 FY '26.

Also that government funding, it will come back in the US. It is there in Italy, it's there in places like Costa Rica and around the world.

We remain very confident where we're going as a business, and I thank you for your time.