QinetiQ Group plc

Good morning, everyone. My name is Andrew Carter, Group Director of Investor Relations at Kinetic. Welcome to Kinetic's FY26 preliminary results presentation. Thank you for taking the time to join us, both in person and online. It's my pleasure to hand over to our CEO, Steve Wadey. Steve.

Great. Thank you, Andrew. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us for our full year results. I'd like to start this morning by thanking all of our highly skilled employees for their dedication and hard work during the course of the year, as well as our customers and our partners for their continued support. In what has been a year of significant change for Kinetic, I'm pleased that we have delivered resilient performance, took decisive action to strengthen the business, and have set the foundations for sustainable growth. So our agenda this morning is as follows. I'll start by running through the highlights and our year in review. Martin will then provide his review of our financial results. I'll then come back and give an overview of our strategic outlook. Finally, we'll open up for questions. So turning to our highlights. We have delivered resilient performance in more challenging markets while strengthening the quality of the business and our future growth. Revenue for the year was just over £1.9 billion with operating profit of £218 million and an improved margin at more than 11%. And we delivered significantly stronger cash generation and free cash flow of £159 million up more than 40%. We completed the restructuring in the first half of the year, including decisive portfolio actions in the US. However, Whilst US performance has stabilised and the business is better positioned for future growth, we are actively assessing all options to enhance shareholder value. I'll come back to this in a moment. At a group level, we are now operating from a structurally improved, higher quality platform with a better contract mix, driving stronger cash generation and delivering higher quality earnings. We've also built good forward momentum, with a record order intake of £3.6 billion and a backlog of £4.8 billion, up more than 40%, providing clear multi-year revenue visibility. Growth will be driven by backlog conversion into revenue, with a lower cost base, supporting improved margin and providing operating leverage into earnings and EPS. Looking forward, our visibility of growth and strong cash generation supports continued investment in the business, as well as giving us confidence and clarity to introduce a new three-year target of more than £550 million of free cash flow. This strong performance enables us to significantly increase shareholder returns, with our dividend policy moving to a payout ratio of 35% to 40% and a £200 million extension to our share buyback programme through to 2029. In total, we expect to return around a half a billion pounds of cash to investors over the next three years. Martin will explain more of this in detail later. Now let me turn to our year in review. The major focus of the year was to improve the quality of earnings across the group. We delivered this through three areas. First, restructuring with discipline. We have reshaped the portfolio and reduced the cost base with a reduction of approximately 1,000 roles across the group. We also took action to remove lower quality revenue, allowing us to focus on organic growth, opportunities where we see stronger, more consistent returns. As part of the restructuring, we have also invested in strengthening our program management and business development capabilities, underpinning our operational performance and future growth. Second, execution with control. Despite more challenging markets, we've maintained good delivery to our customers and improved operational execution. We've delivered strong performance in the UK with 7% growth, offsetting stabilised performance in the US. Disciplined execution has also supported improved margin, stronger earnings quality and a step up in cash generation. Third, growth with focus. The defence market is evolving quickly, and we have moved early to align the business to where we see demand developing over the medium term, not just where it is today. We have been selective in deploying capital and resources, focusing on higher return, longer-term opportunities. During the year, we strengthened our role as one of the UK's strategic partners, with major developments to both our LCPA and EDP contracts. In Australia, we are strategically pivoting the business from being a sub to a prime contractor, and we are actively focused on leveraging our UK strengths into European NATO, where we see increased demand for our capabilities. Overall, we have resized the cost base, strengthened execution, and improved our strategic focus, resulting in more consistent, predictable, and higher quality earnings. Let me now return to our US business. The defense services market has been more challenging over the past year. A combination of budgetary pressures shifting towards platform and hardware companies rather than services companies, slower contract awards, the impact of Doge, and margin compression in services work have all impacted performance. At the start of the year, we moved quickly and took decisive action to reshape the business. We've delivered good progress on the U.S. restructuring program. Key actions completed include the disposal of the Fed IT business, significant reductions of the cost base and headcount, exit from non-core and lower return contracts, and a simplified operational footprint. We also recognized that the U.S. market had changed and therefore reposition the focus of the business to be better aligned with national defence and security priorities in four areas where we have differentiated capability. Space and missile defence, maritime systems, advanced sensors and persistent surveillance. All of these areas have contributed underlying growth. During the second half of the year, the business performance has been stable and operating with greater predictability. Revenue is approximately $385 million with a simpler structure and improved operational control. We have focused on driving organic growth, including pursuit of a number of new opportunities as a result of current operational needs. The US business is now a smaller, better business aligned to today's market priorities. However, I recognize the need to deliver enhanced value for shareholders. We are therefore assessing fit within the group and actively reviewing all options, and I will provide a further update at our interims in November. I'll now hand over to Martin to take us through our financial results.

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. This has been a resilient and improved financial performance by the group. on the back of last year and against the backdrop of near-term budget challenges in our key markets. I'd like to thank our teams, customers and supply chains who have been instrumental to the improved in-year performance. Starting with the FY26 financial headlines and for reference, the dollar rate averaged 134 compared to 128 last year. References to organic numbers are based off a constant currency and adjusting for the disposal of the US Fed IT business Order intake was a record for the group at £3.6 billion, boosting order backlog to £4.8 billion, positioning as well for future growth. Revenue was flat in reported terms, but 1.3% growth on an organic basis, with good and improving growth in the UK businesses, offset by the portfolio actions and market challenges in the wider group. Profit at £218 million was up 18%, Margin at 11.3% saw a return to expected and upper quartile benchmark levels and a higher quality of underlying earnings as we delivered on our commitments from the start of the year. Cash flow was strong with conversion at 100%, enabling us to accelerate our share buyback programme during the year whilst investing in the business and retaining a strong balance sheet. Overall shareholder returns increased 21%. For clarity of disclosure, this page highlights our financial metrics, movements year on year and key takeaways. Orders, revenue, profit and cash I will cover in depth. We continue to drive an enhanced focus on EPS and this saw us deliver a 21% increase to 31.5 pence. This was driven by the underlying profit increase and the accelerated buyback programme delivering a lower average share count. Improved profit and strong cash conversions saw free cash flow increase 41% to £159 million and return on capital employed was again very strong at 34% reflecting the increased profit, efficiency actions and continued capital allocation discipline. Dividend for the year is up 24% to 11 pence as we move to a payout ratio of EPS from a 7% progressive dividend policy. This reflects our confidence in long-term earnings growth and cash flow. Moving to order intake, within our record 3.6 billion of orders, 1.7 billion related to our long-term partnering agreement with the contract now extending to 2033. Amir Services saw 2.3% growth and orders of 1.5 billion pounds, including the major orders of the five-year typhoon support contract, Dragonfire Laser Award and new wins in maritime training and in special forces secure communications and technology. Global Solutions saw orders fall by £85 million. As Steve covered, this was due to the US market dynamics driving us to exit certain business lines. Key awards secured in the year include the Space Development Agency Framework and Supplementary Awards of £68 million, the usual funding awards on TARS and SCO of £72 million, and global target awards of £65 million. Next, revenue, which grew 1.3% on an organic basis. Growth levels were impacted by near-term challenges in our core markets, the timing on orders, and the actions taken in the U.S. While growth was lower, we saw revenue per head increase 13% in the year and 21% over the last three years. EMEA services grew the expected 3.5%, with good growth delivered in UK defence off our framework contracts of LTPA and EDP, and we saw growth in our laser programmes and our intelligence business picking up in the last quarter of the year. As outlined at the hearth, Australia was lower following the loss of the land systems contract. Global Solutions was down, reflecting the contract exits mentioned and timing of awards impacted by the geopolitical backdrop in the US. These headwinds more than offset what was good on contract growth of 25%, equating to $23 million on our space development contract. Target's revenue was up 6% against last year. Profit at £218 million and margin at 11.3% saw us deliver on our commitments to rebuild margin by driving operational performance, financial discipline and addressing the cost base through restructuring and cost efficiencies in our geographies. The mere services at 11.9% was at the top end of our expectations as we executed on our order backlog and controlled costs. Global solutions at 9% improved year on year as the restructuring work in the US took hold. The walk down to statutory profit as usually shown on the right of the table, there were no more material charges in the second half of the year, the main movement being 7 million of further restructuring charges as we drive long-term efficiency, competitiveness and value for money for our customers. Cash was a strong year, with conversion levels at 100%. CapEx was £72 million, of which £37 million related to the LTPA. This was down on last year, reflecting the timing on programme delivery. There was a net outflow of £52 million, reflecting the cash expensed on exceptionals, and you'll remember many of those associated charges were in FY25. Interest and tax were as expected, which meant free cash flow was £159 million, up £45 million from last year driven by the improvement in profitability. Shareholder returns were a record at £183 million, up £32 million. The dividend accounted for £49 million of that, and we accelerated the buyback programme, completing £134 million in the year. These movements meant we ended the year with a net debt of £159 million, a strong balance sheet, and a leverage ratio of 0.5 times, again in line with last year. I now want to cover three forward-looking points prior to guidance. Firstly, my confidence in our return to revenue growth. Secondly, the sustainability of margin and clear route to delivery of higher quality predictable earnings. And thirdly, the strength of our cash flow and commitment to value-enhancing capital allocations. On revenue growth, the chart shown here demonstrates the strong revenue growth of the business over the last five years. This has been underpinned by the UK-based businesses, which combined have grown at 10% CAGR. In the UK, which is now around 75% of the group, we have a high-performing business delivering critical capabilities and military readiness. In challenging near-term market conditions, the UK still grew 7% in FY26, And we see that growth trend continuing from our established positions with the opportunity for it to increase as budgets increase in the UK. Looking beyond the UK and to further accelerate growth, we see significant opportunities in Europe in the coming years off the back of our T&E and mission data capabilities. And with the US now stabilised, we're driving growth through our core franchises, as Steve explained, with the space and special capabilities office contracts expected to lead the way. Historic performance is a strong indicator of future performance, but what also underpins our confidence is the order flow and duration of the work being secured. The underlying book to bill of 1.14 provides the momentum required for us to drive enhanced growth, and this has driven our multi-year record backlog of £4.8 billion, which is up 41% on last year. In turn, that backlog means we enter the year with existing orders that provide contracted revenue cover of 67%, broadly in line with last year. The growth drivers in FY27 are the LTPA contract, US space contracts, in-theater technologies and products, and our weapons research framework and mission data contracts. Steve will give more color on the midterm growth drivers later. Topline growth is our key focus, but that needs to be profitable growth, and we have taken steps to enhance the quality and predictability of earnings. Our backlog is dominated by our framework contracts. This is a high-quality backlog and provides revenue and earnings visibility. We're driving program execution throughout performance function and supply chain effectiveness to drive gross margins, and in cost, we have undertaken significant restructuring with headcount 12% lower. As we grow the top line, we shall ensure that profitability is maintained whilst making sure we invest in the business to deliver growth and returns. Finally, we recognise the need to give greater clarity in reporting, alignment to peers and reduce exceptional reporting. To that end, the digital programme ends this year, so those exceptional costs will drop off and looking forward, any future digital spend and the RDEC income will be reported in underlying operating profit meaning a lot closer alignment to statutory earnings. Next, capital allocation. The quality of this earnings outlook and contract structures mean we have a highly cash-generative business that allows us to step up investment and deliver good growth in free cash flow. We are set to increase investment in our people, sites, technology and R&D to drive growth from the core and realise our opportunities. Reflecting that confidence in cash generation, we are introducing a three-year free cash flow guide, which we are setting at more than £550 million of free cash flow from FY27 to FY29. Our focus remains on organic growth and shareholder returns. With our enhanced dividend policy moving to a 35% to 40% payout ratio of EPS and extending the buyback programme by a further two years, we are today providing mid-term clarity of how we intend to deploy our free cash. This will see the majority of that cash flow returned to shareholders over the next three year period. This capital allocation framework means we see return on capital employed remaining at elevated levels in the 25 to 30% range. Finishing with guidance for the coming year, Revenue growth we expect to be 3% to 5%, driven by EMEA services. Moving to the higher end will depend on greater clarity on budgets in our core markets. Margin we expect to be in the 11% to 11.5% range. Whilst we see operational efficiency continue to come through, we should also look to further invest in the growth of the business. In-year cash conversion, as described by the group, is set to be greater than 90%, and as explained, our three-year free cash flow guide is set at greater than £550 million. The strong cash-generating nature of the business and our capital allocation allows for confidence in our growth algorithm for EPS, which we expect to grow between 8% to 10%, reflecting the revenue-driven profit growth and benefits from the buyback programme. To summarise, it was a resilient and improved financial year where we have driven stronger foundations, We are well set for growth at high quality levels of profitability, delivering good free cash flow over the midterm and clearly laid out the deployment of that cash. Thanks for listening and back to you Steve.

Great, thank you Martin. So too our strategic outlook. Let me start with our role in modern warfare today and how that is shaping demand for our capabilities. We see a more uncertain geopolitical environment shaped by rising tension, conflict, and increasing great power competition. We're also seeing a more diverse and rapidly evolving threat landscape characterized by asymmetric tactics and the accelerating impact of technology, autonomy, and digital megatrends are changing how modern warfare is conducted with greater reliance on data, AI, and capability integration across all domains. In the near term, this shift has translated into increased demand for platforms and equipment, particularly in areas such as drones, missiles, and autonomous systems. This shift will also drive sustained growth into defense and technology services, as our customers focus on engineering, test, mission assurance, and the adoption of new technologies. This is where Kinetic is well placed to benefit and plays a critical role. Our capabilities ensure defense systems are fit for purpose, interoperable, and operationally effective. As a result, these trends are driving sustained demand for our services, anchored in long-term programs and national security priorities, providing us with both resilience and improved visibility. Overall, we're a company well aligned to the structural drivers shaping modern warfare, with a clear role in supporting our customers' operational needs. We are a defence and technology services company, which can be less intuitive compared to a traditional defence prime. We are not a platform or hardware manufacturer. Our role is different. We are a strategic partner to our customers working across the capability lifecycle in developing, integrating, testing, and supporting defense systems across all domains. First, we engineer solutions for complex systems. We support customer acquisition and sustainment programs from aircraft and ships through to mission systems ensuring they are designed, integrated, and ready for deployment. Second, we test and evaluate defense capabilities. This is a core part of our business model, ensuring systems are safe, effective, and interoperable under operationally realistic live and synthetic conditions. Third, we support live in-theater operations. We work alongside our customers In mission environments, ensuring systems are delivered reliably and perform as intended in service. This includes mission data, the information and intelligence critical to modern defence operations, enabling platforms to operate safely in hostile environments. And finally, we develop advanced technologies, particularly in autonomy, data and lasers, driving innovation and long-term capability development aligned to the rapidly evolving threat landscape. What differentiates Kinetic is the combination of what we do across these four areas. We are embedded and partner with our customers across major programs, from initial concept through to in-service support. We play a central role at a national level in ensuring our customers' capabilities are effective, integrated, and ready for combat. Having set out what we do, I want to explain why we win and where we choose to focus. Our position is built on structural advantages in the defence and national security markets. We're differentiated by deep customer relationships and capabilities with high barriers to entry. Our competitive advantage is the delivery of mission-critical activities, often linked to unique national infrastructure. with high technical requirements and strong customer trust. We bring deep technical expertise across all domains and long-standing relationships with government and industry, creating natural barriers to entry. Our customer positioning is strong, working closely with the armed forces across the life cycle of capability, reducing customer risk and supporting delivery at pace through proven collaboration with industry. This is reflected in enduring relationships and partnerships, often built over decades and underpinned by a strong track record of repeat awards and long-term contracts. Our strategic focus is clear with disciplined and customer-led growth, deepening positions in our core markets, particularly in the UK, developing our offerings, for example, through investment in our major programmes such as EDP, and leveraging our capabilities into priority markets such as European NATO. This ensures our growth is targeted, aligned to demand and supported by existing capability and trusted relationships. The combination of these characteristics results in defensible market positions, repeatable revenue and strong long-term visibility. Importantly, they support sustainable margins, strong returns on capital and good cash generation over the long term. Overall, our strategy is not about broad expansion. It's about disciplined, targeted execution in areas where we have a clear right to win and where we can deliver sustainable, higher quality growth and ultimately drive shareholder returns. So having set out where we have a right to win, let me now turn to how that translates into delivery. Over the next two slides, I'll highlight four examples that demonstrate the relevance of our capabilities, in-year progress, and show our growth strategy in action. Starting with engineering services. We support customers in getting the right capabilities into service more quickly and at a lower cost. A major achievement was the 205 million pounds Typhoon contract, where we are accelerating mission readiness. This is our first major contract being delivered through the strengthened EDP partnership with AI augmentation of our services to increase productivity for our customers. Turning to mission support and operations. Here we ensure platforms are effective and survivable through actionable intelligence known as mission data. A major milestone was the signature of an MOU between the UK and Belgium. which will lead to a 150 million Euro program to design and build a national mission data capability in Belgium. We see mission data as a significant growth driver with further opportunities in other NATO allies. Our focus is consistent, delivering mission critical capabilities at pace and scale with clear operational impact. In test and training, we are seeing growing demand for tests and evaluation, which is critical to increasing warfighting readiness. The highlight of the year was the £1.5 billion LTPA contract extension, expanding our role into areas such as hypersonics, autonomy and directed energy. We're also delivering urgent operational requirements, such as the recent rapid integration and testing of the new counter-drone capability for the Typhoon aircraft, supporting UK operations in the Middle East. and widely reported in the media over the weekend. Increasing the use of our expertise and services across the UK and NATO allies will drive growth over the coming years. Finally, research and development. We are investing in disruptive technologies, for example, in laser systems. These systems are a game changer for counter drone and air defence, where demand for cost effective solutions is growing. During the year, we secured 83 million pounds of contracts for the development and initial production of high power laser technologies. We're working in partnership with the likes of MBDA and Rymatel to provide a clear route to market. We see momentum building to capitalize on future growth opportunities. The theme here is consistent. We're supporting our customers in responding to rapidly evolving threats, delivering operational advantage and accelerating the deployment of new capabilities. So as Martin said, let me turn to the drivers of our revenue growth over the coming years. On the left, I've highlighted the seven principal core and growth programs split by our four capabilities that are contributing to predictable, high-quality revenue growth over the median term. The profile on the right illustrates both scale and relative growth rates. Our portfolio combines a mix of programs that deliver recurring, growing revenue and those that will drive faster revenue growth. As you can see, we expect R&D, mission support and operations to grow faster in the mid-term, with key program drivers being next generation weapon technologies, including lasers, as well as mission data and persistent surveillance. Investment in our major test and training and engineering services programs will continue to drive sustained revenue growth over the long term. The LTPA will be driven by the transformation of test and evaluation capabilities and increased utilization by UK and NATO allies. The EDP and Space Development Agency programs will be driven by upgrades and the introduction of new platforms and technologies. These programs provide multi-year visibility and drive sustainable growth with opportunities to expand scope and deepen customer relationships underpinned by our record 4.8 billion pounds backlog and 12 billion pounds pipeline. So in summary, we navigated a challenging period, took decisive action to improve the quality of the business and are well aligned to the structural drivers shaping modern warfare. We delivered resilient performance, completed the restructuring program, stabilized the US business with all options to enhance shareholder value under review, secured a record order intake and backlog providing forward visibility, and improved earnings quality and strong cash generation. Looking forward, I'm confident in delivering sustainable growth over the coming years and a significant increase to shareholder returns. Thank you, and we'll now be happy to take your questions.

Thank you. Good morning. It's Ash Tusa from Agency Partners. Two questions. First of all, on the U.S., I accept that you hope to be able to give us more sort of clarity at the first half stage, but perhaps if I could just pick up on a couple of the words that you used, You've talked about looking at improving shareholder value. From here going forward, what do you think are the challenges to shareholder value of the U.S. compared to the historic record, i.e., what would improve for investors if you did something different with the U.S. compared to trading it on? And then the second question, which is one for Martin, and I apologize for asking this, you to do any of my model for me but you talked about two mildly significant changes to the reporting one of which is not separating out the research and development credit anymore and then the second being including digital costs directly into EBIT do you think those net out completely in terms of EMEA services margins or Is there going to be an intermediate period where there's a bit of sort of lumpiness compared to previous margin numbers?

Thank you. I'll do the US and then you've got time to even think. I mean, first of all, we're early in the process, so you'll recognise that I'm limited in some of what I can say, but what can I say? So first of all, as I mentioned, the US defence services market was a difficult market and you can see that in all of the US defence services players you know, a lot of impact as budgets shifted towards hardware and equipment, you know, Doge, slower orders and margin compression. So, you know, it has been a challenging market in the U.S. and as you can see, we took proactive action. And as we finished the year, and in fact, we were pleased with the performance in the second half of the year, we did the restructuring, we did the Fed IT disposal, and we end up with a smaller, better quality business which has got much better foundations. I think the important strategic point in what we've been through is that we've now got a business that is really strategically aligned to national priorities. So the four areas that I've mentioned all did contribute underlying growth during the course of the year. However, when we step back and look at long-term value creation and returns, it's right for us to think about where is this business going in the long term? What is the value that we can create you know, across the group and that's why we're really saying that this year, you know, we're going to look at the business and assess that fit and look at the long-term return and value creation for shareholders. There are dynamics in the business where, and we talked about this at the half year, where some of our legacy products business has been more challenged yet some of the long-term services contracts that we acquired with Avantus have actually performed really well. And Martin mentioned the level of growth that we occurred in space. So it's the right time just to pause and look at that. And, of course, we're very early in the process. We've got a whole spectrum of options that we're looking at. First and foremost, the delivery of organic growth, given the position that we now have. What can we do to create further value and leverage across the group? I mentioned in the presentation that we've got a number of considerable opportunities that we're pursuing right now, not just in the US but across the wider group. Is there a reconsideration of perimeter? And ultimately, are we the best owners? So we're going to really step back through this review and really determine how do we get maximum long-term value in the right way for our shareholders. And that's really what we're doing through this objective process.

Martin? So on the exceptionals and the thorny subject of exceptionals, so I think just for clarity, then this year will be the last year that we put digital spend through the exceptionals line for your models, you should work on about £20 million going through on that digital program. Then going forward from FY28, I'd like you to sort of think about it, it's actually sort of a group EBIT level and therefore you will get the RDEC income, which is currently at around £30 million. And look, there might be some underlying digital that goes through there, but this program basically ends this year with the last major rollout phase going on as we speak now in the coming months. So a group level, we'll be talking about an EBIT level, not just profit from operating segments and neither EMEA or GS. So you would, in essence, add that RDEC income into that and therefore the return on sales impact of that. That's how I'd like you to think, and then any future digital programmes, we will just either, you'll either capitalise it as normal or put it through underlying operating profit. Hopefully that's clear.

Good morning, it's Richard Page from Deutsche Neumis. Two questions as well from me, if I may, please. Just coming back to your four-year guidance, being pessimistic, if we don't see any UK spending priorities itemised, are you still confident you can hit that bottom end of the guidance range, i.e. the status quo maintained? And secondly, more specifically on UK intelligence, could you give an update on performance? I think you said Q4, strong end to the year. Obviously, the ACE contract comes out, but you've also had that Belgian win. Just an idea of how you believe the business can perform in the year ahead, please.

Do you want to start?

Yeah.

And then I'll add a few topping points. Okay, fine. So, yeah, I mean, look, Rich, I think on the three to five, and as I said in my script, I think moving to the higher end of that, we do need budget clarity in all our markets, but clearly the UK is 75% of the group, so clearly we need that. I think from the backlog position that we've outlined, we've thought very carefully, clearly, as you'd expect around guidance and our ability to deliver the guidance that we put out I think certainly the bottom end of the range is clearly within the backlog and what we need to deliver to move up to the higher levels will require clarity of those budgets as we work forward and some of the opportunities coming through but we have a big opportunity pipeline as well to go there but we thought the three to five percent was about the right level as to where we sit here but you saw we had a very good order flow in the last few weeks of the financial year that's given us that revenue cover that we need, especially in the UK, to go forward. So we wouldn't have put the guide out if we weren't confident of delivering on that. But I think to the higher end, we do need that budget clarity. I think on UK intelligence, we guided to around flat last year after it stepped down in FY25. We saw some modest growth there, so low single digit growth in the year in UK intelligence, as I said, picking up in the last quarter. And the loss of the ACE contract was disappointing, but we also won quite a few contracts in UK intelligence that we pulled out around special forces communications, and Steve can cover that. We expect another year of growth in UK intelligence and if you reference the comments I made, the whole UK we expect to grow around 7% and UK intelligence will very much contribute to that.

Yes, a couple of bills, I mean first of all clearly what Martin said about times is right, I think it's appropriate for the environment we're in and obviously and you mentioned it in your question, we would welcome clarity on budgets, expenditure and priorities, I'm happy to talk about that because we know what we're doing irrespective of that DIP not being in place. But it's absolutely appropriate. We've got good back fog and certainty of where we're going. On UKI, I would convey that we're really pleased with how the UK intelligence business finished the year and how it's set up for the year. It actually had a record order intake, which is significant. which sets it up really well for what Martin has just said. A number of classified contracts, which as always, unfortunately, we can't talk about, but it really illustrates the point of the in-theatre technologies that that business contributes to national priorities. You'll have seen a few weeks ago, we've won a contract that was announced, and we won it back in December, but it was only announced a few weeks ago, which was all about alternative navigation, which is about how you secure the battle space with some of the critical learning that has come out of Ukraine. And as you've mentioned, and Martin reinforced, we've got some big areas of opportunity in mission data, both in the UK and we've got multiple opportunities. I mentioned Belgium, but we've got equivalent opportunities with typhoon going into Turkey and also Type 26 frigates going into Norway. So it's not just exclusive to the UK and Belgium. So if you step back and I know why you asked the question because sometimes UK intelligence can be slightly opaque and we want to make sure that it's not seen as opaque. It's a really high quality business and it's really performing well. It's got really good foundations, deeply embedded positions with the customers and a really strong pipeline looking forward. So I'm really pleased with how it came through last year and how it's positioned. And you'll have seen in my growth drivers when I mentioned R&D and mission support and ops, UK intelligence is a major driver in that growth profile that I showed earlier. Thank you very much.

David Farrell from Jefferies. A couple of questions for me, please. 12% reduction in headcount on a flat revenue base suggests there was quite a bit of fat within the organization. Can you just kind of explain a little bit kind of where that areas of headcount have come from? Because it seems quite significant. The second question is around the FSRO. I think I read last Friday there's been an adjustment to the incentive payment. from 2% of costs up to 10% of costs. Could you kind of give some initial indications as to how that might impact the group? And then finally, Steve, on your final slide, you clearly had all of the revenue growth attributed to the four areas. You've talked about guidance for 2027, but there's an end point there in 2031. What do you think about the medium term rate? Does that three to five go five to seven? Okay, a lot in there.

I mean, maybe I could start and we could just sort of build on, right. I mean, first of all, on the 12% reduction, I think, you know, it's a good question. So if you look at that volume that we mentioned, the 1,000 roles, two-thirds of that is what we would call direct roles, which is revenue earning, and particularly where we saw reductions in the US and Australia. The majority of that is attributed to sizing to align with revenue. So not in your language, fat. That's about sizing with the operational throughput of the company. And about a third was operational efficiency in what we call our indirect headcount. And that's something that is about underlying efficiency and it brings operating leverage going forward. And that's about how do we bring more streamlined operations, effectiveness in the way that we operate, and also drawing down on some of the digital program that we've invested in over multiple years. So that's my quick answer on your 12%. In terms of the SSRO change, and this was launched last Thursday, actually, and I was in the defense industry joint council with the defense minister and the national armament group as this was launched. We think this is good because this is changing the opportunity in single source contracts to effectively be incentivized to earn more margin. And what's important is what are the drivers for it. What it's trying to do is trying to bring innovation. It's trying to contribute investment. It's trying to engage a wider industrial base. And these are things that are kinetic strengths. I very much welcome this change, we see this as an opportunity to strengthen the defence industry in the UK and clearly there's a consultation period that now needs to go through, but the direction of this is a healthy positive move I think the government's introducing for building a healthier industrial base, so we think it's good. I'll leave you on medium term guidance.

I mean today we've clearly given one year revenue guidance I think as we've long articulated and hopefully the presentation shows we feel we're highly relevant to our customer needs and where we go and we do have a number of really significant growth opportunities but we obviously need to prosecute those but I think the numbers you mentioned David should be, I mean that's lower than we've historically done, we'd be aiming a lot higher than that as we go forward so We need to start with this year, as the questions have said, and move on from there and keep building the backlog. But, yeah, our sights are set much higher than the numbers you articulated.

Hi, morning. It's Giles Spungen from Investec. I was wondering if you could talk, Steve, a little bit more about Europe. I mean, you talked about the contract you've won in Belgium. It sounds like you think that's a very important win for you. Do you need to add resource to the European business Do you dare, I certainly, to think about acquiring something there? Yeah, maybe if you just talk a little bit about how you capitalise on that opportunity.

Yeah, so, well, first of all, let's just step back. We've talked about the growing opportunity in Europe a few times, and clearly we're seeing increase in spend, and that's why we're increasing focus. And actually, we've already increased allocation of resource to Europe. Gordon Vars here, he's our Chief Growth Officer, and he's already allocated in recruiting a number of European nationals and who've got experience in some of the countries that we're focused on and also Central Europe. So we've already committed resource over the last year or so as we've been increasing focus. I think I've mentioned before there really are three primary drivers that are our focus to increase access to increasing European spend. Number one is really building our organic growth. Don't forget, we've got a good footprint in Germany with our aviation services business. And last year, we achieved a very significant foundational contract for that, a 10 and a half year commitment to all of our aviation services in Germany. So we've got a base business in Germany that's solid and actually has got a number of opportunities both in in the air business but also in the wider threat representation business. So stream number one is building out organic growth from that business. That also links into partnering. So we've been using our German team as well as our UK team to build out wider partnering you know, relationships into other European nations. And, you know, we've got a few, not going to do a spoiler alert, but hopefully we'll have a few announcements at the Farnborough Airshow, you know, related to some of those opportunities that we've been focusing on. And then if we step back, the other drivers really are the long-term partnering agreement. We already have access to our ranges and our T&E capabilities here in the UK from countries we've talked before, Germany, Italy, Spain, US forces in Europe. And we do see with some of the modernization that we have been investing in that demand is going to increase. We're also seeing where we can bring some of that skill into those nations to help. And then the final the final driver really is what I would call exports in partnership with the UK government. And here we've got a really, really strong growing relationship with the government, looking at where their priorities are with NATO allies, how that aligns to effectively the smart wrapper, which we can bring at a national level to the UK government offering. Examples of that are in areas such as mission data, but test and evaluation, and some of the wider relationship aspects of what we do are valuable to the country. So those are the three drivers. And if you just step back and numerate that, I think we're at around 3% European revenue. If I look back at what I've described, we've got qualified opportunities that would look to double that as a percentage value. probably within a relatively short period of a few years. So that's how we think about Europe.

Maybe just one quick one. Just in terms of your broad comments around the 3% to 5% range and five being if certain things come off. is it just, so I understand, is it that your customers are telling you that once they've got clarity on DIP or whatever it might be, that they can then release work to you, i.e. it's sitting there, it just needs that process to go through. I'm just trying to understand, you know, why you see that two percentage point flex based on a specific catalyst in the UK.

Yeah, you start. Well, look, you know, we've got There isn't a DIP at the moment. We've got a solid base of backlog. And of course, we've got to win work during the course of the year. So we're taking a prudent view on any disruption that might occur in the year. And I think we're just sort of being balanced. So we're just making a judgment on how we expect that clarity to work through. I think the other thing that I would bring out, in addition to what Martin first said, is we do know a lot about what the dip is going to say. so I do worry that too many people are holding on to this major milestone, and we know what it's going to say, because it's going to really reinforce the drivers that were communicated in the strategic defence review and the defence industrial strategy, and from an industrial point of view, it's going to really reinforce the need for disruptive and alternative capabilities to offset the threat, it's going to reinforce the need to build partnerships with industry to increase productivity and efficiency, and of course these are all things where Kinetic is really, really well placed where we can help our customer through that. And many of the examples of achievements that we've highlighted already go to that. Dragonfire is an example, the AI augmentation of EDP. These are all aspects of reinforcing what our customer already is doing under the surface of the DIP. So whilst the DIP can bring clarity and overall flow what i would call orders during the course of the year um we're already cracking on really and the variability in that guide is just about timing of when things will start to flow yeah joe i was just going to add steve's coverage at the end really about timing i mean in fyd

were impacted by the timing of some awards that came in at the right at the back end of the year but we're hoping that they'd come in earlier and that probably drove a little bit of the variance against what we'd hoped to deliver in terms of revenue growth and that's therefore we've taken the appropriate guide this year to give that flex for you all and hopefully it's clear between the bottom and then the top end of the range but we're confident in the works out there for us.

Yeah, hi, it's David Perry at JP Morgan. Just a few, please. First one, can you just give a little bit more colour just what's going on in the UK today, sort of day to day? I mean, it seems like every day the newspapers have another negative story on the UK defence industry. So just sort of what blocking and tackling you're doing, what's actually coming through in terms of day to day sign offs, what's being delayed? The second one, Martin, can you just clarify the language of the share buyback? Is the plan to spend $100 million this year and $100 million in F28? Because the wording in the release says through to 29, so I wasn't sure about that. And then thirdly, maybe it's hypothetical, but let's say you sell the U.S. business. What's the plan for the proceeds?

Okay, so on the first question, David, I think I've covered a lot of that. But what's happening day to day? I mean, we're working very closely with our customer. And I think that, you know, despite everything that we read in the media, I would just point to what we've described as our results. You know, a 7% growth, you know, shows the importance of what we do and the quality, you know, of the business in the UK. And, you know, day to day, today is exactly the same as what we've been working through in the last year. So I don't really see, you know, for us as a business, you know, any different. But of course, you know, recognise that it is difficult, you know, dependent on what you do, but it comes back to, you know, our deeply embedded positions, our long-term contracts, you know, and the trust that we have in the critical role that we play at a national level. And I think that's covered by what we've done in the guide going forward. Martin, do you want to do?

Yeah, I'll do buyback. So, David, what we've tried to lay out to just remind everyone, we have an ongoing buyback programme that was £200 million and where we started this financial year having done £102 million of that, so we have 98 to go. in this FY. What we wanted to do was give clarity for the next couple of years, so we've extended it by a further two years. So for your models, you should work on roughly £100 million per annum out to FY29. And I think if you look at the 550 guide that we've put out as well, if you have the three years of buyback, that's roughly £300 million. The enhanced dividend is £70 million plus a year times three will get you to north of £500 million of shareholder buyback and therefore the comments that we expect to return most, if not all, of that free cash flow to shareholders. Hopefully that's clear.

And on the last question, David, I mean, you heard my answer to Sash earlier. I mean, we're really early in the process, and I don't want to prejudge any outcome. But what I would point to in terms of your question is we've got a really clear value-enhancing capital allocation policy, and we'll really follow that based on whatever outcome we achieve during the process.

I guess just to round off that last question, do you think there's opportunities to reinvest M&A in the UK or returns to shareholders more likely?

I mean, let's not prejudge the outcome. All options are there, but Martin has laid out very clearly our capital allocation policy and technology bolt-ins remain part of our current policy. So yes, there's options, particularly where it can reinforce our organic growth. So we'll look at that during the course of in the coming years.

But to also be clear on M&A and bolt-on technologies, we clearly, with a leverage of 0.5, have got plenty of headroom to do those bolt-on technologies irrespective of any outcomes out in the US. Any others?

Any online?

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Great. Well, thanks for your time. Thanks for your questions. If there are any further one, we'll be around straight after this. We can answer your questions. And if anybody's got any questions online that they want to follow through, please do reach out to Andrew and we'll be pleased to follow up. So thank you.