Velocity Composites (LSE:VEL) — Results for the six months to 30 April 2025

0:01 Good morning, and welcome to the VELOCITY COMPOSITES PLC Investor Presentation. 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 publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll, and I'd now like to hand you over to the management team from VELLOCITY COMPOSITES PLC. Rob, good

0:32 morning, sir. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. So today, we have myself, Rob Smith, CFO John Bridges, the CEO of the company and Andy Beaton, Non Executive Chairman. So I'd like to introduce start the presentation by just a quick summary of the numbers and then we'll dig into a little bit more. Revenue, 10,400,000, which is slightly down on the preceding half one. But we achieved much better margins due to operational efficiencies and some price increasing flowing through from the tail end of last year, which helped us to achieve an EBIT positive EBITDA in the half, which is the first time we have achieved a positive EBITDA in the first half

1:27 since the pandemic. And it's the second sequential EBITDA positive half. Cash, we remain positive. We've got $1,200,000 in the bank. And on top of that, we have an invoice discounting facility of up to £3,000,000 that we can utilize. So we've got a good headroom to see us through the next growth period. John, if I can hand over to you. Thanks, Rob. I can't quite read that. But essentially, you know, before going to the the wider presentation, just a bit of an industry outlook. I know we we get asked sort of questions about, you know, what we see on, you know, from our customers and the the sort of wider industry. So I think fundamentally, we're still and the industry still recognizes that we're at aircraft production rates below the sort of pre pandemic levels.

2:30 And really there's been you know, I think you've seen it sort of certainly in public domain around sort of supply chain issues. It tends to get put into that sort of bucket. But essentially, we've got customers and ultimately OEMs trying to ramp up key programs like A350 against some of these sort of wider unplanned activities like this sort of separation of the sort of Airbus and the Boeing from the Spirit business and the reallocation of those facilities and production areas into the sort of requisite OEMs. You know, that has been sort of fairly, you know, we feel it's been fairly disruptive from what we've seen and what our customers have sort of sort of fed back. But again, we're expecting that to sort of clear and a lot more clarity and then, those key production areas under direct control of the OEM should help to the wider ramp up activities.

3:26 You sort of sort of wider non composite supply chain, there's been some sort of wider comment on that. But from what we see within composites, we see our customers are ready to ramp up. They've been at previously high rates. The suppliers that we work with are very ready and have been high rates as well from a sort of composite perspective, we're sort of ready to see those rates pull through. And again, from even recent orders, order book of these key platforms remains very healthy and long term as well. So ultimately, are expecting those rates to begin to ramp and flow through down to us. And obviously, as we said, we're ready and have the capacity to pick those up.

4:14 Tariffs has been sort of commented on with sort of some investors and comment out there. But again, because of what we do and how we do it, we do need to be close to customers. So all our manufacturing is within country and we deliver quite locally to customers and serve customers locally as well. So we've not seen any direct impact on tariffs. And as we've talked extensively before, all our material is flow through pricing. So any changes to that landed price of materials is part of a wider price negotiations that we can pass through as part of the overall contractual relationship within our part of the industry. And then in terms of, you know, wider new business, we are looking at, you know, progressing and picking up new contractual opportunities with both new and existing customers and that has continued at pace.

5:15 And as we've said previously, particularly in The U. S, a focus there on the defense sector as we look to rebalance across civil and defense through our portfolio. Looking forward a little bit, as I mentioned, we are hoping these ramp ups, they were delayed from last year. Some of our customers did start to ramp. We've dealt with supported customers through rebalancing their sort of line of balance and their their sort of inventory following that and to get that in line with where they need to be. And we'll continue to work hard and support customers through through that and deal with the sort of demand fluctuations that creates. We want those ramp ups to kick in.

6:03 We're sort of looking at continue to forecast a flat on those key programs for this year, just really out of prudency having seen the ramp ups delayed last year. But again, we'd be welcome and our customers would welcome those ramp ups to begin to buy and flow through into our part of the supply chain as soon as. Quite a lot of live bids, some well, different stages, some quite new, some progressing through to what we hope will be completion both in The U. S. And Europe, and we'll talk about that later. And really capitalizing on our footprint now being in Europe and U.

6:48 S. And picking up some of those defense opportunities that we see with some of the large

6:54 suppliers in North America. And then we've had some smaller wins and we'll continue to have smaller wins with existing civil customers, really offsetting some of those small declines in legacy programs as they come to a natural end of life. Next slide. So in terms of looking internally, in terms of US, we've got, again, continued good progress, you know, very proud of the team out there and pleased with how they've adopted the VELLOCITY way of working and, you know, continue to hit the sort of KPIs where they need to be on delivery and quality. And, you know, that's continues through as, you know, we onboard the the remaining parts of those programs and, you know, they they begin to work on other new stuff.

7:47 Finished and completed the capital expenditure activities over there, particularly around the new large freezer farm that's been installed. So again, that US size fully enabled operational to deliver on what is sort of currently working on and plenty of capacity there for future opportunities. We talked about the quality performance and delivery performance being key, particularly as we manage these industry wide sort of fluctuations in demand as people prepare, start to ramp, rebalance, move things around. So again, a lot of time managing that with customers as we should and working with customers to smooth that and feed that information in through the raw material supply chain accordingly to ensure everyone's fully enabled.

8:37 And then the new business continues. And again, pleased to see that supported as well from teams in The U. S. As well as they get involved in activities, particularly on some of the more controlled data activities, which US nationals need to be supported by US nationals. And again, it's all part of the overall evolution of that team and that site to be a fully integral part of VELLOCITY and its wider operations.

9:08 In Europe, we've or Rob mentioned the sort of margin improvements and that's been twofold really. One is not so much price increases per se, although we've had to increase prices really to catch up some of the inflationary costs of that have occurred through previous contracts as we talked again in previous presentations. What we've done going forward is to make sort of those forward looking contracts now annual price reviews to take into account any inflation particularly around labor costs, well, sort of local labor costs, energy and finance costs, which makes sense to both on our customers. The other part of the pricing material flows through anyway.

9:55 So again, purely passing on inflation, not overall price increases to the wider contracts, but again, significant inflation that we saw that we've managed to move forward into the new contracts. And then also and just as if not more activity and reward from is continuing to drive our technology and implementation of ODU to give us better visibility and sort of real time data analysis around our internal operational efficiency. You know, that's both in labor and, you know, our total operating costs, but also material improvements, material efficiency improvements to help drive and sustain that margin as well.

10:45 So again, pleased to see that flow through and, you know, the team to not only develop those tools, but also utilize them and to deliver a real improvement there in the gross margin. A350 ramp is important. We've talked about and we see we're sort of saying there's no growth. Hopefully, there will be. But again, that's depends on on when those programs ramp. You know, we we wanna make sure that, you know, we're supporting our customers on those and preparing. But again, we don't and our customers don't wanna get, you know, another sort of delayed ramp up. But again, I think what what we're starting to see is, you know, real serious opportunities now for that program to ramp sort of later on this year as as it needs to get to the levels that Airbus have already announced in order to sort of meet the deliveries that are required.

11:41 And then new business in in Europe really focused around more business with existing customers, different sites, different programs at existing sites. And that's both in The UK and obviously as we've evolved into Mainland Europe to support from existing facilities.

12:02 I'll hand you over to Rob, who will take you through some of the financial detail. Thanks, John. And thank you for bearing with us everybody. And so revenue, as I mentioned on the opening side, we are down a tad, but that's as customers rebalance their lines, mainly on the A350 program where those surged to try to meet demand last year and then the OEM deliveries. That's now gone through, and we're in a better place on revenue. Gross profit, the margins improved, as we've already said, operational efficiencies and being able to pass some of the inflationary pressures, which we've seen over the last couple of years on to our customers.

12:57 Administrative costs are up slightly, but we've seen a much more benign environment in the last twelve months than the preceding twelve, twenty four months. And we've also been doing focused cost reduction activities to make us more efficient on administrative expenditure.

13:20 All that has resulted in a operating loss and the ability to post adjusted EBITDA in the first half of the year. From a balance sheet perspective, bear the with me, from a balance sheet perspective, the working capital is managed quite tightly. As you would imagine, we have, we run quite a lean operation and part of our pitch to our customers is we manage the material much more closely than they are able to, which means we have relatively light inventory, trade receivables

14:06 is always managed carefully and we have all our customers performing to terms, which is very good to hear in any business. Our non current assets increased in the period. Now the main driver for that is we've swapped out some short term temporary freezer storage in The U. S. For a fully installed freezer farm. And that we've leased, but as it's a long term lease under the recently introduced accounting standards, we have to capitalize that lease and recognize the cost

14:50 on a monthly basis through as depreciation rather than charging the lease cost to the profit and loss count in a normal way. So a bit of an accounting issue there. It we haven't spent 500,000 in leased equipment in in fixed assets in a half. It's more like about 50,000. So we haven't had a big splurge all of a sudden, and it's just moved into a permanent solution on the freezers. That's all resulted in a

15:26 modest cash reduction in the period down to $1,200,000 And if I move to the next slide, you can see our progress on cash. So operating cash flows are positive. Movements in working capital are positive. We had a tax receipt for R and D tax credits, which gave us an overall inflow from operating activities.

15:55 Cash used in investing is principally the freezer farm as I've mentioned before. And the cash used in financing activities is the interest on the long term loans, which are principally the CBIL loans and the repayment of the CBIL loans. So it's it's using in the interest and repayment of those loans. You'll note that we're now down to

16:26 734,000 of CBIL loan and that will fully be paid off in 2026, in the second half of twenty twenty six. So we're making good progress on covering the COVID loans, and we have a good cash position. On top of our cash in the bank, we have a facility, which is up to £3,000,000 on invoice discounting that we can utilize if we require to if we're required to do so. I'll hand you back now to John. Thanks, Rob. So

17:05 looking forward into h two. Excuse me. I think I was thinking we can work out to open this up a little bit. Just bear with me one second. There we go. So, yeah, looking forward into h two, you know, we we should expect to see something happen in key programs like A350 production rates. You've got the sort of recovery of seven thirty seven

17:33 production rates as well as those issues cleared through Boeing and an overall conclusion of this separation from from Spirit, previous Spirit business as well. So again, the the sort of condition should be there for these rate improvements.

17:51 And again, they're also good for not only existing business, but new business as well as customers look to meet those rates by outsourcing and doing things differently. We're still working through the sort of final contracted program from our large customer in The U. S. That's had some prioritization

18:12 challenges with, you know, with the customer and and the OEM. We accept that, but we are working through that a little slower than we all expected, including the customer, but we're, you know, supporting them through the wider program prioritization challenges. The two two key elements to that, the first sub program, you know, is nearing completion and then we start on the second sub program and still look to get that concluded as soon as we can. But that obviously brings through the sort of final revenue setting into that launch customer in The US, which we can move forward from as well.

18:52 And in terms of the the sort of new business opportunities, we we mentioned previously, we want to rebalance between civil and defense, not that we that we're sort of stopping any civil opportunities. We're just focusing some of those larger bid opportunities around defense to to get that long term balance. And this continues, again, at different stages. But, again, as we mentioned earlier, supported you know, very pleasingly by the the US team as they continue to to grow and develop and and really not only provide, you know, the the day to day manufacturing asset that they are, but also the new business asset and the fact that they're, you know, US nationals allows them to to work on, you know, some of the more controlled defense programs as we build that into our wider sort of portfolio of of opportunities.

19:46 We also still see good civil opportunities, you know, particularly where those rates start to buy, as we mentioned, it does put constraints on customers.

19:58 And also, you know, taking, you know, what we've learned from, some of these prioritization delays and what that means to us and our customers and our focus on being that long term supplier of choice for our customers. Frustrating as those some of these program movements and ramp ups are for us and our customers. We want to take that forward and continue to develop the offering as well. So we're currently

20:28 completing some work on an enhancement to the onboarding process that, you know, not only brings clearer and quicker benefits to to VELLOCITY and our customers, but also mitigate the impact of some of those delays as well to really sort of take those that that evolution from from what we've done so far and build that into the the programs of the future.

20:50 Still, there's a, you know, clear board targets around gross margin, EBITDA, and return on capital. And again, I think you've seen good progress there with the underlying business. And we expect revenues in '25 to be comparable for the reasons we've mentioned. But again, that's all those is forecasting on you know, contracted business. We do expect to make progress on our new business as well, not just the smaller programs, but some of the the larger opportunities that we've been working on.

21:29 So in terms of a summary, great progress on our internal efficiencies, great progress on working with customers to get some of those inflationary costs updated. And again, building that know how and then into future contracts to allow it to sort of self regulate a lot more similar to what we do with the raw material costs.

21:54 The as we previously mentioned, some further prioritization delays with the sort of onboarding of those final programs in The U. S. Nothing too concerning, nothing around what we do or our programs really around the prioritization of some of the wider activities within within those programs. Again, we're a long term supplier. We'll work with the customer to get those through when, you know, resources allow.

22:20 As I say, we're pretty much there with the first of those two programs and the second one will follow. And obviously, that will then form, you know, very strong revenues going forward on those programs and also brings us into a different area that we've not really served before, which is direct sort of aero engine sort of components. A350 should increase. You know, we've seen the targets from Airbus that they're looking to to get to.

22:49 And as I say, we're ready. We see our suppliers being ready and our customers ready. We'd like to think that those come through later this year, certainly into 2026 as expected. And we also, you know, we talked pretty much at the year end, but also in in our comms as well around, you know, strengthening our our leadership team. You know, we've seen that sort of performance improvements from the local teams each site. And, again, to to complete that recruitment of our long term COO with a real focus on operational improvement, you know, growth with insights, utilization, and and driving through a a real continuous improvement ethos through all our manufacturing areas.

23:39 New business hopper still being worked with various levels. Again, nothing that concerns me in terms of the size and progress in that hopper other than as always, you know, this is these are big long term programs and, you know, take a a while to work through. You know, we see good progress. We see some new opportunities come through as well that we didn't have at the start of the half, and we'll continue to work those both in Europe and U. S. And continuing that sustainment in profitability and cash generation as we complete the programs that we're working on and get back to full profitability,

24:20 deliver on our contracted business and obligations and drive that through in those relationships through with customers into new programs. Quick. Yeah. Back to Andy, do you wanna pick up on the the next part? Yeah. Thanks, John and Rob. Well, everyone, just wait for anyone else who wants to put a question while and I will start. I will do is go through the questions that we've had so far and share them and put them to Rob or John. Or if they want, I can answer any sort of particular questions.

25:08 So the first question, which is broken down to a number of elements, but really is asking about the safety of using carbon fiber within a factory environment from fire and another how it's kept and everything else. So maybe and it's also it's security and supply. So can you expect that there can be a greater demand in the aircraft parts, but can that be satisfied by the demand of supply of the fiber? So, John, do you wanna just cover off that area? Yeah. Thanks, Andy. So in terms of fire, it's not something we have we obviously have the usual fire safety activities.

25:58 We take it very seriously. A lot of our buildings are are very modern. Certainly, the the infrastructure within them is is very modern. Lots of the usual around detection and prevention. We don't see any particular flammability concerns with the raw materials. Clearly, they're very handled in a very sensitive way. We store them in freezers, you know, airtight cold boxes with limited opportunities for, you know, fire to to become a a serious issue. But again, we never never say never and our usual sort of, you know, disaster planning activities will pick up those risks and mitigate them through, you know, predominantly prevention and detection. The raw material suppliers, I think, you know, because we inherit the raw material suppliers, we don't get a lot of say or sway in who those raw material suppliers are. You know, we have very good relationships with them, particularly around managing demand.

27:01 But in terms of their own fire safety, I think that will be ultimately between the sort of OEMs who specify the raw material suppliers and the plants that each supply is made in. And I'm sure they've got their own plans around being able to switch production between plants should there be any challenges there. We've seen it historically around if there's any particular quality concerns with materials, they're able to move the production around different plans satisfy that within the specifications. So I'm sure they, you know, they're all large, well established organizations. They've got their own plans in place, but we don't get any choice around that and there aren't any second sources. What percentage?

27:47 So, as we said as well, we've previously been at much higher rates pre COVID. So again, I'm sure these plants have the capacity to hit those rate increases. And because of the lead times of raw materials, plenty of time for them to plan, obviously for us to plan and the end users to plan to utilize those. So again, the time is baked into that, which is why we manage such you know, use our technology to manage such a a lengthy supply chain. Okay. And in terms of location sorry, Amit. Yeah. I was gonna ask you just how we there is a lot of opportunity within Mainland Europe. We're based in The UK. And maybe you could just explain how we would satisfy, you know, say, larger contracts that might come through in Mainland Europe, particularly in current customers?

28:42 Yeah. I think, you know, what we've been working on over the last few years is more, you know, sort of hub and spoke time model where we have forward start locations close to customers wherever they may be even within country country because they need stock to hand. So we may look to have one or two weeks of finished good stock, very, very close to customers, maybe even on-site, but that allows us to do our bulk manufacturing wherever we can find the most optimal way to to do that and utilize our existing capacity. So, yeah, that's the way we're we're looking at some of the current and new opportunities as we expand. Okay. So we so what you're saying is it's quite easy for us to mainland European demand through our current main investments in The UK.

29:32 Yes. Next question is just how are we using AI in our business? I guess the the subtext to that is can AI benefit our business? Again, we're starting to look at it, you know, with some industry partners around the demand management side of things. You know, one of the things because of the it's probably on one of the appendix slides actually the the VRP system, you can see we're having to manage customer demand, any demand changes through six months of material lead times and keep those aligned along with day to day short term manufacturing changes from customers as well. So I think that's where we could benefit from and have started to look at taking the modules of our VRP system and utilize some machine learning there to preempt, predict and build more self regulating real time dashboards to keep control of all those variables.

30:32 Great. Thanks, John. Rob, do you want to remind investors of how much the management board have invested in VELOSITI? Yes. Thank you, Andy. It's about 12% of the current issued share capital is in the hands of the directors. The largest holder, obviously, is John as founder. But the other directors are building stakes in the business as we continue to develop. There is a program which we've got in place, which the non executive directors part of their remuneration is share based and that enables them to buy in further to the shares in the company.

31:29 Yeah. I mean, we offer 20 the management's the ability to swap some of their base salary with up to 20% with equity if they wanted to do that. So the next thing is really we obviously, in the presentation and in previous presentations, have highlighted how Boeing and Airbus have these large backlogs and significant need to ramp up production. We give an example like a three fifty, but, you know, there's multiple programs that need to have significantly higher production rates. And with, you know, the industry's even struggle to get back to the previous rates that we were achieving.

32:19 The the underlying question, really, which investors have been asking here is, okay, that's great for the end market demand. How will that turn into growth for VELOSITI? Is it on those current programs? Are we on them already? Or is it new business? Or is it both? So, John, do you want to articulate that that the that area of strategy and sales development? Yeah. So, yeah, where we're obviously contracted with customers on programs like a three fifty, then, you know, the the rate increases would flow through. I think as I mentioned earlier as well, we also see as those rate increases by and as we get past and back up to pre pandemic production levels, we also saw that very helpful as well in terms of new business opportunities just as customers' plans get fuller, get more constrained, multiple programs as Andy talked about ramping back up. At the same time, it obviously makes customers and potential customers look for ways of meeting that demand by outsourcing non core business.

33:33 And as we've talked many times previously around our benefit is not just cost reduction, it's about getting rid of that inventory, getting rid of the floor space that doing this work internally and our customers takes up and allowing them to really focus on building the parts and getting them built and moved on and not to worry about supply chain, which we manage with our technology and VRP system to drive efficiencies that way. So it's two pronged really. We get a benefit from obviously our existing contracts, but also it helps the the overall environment for for outsourcing as well. That's excellent, John. And the we've had a question which is saying that given where our operational performance has continued to improve, and I'll answer this question. It's saying, would we reinstate the formal targets, And would we look at dividend policies in the future?

34:40 And I think the answer is, you know, we would consider those things. Obviously, we got the analysts who put out a forecast. And as most people know, that is done very closely with the company as well and becomes what we call the the market forecast. So there is forecast out there from the analysts which tie into what work they've done with us, and that's gives and the reason we got several analysts, it gives several points of view and opportunities for different people there to ask questions. When we only had one analyst, we did put out some forecasts ourselves. And when we've done some refinancing, we've we've done that to help the market. But at the moment, everything's aligned around that. There's no nothing really hidden or anything. In terms of a dividend policy, at the moment, it doesn't make sense because we need to reinvest any cash we have.

35:37 Longer term, if we can get to the position we want to get to where you saw the financial metrics that John had explained around 10% return on capital, 25% gross margin, 10% operating profit margin, then we should hopefully get into a position where a dividend policy can be established. But I think that's a fair few years away when you consider that we wanna have some big contract wins, which we wanna be able to finance ourselves. The next question is around customer concentration. John, do you do you wanna explain that obviously, we we're to build out our customer base.

36:23 So it's a fair fair point to say there is some significant customer concentration. But maybe explain how even though that does exist at the actual behind that is then the programs themselves are far more spread. Yeah. Thanks, Andy. Well, as you know, we we we do discuss it regularly, internally, and, you know, it's part of of of what we manage. But, yeah, whilst, you know, I think it's just a fact of life that all our customers are large multinational organizations who have, you know, whilst they might have one name and logo, you know, they're very diverse sites in different countries.

37:13 And then each of those sites have different end customer programs as well. A lot of them split civil and defense, multiple platforms as well. So if we look at that overall, they'll spread, it's much more sort of palatable in terms of approaching it from a purely concentration risk perspective. But I think we also do have made a lot of progress in building those long term strategic relationships with key customers as well. So we do have that senior level engagement, which means that as we win business, we then also look at other sites within that customer group and also more work at the sites as well. So I think the opportunity and the challenge for us is to just manage that risk across the program level rather than be too concerned about the customer concentration level, the ultimate customer group level concentration level because I think it's the programs that give us that diversity and security of any impacts to any one program, not having too much of a a detrimental effect of the sort of wider business.

38:27 Thanks, John. And the next question, as we all know, sadly, we we've seen reported in the crash of Air India, the seven eighty seven, which is Boeing's largest plane. And, John, the question here is if that investigation leads to some form of problem with the production, I guess, as we've seen with other aircraft where there may be some delay or anything else on that plane's production in the future, which we have no you know, we we we don't know if that would happen or anything. But, clearly, we have seen it with other aircraft. They've just said if that came to light then, would that potentially have an impact on our forecast going forward, say, for the next eighteen months?

39:19 Mhmm. Yeah. Like I said, Andy, we we have no no news beyond what's out in the public domain. Obviously, a very sad situation in terms of the sort of human impact and is something that certainly anyone in the industry works very hard every day on to maintain quality and safety. But the sort of direct question there and ourselves, I think we have one program that supports an engine variant on seven eighty seven material impact wise, just doing the yeah. It's probably one or 2,000,000, something like that. I mean, it's it's it depends on the sort of the, obviously, outcome of the the investigation.

40:13 But, you know, I think from my own personal reflection to see two engines fail at the same time is a very sort of statistically probable occurrence, and we hope that they find the sort of course quickly and the industry can move forward. But, yeah, it's figure one program where we're on in The US, which supplies parts into seven eight seven. Right. Thanks, John. So you're saying that really maximum 10% impact to the worst case scenario? A lot yeah. Around those around those lines. Yeah. The next question is really I think we've already answered. I've answered it, and, Rob, you've answered this. But it's just saying that, clearly, we've done well now to get that gross margin up.

41:03 It's actually above the 25%. But we are we do plan long term to run the business at at least a 25% margin, don't we, Rob? But clearly, it's great to achieve above that at the moment. But clearly, at times, we've been below that when we've been on a catch up in terms of price changes. Yeah. And the mix of sales as they come through affects the overall gross margin. But we're certainly bidding all new business at greater than 25%. My expectation is we will be between the 2530% going forward.

41:49 Yes. And I think just that we've Ollie, our new COO. And and there's no doubt that from the labor efficiency has significantly improved over the last twelve months, and that's what has been one of the great drivers to get us to the levels of margin which we thought that we should be able to achieve with these contracts. Would you agree, John? Absolutely. Yeah. You know, obviously, all our all our contracts are based on customer saving and we, you know, we drive them and stick to them. And the the focus now is on our own internal operational using the the sort of knowledge that Ollie and the team have have developed and continue to build on.

42:39 And as the sites get busier, as rates recover and new programs start up, then, you know, we'd hope to see further operational efficiencies with scale. Yeah. The next question is really another question just on the Air India. So I'll just won't go into the details because I think John's answered that comprehensively. And, you know, it is not for us to speculate in a formal presentation about what the issues are. And we hope that we can these can be identified as quickly as possible, but our thoughts are always with the families and everyone involved. It just shows why we if you think about how we have had a few growing pains in the last twelve months bringing on board some of those last programs.

43:33 And those last programs are on key elements in the aero engine structures in terms of where the carbon fiber is used. And I think it just demonstrates that, you know, we've gone through a lot of regulatory checks and balances and having to work with our customers to get what is really just the first stage materials to be transferred to us. So, hopefully, that does demonstrate to investors that, you know, the safety controls in the supply chain are very significant. And you you can see how we have had to work through those, and they get even more significant as they come into the final assembly and production and maintenance as well. So that's, I feel, all we can say on on the tragic accident that we have just seen.

44:25 I'm looking, and I can't see any other questions that have now come through. So I will maybe just pass back to John to everyone and give a final sort of thoughts. John, Rob, Andy, thank you for answering all those questions you have for investors. And, of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the investor meet company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to the company, Andy, can I please just ask you for a few closing comments? Alright. Al, sorry. Well, I think that from a board perspective, we're very pleased about the operational improvements that we've seen in the last twelve months.

45:12 Frustrated with some of the just getting the final programs in place, and as I've just explained now, then something happens in the industry and you realize why, you know, there is that very, very tight regulation. And the way to turn this around in the thought process is it means that it it does actually create a very big moat when you are then providing those services. And in the background, I know it can be frustrating, but we have a very lot of opportunities going on. It's just that there's a huge amount of engineering work that gets done up front to satisfy a point where you can sign a contract.

45:59 And it's only on the signing of the contracts we feel that we should make a serious announcement rather than in the stages before that as it it is you know, that there is always a timing issue. I I feel that, you know, we we will go back into serious levels of growth over the next two years on the back of both new contracts and the relationships that we've already developed now. And what I do see and I'm really pleased about is customers and their customers actually referring new business opportunities to us. And that was always part of our strategy in hitting The US in particular to see to get known, and that's taken time to market ourselves to get round the new opportunities and to say we are here. We have a factory, and we're ready to go. And there's no doubt in my view in the last six months in particular, we've seen very significant traction in that side of the opportunities. So I feel that it's a solid set of results in what was a very difficult market period with a clear improvement operationally, and it builds the foundation for further growth going forward. So thank you, everyone. Appreciate those that have invested.

47:28 We're open to communication with anyone and site visits if if required. John, Rob, Andy, thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of VELLOCITY COMPOSITES PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.