Getech Group (LSE:GTC) — Full Year Results

0:01 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the GETECH GROUP PLC investor presentation. Situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so on the investor meet company platform. And before we begin, as usual, I would

0:32 just like to submit the following poll. And if you'd give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the board from GETECH GROUP PLC. Richard, good morning, sir. Good morning. Thank you very much, Jake, and and welcome to, GETECH's annual report, presentation. This morning, our agenda is is really a few things we got. One, firstly, I'd like to give a quick overview of where we are with the company. We've made many changes this year, so I think that's relevant to to both new and existing shareholders. We'll talk about a little bit about our strategy moving forward, the financial results themselves, the outlook for the business, and then we'll open up for questions and and answers. So as I say, this has been quite a year of of change for for for GETECH.

1:18 It's been much about we've been resetting the business and going back to to really the core business of where we're at, which is subsurface exploration and really galvanizing all the team around kind of the the mission of accelerating the clean energy future by locating the subsurface resources that are vital for the energy transition. And as part of this energy transition, you know, it's very much well underway. The clean energy future needs many, many more discoveries. It's, you know, to you know, so many statisticians and and economists will tell us it's like it was a $12,000,000,000,000 worth of new subsurface resources need to be found in order for the renewable energy transition to happen, be it for for electric cars or cabling or batteries and so on. This has to be found.

2:05 So, traditionally, GETECH was very much helping companies find petroleum petroleum reserves around around the globe, and we're still in that business. We're not letting go of that business. It's an energy transition. People will still be looking for sort of sort of petrol or oil and gas resources, and we're there in that business. But what we really have been making a very, very big effort in the last twelve to eighteen months is to widen up that net and look at the other subsurface resources. And the areas where we're really focusing in on is natural hydrogen or or geologic hydrogen. This is very much a nascent industry. It's yes. It is a gas, but it's formed from rocks. It's not formed in the same organic ways as oil and gas is. So it's we're helping a number of companies in this emerging sector.

2:50 We're very much looking at critical minerals. We the our our data and and and skills are very relevant for looking for for battery metals, such as sedimentary copper and cobalt and and nickel, etcetera. Our data is also our skills are very much in in demand for for looking for geothermal projects and heat gradients around the world as well as looking for carbon storage sites and energy storage sites around the world. So what we've really done is is is widened the addressable market for GETECH sort of products and services. And we've gone back to basics. We're delivering this through through GLOBE. This is our our geoscience platform where we contain our sort of data and workflows and analytics, and we're using this to help world leading sort of sort of exploration companies sort of locate resources around around the world. And, you know, over the years, GETECH's got a great sort of recurring income from from existing customers such as Shell and e and I, we've added a number of new customers over the last twelve to eighteen months, including Anglo American, Gazario, and and and East Star.

3:54 And through Globe, what we're doing is we're delivering sort of our our products and services, four sets of products and services. Number one is is we have the largest commercially available dataset of magnetic and gravity data, and that was in in Globe, and our our our clients have access to that data. The second thing we've been doing is we've got all of that data and all these things to look for is how to speed up the process and make things more more accurate. So so we've been focusing a lot of time on machine learning tools over the last eighteen months and implemented these for for our clients. We have various geoscience workflows that are very specific for looking for things such as geothermal heat gradients and and shale gas and others, and we have sort of nearly 50 geoscience experts that are in the consultancy to actually help people make more use of that data.

4:44 And how the actual platform itself works, many people may have seen this slide before, but, basically, we aggregate many types of raw types of data, be it gravity or magnetic or earth observation data. And then we do a lot of work within the supercomputer to to to match this, harmonize it into one GLOBE dataset that people can use through through the GLOBE platform. We also add a lot of data to that where a lot of computer science power to that where we look at how the earth was formed over plate modeling over sort of, like, sort of four or 500,000,000 years. We look at climate data. We estimate where the climate were and all the things that peep so geologists are looking for, geoscientists are looking for to actually make use of this data. Then And we guide people through the workflows to actually help them look for what they're actually looking looking for. So it's kind of like the Earth's digital twin for the subsurface, if you like.

5:38 And the big thing that we've added this year is really we've been really trying to focus in and and make the most out of our advantage of machine learning. We've been doing this for a long time, and I think, you know, it's become fashionable in in computer science terms, but we've really been trying to expand as well to to deepen our our own sort of activities in in in this space.

5:58 And what we have here so what we do is that one of the biggest advantages GETECH have is is this global dataset. And what we do is we take known mineral occurrences for certain types of things such as copper. We look at where all the copper mines are around the world. And because we have those coordinates, we can look into our data, and then the machine learning takes over and says, well, what's the common points within these kind of known sites? And where else can we then apply that? You know? And we can use the search to actually go through and find where the same sequences or similar sequences occur on the planet. And that really helps sort of these larger exploration companies zoom in with the big question of where should we start looking. And using all of that power, it takes a lot of manpower away from from the actual sort of the beginning of the exploration process.

6:45 Doing this is very much key to work with a variety of of academic partners, research and development partners. We have a long history of working with Leeds University. And this year, we've added sort of sort of Manchester Met to our our list, but for working with the AI and and particularly with Imperial working with with them on our a l IL algorithms for how we can actually work to to really make the GETECH sort of data accessible and usable amongst us at target customer bases. And we've working on a number of different projects across the year. And, Chris, maybe I can, Chris, hand over to you just to maybe give a quick summary of of some of the projects we've been working on. Sure. So as as Richard said, we we continue to work with our customers who are looking to find oil and gas.

7:32 That stays the same. But we just thought we'd put up some some examples of projects in in these other kind of areas that that that we're looking at. So on the left here, we have natural hydrogen. We've been working with an organization

7:50 who has defined a kind of fairly large search area across North America, and we're working with them to find the most prospective locations for geologic hydrogen within the subsurface. And what we find with hydrogen is that our our data, which you can see in the picture there on the left, really you know, it's really useful for finding the the the source rocks for hydrogen, and they actually show up very well. As you can see in the picture, there's some sort of white polygons that show where the source rocks are, and you can see them mapping really nicely to our data. The middle one is an example of a machine learning output. We're working with a company who's been looking across Eastern Europe for particular types of copper. There are a number of different types of copper. This particular example is for sedimentary copper, which is why you'll see some bits in Africa don't light up because those are porphyry coppers.

8:44 But the the idea is we we use our data. We we take the the points of known copper occurrences of this particular type of copper, and then we use our machine learning algorithms to predict where there might be similar geologic conditions that have been as yet underexplored or or or even unexplored. We have seen on the back of this work some some of our customer partners actually taking up significant licensing positions based on our work. Then finally, on the right hand side, carbon storage, we worked 2023 with the NSTA, which is the organization that manages The UK continental shelf, and we help them high grade areas of the North Sea for use for potential carbon storage projects.

9:33 And the the the result of the work we did both on our data and and on the NSTA data was that the NSTA defined a number of license areas which were put on offer for the first car The UK's first carbon storage licensing round, and they received 13 bids, and those projects have now gone onto the subsequent phases. So just some examples of projects where we've been working in these sort of non oil and gas areas.

10:01 Thanks, Chris. So so maybe we'll have a quick look at the the business strategy and and how we've actually been repositioning sort of GETECH. And what we're seeing is data exploration is becoming a real interesting hot topic within the tech community. I think you look at the sort of the wider tech industry that's also so, you know, with electric cars and and all the other things that we need to electrify to make renewable energy industry happen, we have to find more resources. And out of that, you know, the tech industry needs a supply chain of of these sort of critical minerals and resources to make that happen.

10:34 Off the, again, furthermore, off the back of that is is the we we've seen nearly $500,000,000 flow into companies like GETECH in from tech investors trying to get into the the critical mineral sector. The the biggest, most high profile one in in The States was cobalt metals, which became a unicorn off the back of a a $200,000,000 investment from from from some from Bezos and and Elon Musk and and Bill Gates, all about finding copper and lithium for for for their supply chains. Very similar story with. Again, nearly a unicorn, looking for natural hydrogen. Again, tech investments gone into that. Another company, Zanska, got its series b away 30,000,000 for very for for developing an AI tool looking for geo geothermal projects, which is very similar to the the the the GETECH heat seeker product.

11:25 And more recently, in the last few weeks, Terra AI just closed their, you know, 3,400,000 round for a series a for from Kochella Ventures to look at actually how to actually use AI to find copper and lithium and and cobalt cobalt. And we have GETECH at the end, you know, where we have more data than than any of these these these companies. We've already got our kind of routines together for our AI together for for looking at sort of copper and geothermal and and natural hydrogen. And we think we're really well positioned to actually now start making traction and start bringing in the the sort of the larger investors to really see how we can actually make this this company, so transform it in into a much bigger sort of enterprise over the coming coming years.

12:11 And at the end of day, it's all about money. So so what we've really tried to do is do two things to to sort of advance the the way we're doing revenues. Traditionally, so GETECH sort of has always its customer base has always been the the global explorers, particularly the international oil companies, the the national oil companies. And and more recently, we've been adding to international mining companies to to our roster of of of companies. And that's because, you know, the the accessing sort of GETECH stage is expensive. You know, the typical AAR for people buying into our into the globe platform is 200 k per year and the associated services with that. But what we've been doing, first of all, the first thing we're gonna do is make our product more accessible to to the wider market. So by changing our one the things we've done this year is to change our our our business and subscription models so that we can work and target with the region explorers. So so a lot of the the listed oil companies, listed mining companies, drilling, geothermal, carbon storage, energy storage type of companies.

13:16 And we got a lower entry point for for these smaller companies, which is typically around sort of 50 per year to to actually do that. But the difference we've made is we don't want to sort of undervalue our data. So so we're actually bringing in a royalty to to this. So you'll have seen with recent examples, we we closed with a Spanish company recently looking for natural hydrogen where where we have good revenue from the client, but also a 5%

13:41 carried interest to to actually on any successful finds that we actually work with them on. And so on. So going further down the chain, you know, as much as huge number of very junior explorers out there, And what we're looking for is working with interesting companies that have got good local teams, but they need more data to to actually help them zoom in on their exploration projects. And, again, we've got a lower entry point for for these clients, which is typically around 20 k, But we're asking for a much larger royalty interest starting at 5% depending on the project to to actually work with them and, you know, to to make it make value out of our data. What we're trying to be in a position with, like, none of the service we're doing was going below sort of our our cost base, but we're really trying to change maybe the way the upside actually works so we can address a wider area.

14:31 And as the as we progress with this this business model, we're trying to do more things for these clients and get the value of the AAR to go up and build a portfolio through of these royalty based recurring interest agreements with what we're doing. So from GETECH's point of view, from this year, it was 02/23 was a very, very painful year in a sense where we've sort of really started the year realizing that sort of sort of the the green hydrogen space was an incredibly difficult market to be working for. Green hydrogen probably happened in the industry, but, you know, GETECH with sort of it's where we are, who we are, and it it wasn't the right business right fit for us. So so we've closed h two green as as the time progressed.

15:16 We've restructured. We've been sort of have a lot of assets with with kits in house. We've managed to sell half of our property sort of office. We've still got one left, which is Nicholson House, which we're we're working on, and reduce the headcount within the business. And all that's been about is resetting the cost base so that we can move successfully into 2024, and and I think the objective by state of many times is we're trying to get the business back to cash flow positive and into profitability as we quickly as we can. And getting taking those hard decisions to reset the cost base

15:48 is painful, but vital to to make sure that we can grow. And now I think the the company's in a very good place. We've got very clear products and plans, and we're developing out on two axes, really. The first is the the sales and management sales and account management, where we're going to look to add new logos to to GLOBE, more subscribers to to GLOBE, and try and get more stronger account management within these people and get more value out of the existing clients that that we we've got. The second thing is we're expanding our business development team so so that we can look at more of these strategic partnerships and look much more at these joint exploration agreements. In in areas where where nascent industries like natural hydrogen, we we think there's a lot of value that we we can create quite quickly for shareholders by getting involved, by earning royalties for for the expertise that we want to work in into this. To be really clear, that doesn't mean we're gonna be investing in these projects. It means we're actually sort investing our time and coming in at the at the Grand Grand Floor sort of level.

16:51 So we'll talk on sort of sort of now talk a bit about the financial side of of how 2023 looks. So as I've already stated, we we really sort of taken a very, very hard look at the the cost control of the business. So we've closed the the h two green. We we've reduced headcount across the group by 22%, and we we've been seeking development partners to to try and extract some value or hand over value of the h two green projects that that that were there. And we'll come on to those a little bit more detail in a few minutes. We put a lot of time into expanding the GLOVE platform. As I was saying, we look at these genomes and how to make these work very much for the things that people are really looking for in the market at the moment. So it's a natural hydrogen, so lithium, sort of and and the and and and so on.

17:44 We're really key one of the things that's been really successful over the last year, what I'm really pleased about is is we've a lot of work in diversifying our our revenue. So some of our new customer wins have been, with Eastar looking for copper in in Kazakhstan. It's been a joint exploration agreement with a European company looking for natural hydrogen. It's been quite it's been a very interesting project for us to to be working on with the team. We've been working with Casario in The US looking for for carbon capture and storage sites for some of their clients, and we've been looking for geothermal gradients across Eastern Eastern Europe. So so we've really, really made really terrific headway this year in terms of actually getting good reference clients in the areas that we actually want to grow grow into as a business. So outside of the oil and gas, we're actually getting into these these these wider energy transition sort of markets.

18:37 And the other thing that's really a big change, I think, and will really how I want investors to think about us as we move forward is we've moved it from its sales based model to a subscription model. So so the key performance indicator for for for the business is AAR annual recurring revenue for for how we're actually going to be operating. You know, so so as I said, you know, my first goal is we were trying to get the business back to cash flow positive. Our second goal is to get AAR above our cost base so that we're actually really successful, really stable business as we actually then sort of approach our our future. And the other thing you'll see, hopefully, it hasn't come in into into place yet, but it it it's work in hand with with the exchange. We're trying to get away from being late list sort of labeled or classified as an oil and gas services business and into a technology platform business.

19:32 And the reason for this is twofold. I think, one, in the energy transition that there are people out there that say, ah, you're an oil and gas company. We don't want to to work with you, and it it is dragging us. It's making life a bit challenging. And and secondly, you know, I think investors will understand and and I think will appreciate is technology platforms get a higher sort of rating, I a r PE rating for for for what they're doing. And as we move back into profitability, we think this will sort of really help us re so set the value of of the business with inside GETECH. So so what I'll do, you know, so we'll I could give a quick summary of where we are results wise, and then I'll hand over to Andrew to to talk a bit bit more in detail on on the loss and how that occurred and why we're confident it won't happen moving forward. So so revenue was was actually down, but it was it was 4,000,000.

20:25 That was pretty well flat on where we were on on the

20:29 the 2022 revenue was slightly out of kilter because there was what we'd call a transfer payment, which raised things out. I think on on the core business, we the revenue was sort of fairly flat, although it's showing it down from here. There was a 5,000,000 loss, you know, and we'll talk Andrew also about the the the exceptionals and how and a lot of that was about restructuring. The good news is we we've maintained the order book, which is 4,600,000, so we know we've got this future revenue sort of coming into the business. Cash has been very lame. We've been trying to enforce financial discipline on the business of getting ourselves into

21:04 into cash flow positive mode and really trying to live within within the means of the the business so that, you know, it's all part and, you know, it's a change in the culture of, you know, we we're trying to get back into a a profitable business role. And the good one is here, as I was talking about, is is AAR. This is the new metric that, you know, KPI that we wanna see that I'm really measuring the the company on as we move forward, which is 2,800,000 at the moment. Where our cost base is at around 5,000,000, yet we're trying to grow this, and it has been growing year on year and to get us back to over 5,000,000,000 and and make a very stable business. So, Andrew, maybe you you want to just talk us through how the the the income and loss Thanks, Richard.

21:50 So this chart helps to break down the the revenue and also the costs within the business, which takes us to the 5,000,000 loss for the year. So on the on the left hand side, we've we've split the revenue by the different sectors that we've been working in in in 2023. And on the right hand side, it splits out the costs. So 1,500,000 of the costs were exceptional items, and and within that, around 1,000,000 of that was impairments on the balance sheet and the other 500,000 related to restructuring. Approximately, total, around 2,000,000 of our costs were related to h two green, and and the balance there is about 5,500,000 underlying costs within in GETECH.

22:42 And going forward, that's where we expect our costs to settle during 2024. Thanks, Andrew. So quickly just touching on h two green. I know there's a few people interested in that. The the we we've actually closed the the Edinburgh office. With the Inverness project, we we've transferred it to to a strategic partner, and and there's a small earn out that we'll achieve if that that comes through. With the with the Shoreham project, we are still engaged with this, and we're to find and work with the the the team there to find a development partner that will help actually move us forward. With the others restructuring activity, we've sold kits in house.

23:30 We've still got Nicholson House for sale, which the risk's value on that is 850 k, and we put a little bit of bridge financing on that at the moment to to help ease with with the the the cash flows. All in all, we're trying to sort of selling Nicholson House is very much contingent on how the the company was intending to to run its budget this year, and that's still in in process. The good news that I'm speaking great we're very excited about is we're continuing to diversify the revenue. So so this year, we still got lot more critical minerals, a lot more geothermal work, and working with sort of the the carbon storage and and the emerging market within the natural hydrogen and clean gas kind

24:12 of market. So just touching, you know, sort of really the metrics of where we are with with it at the moment with our our customers. You know, the the top 10 customers for g GETECH have been a 100% sticky since we've been working. Typically, average is a 198 k that we're getting for annual subscription from the from the top 10. And then we're bringing to typically getting about 80 k of ad hoc services for from these people. What we're looking at is the on the project. As I said, we we've exited Inverness. That that that's now with another the company. We're sure we're still working through through on that. But the exciting thing and what I'm gonna be doing, what the team's gonna be doing over the next year is trying to add more of these joint exploration agreements within it. So so there are no cost to the business. You know? This is about leveraging the value of our our data when we make sales. So we'll engage with East Star, as I said, for for copper in in in Kazakhstan, and we're working with another European company looking for for natural hydrogen at the moment. Unfortunately, they wanna stay anonymous, but it's been a very exciting project for the team working as we move forward.

25:19 So current trading, where where we're going, we've really reset the cost base. I'm sure that those questions will come up. The cost base is running currently at about 5,000,000 per year. We've had a very good start to the year in terms of of sales where for the first four months, five months, we've been up four months, we've been up at 17% on on the same period last year with that. And and the AAR is is slightly growing. We're up to 2,900,000 and and and trying to move move forward. We've got a good customer pipeline of of about 10,400,000 of new business. What we've seen, what's been a very trend of, I think, twenty twenty three is a lot of decisions got delayed, but we're seeing the benefits of that pipeline now coming into 2024.

26:04 I don't think we're gonna be closing all of that this year, but it it's that's the outlook and and visibility of projects that we can currently actually see this year and and over the next sort of few years within our our customers. A lot of these mining type of exploration projects that are planned many months and even years in in advance. And we've really got a very, very clear business objective for for the year. You know, we're focusing on increasing sort of GLOBE retained customer base, so so that's new logos and increasing the value of GLOBE and to drive the AAR within the company. Business development team looking for joint exploration agreements. And as a management team, we're really targeting getting to that EBITDA cash flow positive by the the end of year. And from an r and d perspective, the we we're really focusing on sort of improving sort of honing RC genomes in in the critical mineral sector and the natural hydrogen and helium. You know, there's a lot of things we can look for, but those are the ones that that the clients are seeing the most value from at this this point.

27:05 So 2023, it was really a tough year. We took all the hard decisions. I think we we've taken all of that that out, and we're really now going forward on a good a much lower cost base, very simplified, clear sort of sort of goals and objectives within the team, which makes the whole thing a lot more easier to to to manage. I very much look forward to carrying on this this year. So with that, I'd like to thank you, everybody, from the board on on GETECH. And, Jake, maybe we can hand back to you for question and answers. Richard, absolutely. And Andrew and Chris as well, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the company take a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I would just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard.

28:02 Guys, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this morning, and thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But Richard, Andrew, Chris, if I may just hand back to you just to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Thank you. So the the first question is is why did GETECH and HD Green not apply for the one and two revenue support? And I think this is a something that we agonized about as a board and and really tried to look at this from every angle that we we we possibly could. And I think, you know, we the option there is still actually open for us on Shoreham, but we we we've declined on on Inverness. But the the reason for this is is it was gonna require significant funding to really push through the prefeed and feed functions for that, which the company didn't have. We'd have had to have raised that money either at a project level or at a a corporate level, at the top co level to actually get there to make it happen.

29:04 So that had to be a really compelling case to go back to investors and ask for the additional money to to to do that. And when you look at that compelling case, when sort of h two green was actually started, that there was a very distinct government policy that was sort of kind of like that that they wanna see 10 gigawatts of green hydrogen in The UK as as quick as as possible. But that really then you know, so two two, three prime ministers later in a two year period, the policy really got diluted, and the the need for green hydrogen really sort of came off the the boil. The markets are very much sort of gravitated around looking at green hydrogen for industrial processes, whereas all of HG Green's projects were actually about transportation.

29:52 And they just weren't early adopter customers or route to market for green hydrogen going into transportation hubs at at this time. And with with that, you know, if if there's no customer, there's no chance of getting to financial close or or to FID. And and, therefore, we just didn't think one or two would really add anything to it. It would just be a lot of cost to the business. It would it would move the business advance things on, but as I say, we'd have had to have raised money to do that, and and we didn't think the investment case was compelling. It was sure, and we very much been trying to keep all of these sort of projects warm, if you like, for for as long as we can. You know, I suspect with we might have a new energy minister in in, what, a week's time for from now.

30:38 And then has been very much promoting green hydrogen, and that might be come back into into vogue again with with and so on. But the at the moment, as things stand, it just wasn't a business decision that we could actually make. I hope that answers the question. We're always available online or offline to actually do that to answer further questions on on that on that subject. And we know how much money went into it, and we really did try to preserve as much value as we could, but it was it was a tough call. How has the refocus of on core competencies improved the company's efficiency and market positioning? Can you give specific examples of projects? I'll I'll give you the projects, Chris, but the the core competencies. You know? At the end of the day, GETECH's got a thirty year history.

31:29 We've got sort of 50 members of staff. They're all geoscientists. So so that is the core competency. It wasn't green hydrogen, which is, like, surface based. So so by sort of sort of bringing in new what we've been really doing is bringing in new business that complement the the these core examples. I think I think you may have covered it in the presentation, really. That is, you know, sort of how we've been applying, not just how we're taking out all the old skills that, you know, sort of our team have said multiple PhDs in in everything from underground waterfalls to everything. We have very, very advanced subject surface knowledge, and we've been now applying that to to things like natural high maybe natural hydrogen's a good one. Just maybe give an example of. Sure. Yeah. I think this question did come in before the slide came up with the project examples.

32:17 But, yeah, the sort of refocusing back on core competencies has really led actually, over the last sort of year or eighteen months or so, led us to look again where our data and where our expertise is, you know, is a good fit in in other sort of nonpetroleum markets. And, certainly, arguably, our kind of foray into green hydrogen sort of led us towards natural hydrogen, and it turns out that our data, as as I explained when the slide was up, is actually really good at finding the particular types of rocks that are certainly one of the key sources for natural hydrogen. They're called ophiolites, they can appear on at the surface. You're probably not gonna get much hydrogen out of those. But if they're subsurface, and we can we can see those in our data, then they could potentially be natural hydrogen source rocks. So, you know, a really good example of how looking back at our core capabilities and seeing where else they apply can bring value back into GETECH.

33:20 Thank you, Chris. So the next question, given the reaction of the market to your financial results, it looks like a placing will have to be considered at a considerable discount and adversely impacting existing shareholders. Do you have any alternatives in way of funding? So I think the this is a very challenging situation for for us, I think, the the the share price and something we're gonna be working on now over the over the coming weeks. When When we set out the budget for for 2024, it was very much predicated on that we would sell Kitson House and Nicholson House, and the money would be used that we would actually take the business to to cash flow positive on that basis. So we sold kits in house. We haven't sold kits in house. The the RIC's value on that one is is 850 k, and we're working to sell it as as as quickly as we can. Without that in place, that kind of leaves a a gap for us in getting to cash flow positive of around you know, so in that kind of don't hold me to it, but that the ballpark of about sort of 500 to to the value of Nicholson House. So it's a 500 to $8.50, $8.50 k that we have to to to manage.

34:33 With so so how are we gonna do that without so so we've we've got three levers, really, we're we're trying to pull. The the first one is, obviously, we're we're gonna continue to double down and try and sell Nicholson House. The second one for us is is we're really trying to push through with our customers and doing things like how to actually sort of getting some sort of to to giving them and using offers to actually prepay for for some of their subscriptions that they're actually going through and looking at the sort of new business side of things. And and lastly, we'd we'd resort to to shareholders for for that kind of quantum. So so it's something we are very, very working very, very hard to try and manage our way through that with shareholders being the the last resort at at these kind of of of prices.

35:19 Hopefully, people take a different view on on this. We we think the the the rating for for GETECH is just just crazy at the moment, but the market is the market, and we'll see where it goes. But the you know, there is an incredible good future for GETECH. I think going back to one of the slides earlier on about about the amount of money that's actually coming into the in into the market versus our market cap or for data led companies. We we are in a very big difficult position with the share price is making our life for growth harder than it should, and we're working to see how we can we can reset on that. Can you confirm the costs related to h two agreed are now de minimis and that the company will not repeat an error of pursuing spec speculative investments that don't generate immediate revenue for the future. Yes. We can confirm that.

36:14 So so that is you know, we we are managing shore in our existing resources for for the company. There's no Edible office. It's h degree. We we it's just kept there. It has taken us into an interesting place. Chris said, it's it's really helped us with natural hydrogen and and and and things like that in in terms of sort of strategic direction. And, no, it's not gonna happen again. What we're seeing, what we could we know is that investment was out of kilter with GETECH and and who who we are. What we're trying to do, we are trying to kinda get more value for our data with royalties and and carried interests, but that's us providing some data and services, getting more value from our data and services, you know, at the beginning of the expiration cycle when when we have most value. But we're not on the hook for sort of the when when the decision to mine is there, we're not on the on the hook for sort of covering our quarter of or our percent of of mining costs and things like that. So so that is very much how it's very much about getting GETECH back onto a sustainable footing, back into making profit as quick as we can.

37:26 The results say that the directors forecast that there may be a need to secure additional funding in the short term. The type the target has made that mean that there is placing on the way and will carry out at a significant discount on top of the current share price. I think it's very similar to to one of the previous questions, and one major shareholder has has been supportive and exited the business. This is correct, and and I think has the statement being misinterpreted? I think as everybody knows at the moment, auditors and boards are absolutely ultra cautious in in in what they're they're they're saying. I think one of things we've been trying to do as a business sort of rightly or wrongly, history will tell us, but the the future will tell us. But the we've been trying to run GETECH within our cash means. We we've been trying to actually not go out to investors for for money.

38:23 We've been trying to restructure in such a way that it can be done within within our means. And as I said previously, I outlined, you know, we were gonna do this by the sale of Nicholson House. We've been a little bit stymied by the property market, which is as we're heading into this election, people just seem to be stopping. I guess people are looking to see where interest rates or whatever that's going to be, taking views on that. But Nicholson will house will sell at some point, and we will get that cash back into the business. And until that happens, we've got to look at creative ways of either bridging or prepayment by customers or talking back to to shareholders. And and, you know, the scale of the loan or scale of what we need to do now is very small. As you've seen from what Andrew said, you know, the 5,000,000,000 loss, obviously, on the the the top line looks absolutely horrendous, but, you know, we appreciate that's actually taken out the h two green cost that were there in twenty three three. We've taken all the hits on restructuring so that in 2024 and going on, we've got a really clean, clean company.

39:28 So so we we're doing this. All I can say is we're doing everything we can to to to to manage that that that situation. Company is doing a lot of great development, but if the size of investment spend leads to dilution via share issuance, existing share ins shares will not benefit. Can you confirm that any placing will have a significant open offer element? I can't actually confirm that right here and right now, but I think we are absolutely super sensitive to the facts that if we did go down that placing route, and I do say I stress if we do go down that placing route, we we we think, you know, it's incumbent that we bring that we take that offer to all shareholders, you know, to see us you know, we from what I see us as a business is we're 90% of the way through the restructuring at the moment, and we just need to get through that final bit and move us on our way forward. I I will do I I can commit to doing everything I can to make sure that it's made available to the widest number of shareholders.

40:36 Your broker, Cavendish, is forecasting medium term revenue growth rates of around 20% PA with improved gross and EBITDA margins due to operational gearing. Where do you see the drivers for growth? Well, I think the the biggest thing about GETECH is is we're pretty well a fixed cost business. So for every 1,200,000, I think it is, we add to to to applying, we get a million of EBITDA coming coming through to the to to the business. So so for us, it's really about you know, we've done the hard work of cost control. It's now about adding more customers to the business to to GLOBE subscribers in the same way, you know, typical tech business. We want more subscribers on the platform.

41:22 And it's trying to increase the value of that subscription by offering more in terms of AI workflows and and things like that to to add to them so they want to pay more for their subscriptions in future years or a premium subscription on on top of what they're already doing. If you're doing what the AI unicorns are doing with better data and more experience, why wouldn't these companies simply buy cheap GETECH out? Well, I think, you know, yeah, the what can I say? I I wouldn't be surprised if there is interest in in GETECH as as we as we move forward. You know, we we are talking to these AI companies. Some of them meet these AI companies are actually customers of ours. We we know each other. But I think from our perspective, we think as a team, you know, we've got a lot we can offer, and I think we would put any reasonable offer that we think that values GETECH fairly to to investors so investors can take a a view on that.

42:27 I think, you know, the assets in the company is is is world's largest sort of commercially available data set of magnetic and gravity based data, which is at the core of it. And it's worth substantially more than than our our market cap. We would want yeah. But that said, we would push any sensible offers to shareholders. But in the meantime, I think we're really confident as a team we can grow in our own own right. Technology associated with the energy transaction is continually developing. How could you take assess the potential impact of these on its its business? I think that's that's absolutely true. I mean, technology is there. I think there's, you know, there's there's very specific needs for things like copper and aluminum for what actually goes into the production of renewable energy systems and and distribution systems.

43:20 Battery chemistry is always changing. You know, lithium is is very much where things are at the moment, but, you know, solids it's more static, non car batteries and more looking at sort of sort of other sodium type of chemicals over the future. I think in any of these scenarios, people are always gonna be looking for resources. So so for us, it's about them helping them manage their supply chain. So so, you know, the you know, it's the selling spades to to to the gold miners type of approach. You know? We we, you know, sort of you know, at the moment, the, you know, the industry is looking for copper and lithium and natural hydrogen, and we've got the algorithms tuned around that. If other subsurface things come through, we'll tune the algorithms accordingly.

44:07 I think we GETECH's been late to actually get involved with the energy transition, but now we're in it. I I think we we we've got a very broad addressable market that we can go and talk to. Against the backdrop of widely publicized risk averseness on the part of UK institutional investors, how does GETECH tailored its capital market strategy? It's actually work in progress. I I think when we sat down at the beginning of this year, the what we wanted to do is a broad, you know, give away the market. We're in a real difficult an interesting position, really, I think, because we're listed, which brings certain things to it. And I think what what we wanted to do is go out to people with a growth story, not a loss making not we need to cover losses, to do that. So so what I've been focusing on is really getting us back to taking the hard decisions so that we are getting back into a profitability story that we can go and talk to people about future earnings rather than than than a venture capital story we need to actually develop something along those lines.

45:15 It is a bit frustrating, you know, seeing all the money flow into into these private companies at the moment for for this. It's something we're we were considering before the the the drop in the share price, and now we're retrying to work through it. I'm afraid it's work in progress. Happy to talk about that more offline as we move forward on on things. Why has the board made the catastrophic decision not to sat out a fundraise before notifying the market of its distressed cash position? This has seen the s p four by two thirds and has seen a major shareholder complete the exit. Why has the situation been so poorly mismanaged? As I say, I think the from the I think we sort of answered that sort of question. And, honestly, I think the what we are very much predicated ourselves on, as I say, was selling Nicholson House to actually cover the cash flow for this year to to actually get us to profitability.

46:21 That actually went into auction at the beginning of June and and didn't sell, which was quite a surprise to everybody, and it's made us have to rethink. I I personally think the share price has well and truly overdone. It was very, very sad to see such a major shareholder leave and particularly somebody that's been very, very supportive of me and the team, and it's with with quite a lot of regrets actually that that that has actually occurred. As I say, I think we we know where the hole is. We're working on on that, and I'm gonna have to keep you sort of appraised as we move through through through the future. I think it's important to caveat the point about the auction was that almost nothing on that auction was sold. Nothing. It wasn't just our property.

47:14 It's true. I think, you know, we we've come at this just the time we've got the election, and and I think investors are generally kind of wait and see. So so that will go back into auction, and and we will sell that. We we have very high degree confidence. It's just a question of when. Under the current strategy, has the approach to managing customer relationships changed? Yes. It has. It is. So it it's been enhanced. I think what we're seeing is the the the the GETECH team, good sales team, but they've been very much focused on selling to the chief geologist within large organizations. What we've really been working through is sort of account management training to really widen that net and see how they can actually access other budgets within the within the company, you know, particularly innovation budgets. You know, we we saw this with other some of our other clients where, you know, sort of something like natural hydrogen fell into innovation, and we're trying to get them to account manage the the customers we've already got. We've got fantastic customers on our our our our books, and it's I kind of one the things I just look at it is quite astonishing me that we to me that we're only getting such little money out of them. So it's a account management, training people, getting the right wider proposition out to our market is is very much key to to that.

48:36 The going stone concern statement appears dependent on the timing sale of Nicholson Heights. Given this has not been on the market for some time, is there not a significant risk the sale does not complete before the working capital facility expires in June 2025? We we don't think so. You know, we we've offered it in auction with us as a a tenant, which is a yield of, I think, was 12% on on on the the reserve price. We we think it was just very papers that Chris said. It was very poor market timing that people are just waiting for the election to get out of the way. We we we we can't, you know, we can't believe it's it's it's a modern steel and glass office located in a in a growing economy. We we think it will sell. I I we don't see that as being a major risk to the business, certainly on a twelve month horizon.

49:27 On a three month horizon, it's a challenge. On a twelve month horizon, we we don't see an issue. Positive trading, the company says it's targeting cash flow position, positive trading '24. How does the current revenue rate compare to the 5,000,000,000 current cost base? So as you see from the Cavendish numbers, we're we're trying to get to to 5,500,000,000 of top line this year. That for us will then kind of exceed the the the breakeven point. We'll keep you as appraised as the as the year goes on. One of the things that's, you know, from managing getting into the management of GETECH is always a bit of a scary thing because the the you know, 60 to 70% of the revenues always come through in in in h '2. We've got good visibility of them this year. We we at the moment, we're we're confident we can actually get to that point.

50:15 Given the positive story you're telling, why have you not strengthened the balance sheet given the auditors have qualified their going concern basis? Is this holding back the business back? What's the plan re equity issuance? I think we've really told that story to death, and I can really see why we're telling that people are asking that questions that we're acutely aware of share price and things things like that. I think what we've been trying to do you know, it's a really tough market out there, and we wanna go out to people with the positive story, but with the fact that we know the positive story plus the first milestone. For us, the first milestone is that we've actually gone from being a loss making business. GETECH has been making a loss for for many, many years, and, you know, you go and see some institutional investors, and and you get a big yawn about, yeah, it's GETECH again.

51:06 And we really wanna be out there with not just a positive story, but, hey. We we've actually turned the the corner on this one, and we're asking you for money for growth. We're asking for more salespeople, more marketing people, more data scientists. And we're we're getting to that point. We we really are getting to that point, but we wanna do it in the least dilutive way to to shareholders. And, obviously, the share price movement at the moment has really added a challenge to that level. And let's say, you know, that's happened in the last few days. We we need to kinda see out the week, but we're confident we'll we'll get back in addressing addressing this. How is AIML capability been introduced to to to GETECH? It's actually the you know, the the team's actually been working on it for for a long a long time. We've been sort of using a number of sort of ML techniques, you know, sort of the last sort of four or five years.

51:56 I think what we've seen as we've gone into the in in into getting our product used by the the industry, particularly with sort of with the nascent kind of natural hydrogen industry, you know, for the first time, people are looking for natural hydrogen. It's never been looked before, and it's sort of sort of found in, you know, these off like kind of rock sequences that that that people haven't been looking for. We found them in our data. And what you're trying to do is is the the real trick, the exciting thing is, you know, these are all over the planet. You wanna find where they will all work quickly. But where GETECH really adds it, you know, we we come in with this kind of sort of three pronged attack that's very unique to us. It's it's not only if we can say where sort of off the lights are. We also have, you know, from our oil and gas industry, we can start looking at, well, the gas might have migrated, and it might be trapped here. So it's where you might be able to see where potentially commercial reservoirs are.

52:50 And thirdly, with the geospatial techniques, it's you know, natural hydrogen needs to be somewhere where you can use it. If it if it's in the middle of the desert somewhere, you know, it's not like natural gas that you can pipe at. You you gotta do something with it. So it is finding this perfect trinity where you kind of got the producing rocks, the potential seals, and the potential industry user around it since we add a lot to that. Are there any new partnerships in the pipeline? Yes. We're working on a number of things. That that's forward looking statements. I look forward to keeping everybody appraised of that as we move move forward. Is the company if the company goes the placing route, will management commit to put a material amount of capital given the positive future? And the answer to that is yes. I think one of the things that we've been doing there's a number of things we've been doing. So so all of the board has been deferring salary into a pot to to go into any placing when that occurs, and we will all be looking at where we can do things in individually to to do that. So so the the answer is is is most definitely yes.

53:58 Speaking for myself, we're we're I'm very you know, to me, this is the last problem that GETECH is going to to face from its cash management position. We're we're very confident of the future beyond this. And I think that's answered all the questions. Thank you. Absolutely. Richard, Chris, Andrew, if I may just jump back in there, thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in for investors. And, of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended just for you to review to then add any additional responses, of course, where it's appropriate to do so. And we'll publish all those responses out on the platform. But, Richard, perhaps before really just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that'd be great.

54:45 Yes. Thank you. I I think, you you know, it's please don't underestimate. It's been a really, really tough year sort of sort of trying to pass through what, you know, sort of the the investment that's gone into the various business units and and actually what is actually gonna come out and and grow. And we really do believe we've made those decisions. We, you know, we you know, I'll let you look at that sort of curve of where we're going. You You know, know, we're we're 90% through sort of restructuring the the the business. We we we don't want to fear fail and not gonna fail at at at this point, and and we wanna do everything we can to to to protect shareholder interests current shareholder interest as we get through that that that last last point. The the services for GETECH, we we think are very relevant to the energy transition. We've got them now into the right place. We're getting reference customers across all of our sort of vertical sectors that we're we're we're targeting.

55:38 And, yeah, please watch this space, and and we we really do hope that we we can we can count on everybody's continued support. Thank you. Richard, that's great. And thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected, for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can really better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of GETECH GROUP PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good morning to you all.