Good morning everyone, and welcome to the H1 2026 results presentation. I'm Allan Pirie, I'm the CEO, and I'm joined this morning by Ingrid Stewart, our CFO.

I'll start with a results overview and some highlights, and then pass to Ingrid, who will provide a more detailed review of the financials, after which I'll talk about the market and operational review. Following the presentation, we'll open the floor to Q&A.

We could just go to the first slide. During H1, the group delivered revenue growth despite short-term headwinds impacting trading, while long-term opportunity remains strong.

In a challenging market, compared to the prior year, revenue increased by 1.1% to £100.2 million, being a 1.7% increase on a constant currency basis. Revenue generated from renewables decreased by 2%, reflecting globally softer market conditions.

Adjusted EBITA margin at 25% reflects revenue mix. Net debt reduced by £15 million in the period, with leverage reducing to 1.4 times, which is the lower half of our target range of 1 to 2 times.

These financial results demonstrate the strength of our differentiated global services model and our scale diversified footprint. We continued to make strategic process progress through the first half.

We're building an increasingly sophisticated and diversified business through a unique portfolio of equipment and services and global footprint to serve the global offshore energy industry across the full life cycle of of of subsea infrastructure. We acquired C-Draulic, creating a strategic footprint in Australia to accelerate growth in that market.

We consolidated three UK Mechanical Solutions operations into one, creating a global center of excellence to better service our customers. We continued to build out group capability, investing £25.9 million in technology for the long term.

Turning to outlook: In our trading update on 20th of August, we disappointingly noted the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and project slippages, which will impact revenue growth in H2. Confidence in the long-term market fundamentals remain strong, with our addressable market forecast to grow at 6% CAGR through 2029, supported by customer backlog and their opportunity pipelines.

Turning to the next slide: We're building unrivalled capability while delivering sector-leading financial performance. What are the Ashtead Technology differentiators?

We're a trusted partner. Service failure offshore carries significant financial consequences, leading customers to prioritize reliability, track record, and trusted supplier relationships over marginal pricing differences.

We supported all of our top 10 customers for over a decade. We're deepening our service moat.

Increasing focus on integrated solutions embeds Ashtead Technology into customer projects, de-risking their execution. We're accelerating in-house innovation.

The majority of our Mechanical Solutions and Asset Integrity equipment is designed, engineered, and assembled in-house, which can't be easily bought or replicated by competitors. We have global reach.

We support our customers globally with the world's largest independent subsea equipment solutions fleet. Our offering is highly fungible.

Our mission-critical flexible service supports offshore construction, inspection, maintenance, repair, and decommissioning, giving the business exposure across the full life cycle of subsea energy infrastructure for both oil and gas and offshore wind. If we look at the chart: Over the last 10-year period into 2025, we have scaled our business organically and through 10 acquisitions, delivering revenue CAGR of 30%, adjusted EBITDA CAGR of 32%, and adjusted EBITA CAGR of 67%.

Whilst we have a long-term growth track record, growth will not be linear. And 2026 is proving to be a challenging year, but the long-term opportunity remains strong.

The platform we have provides a great opportunity to drive financial performance and further scale this business. I'll now turn over to Ingrid, who will talk us through the financials.

Thank you, Allan. Good morning, everyone.

Whilst disappointing, our financial performance in the first half has been resilient given the challenging market backdrop. Our revenue of £100.2 million is 1.1% up on prior year and 1.7% up on a constant currency basis.

Our adjusted EBITA of £25.1 million represents a margin of 25%, which falls short of our target of high 20s and is below the 27.3% achieved in the comparable period last year. This is as a result of a higher proportion of our revenues coming from non-rental areas and an increase in our depreciation costs as a result of recent investment.

Our adjusted EPS of 20.6% pence is down 6% on prior year. As a reminder of where we've come from since IPO, this is 2.5 times what we had delivered 4 years ago in 2022.

Our return on capital remains ahead of our cost of capital and our internal targets at 25.5%. Our balance sheet remains strong, with half-year leverage at 1.4 times.

Our revenue growth of 1.1% comes from oil and gas, which saw a 1.9% increase year-on-year, with our renewables revenues showing a small drop of £0.4 million, representing a decline of 1.6%. On a regional basis, we've seen a solid performance from our European business, which has grown by 7.5% year-on-year, with all three business lines performing well in this region.

In the Americas, revenues have increased by 2% year-on-year with a strong performance in Survey & Robotics and Asset Integrity, offset with lower Mechanical Solutions revenues due to project timings. As previously flagged, our Middle East business has seen some impact from the conflict, with a reduction in revenues of 7% being a more robust performance than initially feared at the start of the conflict.

The largest lag comes from our APAC business, which is down three 30% year-on-year, in part due to H1 2025 including revenues from the larger Tapti decommissioning project and slower offshore renewables activity in 2026. Our EBITDA margin at 37.8% remains within our high-30%s target.

Our EBITA margin of 25% is below target, as I said earlier, due to the impact of the higher depreciation charge due to investment in CapEx. Our adjusted profit after tax of £20.8 million compares to £21.6 million in the comparative period last year and represents an adjusted basic earnings per share of 20.6p.

We've maintained our strong balance sheet, with leverage currently at 1.4 times, in the lower half of our target range. While short-term headwinds prevail on trading, long-term growth opportunities remain strong for our business, and we continue to invest for future growth through investment in CapEx CapEx and in inventory, with a particular focus on our manipulator repair and cable molding activities that we acquired through the Seatronics and J2 Subsea acquisitions and on building a stock of proprietary Ashtead items for sale.

Our opening net debt was £109 million, representing leverage of 1.3 times. We've utilized our free cash flow and RCF to continue to invest in both organic growth and acquisitions, spending a combined £27 million on these growth initiatives in the first half.

We've also witnessed a working capital outflow, in part due to seasonality and in part due to investment in inventory and timing of CapEx spend. As a result, our net debt has increased slightly during the period, but is expected to reduce through the seasonally cash positive second half.

Our net debt leverage is expected to reduce to 1.3 times at the year-end. I won't dwell too much on our cash flow slide as much of this has been covered by my previous commentary.

Whilst our operating cash flow conversion remains strong at 79%, we've reduced our free cash flow conversion due to timing of CapEx spend and higher tax payments in the period. Touching briefly on our working capital, we've seen a steady increase in the percentage of working capital against LTM revenues, which is in part due to investment in inventory.

Our working capital can also fluctuate due to timing of CapEx spend. Our internal target is 17% of LTM revenues.

On capital allocation, there is no change to our strategy, with priorities focused on investing for growth and maintaining our leverage within the target 1 to 2 times range. Our business has grown significantly over the past 5 years, following over £270 million of investment in both CapEx and acquisitions, which has delivered a 3.7 times increase in our EBITA.

We've sustained high returns with ROIC in the 20%s and continue to deliver industry-leading margins. All of our investments to date have been funded through free cash flow and RCF whilst maintaining low leverage.

Whilst mindful of current performance, going forward, we see the opportunity to continue to invest, utilizing our sustainable and growing operating cash flows to to fund growth in our business and to capture the opportunities within a growing market. In line with prior years, the board has not proposed an interim dividend and intends to continue with its annual small, progressive dividend policy.

I will now pass you back to Allan to give an update on the market and operational review.

Great. Thanks, Ingrid.

The market continues to provide a strong growth runway for the business. The Middle East conflict and prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz will likely reshape global energy markets and force governments to prioritize energy security, resilience, and supply diversification at the same time as energy demand is increasing.

Ashtead Technology's total addressable market is forecast to grow by 27% to $3.4 billion by 2029 at 6% CAGR. Starting with the left-hand graph: Despite recent headwinds, the offshore wind market is forecast to grow at 10% CAGR through to 2029.

Offshore wind activity has been slow this year, but it is forecast to increase as we move towards the end of the decade, and offshore activity related to recent auction awards starts to increase. Oil and gas inspection, maintenance, repair, and construction work is forecast to grow at 4% CAGR through to 2029.

Oil and gas is an important part of the future energy mix, with strong demand forecasts for decades to come. If we look at the right-hand chart, this graph shows the key regional addressable markets for Ashtead Technology, which are global, excluding China.

We support our customers' operations across the key offshore regions, and we are well-placed to benefit from the forecast growth. As we continue to build out our business, geographical expansion is a core theme.

Establishing a footprint in Australia through the acquisition of C-Draulics in June is another step forward. With the platform we have built, our team's domain knowledge and expertise, and through the deep domain value we deliver to our customers, we are very well-placed to benefit from the long-term growth across all our key markets.

Turning to the next slide: Spend in new offshore energy infrastructure is forecast to increase over the next few years. In terms of oil and gas, greenfield oil and gas CapEx is forecast to increase to $139 billion per annum through to 2029, up from a historical average of $101 billion.

Whilst there will be a time lag between projects being sanctioned and that translating into work for Ashtead Technology, this increase in forecast spend supports our growth ambitions for the business. In terms of offshore wind, despite a new market reality for offshore wind in which headwinds persist, evident by muted project FIDs, failed tenders, and developers exiting developments, the long-term structural case remains intact.

Offshore wind is expected to play a key role for European countries, underpinned by heightened energy security agendas and the drive to diversify energy sources. Europe installed capacity is forecast to double from 37 gigawatts to 71 gigawatts by 2030.

Globally, the number of operational wind farms, excluding China, is forecast to increase from 203 to 312 by 2030, an increase of 54%. The medium-term market forecast outlook for the offshore energy market is strong.

Turning to the next slide in customer backlog: Subsea activity for the next 3 years is evident through customer backlogs, which are multi-year. The left-hand chart shows the backlog of seven subsea contractors and how that's changed since 2020, increasing from $36 billion to $84 billion.

These customers account for just under 40% of our revenue. Q2 2026 backlog is 3% lower than December '25, due in part to timing of contract awards.

Whilst Subsea7 and Technip backlogs remain stable at high levels, Saipem's backlog is 15% lower compared to the year-end at December '25. Saipem, in their Q2 trading update, noted their confidence that 2026 order intake will exceed that of 2025.

On the right-hand chart, the opportunity pipelines for Technip, which is on a 24-month basis, and Saipem, on an 18-month basis, both continue to increase, pointing to a backlog rebound in 2027. From this multi-year customer backlog, we expect a strong pipeline of revenue opportunities.

Turning to geographic expansion: Geographic and service line capability expansion are cornerstones of our strategy to better support our customers and to position Ashtead Technology as an integrated solutions provider. There are growth opportunities to expand our service capabilities across both geographical and end markets.

Survey & Robotics will continue to benefit from increasing customer propensity to rent. Significant opportunities exist to expand our Mechanical Solutions capability by internationalizing what we already have.

We've continues to make progress building out our US capability, having opened a facility in Houston last year, and we took possession of a new Mechanical Solutions facility in Norway yesterday. Asset Integrity has opportunities to add significant value to customers globally through consultancy services, own product development, and deployment of niche technologies.

If we look at end markets, oil and gas continues to provide an excellent opportunity for business globally. Offshore wind opportunities will likely be restricted to Europe and Asia in the short term, with policy disruptions slowing US growth.

We're delighted to have acquired C-Draulics in June this year. Whilst our equipment is highly mobile, for certain regions, having boots on the ground will allow us to further increase market share.

We have supported this Australian market from Singapore for over 30 years, but our customer proposition and the market opportunity has changed. We have listened to our customers, and now is the right time to establish an operation in-country.

The acquisition of a small ROV tooling operations creates a platform to accelerate the build-out of a full-service Ashtead Technology capability in Australia, and at the same time, strengthen our ROV tooling capabilities globally. We continue to cultivate these type of M&A opportunities, which act as catalysts of change to better support our customers.

In terms of Mechanical Solutions, firstly, the history lesson: The foundations of our Mechanical Solutions offering was created through the acquisition of three market-leading businesses. UCS was acquired in 2019 for its specialist underwater cutting capabilities, and its range of tools have been significantly expanded through in-house design and CapEx over the last few years to be the market leader in seafloor clearance operations.

Hiretech was acquired in 2022 for its back-deck power and pumping capabilities, which supports both direct customers and complements our cutting and lifting operations. Ace Winches was acquired in 2023 for its lifting, pulling, and deployment capabilities, which has allowed Ashtead Technology to to provide the market with a fully-integrated back-deck support proposition.

Each of these businesses were successful in their own right. We are harnessing that and creating something new and differentiated.

Looking ahead, everything we do at Ashtead Technology is customer-focused. To enhance our ability to win, deliver, and support integrated project, it made sense to further integrate our UK Mechanical Solutions capability on one site, which is a natural next step given the evolution of our service offering.

This consolidation took place very recently, but we've already seen the benefits of a one-team approach in better communication across our technical specialists. It's also delivering efficiency in operations through consistency of standards and approach.

The key benefits, however, are customer-related: greater visibility of our capabilities, reduced points of contact, reduced equipment interface risk, and the benefit of offshore team cross-training, leading to cost reduction and less people offshore. As we bed in this new consolidated operation and look forward to 2027, we're in a far better place to support our customers.

Then finally, to outlook: The board's expectations for the full year remain in line with those set out in our trading update on 20th of August. We've got a clear growth strategy, and we're executing the plan.

Our unique service offering is highly differentiating, adding real value to our customers. The market we operate in has got strong fundamentals, as we've seen, representing attractive multi-year growth opportunities.

High multi-year customer backlogs create a strong, sustainable revenue runway for us, and our highly flexible business model is creating multiple geographic and end-market opportunities. With continued focus on strong cash generation, balance sheet strength, and disciplined capital allocation, we are well-placed to further our growth strategy, both organically and inorganically.

Thank you for listening, and now we are happy to take questions. Why don't we go ladies first?

It's always easy then. Thanks very much.

Victoria McCulloch at RBC. Can we start with your guidance for the remainder of the year?

A couple of moving parts in that. Can you give us an idea in terms of both the non-rental income portion and also APAC, what your expectations are within your revised guidance?

Then maybe on the renewables, and just medium- stock medium- to short-term view, some of your customers have highlighted their caution on into '27, '28. Subsea7's been very clear sure on his risk of, a lower order intake, things being a bit more delayed because of the bid rounds.

How do you adjust your capabilities and and manage that? How confident do you feel that the market is aware of that?

Sorry, that's probably about six questions within that.

Shall I go with the first one?

Why don't you take the first one, and I'll take the wind one. Yeah.

When we announced our trading update what, 10 days ago now, we mentioned some project slippages. A number of those projects, a lot of the revenue in those was on the rental side.

In terms of revenue mix, we're not expecting a a major change sort of first half or second half versus first half. In terms of APAC, we'd already taken out there was a couple of projects which you mentioned earlier in the year, which were canceled.

Those were already taken out the numbers months ago. We are seeing a a bit of a recovery in that region, but not nothing kind of that's going to change the numbers specifically.

Then in the Middle East, we're just really expecting much much of the same. Some of the slippage that's come out of the second half is projects in the in the Middle East that aren't going to go ahead during during the remainder of the year.

Some of which we've been told will actually still go ahead in Q4, but we've actually taken them out of our numbers and put the push them into 2027.

Picking up on the on the offshore wind point, yeah, the offshore wind market has had its challenges. It That is evident for everyone to see.

We're pointing to a market that's going to grow at 10% CAGR. Certain of our listed customers have made various points around offshore wind.

The margins in offshore wind for our customers are different than they are in oil and gas. The opportunity, certainly for the tier 1 contractors in oil and gas at the moment, is is is really, really good.

Where we play in offshore wind at the moment is very much around site characterization, which is sort of early stage. Therefore, the data that we see and what we're hearing from our customers is that whilst 2026 has been a very slow year, it will start to pick up in '27 and in and in and ramp up as we go through the rest of the decade.

Do we see a bit of slippage in that? Possibly.

We come back to the point that our equipment is highly fungible. It moves across both oil and gas and offshore wind.

One of the key strengths around Ashtead Technology is our ability to move the equipment around the world depending on where the where the demand is. I think we're very I think we can be pretty clear that the US wind market is not going to come back anytime soon.

The opportunity is very much in Europe, which is the biggest offshore mar- biggest wind market outside China, and and in Asia. I think we're we're well-placed.

We're we're being cautious. Overall, if we take a combination of the wind opportunity and the oil and gas opportunity, the market outlook for this business remains strong.

Good morning, it's David Brockton from Deutsche Numis. Can I can I ask two, please?

Could could you firstly give a bit more colour on the scheduling changes that you you referenced just over a week ago? I appreciate it's sort of part and parcel of the business, but but are you seeing a higher level of scheduling changes, and can you give any more insight into sort of the number and the types of changes that you're seeing within the business there?

Then secondly, just going back to sort of the outlook into into next year, when I look at the Rystad forecast, Europe to me looks flat on those charts, or down, and most of the growth coming elsewhere from a sort of regional perspective. Does that sort of tally with your your your sort of view of the outlook for for the regions next year?

Thank you.

Right. In in terms of scheduling changes, yeah, as as you pointed out in the in the question, scheduling changes is very much part of our business.

We are we are agile. We move with what our customers are doing.

I think what we've seen is because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, that has caused its issues. Whilst there is, activity ongoing in that market, and our team has done a fantastic job through the course of this this year in terms of difficult circumstances to work, the overriding desire from the end customers and our customers is to continue to work in that market.

What we've seen is we've seen a small number of predominantly Mechanical Solutions decommissioning projects push out. They haven't been lost.

They've They've simply moved out into 2027. They're they're a bit binary, we changed the forecast because there was no opportunity to to fill that hole.

Elsewhere, we made We made a statement in the trading update that we saw scheduling changes in Europe and and also in the Americas, which which is true. Again, it's a small number of opportunities.

The vast majority are in Mechanical Solutions. Had the market been different, had it not been for the conflict in the Middle East, had our customers Had two projects in Taiwan not been canceled, and not happened at all, we wouldn't have been talking about those because our our numbers wouldn't be where the numbers are.

I think the the good thing here is, we see this very much as a bump in the road. We don't see this as structural change in the market.

It doesn't sort of diminish our view or our our growth opportunity in in the years ahead. It's simply It's It's disappointing.

We don't want to be here missing our numbers. In terms of 2027, on the on the charts, if you actually look at the data, whilst there's a 6% CAGR through to 2029, the increase year-on-year on the Rystad data is 10% for 2027.

We would obviously want to be cautious on that. Projects Projects do move.

We are Whilst we're not a backlog business, we are sitting on, a number of projects going into next year, and we're in better shape going into next year than we are into this year.

Yep. Good morning.

Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. Another couple of questions, please.

In very general terms, has this market short-term market headwinds led to any change in whether it be customer behavior in terms of how they're looking to engage with you, but equally in terms of competitor behavior as they look to build presumably higher levels of of of utilization, is the first question, please?

In terms of customer behavior, I don't think there's necessarily been a been a change. We have seen evidence of a step-up in propensity to outsource from a couple of customers, which is encouraging because that's a trend that we've seen developing over the last decade, but it's it's quite difficult to be tangible about that.

The things that we're doing within the business to move towards being more of an integrated supplier continues. That means that we're engaging earlier in discussions with customers, even before sometimes they win the work.

Ace The the acquisition of Ace Winches has been, very helpful for that, because, of the inquiries that we get this week, I'm pretty much pretty sure that the vast majority of those will be for opportunities in, yeah, 6, 12, 18 months out. That allows us to get involved in these opportunities earlier and pull through the the other Ashtead services.

If If we look at competitor behavior, there is no one competitor that competes with us. We've got a range of competitors across Survey & Robotics, Mechanical Solutions, and and Asset Integrity.

I would say, we have consolidated the market in Survey & Robotics through the acquisition of Forum Subsea Rentals back in 2017, and the acquisition of Seatronics now a couple of years ago. We have done a great job to maintain that market share, and really ring-fence it.

We have seen some competitive pressure building, but I think that's a factor of the lower end of the market being slower, rather than the top-tier contractors where the vast majority of our work is coming from. That has sort of resulted in more flexibility in concessions, but, nothing of of any material note.

Great. That actually partly answered the other question, I'll pass the mic.

Thank you.

Andy Edmond, Equity Development. On non-organic growth, is is there a and nobody knows how long the Middle East dislocation is going to actually last.

Is is there a chance that people will want to be keener to talk to you to be part of a a well-financed group? The portfolio of services that you're offering if delays go on and on, some smaller people may be suffering, and do you think that might be the case?

It It's

It's an interesting question. We don't see any sign of distress through the marketplace.

In in many ways, a lot of the owner-managed businesses that we are interested in, and we continue to talk to, don't have an abundance of bank debt, and the catalyst for change is generally around age or ill health or divorce or some other event. The likelihood is that, like us, the vast majority of owners we're talking to sees 2026 as has been more challenging, but they've the outlook remains strong.

Therefore, and and they can trade through it. Therefore, it's more likely that they would delay any exit opportunities because they they don't want to sell their their life's work in many occasions at at a point in the market where there's a bit of softness coming through the numbers.

Thank you. Ingrid, on customer behavior, and you mentioned building up stocks is part and parcel of your customer offerings.

Is there any sign of change there, again, the broader geopolitical situation, logistics costs, it's supply chains, all those sort of things, but any change in behavior on more stock likely to be taken?

No, no change in behavior. Tariffs are still obviously a thing.

It's it's not a a huge percentage, but it's it's just added added complexity. When when we're putting equipment into the US, there's a a tariff cost to that.

Sometimes, depending on what it is, the customer can pick up the cost; sometimes they don't, we have to make a decision. We've an extra step in our approval process that nothing gets transferred into the US without coming through Allan or I for approval just to make sure that we're managing that cost.

Far, it's not been a cost that's been, significant for for us as a business. Other than tariffs, I wouldn't say, in terms of access to equipment and inventory, lead times are still quite long, and I I would say one of the reasons that we're managing to to do so well in some areas is that because we can actually We do have the balance sheet where we can invest.

We can actually invest early, we can take more strategic decisions around CapEx to get take advantage of getting that equipment in, whereas maybe some of our competitors are looking at a more shorter lead time, and then by the time they look to do it, they just can't get access to the equipment quick enough.

Yeah. I think if I add to that, in in terms of access to Survey & Robotics equipment, we all know that the defense market is is absolutely booming, and a number of our suppliers also have defense angles to their business.

It's competition for factory space, competition for component parts that is is pushing out lead times. In terms of some of the stuff that we're seeing around ROVs in particular, ROV arms, manipulator arms, lead times on some components can be, 30, 35 weeks.

The fact that we've invested a few million pounds in stock means that if a customer needs a certain part, we can deliver that part from stock, which is really driving that part of the business. We're we're leveraging our balance sheet to get around these supply chain challenges to ultimately help our customers.

Part and parcel of being a trusted partner, isn't it? Building relationships over time.

Yeah.

Right. Thank you.

Alex Smith from Berenberg. Just one from me, just on the geographical expansion that you kind of mentioned there with kind of US facility, Norway, the Seatronics acquisition, Australia.

Is there any areas that you particularly are targeting going through the next 12 months, or is it more kind of bolt-on M&A in areas like Australia, like you mentioned?

I don't think we're going to sit here and tell you where we're going next, but we've we've had good geographic coverage for for a while. We've we've been in Aberdeen for the last 40 years.

We've been in Singapore and the US since the 1990s. The things that we've done in in recent times, we moved into the Middle East in 2016.

We, moved into Norway a couple of years ago. We just acquired the business in in Australia.

Our focus is not necessarily about planting additional flags. It's about building out the capability that we've got, and in exporting the skills and the equipment, the domain knowledge into these other markets.

However, the UK will be retained as a center of excellence. By consolidating our three Mechanical Solutions facilities in Aberdeenshire into one actually makes that a whole lot easier.

There's there's multiple reasons behind that. Primarily, it's about supporting our customers.

The other key reason is it's much easier if everyone's under one roof to support our colleagues overseas, as well.

Great. Thank you.

Sorry, a couple more from me. On CapEx in H1, can you give us a bit more detail on exactly what this has been or you're spending it on?

Are you seeing any raw material inflation that is sort of unexpected within that sort of number that's grown year-on-year? Then on balance sheet, you guidance, obviously, to for the the year-end, what are your assumptions within that on working capital?

How comfortable do you feel with that number?

Do you want to cover CapEx?

Sure.

The

The CapEx that we've put in year-to-date, or, the forecast is sort of £35 million for for the full year, is very much about building out the strength and depth of the fleet. There's There's a couple of niche technologies in there, one of which was E-Bos that we that we talked about last time.

We've increased the number of systems there, which is getting great market traction. Again, linked to the internationalization of our business, a a key point for us is to build out the Mechanical Solutions fleet, because, by its nature, some of those winches, which I think probably everyone in the room has seen, they're quite large, and or some are quite large and a bit more difficult to move around the world than some of the Survey & Robotics kit.

Actually having that in-country makes a big difference. I think if we reflect on what's happened in the build-out of our Mechanical Solutions capability in the US, by actually having equipment in-country, we're now getting access to the shorter-term, smaller jobs that were never on the horizon before.

Ace Winches did a fantastic job of getting access to to to big contracts in in the in the Gulf, but by actually being there, we're we're seeing the full spectrum. That's that's that's a key focus for us.

In terms of inflationary costs, on the Survey & Robotics side, we've seen probably just maybe slightly more than inflation coming through in in pricing. On the Mechanical Solutions side, the key ingredient is steel.

On the balance sheet guidance, we typically see a deleveraging in the balance sheet during the second half, in part On a normal seasonal year, albeit this year is not very normal, we would generally have a better second half in terms of trading. Also, we up front-load our CapEx.

We're still expecting a deleveraging to happen during the second half. Most of the CapEx spend of the 35 has been spent in the first half of the year, we've got a lower CapEx spend, by default, we'll have stronger cash flow.

In terms of working capital, our internal target, as I said, is 17%. Part of that is linked to the timing of CapEx, though, and because we spent a lot of our CapEx in the sort of earlier months, our creditor will probably be a bit be a bit lower at the at the half at the full-year point.

We're probably looking more, or certainly I'm modelling sort of higher teens percentage by the year-end. We're not expecting a a significant unwinding of the working capital during that period.

There'll be a natural unwinding unwinding just because of that seasonality in trading.

Thanks, that.

All done with questions? We have

we have one from the webcast.

Okay.

Looking beyond FY '26, what gives your confidence in mid-single-digit organic growth, given the market backdrop today? Is that underpinned by contract backlogs, by pipeline pre-FID projects you flagged in oil, gas, and renewables, or by market share gains independent of end demand?

Okay. I'll I'll try and unpick that.

We're not

We're not a backlog business by by the nature of what we do. I did say earlier that we are sitting on contracts more value going into '27 than we did going into '26, which which is good.

Our confidence is built from the conversations that we have with customers. We have, interaction with our customers on a on a daily basis.

Whilst we may not be sitting on backlog, we've got a good idea of the vessels they're going to be using, where they're going to be at, the project the project types that they're looking at. Given the data that we've talked through this morning, if we look at the Rystad data, which is obviously high-level and directional, that's 6% CAGR out to '29, 10% increase going into 2027.

Then look at the the backlog from the seven customers that we show on the backlog slide, which makes up broadly 40% of our revenue, and the the pipeline of opportunities that our larger listed customers are referencing in their results, all of that gives us confidence that, there is growth in this market, and that we're very well-placed to benefit from it.

Thank you. There's no more questions from the webcast, over to you for closing remarks.

Great. Thanks very much, everyone, for joining us and being part of our results presentation this morning.

Hopefully, we'll see you all again soon. Thank you.

Thank you.