VP (LSE:VP.) — Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st March 2022

0:01 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the VP PLC Full Year Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab that's 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 will review all of the questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. These will be available via your investor meet company

0:32 dashboard, and we will notify you by email when these are ready for your review. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I'd now like to hand you over to CEO, Neil Stoffard. Good morning. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. I'm Neil Stoffard, the CEO and VP. I'm Alison Bainbridge, Group Finance Director. So we're looking forward to telling you a bit about our results for the year ended the 03/01/2022 for VP PLC, the equipment rental specialist. We're I will run through the highlights and market and trading review, and Alison will complete the presentation talking to the financial review.

1:23 This photograph, we say we're an equipment rental specialist. I think it's worth just focusing on this photograph. This is in Gothenburg. It's a large metro contract for our ground force business. You can see this is a highly complex and highly skilled offer that we have and a great demonstration of how we are a specialist in equipment rental. I'll start with the highlights. We had a material growth in profits of 67% year on year. We're very pleased with that, albeit we realized that this was on the back of a COVID hit and impacted year prior year, but 67% is good progress.

2:13 One of the highlights of the results is the recovery and the quality of earnings of the business. They're back to our pre COVID levels of return on capital employed at 14.5%. Alison will talk to ROC in her section, but it's a it is a highlight for us that we're back to the same quality of earnings that we were three years ago. In terms of our markets, I talk to these in more detail later, but in highlights, infrastructure strength from HS2 and transmission was good. The AMP7 water program and rail CP6 programs were a bit slower, but they did improve at the end of the final quarter.

3:00 Excuse me. In general construction, we also saw mixed behavior going on. Strong repair and maintenance revenues were balanced by weaker new build activity. Housebuilding held up well throughout the year and the international division saw a steady recovery in profits. We invested nearly 50% more in our CapEx in our fleet this year with an emphasis on lower emission solutions for our customers. We did make significant progress on overall ESG implementation and indeed in our in technology and our digital innovation across the group in the period. And final highlight would be that we acquired M and S Hire, which is an acquisition we made in the back end of twenty twenty one, which gives us a good exposure to the commercial fit out market.

3:57 And right at the end of the financial year, we acquired the plant and tools fleet of Walkin Jones PLC and entered into a five year trading agreement with that company.

4:12 Headlines, again, we'll talk to these in more detail later, but 40% increase in revenues to $351,000,000 PBTA to 38,900,000 at improved margins, return on average capital employed at 14.5%, and net debt increase of 8,700,000 after $59,800,000 investment in the fleet.

4:40 In terms of revenues, we made material improvements in our revenues in these results. We're not quite back to where we were pre COVID, but we are well on track. I think the final element of the closing the gap to 2019 will come as and when some of the markets which have still been laggards in the recovery do recover in due course, and I'll talk to that later in the market slide. In terms of profits, after material and not unexpected drop in profitability during the pandemic, we've shown very good recovery in these results and back to double digit margins of 11%.

5:28 Now to the market and trading review. I think understanding the core markets that VP supports is critical to understanding the performance of the business and the opportunity within the business. This slide shows our relative exposures to what we see as our key market areas of infrastructure, construction, house build, and energy. We also have other markets. They include outdoor events. They include aviation, defense, mining, and medical. But for the purpose of this presentation, I'll focus on the top four. In infrastructure, we experienced a positive 12% improvement in activity with highlights being the engagements on the HS2 contract and also in transmission work.

6:25 The important rail and amp markets to VP, and those of you that know VP well will understand that they are an important part of the infrastructure exposure that we have. They were slower than expected during the summer, particularly last year. Pleasingly in q four, towards the end of q four, we started to see some of the work come through, and we also saw some of the rail projects that we're involved in starting to pick up as well. In terms of construction, I mentioned about repair and maintenance markets being to the full whilst the new build was slower.

7:12 Private commercial and public residential were weak, and I talked to that at the macro level on my next slide. House building, 4% increase looks relatively modest, but it was a sustained level of demand. The housebuilding market recovered actually more quickly after the start of the pandemic than perhaps any of the markets we were involved in. We've been growing from a lower base, if you like, in house build, and we're very pleased with the activity in house building. We're continuing to make good progress in winning new customers in that segment.

7:58 Energy was also very positive, 26% improvement. That's partially because we've seen our well test activity pick up and also pipeline maintenance work, but the energy numbers spike a little bit because we did a major shutdown at the Valero refinery in Southwest Wales at the start of the financial year, which gave that segment a boost. So there, that's the run through on our core market segments. To try and put some context into our experience on that, I've got four graphs, four charts here which show which draw on the Experian UK construction forecast for spring this year.

8:54 For casting at the moment, obviously, is quite tricky, but these, I think, are represent good representation of how we see these markets as well. On the top line, the new infrastructure chart shows that the impact of the pandemic in infrastructure spend was relatively modest. It did dip, but it was relatively modest fall, and it's been followed by sharp recovery in the last twelve months with the potential for further recovery thereafter. Similarly, in new housing, we saw a sharp drop with a rapid recovery and with an ongoing prospect of housing activity continuing to grow into '23 and '24.

9:42 And in the bottom right quarter, we've got total repair and maintenance. And that again illustrates the fact that maintenance activity picked up very quickly post the pandemic and the prospects for that segment remain very good for us. Their positives, I think those macro charts reflect our experience at a micro level in terms of businesses' performance. Where the gap, I believe, lies is in the chart in the bottom left quadrant where new nonresidential, which actually started to fall pre the pandemic, post Brexit, that construction works off the fall away. It's accelerated its drop off, and in the 2021 calendar, it has only flattened as opposed to other markets which have picked up quite quickly.

10:48 New non residential is about 21% in experience view. It's about 21% of the total UK market. And what that chart showing is that that's nothing like back to where it was, not only pre COVID, but also pre pre Brexit. And the recovery that's expected is is tangible but relatively modest. And I think that recovery, whenever that may come, is another opportunity for us. We as a business have been obviously diverting our energies towards those markets that are growing, but nevertheless, some form of recovery in elements of new nonresidential, which include public nonresidential, private industrial, and private commercial would be very beneficial to the group.

11:42 By way of example, to finish on this slide, new nonresidential would include schools, hospitals, leisure, and offices. So it's I think that some of those segments, it is feasible that those are going to pick up in due course, but we're not banking on it.

12:04 Moving to the group performance, business the group delivered 14% improvement in revenue with 56 increase in profits operating profits to 43,300,000 The incremental revenue drop through is to profit is very strong, and I've showed that at 36% margin. So that, I think, illustrates the gearing operation gearing impact to the business, which has a number of fixed costs. If we can put more through on the top line, then we can get more profit coming through below. And that, I think, is a key driver to operating margins going up from nine to 12.3%.

12:53 These results, which in our view are very good, have been delivered in a market backdrop, as you've just heard from me, which is not yet back to pre COVID levels. The UK, which is the main driver for the group's performance this year, similar increments in profitability and revenue and also in terms of operating margin. I talked about the markets infrastructure, HS2, and transmission. The businesses within the group which benefit from infrastructure activities such as HS2 transmission include our TPA business, our ground force business.

13:39 Those businesses that are and and they've both been highly involved in both HS2 and transmission work, ourself ESS,

13:51 but those businesses are also, in particular, ground force impacted by slower AMP program. We're now coming into year three from April of the AMP program, and we are starting to see more work coming through, and I think that's going to be a positive for us in the coming twelve months.

14:12 CP six, which is rail, that also is a critical part for Torrent and Torrent trackside business. Again, after a slow 2021, but the Torrent has seen activity levels pick up particularly in the Transpentine upgrade work, Southwest Wales, Corvalli lines contract, and also just general CP six activity. Construction repair and maintenance has been busy, as I said. That's very positive for the likes of Brandon and for MEP. But equally, new build being quieter than on residential

15:01 sort of flattening off is also means that the likes of Brandon are not as busy in that segment as they perhaps could have been if we had a better market backdrop, but that's a latent opportunity. Housebuilding consistent demand has been very good for UK Forks. One of the challenges for UK Forks has been that getting new product has been difficult, and that has meant that we've hung on to our fleets a bit longer than we would normally do to make sure that we were able to satisfy customer demand, which has remained very good through that process.

15:41 Margin improvement illustrates operational leverage, but it also reflects the fact that we're combating inflationary cost increases with price improvements in terms of higher rates, and that's certainly been a success for us in the last twelve months. International, as you can see, smaller activity, but it has made a reasonable recovery. Unlike in The UK, most of the jurisdictions where our international business operates have lagged The UK and Europe in terms of opening up from lockdown. They haven't had they're probably three or four months behind The UK in terms of business getting back to some form of normality as a result of COVID.

16:39 And therefore, I think in that context, these are very good results for them. I think it will continue to improve as we get a twelve month hopefully, fingers crossed, twelve month clear window on that.

16:53 In terms of our air plant rental business, they rely on being able to move operators across borders. Our customers rely on being able to move equipment across borders, etcetera. So there was an inevitable slowing of that business through the pandemic. But again, as borders reopen, we're starting to see a recovery in our energy activity.

17:25 Like any rental business, we have to make sure that our fleet remains in good condition and is appropriate to what customers require, and we continue to do that. We have a very fresh and well

17:43 aged fleet. We spent £60,000,000 in the year on new fleet, which is a 50% increase on prior year. This was a mix of growth, backing growth in those businesses, which have recovered quickly from the pandemic and securing new opportunities. It also reflects a bit of preemptive investment to try to make sure that we've got the right level of supply for our customers given that lead times from suppliers have largely extended quite significantly over the last twelve, eighteen months. But nevertheless, that's a healthy investment, which we're pleased with. Within that investment, there's a strong emphasis on eco friendly products as a substitution.

18:35 We're engaging both with manufacturers in making sure that we are producing the best solutions which are reliable and do deliver sustainability improvement. And we're also engaging with our customers who are hungry for those solutions. So we're continuing to improve the quality of our fleet in the normal way, but we're also managing to retire the a lot of the petrol and diesel powered equipment with battery and solar powered equipment as substitutes. And then the final comment on this slide was capital commitments.

19:21 We've got 14,500,000 of orders at March 31 for CapEx. That's a bit higher than we would normally have, and that again reflects the fact that we have to order much earlier than we used to do to ensure that we're going to get the delivery of the equipment that we require to run the business.

19:43 ESG is an important topic for us within the group. We have commitment to science based targets initiative, which underpins our ESG or our environmental plan. We have a short term roadmap, which is at the back of the presentation, which has been adopted within the group and and is well understood and being delivered on. I mentioned in the CapEx slide, we've invested in new rental fleet focused on greener solutions. We've these include solar panel lighting,

20:16 particularly used in the rail sector, new charge pod designs, which are used on sites, and widen increasing range of battery powered tools of all varieties.

20:28 And finally, starting to build on our fleet of electric compressors, electric telehandlers, and electric mini excavators. 71% of the group's fleet are actually zero emission at point of use. So 29% by definition of our of our fleet does generate emissions through the likes of petrol or diesel engines, for example. But our target is to continue to reduce that as we can and as the solutions are secured from the manufacturers.

21:08 Internally, vehicle and property emission reduction is a focus. We're looking at lower emission commercial vehicle replacements across the commercial fleet. It can be car fleets transition to sustainable vehicles. We have renewable electricity to learn UK locations, and we're installing solar panels at key locations across country. 96% of our waste is diverted away from landfill. We've also committed to seven separate UK conservation projects, which are now well established and with colleague engagement opportunities for people within the business to engage on those biodiversity projects. And and finally, my my my my comment on environmental is that sharing resources, which is what we do in the rental market.

22:03 This concept makes rental actually a fundamentally eco friendly option because the product is being shared is a shared resource and not a sole owned resource. My final slide on outlook. We're continuing to deliver market leading quality of earnings measured by both ROCE and the margin. Our new financial year started well and in line with where we expected it to. We've seen an encouraging pickup in AMP7, which is water and CP6 rail activity into the new financial year. And HS2 does remain a long term opportunity for us.

22:45 Residential construction is stable and robust. And then in terms of supply chain, we are encountering delays and we there are inflationary pressures out there, but we are having good success in negotiating rental price improvements with our customers and also, obviously, continuing to drive cost efficiencies to mitigate the worst of the inflation increase. The labor market remains very tight. Recruitment, as in any business, I think, the moment is much tougher than it used to be. And apart from doing the obvious in making sure that we are paying at the right level, we're also investing in the the futures of our colleagues by mobilizing more activity in learning and development, and we've developed a completely new program in that area, which is now underway and and very much focused on allowing colleagues to develop and to look at career progression within the group.

23:53 And our digital roadmap has continued to evolve across a number of our businesses. We launched our in particular, we launched our new web app in Brandon High Station in January together with their new website, and we think that's going to provide a useful platform for further growth. I've talked about environmental, but we have got excellent momentum in environmental initiatives, and we are delivering sustainable solutions to customers. We won't be talking anymore about formal sale process announced in April, but we did announce that. The important message to shareholders is despite that announcement, it is very much business as usual within the group, and everyone is very engaged in continuing to deliver on our plans.

24:47 And certainly, that is my view of how that's going. So we're well positioned to make further good progress as we embrace the opportunities and also manage through the inevitable challenges which the current market is casting to us. So that's my piece. I'm going to hand over to Alison who's going to talk to you about the financial highlights of the results. Alison? Thank you, Neil, and good morning, everybody. So on the financial review, my first slide would be the financial highlights. Neil has touched on most of the the highlights in the course of his presentation, but I will reiterate the fact that we have got a good set of results with a 14% increase in revenue and a 56% increase in profits.

25:32 Another key measure for us as well is our EBITDA. We generate cash strong cash flows, and they were up 22% in the year. Earnings per share and dividends. We've had growth in our earnings per share in line with growth in profit, and we are proposing a final dividend of 25.5p per share subject to shareholder approval, and that would make a 36p per year full year dividend. This reflects a rebasing more towards a two times cover, which we trailed our interim results and a more balanced interim final split. There is a large uplift year on year of the dividend per share, but that reflects the fact that we didn't have an interim dividend in 2021 due to the uncertainty caused by COVID-nineteen.

26:20 And here, this slide chart shows the long term view of our dividends, and you can see that we have progressively grown our dividends over the years. And apart from the blip, which was caused by COVID, we have grown those in line with that growth in our profitability over the period. And again, a key measure for the group is our return on capital employed. We're very keen that we don't just deliver growth in in revenues, but we have quality of earnings. And this is our measure to make sure that we do do that both through our organic growth and through growth for acquisitions. I'm pleased to say that we have returned to our pre COVID levels of fourteen and a half percent. As a group, we target fifteen percent through the cycle, and you can see that we've broadly achieved that over the period. And also, I'd like to point out the fact that this is well ahead of our weighted average cost of capital at 8%.

27:18 Two of the features of the group, I mentioned the cash generation. We also have a strong balance sheet, which helps us grow and capitalize on that. Higher fleet is the largest number on our balance sheet. And Neil mentioned that we have grown that by £10,600,000 during the year by investing £59,000,000 in the year. The other point I'd point to is we have had a reversal of working capital. COVID inevitably meant that we did benefit from a working capital inflow in FY twenty one. And as we've recovered from the COVID pandemic, this has reversed during the year. Net debt, of course, a slide later on that, on cash that grew increased by GBP 8,700,000, which we see as being marginal considering the size of the capital investment that we made and also the small acquisition that we did as well.

28:06 Debt today, I'm pleased to say, has gone down by one day. We feel that that's at the right level. We try and balance making sure that we take appropriate amounts of risk so that we can grow and develop the business, but also we keep that one under control. And bad debt write off as a percentage of revenue is sort of at historic levels, which is the the same as it has been for a number of years at around half a percent of our revenues. Strong cash generation has continued. As I've mentioned, the EBITDA was up to 88,900,000. I've also referenced the reversal in the working capital, which is due to our recovery from COVID and the large amount of capital expenditure that we've had. So the modest increase of net debt of GBP 8,700,000 and the unwinding of the working capital inflows are demonstrated here.

28:57 My final two slides are on our net debt facilities and on our covenants. During the year, we did a refinancing. So we had GBP 135,000,000 RCF, which was due to mature during the period. So we refinanced that. We did that in two ways. We'd already had in place a private placement, and so we had a further shelf for that, and we drew down another 28,000,000. And also, we had a put in place a 90,000,000 revolving capital facility. So that gives us committed committed facilities of 183,000,000. And at the year end, we had headroom of GBP 60,000,000 over that. The this fixed debt, I think, puts us in a good place. We have 51% of our facilities at fixed rates. And also there's five to six years to maturity on those facilities, and the RCF matures in June 2024.

29:50 And then finally, on our facilities, we have two covenants. One is EBITDA interest cover, which has to be greater than three times, and you can see that at the year end, it was 10.12 times, so plenty of headroom there. And the other one is that net debt EBITDA has to be less than two and a half times. And at the year end, it was 1.3 times, so well within our covenants. That's my final slide. So if I do escape, just use that button. We're able to take some questions. Alison, that's great, Neil, 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 team take a few moments to review those questions submitted already, I would 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.

30:46 Neil Allison, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. Thank you to all the investors for submitting their questions. If I could please just hand back to you to run through that q and a tab and where it's appropriate to do so, if you could please just read out the questions and give your response, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'll read the question. I'll let Neil answer. So the first question is what trends are you seeing in the market from an inflationary point of view? And are there any supply constraints impacting the business? Yeah. I I did touch on that briefly in the presentation. Yes. The inflation is a a challenge as as it is, I think, for all businesses at the moment. We're seeing inflation increase in our acquire the price we're paying for our CapEx, the fleet.

31:37 We are certainly incurring increased costs for fuel, transport, and that is a a challenge, if you like, that we've not seen for some years. We're mitigating. I think we're we're doing well against those challenges at the moment. In terms of CapEx, we are we we as a rental company, we've got the ability to spread that increased cost over a number of years. It's not like we're buying an inflated a a piece of kit that says an inflated cost, which we then have to sell the following day, we will run that equipment for three, five, seven, nine, whatever years, depending on what it is. And and that gives us the ability to absorb the impact of that increase in capital cost over time rather than be presented with an immediate problem.

32:38 Our way of mitigating that is to negotiate, as I said in the presentation, to negotiate improved pricing with our customers. I think there is a realization and an acceptance within the customer base that these price increases are to be expected, we are making good progress on that. So I'd say that we are encountering inflation within the business, But at the moment, I think that we're largely mitigating the impact of that. Okay. Thank you. Good answer. So with infrastructure and construction at circa 77% of market exposure, will you look to M and A to balance the different segments?

33:24 Where would your focus be? I think the fact that infrastructure and constructions are three quarters of the of the business three quarters of the business is is not something that gives us concern. The the the reason it's at that level is because we're comfortable with this at that level. We like infrastructure because it gives more visibility. There's more of a commitment. It is volatile, as I've said before about the infrastructure market, whilst there is regulation, regulatory bodies involved, and there is a commitment there. It doesn't always necessarily happen when you're expecting it, and point to the AMP and rail comments as I made earlier.

34:21 And in construction, I think that we our exposure to repair and maintenance is balanced against against new build, but we're not concerned. The same equipment on new build is used on repair and maintenance. So it's up to us as a business to target those areas where there is growth and possibly at the expense of those areas that we may have historically worked in. In regard to m and a, therefore, I don't think we're looking to build in specifically in, say, house build and energy as the other segments to somehow level the playing field. They're just not as big a markets for us, and we're quite happy with that. I think m and a, which we've not I'll just comment on m and a. M and a is something that we've not engaged in particularly much over the last two, three years mainly because of the pandemic where but we did make the acquisition of M and S higher in November, December last year.

35:27 We also bought Joaquin Jones fleet in March. And and as I've said on a number of calls, think that as the this year evolves, I think vendors that were thinking of selling and exiting, I think there's a it it's quite possible that more of those will come to the fore during 2022 and certainly into 2023, which will create more opportunity. So m and a and organic growth will always be fundamental partners for us in within VP and growing business. And I'd just add us with the energy sector, that has been very subdued for a number of years. I suppose there is a, to a degree, an element that if those markets recover, then there'd be an increase in inorganic growth in that sense. Yeah. Yeah.

36:17 No. Definitely. Okay. That's all. So I'll read this slowly. Please may I ask a question on the competitive environment across the various divisions? Does the company hold leading market positions in any of the sectors in which it operates? Yeah. I mean, our the rental market has always been competitive and and I think always will be. I think that my view of the wider rental market is that unlike after the last recession where we saw a lot of competitors in difficulty, I think that as we've come out of the pandemic, the market is generally in much better shape.

37:12 I think there's less propensity of rental companies to try to be all things to all people by investing in lots of different areas. I think that rental companies are tending to stick to what they are good at. There's different models out there. There's different ways of operating. And the fact that they are different, I think, is healthy. It's healthy for customers. It gives customers a choice. We believe in the model that we operate in, but that doesn't make other models irrelevant or wrong. In terms of market positions, that's quite fundamental to VP's structure that many years ago when we exited our general plant hire division, we one of the key elements was that we felt that we needed to be specialists.

38:11 We needed to develop strong market positions across all our businesses, and the truth is that we do have leading market positions. Leading might not be number one, but it's certainly in the top one or two or three pretty well in all the divisions we operate in either in The UK or internationally. And that's an important and and a great strength of the group. Thank you. Okay. Next question. What ambitions do you have to grow international operations? So in terms of the clearly, the international division is is somewhat smaller than The UK at the moment. Again, the reason for international is that we like the idea of a sort of three-dimensional exposure of the group.

39:08 Geographic and geographic is is one of those exposures. So having some resilience against The UK economy by having activities both internationally, and know it is international, but from our point of view, Europe, European our European activities are actually reported in The UK division. It's very important as a resilience against just being strong in The UK market. And overall, if you take into account our European businesses, that's Republic Of Ireland, Germany, Austria, etcetera, that we we our revenues are about 17% ex UK.

39:56 So I I prefer I think my target some time ago was to get that to above 20%. But in truth, for all sorts of reasons, not least of which point that Alison made earlier about the energy markets being very quiet for some years now, is that that's held back the ability to grow the international market. So, we would like to do more internationally. We're certainly capable of doing more internationally, and that would be both in Asia Pacific and Australasia, but also in Mainland Europe as well. They're the two key geographic regions of growth. Okay. So we have one final question, which is a good one.

40:41 So has residual value of equipment increased significantly? Are you booking now a larger gain on the disposal of equipment? Yeah. So the short answer is yes. Residuals have improved quite well. I think that it's a bit like the car used car market. I think that's it's a very similar scenario where acquiring new is both more expensive, it's slower, it's less available, and we've seen residuals go up. However, the ability to secure the those gains on sale have been deliberately subdued by us because we would rather keep the equipment on fleet a year longer to make sure that our customers are not let down where they need to rent products.

41:42 So we are hanging on to some equipment longer than we would have done historically, which is not detrimental to the quality of the business. We will still be able to sell that fleet in a year's time if that's how long it takes, which it could do for the supply chain issues to subside. But at the moment, where we are selling equipment and those I think it was 17,000,000 proceeds in these results, so we're not stopping. We're just that we could do more, and historically, if we see residuals where they are, we'd have probably been doing more selling, but there is a reason why residuals are where they are. And that's because we can't get new as much new product as we would like.

42:28 So yeah. So so so gain on sale is holding up well as a result. We could do more in a different market, but at the moment, we're hanging on to equipment. And that arguably is slightly subduing our bottom line profitability. Okay. Let's just finish with the questions. Neil, Alison, thank you very much indeed for taking the time to address all of those questions that came in from investors this morning. And of course, if there are any further questions submitted today, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended for your review. And ladies and gentlemen, we'll publish all those responses where it's appropriate to do so on the investor meet company platform, and you'll be notified by email when they're ready for your review. Neil, perhaps we're redirecting those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company. If I could just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that'd be great.

43:21 Yep. No. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for all of you that have been listening in today. I hope that you are more appraised and understand the backdrop to these results. I reiterate, I think they're very good results. I think they're the best in the market. The new financial year started well. We're not back to where we were, but I don't think that's anything to do with us as a business. I think that's about certain of our markets not being back to where they they could be. So we're certainly, as I said, well positioned for further good progress in the next twelve months and we look forward to delivering on that. Thank you for your questions.

44:06 That's great, Neil. Alison, thank you very much indeed for taking the time to update investors today. 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 better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure we'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of VP PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good morning to you all.