Capital (LSE:CAPD) — August Investor Presentation

0:02 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CAPITAL LIMITED Investor Presentation. Throughout this presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. These will be available via your Investor Meet company dashboard, and we'll send you an email to notify you when they're ready for your

0:33 review. I'd also like to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. And if you would be so kind to give that your attention, we'd be most grateful. And I'd now like to hand over to Jamie Boykin, chairman from CAPITAL Group. Good morning to you. Good morning, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the CAPITAL LIMITED h 01/2021 results presentation. Obviously, we released our results last Thursday, and we've been engaged with quite a quite a detailed schedule with the institutional clients. So it's good to have this opportunity to present today. What I'm gonna do I'm gonna go through the deck pretty quickly, obviously, because we have already presented the results on Thursday as I mentioned, and I'm optimistic that most have had a chance to review it by this stage. So I'll go through the deck quite quickly, and then we'll open it up to q and a.

1:37 I'm gonna actually turn my screen off so I can actually read the read the deck. So without further ado right. I'll start just with a brief introduction to CAPITAL. Obviously, we are a full service mining, drilling, maintenance, and analytical geochemical analyst analysis solutions to customers in the mineral industry. We focus on the African markets just very broadly about 95 of our revenue comes out of Africa with some revenue out of Saudi Arabia and Canada. We've been working in Africa fifteen years. The dark blue countries on the map that you can see are the ones in which we are currently active.

2:24 The dark gray are countries we have been active in in the past. We have a fleet of 106 rigs, which would make us the largest independent drilling contractor in the African Continent. And obviously, we've made a recent move strategically into earthmoving activities, and we have 35 pieces of heavy mining equipment. Employed 1,900 people as at June 30 and had a very high quality blue chip roster of customers. As I said, we released the results last Thursday, and they were exceptionally strong, the strongest results in the company's history. We came to market in London in 2010.

3:10 We recorded revenue of 98,700,000, EBITDA of 28.4, and the adjusted net profit or operating net profit, so net of the investment gains of 12,700,000. And what is particularly pleasing from these results is the quantum of operating leverage that came through the business. So whilst revenue was up 52%, EBITDA was up 84%, and the operating net profit was up 240%. So fantastic operating leverage over the half. We had another very solid performance from equity investment gains, 5,700,000 recorded for the period. Strong returns continued. We've generated return on capital employed of 18%, Obviously, down on last first half of last year, but that has got to be taken with consideration of the enlarged capital base. We we issued about 40% of new equity in December of last year to facilitate our entry or the CAPITEX spend for the Sukari earthmoving contract, and obviously that has its full contribution starts in the fourth quarter of this year.

4:27 We announced an increased dividend of 1.2¢ per share. That was up 33% on the same period last year. And we actually when we released our revenue update, was on the July 15, it was at that point that we upgraded our guidance for the full year. We had previously guided to revenue of between $1.85 and $195,000,000. We upgraded that guidance to 200 to 210,000,000. We're certainly optimistic that we're gonna be pushing toward the upper end of that guidance, noting 98,700,000 in the first half and 54,000,000 in the second quarter.

5:05 The operational highlights, we've divided it into two main sections. One is the drilling business, which is the traditional business of CAPITAL but still represents 83% of our revenue. And the other is the 17%, which actually has increased from 9% last year, but the other services that we are rapidly growing, specifically the laboratory business and the earthmoving business, highlights across the board, but the first half outperformance that drove the revenue upgrade is primarily due to the strength in the drilling business. So we are going to go into each of the main four activities, so I won't dwell on this slide, I'll move on to the overview of the drilling business.

5:55 So for the drilling business, strongest demand environment in in a decade. We had previously, and I will actually just quickly go back to the macro overview slide. We had previously on quite a few occasions talked of the very supportive macro environment, and we've highlighted what we saw as a disconnect in the marketplace between the prices of metals. On the top left is the gold price in orange, which you can see is back at decade highs and that thematic is playing through industrial metals and battery metals as well. And on the right top right graph, you can see the financing activities, which is another very strong lead at indicator for services that we provide.

6:48 And, the financing activity is back and were beyond decade highs and really started to great gain traction in 2019, which has continued into 2021. However, moving back to the top left graph, you can see that there's a bit of a dip where there is a disconnect with that green arrow, and that green arrow represents the difference between the the the strong or decade high decade highs in metal prices and financing activities, yet expiration and delineation activity is is currently half of the levels it was ten years ago. So there's a fundamental need in the industry to start replenishing the asset bases that have been run for cash during a prolonged downturn.

7:35 And one thing we have seen in the sector thematically is increased levels of merger and acquisition activity. And as we always say, there's two ways to grow your asset base if you're a mining company. One is to buy it through m and a and the other is to find it through exploration. So the first of those has been occurring. The second is still half of what it was ten years ago. So in the first half of this year, we began to see that disconnect adjust, and we saw a surge in demand, and I don't use that word lightly. In the in the fifteen years that CAPITAL has been in business, we have not seen demand increase as rapidly as it as it did do in the first half.

8:21 Our average fleet size for the first half was actually consistent with the average fleet size in the first half of last year, specifically 99 rigs. The utilization in the first half of last year, 57%. Utilization of that fleet in the first half of this year, 73%, and utilization in the second quarter, 79%. So a a a rapid increase in utilization.

8:48 Peak cycle utilization sort of pushes between up to 8085%. So we've gone from, you know, quite, you know, reasonable utilization levels to to very strong in a in a very rapid space of time. We increased our capacity rig capacity at a number of long term contracts, And we're actually adding this year 20 new rigs to the fleet, which is the most aggressive growth that the company has experienced again since inception, but those rigs pleasingly consistent with the strategy are going into long term contracts. Now most of those contracts have been announced. We now have had nine of those rigs going into the Sukari contract, which I'll get into in a little more detail.

9:39 We've had four of those rigs going into Geita, two of those rigs going into Bull and Hoover, and two of those rigs going into Resili. All those contracts are anywhere between two and four year terms. So it's very strong rig growth, but that's gonna get reflected in the second half because most of the rigs that arrived, we finished the period, as you can see, with a 106 rigs. They arrived late in the quarter, in the second quarter. So we start July with a 106 rigs, and we'll start 2021 at this stage or it's 2022, pardon me, with around a 114 rigs. Multiple new contract wins in the first half. I won't go into them all, but some, again, some nice long term contracts. And with respect to the drilling cycle stages, again, things are moving in the right direction, utilization's increasing, productivity is increasing, and pricing is starting to improve.

10:37 The second pillar of our business is the earthmoving business. We started this in 2019, and then in December of last year, we announced that we had won a very significant contract Sukari Gold Mine. We announced that contract in December. We raised capital for that contract in December. By February, we had assets on-site working. It it's been an absolutely outstanding performance for a contract of this size. We have now 98% completed our workforce recruitment. That's around 400 people. All of the equipment has arrived on-site, all major equipment, I should say. All of it has been commissioned. Operations are progressing well ahead of the contract schedules, in line with our expectations but ahead of the contract schedules.

11:27 All has been achieved safely. So it is a a landmark contract for CAPITAL's mining business, a landmark contract in the earthmoving business in Africa, very large scale, and has has performed very well thus far. I should note that the contribution is heavily weighted this year to the second half, and we do hit full run rate at that contract in the fourth quarter of this year before having a full year contribution in 2022. The third operating business for CAPITAL is labs business, MSA Labs. This is a smaller business that is rapidly gaining traction in the market, experienced 97% revenue growth half on half, and we're expecting a similar growth rate in in on h h two on h one.

12:23 Again, winning some significant contracts. In fact, the under select key contracts, you can see that there are three of the of the four highlighted in the top row are all going through various stages of commissioning and contract finalization as I speak. So all of those contracts will be contributing from 2022 onwards, providing again a a very strong base for this business going forward. We have also secured the offtake of a number of operating units for Chrysos, which is a it's a new technology that is looking at displacing traditional fire assay, rapid turnaround time technology, and we've we have secured the first unit for Chrysos outside of Australia where it was developed, and that is the Barrick contract in Bullenhooly, which is quite literally being commissioned as as I speak. So this business became it turned EBITDA positive last year, profitable this year, and is starting to show some very rapid growth.

13:34 The final pillar of the business is our direct investments. For this, I we we do a number of different strategies here, all of which go through a rigorous process with a full investment committee. We, in some instances, will accept equity for services. In some instances, we've actually sourced opportunities, developed them, and then vended them in to listed companies in exchange for equity. In some instances, we have provided financing to enable our clients to purchase assets. It has been a it's a partnership model. It has been very successful. The financial results have been very strong, which I'll go into shortly.

14:19 And we also look to achieve this in conjunction with contracts for service. And in the first half, we generated $20,000,000 worth of contract revenue from from these partnerships. This slide, slide 12, just gives an overview of our long term contracts. Now if I'd shown this to you a few years ago, there would have been four or five on here. So we're continuing to grow our portfolio of long term contracts, and it's just important to show the contract services first of all that we continue to add services as we expand the range of services. And again, that's just consistent with our model. Mine site revenue, which in the first half was about 88% of the group revenue, begin the relationship with the service, expand the services, leverage the infrastructure that we have on the mine sites, and that feeds through the operating leverage.

15:18 Contract duration, which is quite unique across the drilling sector in particular, we have contract durations anywhere between two and five years. And as you can see on the bottom line, continuous service, There are some such as Sukari where we've been operating for sixteen years, Geiger Gold Mine, AngloGold operating for fifteen years, continuity of service is absolutely critical to CAPITAL's business model. Moving into the actual results section, I won't spend too much time on the overview because we have covered this. Obviously, the strong revenue growth, the OPRA feeding through in the operating leverage, the increased dividend as I touched on earlier. Margins have continued to improve since finding a bottom back in 2016.

16:05 The chart on the bottom left is worthy of note just to show CAPITAL's operating margins over the last decade. The blue bars are the drilling companies. The gray bars are the earthmoving companies. We've consistently outperformed our peers. And, again, it's just reflective of our business model, multiple services, mine site services, leveraging the infrastructure, and therein lies the operating leverage. Cash flows, we're going through a elevated period of capital spend and working capital outflow. I might just start on the CAPEX slide. The top left bar chart, the light blue is what you would what is the traditional drilling business. We IPO ed in 2010.

16:53 We didn't have to come back to market for the next decade. The business is self funding and cash generative. In 2020, we announced the Sukari contract, significant capital spend of 65,000,000 plus working capital associated with a 10,000,000 of inventory. So we're now looking at twenty twenty and twenty one really across in aggregate because the capital spend is is across those two years. And we're looking at about a 120 across those two years of which Sukari is about 65 with the lab business and the drilling business bringing the total number to a 120,000,000. I'm pleased to report that we're at the tail end now of all the capital spend on the Sukari contract. There's a little bit left that's being booked in the current quarter, and we're at the tail end of the inventory build at Sukari, which means we now head back to a more steady state business.

17:46 As that contract ramps up, it will start to contribute to positive cash flow, and obviously, the drilling business will revert to scrip where it has been a positive cash flow contribution business for the better part of a decade. We took on post the equity raising, we took on debt facilities with OEM and Macquarie. The the majority of the debt is amortizing debt, and it will amortize over the duration of the contract. So we're about to move into now having increased our gearing ratio with net debt position at June 30 of 32,800,000, gearing ratio 20%. As we move into this second half, we begin the degearing as those contracts start to contribute to the group cash flow.

18:31 The investments that I touched on earlier, cash flow chart, bottom left shows the outflows, which 2019 was particularly was a particularly active period for investment where we saw a disconnect in the market, firming metal prices, lack of funding through capital markets. As you can see for 2021, we're broadly neutral since then, but the investment portfolio itself has delivered some outstanding returns and as at June 30 is on the books at 31,000,000 US dollars. Dividend. Dividend paying since 2014. Dividend timetable on the bottom right. Payment date on the October 1.

19:16 We remain committed to both a strong balance sheet and and rewarding shareholders with returns through dividends. So, look, in summary, revenue guidance obviously increased and we after following on from last year's 20% revenue growth, we're looking at roughly 50% revenue growth this year based on guidance. We really are in a market at the moment where the tailwinds are highly supportive. Metal prices, capital markets activities, client profitability, budgets increasing. So we're seeing demand accelerating across all of our business units. And as we said earlier, drilling demand back at really a peak pre previous peak cycle levels. However, early in the cycle, I would say, because this has happened with a rush over the last six month period.

20:08 Elevated capital spend for 2020 and '21, but as I alluded to earlier, we're we're nearing the tail end of that particularly for Sukari. And despite that spend, we still maintain a very strong balance sheet. We'll have improving cash flows in the second half, and that will give us the flexibility to pursue growth opportunities moving forward or alternatively look at other means for rewarding shareholders through dividends. On that, I will open it up to Q and A. Jamie, that's brilliant. Thank you very much indeed for updating investors this morning. Adrian Chippmann, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just I while the company take a few moments to review those investor questions submitted already, I'd like to remind you that the recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via your Investor Meet company dashboard.

21:01 I'd also like to remind you that your feedback is important to the company. And immediately after the presentation has ended, you'll be redirected for the opportunity to provide feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations. Jamie Giles, obviously, investors have the ability to pre submit questions. So perhaps we could start off the Q and A session with those that we received ahead of today's event. The first one reads as follows. MSAL Labs is described as a high margin, low CapEx business. Given the profit number of 81,000, as I understand it, MSAL Labs sorry, MSALabs is made up a profit of circa 324,000 on $6,500,000 of revenue. Is this apparent operating margin of circa 5% due to significant one off start up costs such that we can expect much improved margins going forward?

21:53 We would cert we certainly expect improved margins going forward, and I wouldn't be relying on on that look through to to to dive into the business because it still is at a very early stage of its growth phase demonstrated by the fact that the revenue grew 97% year on year. The business turned EBITDA positive last year and it's moving into moving and net profit positive this year. Where we make reference to the margins, this is basically of the analysis that we have done through the industry. And these businesses, CAPITAL traditionally, would've been operating at sort of 25% EBITDA margins. These the lab businesses tend to operate at 30% EBITDA, in some cases, 20 to 25% EBIT.

22:44 So that that that's where that margin comment comes from. But these businesses are modular CAPITED, and they're all about volume through the CAPITED. So they tend to operate centralized labs in which we have two main ones, one in British Columbia and the other in Ivory Coast, and they tend to operate on eight hour shifts that then go to 16, that then go to 24. And as that volume feeds through, that feeds through to the margins. So the business is trending in the right direction, the margins are improving, and the growth in the and the top line is improving. And as I alluded or as I mentioned earlier, the contract wins with the likes of Barrick and Firefinch and Thor, all of which have been commissioned in the current half, put the business in a very good footing for 2022 and beyond.

23:35 Jamie, thank you. The next question we received, should we expect seasonal weakness in q three now that a significant proportion of the rigs are allocated to the West African market where there is a pronounced rainy season? Or does the general strength of the rig market and long term contracts largely mitigate this risk? You're right to anticipate wet season weakness in West Africa. I would argue that we have a lower exposure to it for a couple of reasons. One, that we have the majority of our activities on the mine sites. The mine sites have better established infrastructure, drainage, graders, etcetera. So it doesn't tend to affect our activities on the mine sites like it does with exploration sites, but exploration sites are impacted.

24:28 The other mitigating factor that we have, obviously, is that Sukari continues to increase and ramp up in Egypt whilst Tanzania is continuing. So, yes, absolutely, it will have an impact. West Africa, just a reminder, is 38% of our revenue in the first half, but it it it's it's a small impact. Thanks, Jamie. And the the final pre submitted question reads as follows. Inventory write down seem to be common occurrence. Can you give some color to this? We have a very regular process of impairing inventory. The way I like to look at it is is is, like, depreciating inventory, And we have provisions against slow moving inventory, which we did take a large or larger than in previous periods in in this current half.

25:25 Look. It is a feature of the business. It's just like depreciating an asset. You have to provision for inventory, but certainly nothing that's material in the context of our earnings. Thank you very much indeed, Jamie. Well, look, that that takes care of those questions that we received ahead of the event. So thank you for those investors that submitted those questions. Perhaps, Jamie, I can now turn to the questions that we received during the event. The first one from Steve. Steve asks, please could you summarize the reasons behind needing to take on debt and add the rig count and add to the rig count? Despite the increased utilization, are some older rigs effectively not usable? Well, the debt that we have taken on, it's it's not just for the rig count.

26:12 It's also actually, it's for 17 of those trucks that you can see on the slide there and three excavators. So the Sukari capital spend was $65,000,000 in total. So it's a function of, you know, not only rigs, but also the mining CAPEX. And that's the nature of the the the mining side. It it is certainly a larger capital outlay, and that's the reason for taking on the debt. So just a reminder, we went to market in December to raise equity to fund our expansion into this new revenue stream. We went to market looking to raise 30,000,000. We ended up getting subscriptions for 40. But then since closing that transaction, we then got some asset backed facilities in. We needed to have the contract signed first.

27:03 The debt came later. But to the point I made earlier, 20% debt to equity, and now that they're with asset backed facilities, they will amortize over the duration of that contract. So we will get continue to have a a modest gearing. Utilization of some older rigs effectively not usable. No. That's well, very few. Let me put it that way. We are very proud of the practices that we have which include regular reviews, overhauls, and decommissioning. In fact, we decommissioned about five rigs in the back half of last year. So we have the rigs in our fleet are all available to be used. The constraints on pushing utilization, say, beyond 85% is just a function of a, rig movements, b, you'll always have to for example, we just had two in Tanzania that are now back in a workshop having a few months worth of work done on them, or three, just having the right mix. A tender might come out for, you know, three different types of rigs and different specs, and you may not have all the right mix to actually enable you to tender.

28:15 But in terms of the rigs we have, they are all available for work. Thanks, Jeremy. Next question that's coming is from Adam. Adam asks, please, could you provide any comment on how large the nondrilling revenues could get to as a percentage of overall revenues in the medium term? Look. We have a strategy by Blueprint that we think this business has the ability to, in the medium term, to to grow to a $500,000,000 revenue. The bulk of that growth whilst the drilling business continues to be significant, the incremental will come from the mining business in particular and the laboratory business. So we certainly can see a scenario where we have a non drilling making up about 50% of our total revenue.

29:03 Thank you very much indeed. Next question from Andy reads as follows. Do you see m and a as part of your future growth? What do you look for, and are there any new areas that you'd like to expand into? From a skill set perspective, there's still a few strings to the bow that we we don't have in terms of our service offering. But in general, our view on m and a is that we have a preference to do things organically. We have, I think, a a high quality reputation for our people and our assets. And frankly, you can buy assets, and within our network, we can hire people. So, you know, it really is about contract selection and executing on the contracts, and we've always found that we we prefer to do that organically than through an m and a process.

29:57 We have the the other and the other foot notable point, of course, is that, you know, with a pure financial head on, you may get there quicker through m and a, but you'll pay a hell of a lot more than if you grow organically because we we have a very high regard for the the the service that we're providing. We think we can we can do it organically, and we've proven that we can. That's great. Thank you. Next question from Adam reads as follows. Do you have a range where you're planning to keep leverage in the midterm post reduction after the security investment? It's it's an interesting question. And what what we've always said to the investor base, we we've been basically net cash for the last six or seven years and paying dividends since 2014.

30:46 But what we've always said to our investors is that for the right opportunity, we put debt in the balance sheet. And the right opportunity came along and in the form of Sukari, we put debt on the balance sheet. As I said earlier, 20% debt to equity. Look. That will amortize. So we, you know, leverage levels for let me say this sectorially, industry wise, 30% is is sort of a benchmark. We're below that. So I I I suppose that would be a a broad parameter that we may work with, but for us it's about gear up for the right opportunity and then and then use the cash flows from that contract to amortize that debt pretty quickly. That's what you'll start to see from CAPITAL h two onwards.

31:31 Thank you. There is a follow on question from Adam who asks, you've mentioned a few times about positive tailwinds. How should shareholders take comfort that financial performance will be adequate once those tailwinds abate? Will we not expect financial performance and therefore share price to drop? Adam, that's a tricky one. I mean, we we operate in a cyclical industry. It's got a, obviously, a degree of capital intensity. So, you know, absolutely, I'd I'd be disingenuous to say that you're not gonna have good times and bad times. But what I would say is that whilst the market has found a bit of a bottom in 2016, there has not been voided market conditions by any stretch of imagination. And in fact, our revenue growth between '16, '17 and no. '7 '17, '18, and '19 was flat.

32:23 It's only really started to kick into revenue growth in '20 and obviously strongly into '21. So I really believe that we're at very early stage of the cycle. The the the other comfort I could give on that is that we have unique proposition and that we have long term contracts. In the last down cycle, we very rapidly degeared the balance sheet and began paying dividends. So the contracts provide us the way I've always said, we we can't dictate the the the cyclicality of the industry, but we can manage our business through our contracts and our client selection to manage that cyclicality. And that that mantra stands. But I'd go back to the early statement that after better part of a decade of underinvestment by our by our clients in in growth and in their assets, I do believe we're very early stages of this cycle.

33:14 Thank you. We've had a couple of questions around director shareholdings. So thank you to to Rob and to Owen. Owen's question to to summarize. Excellent update. Business is booming, and Outlook is superb. Despite this, directors keep selling except for yourself. So why do other directors not share that same positive view? Well, it's always a tricky one when a director sells, but, I mean, there has been two director sales. One is Craig Burton who resigned from the board many years ago and has retired. So I don't think there's too much read through for that. Brian Rudd is the more recent one, and Brian is a founder of the business alongside myself. Brian is an executive director, very active in the business, just spent six months on the road, quarantined in Australia at the moment, going home to see his wife.

34:03 Look. I mean, people have personal reasons. Brian, I won't go into his personal reasons in this forum, but it's a small part of his holding, and he's been invested in this company for fifteen years. So, frankly, I wouldn't I wouldn't be reading too much into it. Thank you. Next question from James. Thank you, James. Why is the Crisis Technology revolutionary and how big MSA can get on a revenue basis? We let me answer the first part or the second part first, which know, where we think MSA could go. We've had some strategy papers that suggest this business could could grow in the in in the medium term to between 50 and $80,000,000 in revenue. So we do think it's got a pretty exciting phase ahead of it.

34:51 In terms of the global industry, you're talking about a multibillion dollar industry. And and, obviously, we're we're we're a reasonably new entrant, but you've gotta, again, just look at the the the customers that we've managed to win business with the likes of Endeavor and Barrick and Kinross. I mean, it's just it's a it's a blue chip roster for a for a new for a young business. Crusos, look, we're we're described as revolutionary because what what it basically does lowers the environmental footprint, lowers the the the manual processing, but the nub of it, to be frank, is it uses an x-ray technology that enables rapid turnaround. And at the moment in the bull market, the biggest complaint you get from most mining and exploration customers is the turnaround time on their samples back from the lab. Labs are at capacity.

35:40 Turnaround times are long. Chrysos shortens that from weeks into hours. Thanks, Jamie. The next two questions really, one one from Adrian and and one from Jonathan, all relate to utilization. And and perhaps I share Adrian's question. Why have you bought new rigs when you don't have anywhere near a 100% utilization presently? Two parts to that answer. One is the one I made earlier that you'll never get to a 100%, but, you know, you may get to say 85% back to the point. Rigs are moving. Rigs are having work done on them. You may not have the right mix of rigs for the tender that is in the marketplace. And that that that part of the answer dovetails into into the broader answer to your question is, you know, there are aircore rigs, reverse circulation rigs, blasts or rigs, underground rigs, diamond rigs, depot diamond rigs, all of which do different perform different tasks.

36:38 So, you know, the rigs that we're buying are specific for the tenders and the contracts that we've tendered on, and, obviously, we don't have capacity in those types of rigs for those tenders. But I'll just go back to the underlying principle that CAPITAL LIMITED is that we will buy rigs, our assets, if the contract terms are sufficient to give us comfort about the utilization of those assets. We're not a company that buys assets on spec. That's great. Thank you. Turning to debt levels, Rob asks, are you comfortable with debt levels? And can you tell us whether you have any intention to raise further funds in the foreseeable future? Very comfortable with debt levels, comfortable with the amortization profile, no intention to raise further funds.

37:24 Again, I'll just come back to the comment that we made earlier that we did say to our investor base two things actually. One was for the right opportunity, we would put debt on the balance sheet. And for the right opportunity, if we had to come to the market, which we did with Sukari, but what what did it do in last year's revenue, as a reminder, a 135,000,000. This contract adds $50,000,000 a year to our revenue line. So it was a positive equity event. However, we don't have any intention on on on coming back to the market, and we're about to move into a phase where we will start to have cash flows coming back to the business. Thank you. Jeff asks, what execution risks to CAPITAL C in the new earthmoving business? There's a myriad of execution risks across all facets of safety operations, meeting the meeting schedules.

38:17 But what I would say to this is that we we're we're cognizant of the risks. We've built a very solid team. We've taken a lot of people, a lot of experience from industry, and thus far, we have exceeded all of our all of our targets. So, you know, there there it there there there's certainly more complexity to these contracts. However, we have the team to manage it. Thanks. And I I think Jeff's got a kind of a follow on question related to that as how do you expect earthmoving margins to compare with drilling? Well, when I did that earlier, I I showed that margin chart in our presentation deck, and you can see that the earthmoving margins typically are a bit well, they they are they're they're weaker in a bull market. They're stronger in a bear market, and that is just a reflection in my opinion of the nature of the long term contracts there. So in general, you'd say slightly lower margin, but you get longer term contracts. There's a trade off.

39:23 We're expecting margins broadly consistent with our existing business, and part of the reason for that is, of course, yet again, that we're leveraging the infrastructure that we already have in place. Thanks, Jamie. I've got a couple of questions from Rob. And Rob, I think we have touched on your question regarding direct to shareholding, so I I don't think we'll we'll we'll dwell on that. But Rob does ask, how excited are you with the new business in Canada? And what are your expectations stroke hopes? Well, the business in Canada is the laboratory business, so I think I've covered that with respect to where we think MSA Labs could grow to. I I gave a a revenue number and and the Creosoft technology. I think we've sort of covered that one, actually.

40:09 Thank you. Apologies for that. Right. Next question from Adrian. Is the full investment in Allied Gold Corp, the 3,000,000 invested a couple of years ago, and are you hopeful of Allied listing in the near future? The full investment takes a couple of different forms. So the short answer to that without getting too granular is no. Are we hopeful of Allied listing in the near future? That is certainly the the expectation is that the company will be listing within the next twelve months. I'm certainly hopeful in the first half of next year. Thank you. From another Adrian, not the same Adrian as before, as an engineering business, is an investment business outside your area of competence? Well, I'm from the financial markets.

40:58 My investment committee consists of a few people from financial markets, some technical people including the ex head of global exploration at Barrick Gold. We use technical consultants. So, no, I think we are we have skill sets within our business to be very well placed to judge these investment opportunities, both technical and financial. I think the track record speaks for itself. We've been extremely successful in the last couple of years. Even at benchmarks against peers, we've been extremely successful. Thank you. And Baskar asks, why does CAPITAL not provide more drilling services into non gold metal sectors? Short answer is we'd like to.

41:46 We are geographically biased toward gold, but we are looking at opportune so historically, we have had a lot of exposure to metals such as nickel and copper. We're currently looking at opportunities across lithium, rare earths, copper. We do have copper exposure in Saudi Arabia. So, look, we're commodity agnostic. We just happen to operate geographies that are rather dominated by gold, but certainly, we would like to see a broader commodity exposure, particularly battery metals where structural change is is underway. Jamie, thank you very much indeed, and thank you for being so generous with your time. You you've you've addressed every question that has been submitted by investors. So thank you to all of those investors that have taken time to submit those questions both ahead of the event and during the meeting itself.

42:40 Jamie, I know investor feedback is important, and I will shortly redirect investors to provide you with their thoughts and expectations. But before doing so, perhaps I could just ask you for a few closing comments, and then I will redirect investors. For dialing and particularly, thank you everyone for the questions. One of the chaps on the call is Connor Riley, who's just joined us in investor relations based in London. So, obviously, if you can if if you have anything further, you can reach out through Connor. But, again, thank you very much for dialing in. Appreciate it. Jamie, thank you very much indeed for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll shortly be redirected for the opportunity to provide feedback in order the management team can better understand your views and expectations?

43:27 This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of CAPITAL LIMITED, we'd like to thank you very much for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session, and good morning to you all.