Serco Group H2 2024 Earnings Report

Serco Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 16.67
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Serco Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Serco Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: H2 2024
• Date: 2/27/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 27, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00AM ET

Serco brings together the right people, the right technology, and the right partners to create innovative solutions that make a positive impact and address some of the most urgent and complex challenges facing the modern world. With a primary focus on serving governments globally, Serco's services are powered by more than 50,000 people working across defence, space, migration, justice, healthcare, mobility, and customer services. Serco's core capabilities include service design and advisory, resourcing, complex programme management, systems integration, case management, engineering, and asset & facilities management. Underpinned by Serco's unique operating model, Serco drives innovation and supports customers from service discovery through to delivery. More information can be found at www.serco.com

Serco Group H2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Serco's twenty twenty four Full Year Results, both to the people who have joined us here in person at RBC as well as the participants who have joined us via the live stream. I'm Mark Owen, the Circle Group Chief Executive. I'm joined today by our Group Chief Financial Officer, Nigel Crossley and Anthony Kirby, who currently leads our UK and Europe division, and as we announced in January, has been appointed by the Serco Board as my successor to lead the group from the March 1. I would also like to acknowledge two members of our Serco Board who have joined us today, our Chairman, John Rishten and the Chair of the Board Risk Committee, Ian El Mokhedem. In terms of our agenda, I will provide an overview of our 2024 performance and an update on the execution of our enterprise growth strategy.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Nigel will take you through the detailed financials for the operating period before handing to Anthony, who will cover progress in our UK and Europe division. We will then wrap up the presentation part of the agenda and move to Q and A. Our 2024 results reflect another strong year of operational and financial performance across the group and continued progress against our long term strategy. As reported in our pre closed trading update, we accelerated trading momentum through the second half of twenty twenty four. This allowed us to achieve full year revenue in line with our guidance, deliver a 30% increase in second half profitability when compared to the same period in the prior year and an increase of 10% overall in our underlying operating profit on a full year basis.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

We delivered a meaningful improvement in margins, which has taken us well into the 5% to 6% target range we set. And we've had a very strong close for cash for the year. This strong financial performance enabled us to deliver on every element of our capital allocation framework, which Nigel will speak to in more detail shortly. These results are the consequence of driving execution through getting below the headlines to optimize our portfolio performance. It's about growing beyond the year by developing and converting a high quality pipeline and by being deliberate in the allocation of resources and capital for the benefit of the enterprise.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Our people strategy to ensure that we have the right people in the right place doing the right thing has seen vacancy rates down 62% over the past two years. And we've maintained the trust of our customers through credible and consistent operational delivery, while keeping our colleagues safer. We achieved a 22% reduction in lost time injuries, resulting in 4,004 hundred and fifty nine fewer lost working days last year alone. From the mobilization of our health assessment services contract in The UK to the rapid deployment of a number of new fire and rescue contracts in The Middle East to meet growing demand in the region, Our operational approach has been to mobilize, stabilize and then optimize in order to strengthen our customer relationships and support the continued strong retention rates in the business. Our retention in our two largest geographies last year was more than 95%.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

By way of example, one key rebut to call out is the US200 million dollars Veterans Transition Program, which following the successful award in September has already increased in scope and value as the customer recognized that we can bring better outcomes to an increased number of veterans in The U. S. A focus on in contract productivity and efficiency has delivered a 60 basis point improvement in margins. And we continue to explore ways for technology to work to support the effectiveness of our processes and the productivity of our colleagues. And on growth, we entered the year with a robust pipeline of new business opportunities and a clear focus on conversion.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

We built momentum as we went through the year with an improving trend in both organic revenue and strengthened order intake. Despite the disappointing outcome of the Australian immigration rebid, we ended the year with billion of order intake, over 40% of which came from our U. S. Business. The book to bill of 82%, which we reported at the end of the first half, improved to 102 on a full year basis.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

And our order book now sits at above billion excluding U. S. Extensions and our share of joint venture revenues. And we ended the year with a decade high pipeline of good quality opportunities to fuel ongoing growth. We continue to actively manage our portfolio, both in terms of underlying performance as well as across the world to ensure that the prioritization and resources of capital go to higher growth, higher value areas.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

As we continue to see, including in recent days, geopolitical risk is driving governments across the world to significantly increase investment in defense and national security. The two areas have been prioritized in our portfolio to look at where we can grow in defense services and geographically a very clear focus on North America. And we've already begun to see the benefits of aligning this prioritization to our pipeline and our acquisition activity. With 40% of the order intake coming from the defense sector, we expect our defense services business to be around billion of the group's revenue by the end of this year and we continue to see more demand from long term structural drivers. More broadly, we believe The U.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

S. As a geographic market continues to offer significant opportunity for profitable growth. In recent years, we've doubled the revenue and trebled the profit of our U. S. Business to a $2,000,000,000 portfolio delivering 10% margins, and we estimate that we still only have just over 1% market share.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

We therefore believe that there is further opportunity at a time when the U. S. Government clearly has renewed emphasis on increasing government efficiency. I'd like to spend just a few minutes to touch on the program we've been executing for organic growth in relation to people services in the defense sector. Serco has a track record of training the next generation Australian Navy officers at HMIS Watson's Bay of providing on base clinical workforce to the Australian Defence Force of providing psychological support services to the U.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of supporting thousands of U. S. Military Veterans as they transition back to civilian life of delivering flying training support to the Royal Navy air stations, Yerbelton and Colerose. So we are building on this long standing support for the military by broadening our capabilities in the services which we believe are mission focused, tech led and people enabled.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

This value proposition has supported the win on H2F, which we announced in January, a $250,000,000 contract to support 45 U. S. Army brigades to enhance physical and non physical performance. And our mission to bring together the right people, the right technology and the right partners was crucial to the recently announced award of more than billion for the UK Armed Forces recruitment service contract. The technology stack that sits behind this cutting edge contract demonstrates our increased confidence with digital and technology based solutioning to deliver, in this case, a candidate led, data driven and cost effective service in partnership with the MOD.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

And as mentioned, we see targeted and disciplined M and A as an important part of our overall growth strategy. The $327,000,000 acquisition of Northrop Grumman's Mission Training and Satellite Ground Systems business is expected to complete around mid-twenty twenty five and will further strengthen our position in military training and ground satellite markets. The deal is near term accretive from a value perspective and over the medium term, increases our growth potential in both our U. S. Platform as well as our international defense sector.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

To give you a sense of the asset, I'll briefly touch on two key contracts in the MTNS portfolio. The first is demand. This recently awarded ten year contract has a ceiling value of USD 800,000,000. And through this, we will own, operate and maintain the network across more than 100 U. S.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Air Force sites, enabling multiple aircraft simulation platforms and locations to conduct training and mission readiness exercises simultaneously without incurring the cost of actual fight hours. The second contract is the Mission Command Training Program, which delivers a combination of live, virtual and constructive training for U. S. Army commanders. MCTP simulates combat environments for advanced tactics, testing and training in an operationally and economically efficient delivery model.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

The MTNS portfolio is around 40% Army, about 30% Air Force and 10% U. S. Space Force, building on the already strong position we have with U. S. Navy.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Now I spoke earlier this year at our half year results about the key capability areas that we are building in our defense portfolio. And as you can see, the recent organic wins as well as the MTNS acquisition reinforces our position across the strategic areas that we've been focusing on. And just before I leave this slide, I wanted to highlight that it's not just about adding more capability, but leveraging synergy across capability areas as we have done, for example, by applying next generation technologies to our naval design capability. Working with the U. S.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Defense Research Projects Agency, DARPA, Serco's next gen design is a first in class long endurance medium unmanned surface vessel, which will allow the ship to operate at sea fully unmanned for a twelve month period. I had the opportunity in Seattle last week to do a walk through of Defiant just ahead of her sea trials coming up in a few weeks. Everything from the pioneering automated ATSI refueling system to BSX, which is a platform through which we can generate millions of potential designs of alternate capability sets to meet mission and performance requirements tells us that this is not a shipbuilding program that uses technology, but a technology program that has delivered a ship with improved endurance, flexible mission payloads and reduced cost per hour to operate. I'm confident that this focused deliberate approach to targeting attractive high value sectors and markets will continue to see Sertos succeed. More broadly, we continue to believe that the structural drivers of demand continue to create intense pressures on government to partner with the private sector for support.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

We've talked previously about the four forces that drive demand. We believe that these are further bolstered by new and evolving challenges. Pasoned by deglobalization and ongoing conflicts, managing geopolitical risk not only encourages defense spending but creates a broader need for wider resilience and enhanced sovereign capability. We know the global race for talent continues and the enduring technological revolution, now accelerated by the rapid development of AI, has not left public services untouched. Our value proposition to help governments to do more and better with less is arguably stronger today than it's ever been.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

So we believe that with an addressable market of around £870,000,000,000 in the areas where we have capability and in our four geographies, there remains plenty of opportunity for us to grow. I'd like to conclude my comments this morning with this slide, which shows that the last five years have been transformational for Serco, for our shareholders and for our colleagues. Over the period, the business has delivered 8.4% growth CAGR, more than doubled our pipeline for future growth. Our profit has increased from 120,000,000 to £274,000,000 And importantly, we've converted that profit to cash and generated over billion of free cash flow. I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

It's been a privilege for me to be a part of the team that's taken this business through its turnaround under Rupert's leadership and then to go on myself to lead the group in recent years to its next phase of growth. I'm confident that the platform that we've created will mean that the next five years will be equally strong in terms of its performance under Anthony's leadership. And with that, I will now hand over to Nigel to take us through the detail of our 2024 financials.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Thank you, Mark, and good morning to everybody. I'll start off with an overview of the group's financial performance in 2024. And Mark's already covered the highlights of these strong results. However, there are a few points I'd like to pull out. And the first relates to the strong performance we delivered in the second half of the year when the underlying operating profit increased by 30% compared to the same period in 2023.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And the second half free cash flow was million and the order intake was billion. And while organic revenue growth for the full year was minus 3%, this does not tell the full story. Organic growth was flat in the second half, offsetting a 5% headwind from expected lower volumes on The UK immigration contract. And this was also an improvement from the 5% decline we saw in the first half of the year. The second point relates to the European immigration business, EHC, that we acquired earlier this year and that has performed strongly.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And while revenues are broadly in line with our expectations, the profitability of the contracts has been stronger. And in the last three years, through a combination of organic and inorganic growth, the European business has grown from around million in 2021 to over billion last year. And the EHC acquisition has established a strong base in Germany for future organic growth. And then finally on this slide, underlying operating profit margin improved by 60 basis points in 2024. And encouragingly, this is high quality margin performance as it's all been derived from gross profit.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And this has been achieved through a combination of improvements on underperforming contracts, increased contract productivity, agreeing new terms with customers and on contract organic revenue growth offsetting some higher in year mobilization costs. I'm pleased that we've seen these margins improve in all four of our divisions, which reflects the efficiency and productivity program of work that we kicked off this year. And we are confident there are further opportunities to improve the efficiency and productivity of our business. So going through the divisional performance reviews, I'm going to start with North America. And for the full year, organic revenue was up 1% from new business wins, offsetting the impact of exiting several lower margin contracts and the reduced CMS revenues.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

In the second half of the year, we've seen a step up in revenue, reporting organic growth of 5% with the Defense Feed business leading the way on growth. And underlying operating profit margin was 10.3%, up slightly on last year, which is particularly pleasing in light of this including the first full year of new terms for both the CMS and the FEMA contracts. And this margin has been achieved by improving contract performance and productivity as well as delivering efficiency in the indirect cost base. And order intake for the full year was billion, which was delivered which has delivered a very strong book to bill outturn. Over half of that order intake was for new business with the defense accounting for the majority of the new wins.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And equally important for growth is the retention of existing business, which was very strong with re bid win rates of 96%. The order intake coupled with the second half revenue growth provides good momentum as we move into 2025. And the order intake of billion in the second half of the year has resulted in a smaller pipeline than was reported in June. This, however, remains a healthy at billion of new business opportunities with three quarters of those opportunities in defense. And towards the middle of the year, the pipeline will be supplemented further by the acquisition of MTNS, whose capabilities will broaden the range of new business opportunities we can bid for.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Next up, Anthony is going to take us through a deeper dive on The UK and Europe business. So I will not dwell on this slide other than just to point out we've made real we've had a good year and made particularly good progress with 100 margin points of improvements on profit margin in The UK and E in 2024. So moving on to Asia Pacific. As you'll all be aware, we lost the immigration rebid at the end of last year, which was significant for this region. That said, we remain confident that we have a good base business in the region that can be further developed.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

We are pleased with the progress made towards a turnaround during 2024, the first full year under new management. There's been material improvement in some underperforming contracts and we have worked to right size the cost structure of the organization. And while there's further work to do in 2025 and to build out the pipeline of new business opportunities, which we always knew that this would this part of the recovery would have the longest lead time to return to long term profitable growth. The loss of the immigration business did however require us to revisit our balance sheet valuation of goodwill. And while we have plans to further improve the performance of the business, to be compliant with accounting standards, we cannot take credit for these future plans.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And consequently, for accounting purposes only, we have booked a non cash exceptional impairment charge of million against the Asia Pacific goodwill asset. Encouragingly, in the second half of the year, organic revenue grew 6%, largely from higher volumes on our defense health services contract. And profit has increased around 50 as the transformation and cost saving investments were made in the first half year delivered benefits in the second half of the year. And exiting 2024, our pipeline for new work stands at billion, which includes billion relating to defense based services. We will continue to qualify and bid for new business opportunities and we expect to have a higher quality pipeline by the end of twenty twenty five.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Turning to the Middle East region, which has revenues down 2% on a constant currency basis due to the loss of some lower margin contracts and reduced scope of work on a defense contract due to the Australian step down in presence in The Middle East. This was partially offset by some good wins in transport relating to Fire and Rescue Services. Margin improved 65 basis points due to the exit of lower margin work and a good focus on efficiency and productivity. And there's a strong pipeline of new opportunities that stands at GBP 1,000,000,000, up 25% on last year. And these are spread between larger service contracts predominantly in The UAE and some smaller more advisory opportunities in KSA.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

So So moving now on to cash flow and cash generation in the year was very strong, continuing our trend over the last five years, where on average we've been converting over 100% of our trading profit into cash. This has been achieved through disciplined processes to produce timely and accurate sales invoices that enable customers to pay us promptly. And since 2019, we reduced the number of days sales outstanding by around twenty days, which has contributed million of improved cash through lower receivables on the balance sheet. And adjusted net debt at the end of the year is marginally lower than the previous year at million. And this is after completing a million share buyback program and closing the EHC and climatized acquisitions during the year.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Overall, this has resulted in group's leverage at the year end being 0.3x EBITDA, which is well below our target range of one to two times EBITDA. We did announce the agreement to in January to acquire the MT and S business from Northrop Grumman for $327,000,000 And our leverage on a pro form a basis, including the acquisition, increases to 1.2 times EBITDA. This is still at the lower end of our target leverage range and leaves us with a strong balance sheet and the capacity to make further investments in 2025. So on that note, we'll turn on to capital allocation. And in 2024, we delivered against all four of our capital allocation priorities enabled by strong cash flows and a strong balance sheet.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Our first and most important priority is to invest in organic growth. And during the year, we've invested in our capacity to build and execute the largest pipeline of new business opportunities in more than a decade, as well as mobilizing some large new contracts in The UK. And regarding our second priority, today we announced our final dividend for 2024, which resulted in a full year dividend of per share, which is a 22% increase on last year. And relating to our third priority M and A, we closed the acquisitions of European Homecare and Climateize business in The Middle East in early twenty twenty four. And in addition, as Mark has already referenced, we are excited to have announced the acquisition of MT and S.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

All these acquisitions bring new capabilities and access to new customers and markets, which will provide opportunities for increased organic growth in the future. And our final capital priority is to return surplus capital to shareholders promptly, which we executed in 2024 with a share buyback of million. And during the last four years, we've returned million of surplus capital to investors in the form of share buybacks. We've defined surplus capital being when leverage is below one times EBITDA. And at the end of twenty twenty four, our leverage on a pro form a basis, including the acquisition of MT and S is 1.2 times EBITDA.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And although we're not currently in a position of surplus capital, we are only modestly above the threshold and have established a track record of strong cash flow reducing our leverage. And we will review our capital priorities at the half year. And finally, turning to guidance, which has strong outlook in the light of known revenue and cost headwinds. Our guidance for 2025 is largely unchanged from the pre close statements. The outlook for 2025 anticipates revenue will be similar to 2024 with underlying organic growth of 7% from sorry, stronger offsetting 7% revenue reduction from The UK and Australian immigration contracts.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Underlying operating profit will reduce on this slightly despite previously advised cost pressures, including the increase in UK National Insurance and the effect of the Australian UK immigration contracts, mostly offset by our continued effort to improve efficiency and productivity across the portfolio and profits from new business and ramp ups of businesses mobilized in 2024.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

We expect cash flow to

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

be in line with our medium term goal to have at least 80% of profit converted to cash. And after a number of years and this will be achieved after a number of years of exceptional cash conversion. And today, we've updated our guidance for net debt for the end of twenty twenty five, reflecting our cash flow at the end of twenty twenty four and the corresponding balance sheet closing stronger than we have anticipated. We now expect net debt at the end of twenty twenty five to be just million, an improvement of million from the previous guidance. And the guidance on this slide does not include the impact of the acquisition of MT and S.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Once we know the closing date for the transaction, which we expect to be around the middle of the year, we will update our guidance to include a part year of MT and S's financials. And on that note, I will now hand over to Anthony.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Nigel, thank you and good morning, everybody. I'm delighted to be here as the next Chief Executive of what I think is one of the best companies in the world, one that I'm proud to have been part of for over seven years, most notably as the Group Chief Operating Officer, where I worked with my colleagues around the world and latterly and until Saturday as the group as The UK and e CEO running what is the biggest part of the organization. And over the next few slides, I want to talk about the progress that my team have made over the last two point five years across the geographies that we lead here in The UK and the very exciting and rapidly growing European business. In 2024, revenue was stable around billion, representing around half of the group's revenues, following a 16% growth in FY 2023. This followed the exit of some contracts in 2023 that were less strategically important in our portfolio, several of which had margins below the level that we see as appropriate for the work that we were doing.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

And you can clearly see that these playing out in terms of exit in the revenue change across our Transport, Health and FM and Citizen Services businesses over the last two years. The small organic decline we saw from those exits were offset, as Nigel said, by the strong trading from our European Home Care business, which we acquired at the end of Q1 last year and is a leading provider of immigration services across many states in Germany. Justice and immigration as a sector saw growth for the second year running as did our defense business. Both sectors are and will remain central to the division and the group strategy moving forward and our medium term success. Year on year, we grew operating profits by 22% to million in 2024, building on an increase of 68% in FY 2023.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

And this growth was also reflected in our margin with a two eighty basis point improvement since 2022, taking our overall margin to 6% in 2024. This profit growth has been driven by significant on contract operational and margin improvement and the increase from our acquisitions in our European business. It also absorbed some significant mobilization costs relating to what

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

was

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

a challenging ramp up of electronic monitoring. We did deliver billion of order intake this year and I'm particularly proud of our 98% customer retention rate, the best it's ever been in our UK and Europe business. Our business win rate though was softer than I would have liked, although this was in part due to some decisions being delayed due to the period following the run up to and following the UK general election. But we are only seeing some of those decisions land early in 2025, most notably, as Mark was proud to mention, the Armed Forces recruitment service contract valued at billion, raising to billion if all extension periods are exercised. We also won a new contract to provide technical solutions and earth observation support to the European Space Agency, as well as the flagship contract to continue to operate the Cabinet Office's UK Emergency Planning College here in The UK.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Even following the AFRS bid win, our pipeline looks very strong still at around billion and is critically aligned to our growth focused sectors moving forward. As you know, our financial performance is an outcome of the inputs. The 34,000 great people in my team put in day in, day out, twenty fourseven, three sixty five days of the year. So when Mark, myself and the rest of the group executive team refreshed the strategy, I was absolutely clear that we were needed to be focused on fewer or better quality capabilities in the most attractive markets. This is an area where we've made good progress over the last couple of years, rebuilding our pipeline, now better weighted to where we see stronger capabilities and where we have a greater right to win.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

This clarity has been coupled with a deliberate plan for execution that's focused on operational excellence, competitiveness and growth, which have all contributed to our performance. We want those three priorities to be mutually reinforcing. So operational excellence builds the trust that wins us new business with our current and future new customers. Competitiveness underpins our ability to win and create the headroom we need to invest in our people, technology and future capabilities. And growth fuels the investment in operational excellence and innovation, so virtual circle, if you will.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

In terms of operational excellence, it is absolutely at our core. It's delivering the best possible outcomes for our customers, our colleagues and the communities where we work and you can see how that's been reflected in our performance. Over the last few years, we've mobilized some very deeply complex operations with some excellent outcomes. Couple of examples just to share is the HMP Fosse Way Prison, which we brought online ahead of time to help our customer relieve pressure in the prison estate and our health assessment contract supporting our DWP customer

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

has

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

seen us welcome around 1,000 colleagues to that new service, delivering over 140,000 assessments since we mobilized that contract in September. And through innovation and global best practice sharing, we've driven efficiency and improved our margins. As an example, our Health and Facilities Management business where the team have improved the margin from 1.5% at the end of twenty twenty two to 4.5% at the end of twenty twenty four, largely driven through a disciplined focus on operational excellence. And first and foremost, we've done this with the safety of our colleagues at the forefront of our mind and that's a personal passion that Mark and I share and one which we will continue to work on. Competitiveness.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

When I talk about competitiveness, what I'm really talking about is a business with one of the most competitive cost bases in the sectors where we choose to operate, but importantly, complemented by leading edge systems, agile processes, which really do increase our win and retention rates with our customers. Over the last few years, myself and the team have taken targeted and deliberate action to improve those outcomes. Over the period, we've removed duplication where we could, we've increased automation and we've addressed some unproductive costs across the organization, allowing investment into the things that really matter to help improve growth and our improvement in our IT solutions. But I'm very clear that there is still more to do. In 2023, we launched our contract margin improvement plans driving marginal enhancement gains across the organization, combining in around a £15,000,000 benefit to the organization, things like better procurement, enhanced commercial negotiations and the removal of waste from some processes.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Likewise, really strong cash generation is an important component of our business and I'm pleased that the division has been able to contribute so significantly to the group's performance year on year, as you can see on the screen now. And then growth in the last two years, we are focused on strengthening our base. We've seen, as I said earlier, a contract retention rate of 98%, re securing some very important strategic contract capabilities for us. In 2024, the most notable of some of those contract extensions was our restart program with the DWP worth around million of revenue, a two year extension on the North Link ferries, which is a lifeline that connects the Northern Isles and the retention of HMP Ashfield, a million 10 year contract extension. Our joint ventures can sometimes often remain in the shadows, but I'm exceptionally proud of the performance we've seen since 2022 with a 111% improvement in revenue growth across our JV portfolio.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

And finally on growth, just turning to our European business. Five years ago, Nigel mentioned our business comprised of around 900 people, delivering revenue of just over million. The end of twenty twenty four, our revenues was around million with a workforce of over 5,000. And we've grown that business both organically and inorganically very deliberately to be able to build our capabilities across our European countries. And Europe is another example of where we've invested deliberately to build platforms for future growth, one of which being immigration.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

So we've operated UK immigration now for many years, supporting governments to deliver challenging services to individuals at the most vulnerable parts of their lives. The structural drivers for immigration and migration are clear from climate change to geopolitical uncertainty. There will be and probably remain for many decades to come high levels of migration in certain parts of the world. And this is particularly difficult for governments at a time when fiscal pressures are high. We now have a genuine international immigration platform across our division.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Our scale, expertise and capability afford us the opportunity to grow in the large markets where we already have a presence, identify adjacencies where we have the capability and expand to work with other governments who are faced with similar challenges around the world. So that was just a quick update on the work that my team have been doing over the last two point five years across The UK and Europe. And for all of their contributions and commitments, I am and will remain incredibly grateful. So just turning to the global business for a moment. As we all know and Mark alluded to earlier, we are living in a time where geopolitical uncertainty continues to dominate and value for money is at the forefront of our customers' minds.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

We do and will continue to operate in sectors that support governments during these difficult and uncertain times. We have a resilient international platform with a good strategy that's working, customers that we know with long term contracts and less churn expected in the coming years. Typically, we operate in critical non discretionary sectors that governments globally will continue to prioritize despite the pressures they face. And when our customers are seeking efficiency and value for money, I do as the rest of the executive team feel we are superbly placed to help them. Our capabilities continue to improve and we're investing in technical infrastructure and AI developments as we seek to bring that innovation to our bids.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

As Mark and Nigel have noted, we have entered 2025 with strong momentum following a very strong end to 2024 in the second half. So this combined with getting out of the blocks early in the year with our agreement to acquire NT and S in The U. S, The important and very proud appointment of us to the AFRS program here in The UK, as well as a strong pipeline aligned to our capabilities, gives me the confidence that this business is on a sound footing and has everything to play for in 2025 as demonstrated by our guidance. I really do believe that Serco is one of the best businesses in the world and my job and that of my team moving forward is to continue to prove that by maintaining strong financial performance, superb operational delivery and ensuring that our colleagues are safer and more engaged than ever before. But finally, before I move to questions and answers, I'd just like to take this opportunity on behalf of the entire Board, the Chairman and everybody else at Serco to thank Mark for his leadership, his contribution over the past twelve years and significantly and in particularly his time during the last two point five years being the Group Chief Executive.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

So Mark, thank you on behalf of everybody here at Serco. I look forward to talking to you all later in the year. But for now, I think we're going to move to questions and answers and Nigel is going to share that for us. Thank you, Nigel.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Thank you. So thanks for the question. Why don't we start this side of the room to make sure I don't miss it. So I'll start with you David, yes? And there's a mic coming.

[David Brockton, Equity Research at Deutsche Numis]

Great. Thank you. So it's David Brockton from Virtu Nimbus. And actually just to follow on what Anthony said, I think probably on behalf of all the analysts as well. Thank you, Mark, for your service and contribution to the turnaround and success of Serco.

[David Brockton, Equity Research at Deutsche Numis]

My first question relates to the balance sheet and acquisition pipeline. The balance sheet is clearly in a very strong position today, even after the acquisition of MTNS you're hopefully going to complete through the first half of this year. Can you just touch on what the acquisition pipeline looks like and how we should expect sort of regularity of purchases going forward? That's the first question. And then the second question, partly related to it, I guess, is when we look at the North American portfolio, there's clearly a very strong defense business, but there are two sectors where there isn't a presence relative to some of the other parts of the business in terms of justice and health as well.

[David Brockton, Equity Research at Deutsche Numis]

And just keen to understand whether that could be an opportunity for the business over the longer term?

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Why don't I take certainly the first one on balance sheet. So you're right, our balance sheet is strong 1.2 times leverage even after we've done the MTNS deal and we are a cash generative business. It's difficult to predict regularity of M and A, but we are still out there looking and we're looking at opportunities. We are really disciplined there. We look at an awful lot more things than we end up bidding for.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

We look at we bid for some a lot more stuff than we end up buying. So we keep our discipline on financial returns, really understanding the good strategic fit. And the strategic fit for us is really saying, how do I get, how do I buy something that gets me access to new markets or new capabilities that means I've got a broader front to grow organically going forward. We've got to find those right opportunities at the right price and we look at a lot. When the next one come along, I don't know.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

But we are still looking and we're comfortable with our balance sheet position to be able to do more. As far as North America is concerned, we recognize it's by far the biggest market that we operate in. We are strong in defense, but we've still got a really quite small share, a very small share of The U. S. Defense services market.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

So we know there's more opportunities to grow there. But we are equally interested in looking at non defense markets. Mark, you've sat on the U. S. Board and for a couple of years, anything you add?

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Yes, absolutely. So the diversity of the portfolio for us in The U. S. Is important, both as Nigel said, diversifying across defense, but importantly into what we refer to as federal civilian business, which is non defense business, building on the position that we have with CMS. So we talk about CMS, the contract, CMS, the agency is one of the largest partners of the private sector in the U.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

S. Government. The department that sits above that Health and Human Services equally is an area that we are actively exploring. And then more broadly, we have looked previously at whether there was work that we could do in the immigration area. I think with the policy changes that we now see in The U.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

S, we will look at that again. But we have a very clear ethical threshold about the type of work that we are willing to do. And so I think continuing to balance between identified opportunity from a demand perspective and making sure that that lines up with the ethical framework that we have adhered to in the business and we will continue to do. So yes, active exploration, there's some early stage work in the pipeline, but that needs to be qualified as we go through 'twenty five.

[Sylvia Barker, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

Sylvia Barker from JPMorgan. Can I ask on two specific areas? One is the UK Armed Forces recruitment contract. Could you talk a little bit about how that is structured and how that's different from the old set of contracts that existed? And what maybe the technology is behind it?

[Sylvia Barker, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

And then secondly, on German immigration, with the change in politics, I guess, in government in Germany, is there any risk to that being any weaker going forward? Or how do you see the sensitivity there to politics?

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

You want to take a look at that first?

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Yes. Shall I Sylvia, thanks very much for the question. So the Armed Forces recruitment services contract is different because this is a tri service contract now. So typically, the Navy and the Royal Air Force were responsible for recruitment internally as part of the MOD. What's happened now is we've moved to a tri party, tri service agreement now moving forward.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

So significant transformation is going to be required in terms of the recruiting as a whole force military rather than three individual services. And we are the prime contractor for AFRS, but we've partnered with around nine to 10 experts in the field, whether it's recruitment marketing, whether it's recruitment technology, candidate experience, etcetera. So what we're hoping for is to see the candidate experience be more efficient and productive and therefore able to get people into the military in a more efficient way than typically may have been the case previously. But you will have seen the numbers of the armed forces have reduced. The Secretary of State has clearly said they want to look at the numbers in the military moving forward and we feel the volume improvement there is going to be very helpful moving forward.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

We don't actually start the contract until 2027. So we're not responsible for recruiting people into the military until 2027. Our mobilization contract starts on the April 1 and we're very excited to

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

be able to deliver a good service to them. Political position in Germany? Is what, sorry? The political

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

The political situation in Germany. Sorry, Sylvia, I missed the second question. Look, the coalition government is still forming, so it's likely to take us into April, maybe May until the coalition government forms. Look, we've worked with and we do work with over many, many decades different governments dependent upon their policies. We stand ready to help deliver immigration services into Germany as well as look to expand our defense capability into Germany as well.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

So it's not an answer I can give you particularly strong guidance on at the moment until the government actually formed and the coalition partners are determined who they're likely to be. But we've got a very strong business in Germany and we intend to grow it.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

The only thing I may add to that, Louise, when you look at the range of services that we provide in the immigration sector from welfare all the way through to enforcement, we feel that we can follow policy shifts and adjust the capability response to that. So as Anthony said, the challenge for Germany balancing the need for 500,000 workers each year with making sure it's the right people entering and staying in the country and across the policy spectrum, we've demonstrated in various jurisdictions the ability to respond. So the company is exactly right. We have to wait to see what exactly the position is and then be ready to go from there.

[Sylvia Barker, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

Thank you.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

James?

[James Rose, Equity Research Analyst - European Business Services at Barclays]

Hi. It's James Rose from Barclays. I've got two, please. The first is on the U.

[James Rose, Equity Research Analyst - European Business Services at Barclays]

S. Doge and aiming to cut hundreds of billions of spend from government. Is that something Serco shareholders should be concerned about? And what are the threats or indeed opportunities from that? And then secondly, on cash conversion, I think it's been over 100% or has averaged 100% for six years now versus guidance of 80%.

[James Rose, Equity Research Analyst - European Business Services at Barclays]

Is 80% the right figure going forward? Is 90% or is 100%?

[James Rose, Equity Research Analyst - European Business Services at Barclays]

Appreciate your thoughts on that.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Yes.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Mark, you want to take the question on Doge?

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Thank you, Michael. I think the right place to start, James, as you said, is Doge has brought about uncertainty, particularly for the investor community, because it's new, because it's evolving day by day and because I think nobody has real certainty about what exactly it may end up doing. What we have observed though is unlike previous U. S. Federal government initiatives like the Budget Control Act that was brought in by the Obama administration in 2011 or sequestration, where there's across the board quite arbitrary cuts in spending.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

This clearly is focused on efficiency, on making government more efficient, on addressing waste, on addressing fraud, on creating more competition within the government contracting domain. And so we see all of those being areas where we can actually play as a contributor to those efficiency outcomes. And so we are mindful that this is continually evolving, but we are in fact positive about the potential opportunity for us to be a part of the solution that Dowager is trying to address in terms of government efficiency. And we've got real examples. If you look at the recent award by the U.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

S. Government for Serco to help with productivity in U. S. Navy shipyards, they've come to us to help them with an efficiency initiative. The work that we've done on the CMS contract, where at the beginning of the previous term, we had 4,500 people processing Affordable Care applications.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

That's about a third of the workforce now doing a significantly higher number of processing and application through the use of technology. And so I think we've got a track record of showing how we can do this and we can look to leverage that I think to afford ourselves more opportunity going forward.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And on cash conversion, you're right. Six years, we've averaged over 100% cash conversion. As I said on my presentation, it's largely come from improving our processes for getting accurate and timely sales invoices out. We've pushed that hard and really tried to present the progress we've made. I think we will keep pushing that, but I think we're going towards diminishing returns now.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

We've already taken $250,000,000 off the balance sheet. If I look then going forward, why is 80% the right cash conversion? We are a very capital light model, so I think we should have a high profit to cash conversion. And actually, the biggest capital we have is working capital to grow our top line. And when I look at that, we should be able to average over and over 80% going forward and that feels like the right structure for me.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

So we're confident with that still being the right levels to be aiming for. And I think we have to look at the last six years as being exceptional because the program of work we've been doing.

[James Rose, Equity Research Analyst - European Business Services at Barclays]

Great. Thank you.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

I can't see. It's Arthur.

[Arthur Truslove, Director at Citi]

Arthur from Citi. So three from me, if I can. So first one, please. You obviously done really well in The U. S.

[Arthur Truslove, Director at Citi]

Defense business. Obviously, in the last few days and weeks, we've heard a lot about how European defense spending is like to go up. So keen to hear about how you can leverage all the capability you've developed in The U. S. Into that?

[Arthur Truslove, Director at Citi]

Second question, UK margin is around 6% now, which I think is the upper end of your sort of historical guidance range. Obviously, you've had some cost of mobilization in 2024, but where do you think you can go to in terms of margin in a sort of very optimistic scenario? How good could that be? And then third one, you've obviously, U. K.

[Arthur Truslove, Director at Citi]

Migration is very important for you. And I just wondered, how are you getting on in terms of people moving from hotels to rentals? And what should we expect for this year? And also on volumes, what

[Arthur Truslove, Director at Citi]

are we seeing at this point?

[Arthur Truslove, Director at Citi]

And what's embedded in your guidance? Thank you.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Okay. Let me check the first one on margin. And we've had medium term guidance out there for the last three or four years. So we'd expect our margin to be 5% to 6%. Remember, when we said that, we were not in that range.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

So we've got ourselves into that range and comfortably in that range. We're really pleased with the progress we've made on efficiency and productivity. We think there is more opportunity there. And we also know as we grow faster in The U. S.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Market, we're both inorganically and organically, the weighted average of our margin will go up. And I think we need to be get we still think that 5% to 6% is the right range. But I think, Anthony and I would like to go around the markets and really think about what is the target, right target for us. And when there's something else to say, we will stay sleeping on that. And then I'm going to give the next two questions to Anthony.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

But just to remind you what we've said on UK immigration, we were expecting a headwind

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

of about million in 2024 and similar in 2025

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

as we have a normalization of service users coming out of hotels and going into dispersed accommodation. So that's what we have set as guidance. I think you want to add some more color to that.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Yes.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

European defense.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Yes. Arthur, thanks very much for the question. As Nigel said, our outcomes in 'twenty four reflected in the numbers and our forecast in 'twenty five are reflected in the numbers as well. So we're expecting the mix to change. We're expecting the volumes to decrease slightly, but we're expecting the mix between hotels and dispersed accommodation to change.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Just to remind everybody, we're one of three providers. So the customer being the home office disperse service users across the country. We're not seeing any of our volumes decrease significantly in the overall number, but the mix of the numbers have changed. But the service users are probably down from last year. Hotels was around 100, just over 100.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

We're just under 70 at the moment, so those hotels are reducing. Customer clearly has an expectation that those numbers will continue to reduce and our teams are expertly placed to work with a number of local authorities around the country to help them achieve that. But as Nigel said, those headwinds we're seeing in 2024 will continue in 2025, but they're in the numbers. In terms of European defense, one of the good things when we were reviewing the acquisition of MTNS was the capability to take some of those services internationally. We're very excited about what MTNS can bring to the defense market internationally, particularly in The UK and across Europe.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

And look, where we can export collaboration expertise out of The U. S, we do that already. We're starting to do that. So we're getting some expertise out to The U. S, but we obviously have to be mindful that we operate under the SSA arrangements in The U.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

S. So we're moving those collaborations around. We've got another collaboration actually important to note between The U. S. And The Middle East currently ongoing as well in terms of defense collaboration.

[Arthur Truslove, Director at Citi]

Thank you very much.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Thanks.

[Alex Smith, Equity Research Analyst at Berenberg]

Thank you. Alex Smith from Berenberg. Just wanted to follow-up on that UK margin point and where it's 6% today and with the National Insurance kind of headwind coming into full year 2025, just how renegotiations are going? Do you expect there to be some pressure on that 6% number in full year 2025? And a bit more color on that would be helpful.

[Alex Smith, Equity Research Analyst at Berenberg]

And then just also on the APAC turnaround and the outlook for 2025, the upcoming Australian election and any views on that would also be great. Thanks.

[Michael Donnelly, Equity Analyst at Investec]

Let me

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

take the National Insurance one out.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

Yes. So

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

again, thanks very much for the question. I think we are assuming that we get no benefits from the negotiations with the customers and we've got those built into our 2025 forecasts. We are continuing to have conversations where we can. But look, we've had to assume that we're not going to get recovery for those beyond where we are contractually entitled to that recovery. And I think one of the important things I would note though is that where we renegotiate our contracts and where our contracts come up for renewal, we will reprice the contracts to include the increase in National Insurance.

[Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business at Serco Group]

So this is not a this is not going to be a forever issue here. When the contracts come up for renegotiation, we will price them accordingly as will the rest of the market and we're seeing that at the moment.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

But overall, we think there are some pressure on margins, but there's also some opportunities. So around that range, we are comfortable with for The UK. And you've talked about Australia.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Yes. So we've seen both sort of the cycle of state elections and as you said in the next, Alex, the next month or so, most likely the Prime Minister will call for the federal election as well. What do we see in terms of market dynamics? The first term of the Abadesa government has seen the public service grow by 30,000 and that's become part of the conversation leading into the election as to whether that investment in the growth of the public service has actually delivered better outcomes in service delivery as a key election issue. And I think that along with the fact that the budget surpluses, which has been enjoyed during this first term, now reducing materially will put pressure on either side of politics to revisit whether that is the right thing to continue to do.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

I think the other big factor in the market in Australia in particular will be the pivot to refocus on the Indo Pak region geopolitically. We know the AUKUS pact is critical to that. And we know with certainty, based on the work that we currently do for the U. S. Navy being embedded fully in the U.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

S. Navy submarine program, that we've got transferable capability where there is critical need in Australia for us to be able to apply that. Norcos goes beyond just the submarines, which is always upfront and sent in that conversation. Australia has been a non nuclear country for its entire history. The ability to respond to that is about the submarines.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

It's about the infrastructure. It's about the supply chain. It's about sustainment. It's about nuclear medicine. There is a whole range of associated services that goes along with something like AUKUS that we think we've got international capability that we can leverage and respond to to support the development of that pipeline that Nigel mentioned before.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

And the third area is infrastructure. Andrew Head, who leads that business, has a twenty year history in infrastructure management. It's not a part of the market that we've looked at before in terms of integrated asset management and certainly something that we are exploring at the moment. So we see pathways here for us to redevelop pipeline and regrow that business again.

[Alex Smith, Equity Research Analyst at Berenberg]

Thank you.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Welcome now. Chris?

[Chris Bamberry, Equities Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Morning, Chris Bambi, Bill Hunt. A couple of questions, please. Just kind of follow-up on the Australian business. Where are you in terms of reductions in overheads and vacancies? And secondly, looking at the pipeline for this year, obviously, the base services contracts are very important.

[Chris Bamberry, Equities Analyst at Peel Hunt]

I mean, how big a delta is that kind of on the timing side for getting back on track there? That would be the first question.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Okay. Let me start off on that. Look, we have made good progress on the cost base. And there's two piece of the cost base. One was looking at our overhead, so how do we right size that?

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

We've made progress on that through 2024. And you see that in the second half results are much stronger. There is more to do and we'll do more in 2025. The other area of cost that we really went after our profit improvement was we had some underperforming contracts. We've made good, really good progress on some of those, one in particular, one big one in particular.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

There's still more to do in that space as well. So I think as far as costs are concerned, we've made good progress with further to go. Then as far as pipeline is concerned, and Marc already touched on it, we have base services that is the majority of that pipeline. We expect to get decision probably around the middle of the year on that. But our focus at the moment is how do we rebuild that pipeline.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And when we look at that Australian market, it is structurally not different from the other markets we operate in. It's not like there's different kinds of contracts or the customers procuring in different ways or there's more competitors. It feels very similar to where we operate elsewhere. So when I look at that, I see no structural reason why we should not be able to get that business back to where it was three or four years ago and back to where the rest of the group is.

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

And on base services, Chris, it's not a binary outcome. It is a multi service, multi region submission and the customer may choose to allocate that to multiple providers. And so we will keenly watch for the outcome of that as Nigel said towards the end of the year.

[Chris Bamberry, Equities Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Second question, just the overall group pipeline, what's the mix between sectors and big decisions you're expecting this year? Obviously, you've touched upon Australian based services, but are there potential timing of awards or announcements this year?

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

So we're expecting a pretty busy first half, particularly in The UK. We've had a really busy second half of twenty twenty four, so like in The U. S. So actually U. S.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Doesn't have a lot of decisions in the first half. They'll have more in the second half. And then our pipeline is split. Defense is the biggest piece, 40% is defense. JNI will be the next biggest piece just under 30%.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Customer service has been, and then there's a smaller pieces in Transport and Health. And the biggest pipeline by far that we have, over half of it sits in The UK.

[Chris Bamberry, Equities Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Thank you.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Are there any more questions in the room? Are there any questions on the line? Yes, there are. Just do you want to bring those in, please?

[Sylvia Barker, Executive Director at JP Morgan]

Your question from Michael Donnelly with Investec. Please go ahead.

[Michael Donnelly, Equity Analyst at Investec]

Hello. Can you hear me?

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Yes. We're all good.

[Michael Donnelly, Equity Analyst at Investec]

Right. Just two quick ones for me please. First of all, can you share with us what you think the proportion of pro form a current year revenues is that have automatic contract inflators built into them? I think historically, we were talking about more than 50%. Is that number still more than 50% or much more or much less or whatever?

[Michael Donnelly, Equity Analyst at Investec]

And then secondly, can you share any feedback you may have had on the loss of the Australian immigration contract so far? Thank you. Yes.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

Let me check the first one though. I'll ask Mark to give the feedback, Australia immigration. So when we look at our contract portfolio, we're saying that you're right, just over half of them have specific indexation clause in them. So our revenue goes up on an annual basis in line with inflation. But we also have about a third of our portfolio is either cost plus or it is very short term contract.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

So really, we're pricing real time costs on those contracts as well. So we get them covered. So we've only got a small proportion of our contract that doesn't have kind of inflation cover. And even those, we'll make sure that the terms we have are completely consistent with our supply base. And also we've had good experience, particularly as we went through those high inflation years, where we did get some, we had discussions and negotiations with customers.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

So through the whole of that period 2021 through 2023, when there was high inflation, we did not see any margin impact from higher inflation. So we know that those mechanics within our contracts are working for us. Mark, do you want to talk about feedback on Aussie immigration?

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

Yes. Michael, we've worked quite hard to try and understand this better and there's still more work for us to do, in part because the customer has really directed focus to the six months of mobilization and transition and been quite opaque about their reason for choosing an alternative provider. What we do know is that it was not driven by price, that the prices were comparable, but that there was a fundamental difference in the proposed operating model between the two providers. Now what exactly that means, we have to wait to see and understand, but that's what they have told us so far. And we continue to ask questions and try and understand that better.

[Michael Donnelly, Equity Analyst at Investec]

Thank you. That's really helpful.

[Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director at Serco Group]

And there are no more questions on the line. Okay. Thank you. You want

[Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director at Serco Group]

to have some more? So if there aren't any questions on the line or here, can I please, on behalf of my colleagues, just say a very big thank you for your time, for your interest in the business and for the continued support? We appreciate that along with the trust that we continue to get from our customers to do more work and the importance of the contribution of the 50,000 people that make this business, what we've delivered today in terms of our full year results. But thank you, everybody, for your time, and we will be around, I think, for a little bit here to answer any questions you'd like to take offline.

Participants

Executives

• Mark Irwin, Group CEO & Director
• Nigel Crossley, Group CFO & Director
• Anthony Kirby, Chief Executive of Serco's UK & Europe business

Analysts

• David Brockton, Equity Research at Deutsche Numis
• Sylvia Barker, Executive Director at JP Morgan
• James Rose, Equity Research Analyst - European Business Services at Barclays
• Arthur Truslove, Director at Citi
• Alex Smith, Equity Research Analyst at Berenberg
• Michael Donnelly, Equity Analyst at Investec
• Chris Bamberry, Equities Analyst at Peel Hunt