Tracsis Plc Ord

Good afternoon and welcome to the TRAXIS half-year results presentation. Today we are joined by CEO David Frost and CFO Andy Kelly. Questions are encouraged throughout this webinar and can be submitted via the Q&A box situated on the panel on the right-hand side of your screen. I will now hand over to David to begin the presentation.

Thank you and good afternoon to you all. Welcome to the TRAXIS interim results presentation for FY26. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. Andy and I will walk you through a review of performance through the first half before providing an update on the progress we're making against our strategic priorities and the broader direction of the business. We will then close with some key takeaways before opening up to questions. Before we get into the detail, I'd just like to remind you all of our purpose and vision. Our purpose is simple. We make transport work. We do so to drive safety, efficiency, and sustainability in our customers' operations. And we strive to lead the future of sustainable, intelligent transport. Transport networks are becoming increasingly digitized and connected. Their importance to the way we live and work continues to grow. Our ambition is to be at the center of that, creating technology and solutions that revolutionize how the world moves. We have delivered a much improved financial performance versus the first half of FY25. This reflects stronger execution and the benefits of actions taken over the past 12 months, strengthening delivery, improving profitability, and continuing to build higher quality recurring and transactional revenues. Trading through Q3 of our financial year continues to progress well, which leaves us well positioned for the remainder of the year and supports our expectation of delivering a full year performance in line with the market expectations. We outlined our strategic priorities for FY26 and the full year results back in November of last year. And we've made really good progress on all of those fronts. This includes progress on M&A with the recent acquisition of Vesputi, a digital ticketing software company serving the German public transport market, giving us our first foothold into continental Europe. Aligning the portfolio with our long-term strategy remains a priority across the group. Looking to the future, we're undertaking an operating model transformation across the group to support scalable growth. This, alongside the technology investment we're making, is the foundation for the next chapter of the business, and I will come back to that later in the presentation. So our strategic focus is unchanged. We're continuing to make progress in building a higher quality, more scalable business, capable of delivering long-term growth. With that, let me hand off to Andy. He's going to talk you through the financial performance before I come back to cover off strategic progress.

Thanks, David, and good afternoon, everyone. So touching on the financial highlights, as David mentioned, after a soft first half in the prior year, We've delivered a much improved financial performance in the first half of FY26 that's in line with our expectations. We've delivered revenue and margin growth in both divisions. And importantly, we've continued to grow higher quality revenue with recurring and transactional revenues in combination 7% higher than H1 and FY25. EBITDA increased by 31% to £5 million. with an EBITDA margin of 12.8%. And on the back of that, diluted adjusted EPS increased by 34%, 10.2 pence per share. The group's balance sheet remains strong. We continue to deliver healthy cash generation, closing the period with £25.8 billion of cash and no debt. Post-period end, we invested in debt, so up to £4.4 million of that, in the acquisition of this treaty. Our £35 million RCF remains undrawn. And this leaves us well positioned to continue to invest with discipline to further strengthen our strategic position. Finally, we've maintained our progressive dividend policy and declared an interim dividend of 1.3 pence per share. That's an increase of 8% over H1 at 5.5%. Looking at the financial performance in more detail, as usual, I'll start with the group's consolidated performance and then break out the divisional results. On a consolidated basis, organic revenue growth was 7%, with a similar level of growth in both divisions, and further improvement in the revenue mix towards recurring revenues. We delivered EBITDA growth in both divisions, and our adjusted profit metrics, as you can see on the slide, show healthy growth versus suffer each one. in the prior year. On a statutory basis, we will broadly break even to the first half. That's after £1.1 million of exceptional cash costs in the period relating to M&A activity. And in the second half of FY26, we expect to incur approximately £1 million of additional exceptional cash costs related to the expansion of our OneTrax operating model on a group-wide basis These costs are mainly related to headcount reductions, where roles are duplicated or no longer required. And David will talk more about this later in today's presentation. Turning now to divisional performance and starting with the relative energy and services division. Total revenue here was 70% higher than the prior year. And as you can see from the charts on the slide, this included continued growth in both recurring and transactional revenue. Carrying software license revenue increased by 4%, £10.4 million. And transactional revenues from our smart ticketing and delayed and paid products increased by 24% to £2.4 million. The balance of the revenue in this division is made up of remote condition monitoring hardware revenue, as well as milestone fitting projects and display development projects. In aggregate, this was £0.5 million higher in the prior year, and that includes development revenue for the TAP converter project, which is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2026, as well as a small increase in remote condition monitoring hardware revenues in the UK, although these do remain lower than historical levels as we enter year three of Network Rail Control Period 7. Divisional EBITDA of £3.5 million was 16% higher than in the prior year, and this is starting to demonstrate the operating leverage benefit we get in this division from growth in those high quality revenue streams. On the data analytics consultancy and events side of the business, we also saw 7% organic revenue growth, This included the first revenue contributions from the new multi-year geo-intelligence contract with the UK government that we announced with the year-end results, as well as higher revenues from our event businesses. You may recall that profitability in this division was adversely impacted in the first half of the prior year by input cost pressures in our traffic data and event businesses. The actions we took in response to that delivered an improved level of profitability in the second half of FY25, and that's been maintained through the first half of FY26. That said, margins on this side of the business do remain significantly lower than in the rail technology and services division, although the seasonality of the events of traffic-based businesses in particular mean that we do typically see improved margins in the second half of the financial year. Turning lastly to cash, the group continues to deliver a healthy level of cash generation. Free cash flow for the period of £2.5 million was at a significant level to the first half of the prior year. We did see a lower level of working capital inflows in each one this time around. That reflects normal trading patterns, including the timing of hardware shipments and milestone delivery of those project revenues we talked about earlier. We also had higher tax outflows in H1 this year, that's due to the timing when instalment payments were made. Of the £1.1 million of exceptional cash cost outflow in H1, £0.6 million related to costs accrued in the prior year. And overall, we expect a further outflow of approximately £2 million in the second half of FY26 relating to exceptional items, including those one-track execution costs. that I mentioned earlier. In total, our cash balance increased by £2.4 million in H1 to close at £25.8 million. As I mentioned earlier, post-period, we invested a net circa £4.4 million of that in the acquisition of Disputi. And there is an additional maximum of £2.4 million of contingent consideration linked to the performance of that business the period through the 31st of December, 2020. The dispute acquisition is part of a disciplined approach to capital allocation and the strength of our balance sheets supported by a £35 million RCF that remains undrawn and our ongoing healthy cash generation all leads us well positioned to continue to invest in a disciplined way to drive long-term growth and to further strengthen our strategic position. So with that, I'll hand you back to David now to update you on the group's strategic progress.

Thanks, Emily. We're really pleased with the progress we are making against our strategic priorities as we start to execute the growth transformation strategy that we laid out for the FY25 results. But before I spend more time talking to that, I'd firstly like to set the scene by touching on our key end markets. Here in the UK, we have a really well established position supported by a large installed base delivering recurring revenues and a growing position in digital ticketing. Whilst we continue to see some friction in the near term, the CP7 funding remains constrained and the government continues to renationalize the train operating companies our view remains that the structural opportunity for tractors in the UK is positive. The UK Government's strategic plans for UK Rail are becoming clearer, following the publication of the Railways Bill in November 2025, and more recently the Strategy for Integrated Transport published in April of this year. The priorities outlined in these documents, such as increased efficiency of operations, the integration of track and train, improved safety outcomes and a better customer experience are all closely aligned with Traxxas' products and services. We believe the combination of our mission-critical technology, our deep domain knowledge and our commitment to investing behind innovation positions us well to benefit from a supportive UK rail market. Continuing to diversify internationally is a core component of our growth transformation strategy. We continue to believe that North America offers a significant long-term opportunity. I was there again recently meeting with customers, railroad dealers particularly, and the evidence is now showing we have a high-quality, well-differentiated product offering in North America. with our PTC-enabled train dispatch software supported by the new logo win that we announced back in February of this year. We continue to build a healthy pipeline of opportunity across both commuter rail and freight rail operators, and the industry is actively looking for a credible new technology provider. We do need to remain patient. as procurement timelines are lengthy, but I firmly believe North America is a key organic growth opportunity for us. Turning to Europe, we talked to the full year results about certain European markets being of interest to us, and the recent Vespucci acquisition provides us with a measured first foothold into the German public transit market, and I'll talk more about that opportunity shortly. More broadly, the digital ticketing landscape in Europe is relatively nascent and fragmented, and we believe there is an attractive longer-term opportunity for both organic and inorganic growth in this area. Alongside this, we're continuing to develop our go-to-market model to support additional target international growth, particularly in parts of Europe. Whilst there are differences between the pace and maturity of each of the geographic markets that we serve, the underlying drivers of growth are consistent and Traxxas is well positioned to benefit from those. We set out our strategic priorities for FY26 of the full year results and we're pleased to report that we've made progress in all of those areas. Our number one priority for FY26 was core market delivery and we're on track. Andy is taking you through the H1 numbers, which show revenue and margin growth in both of our divisions. We're continuing to deliver the key strategic contracts that will drive future growth. These include TAP Converter with a rail delivery group, which will underpin a nationwide rollout of pay-as-you-go digital ticketing on the UK Railway. We expect our work on this to be completed in the summer of 2026, which will then commence with a rollout starting shortly after. Works also underway on the new train dispatch contract within North America, with full deployment expected in FY27, after which we'll start to receive the recurring support maintenance revenues. This win provides further validation of the competitiveness match offering in North America. Alongside operational delivery, we've made continued progress on the quality of our revenue MIPS. Recurring software license up 4% and consumer-driven transactional revenues up 24%. Both areas that are a key strategic focus for us and a driver of long-term shareholder value. Our ambition is to become a scalable software technology product business, serving the transport and use cases globally. This is a journey that the group is on. It will take some time, but we're making tangible progress towards that. The acquisition of this beauty is a deliberate step forward, giving us our first foothold in the German public transit market through a true SaaS product. Aligning the portfolio with our long-term strategy remains an ongoing area of focus, and we continue to evaluate further disciplined M&A opportunities in line with our criteria to strengthen our strategic position. Alongside all of this, we are implementing a new group-wide organizational structure with a single functional leadership. We're continuing to invest in the technology that will underpin the next generation of Traxxas products with the initial focus on our operations and planning platform to reinforce UK market leadership and support targeted international expansion over the longer term. We have made good progress so far this year. Firstly, we're delighted to have this beauty to join the portfolio. given the group its first foothold in Germany, as I referenced earlier. The Vespucci team has created a niche in this market with its Mobility Box product, which connects public transport operators with consumers via third-party apps and websites. This is a true SaaS software product offering, and the acquisition provides Traxxas with a low-risk first step into a strategically adjacent market consistent with our objective of growing higher quality revenue streams. The business has delivered impressive growth since Mobility Box was launched in 2022. The product is now transacting over 70 million euros of ticket transactions annually in Germany, and this is growing each month. It delivered around €2 million of revenue in the 12 months to December 2025 and is immediately earning enhancing for Traxxas with good prospects for continued organic growth. The deal has been structured with €2.4 million of contingent consideration that incentivises ambitious growth targets through to December of 2027. Andy and I have been particularly impressed with the quality of the Bus Beauty team. They are high-quality operators with deep domain knowledge in the German and wider European ticketing market, and they share our vision of increasing the adoption of digital ticketing in public transportation. The team were in the UK shortly after the acquisition to start the integration work streams, and I'll be travelling to Germany once the interim roadshow is customers. Secondly, we're now taking the opportunity to embed a single functional leadership model across the whole of the Traxxas group. This will remove any remaining duplication, accelerate decision-making, and create clearer strategic focus around market-led product lines and their associated product roadmap. It builds on the integration and transformation of the rail technology and services division over the last couple of years and extends the one trackers model across the rest of the group. What this means in practice is that for the first time all commercial activities will be coordinated in a single team and similarly all technology activities will be brought together under common leadership. The two key senior hires, Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Technology Officer, have now been appointed and are in the business today. And we are now implementing the new organizational model before the end of the current financial year. As Andy mentioned, there's a one-off cost associated, circa a million pounds, to execute on this. This relates mainly to production. We expect to achieve a net headcount reduction of around 25 heads, supporting margin growth and providing the flexibility to invest behind driving our organic growth transformation strategy. Overall, pleased with the progress we've made on both of these fronts. These are actions that sharpen our strategic focus and strengthen the foundations for scalable software-led growth. So our journey continues. Our focus areas for the remainder of FY26 are really clear. Top priority remains operational delivery. We still have some work to do through Q4, but are on track, and our expectations for FY26 financial performance are unchanged. Secondly, we expect to complete the implementation of the OneTrax organizational model before the end. of this financial year. This is going to position us well to deliver future growth and will help streamline the integration of future acquisitions, not just this beauty, but also those beyond. Thirdly, we focused on progressing the drivers of organic growth transformation, building the pipeline for beauty growth, investing in SaaS native products, and pursuing disciplined penetration of international markets. We are developing our go-to-market model by using channel partners to support targeted international expansion. This is not going to be achieved quickly, but the new organizational model allows us to coordinate go-to-market activity on a group-wide basis under the direction of our chief commercial officer. And finally, portfolio alignment and disciplined M&A remain at the heart of our strategy. supplementing organic growth and further strengthening our strategic position. Our longer-term ambition for the business is unchanged. The future presents the opportunity for a growth transformation chapter, an opportunity for us to scale our business internationally, expand into attractive transport adjacencies, and invest in assassinated product roadmaps that address global market requirements. So in closing, Andy and I would like to leave you with the key takeaways from today. Firstly, Traxxas is executing with purpose, clarity and discipline, balancing delivery in the near term with continued progress against our long-term strategy. Secondly, we expect to deliver FY26 in line with market expectations and the commercial progress we have made to date positions as well to deliver continued growth going forward. Thirdly, we have made meaningful progress so far this year in building more focus, scalable business, strengthening revenue quality and further simplifying the group. And finally, we remain confident in the long-term opportunity in all of our end markets, supported by strong, enduring structural drivers that align well with Traxxas' technology and capabilities. So thanks for listening. With that, we will now open to questions.

Thank you. We have had a number of questions pre-submitted and submitted live. Just as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please type them into the Q&A box situated on the right-hand side of your screen. The first question is, what proportion of your annual income is recurring income?

So we, as you heard in the presentation, we kind of think of this in two categories of recurring software license revenue and then also consumer-driven transaction revenues, which are similar in nature in a sense that as the installed customer base grows, that level of revenue is highly likely to repeat year on year. Right now for the group in combination, together they're approximately a third of our overall revenue and growing. And for the rail technology and services division, they are approximately 70% of the division's revenue. So a nice core for us, a nice resilient foundation to the business, But as David has talked about in the presentation.

Thank you. Please could you provide further color on the size of the North America team and the expectations for this geography for the year ahead?

Yeah, the team in North America headcount wise is around about 25. Remember, this is an acquisition that we did actually just over four years ago, a business called RailCom. There was already a fully-fledged standalone business serving the US market. Under our ownership, we've brought it more tightly into the broader rail technology division, which we did about a year ago, so that they can get Under the recent changes in the operational design that I touched on, as we become more of a functional business through a series of product lines, that team will furthermore tightly integrate to the way that we are working. And what that will effectively do is provide a lot more strength and capability to that but also enable the commercial team in the U.S. on the ground to focus on driving the future pipeline of opportunity for further dispatch software projects. That pipeline has some real health to it. We look at the opportunities through what we call a total contract value, which can be multi-year. But we've got a pipeline that's close to 100% million of total contract value. So we're really focusing that team on continuing to penetrate an established market in the US that has been now demonstrated through our two recent wins on dispatch software that gives us real confidence that we've got competitive offering in a market that is unhappy with its incumbents and therefore looking for a credible demonstrating that we are. So this is a pretty slow burn in the US, given the length of the procurement cycles for such a complex piece of software. But we, Andy and I, remain very confident that we will continue to see the organic growth coming from that part of the world, and that's what we've got the team focused on.

in public ownership beginning to sign new software contracts. Is there a risk that GBR decides to develop its own products?

Yeah, the situation with GBR is obviously continuing to progress. Many of the chain operating companies are now backing public ownership, although so a little bit of time still to go. GBR themselves have yet to fully form. They cannot do that until the railways bill has been passed in Parliament, and that's due to happen here during the summertime. So the leadership team of GBR is yet to be formally in seat. how train operating companies will actually operate in that future state is still relatively unknown. But despite that, we continue to feel like we're well positioned as tractors to continue to support that market going forward. It's just a little unclear still as to exactly what that's going to look like as GPR does start to form. Having said that, we're leaning in more now because things are starting to happen so that we ensure that everybody is aware of who we are, what we do, so we can support them in what they're trying to achieve under GBR. If you do read the railways bill, the government is very clear that they're striving for you know, increased productivity and efficiency in the railway, increased safety, coming together at track and train, as well as improving the customer experience. And all of those are areas that our types of products and services really talk to. So, you know, we feel we remain confident in what the future holds for us. Will GBR develop their own products? Highly unlikely, I would say to that. Given the complexity of the industry, given the intrinsic nature of what we provide to the train operating companies, we're so intrinsic to how they run their operations on a daily basis. I think it would be highly unlikely that we would see GVR go and invest in developing that for themselves.

How much of your growth is organic versus coming from acquisitions?

So all of the growth that you've seen in these numbers is organic. The Vespucci acquisition was completed about a month ago, so it doesn't appear in our H1 numbers. And the previous acquisition prior to that was the North American business almost four years ago. So all of the growth that you've seen in our numbers recently has been through organic growth.

Thank you. Margins have improved. How sustainable is that, or is this a one-off benefit?

It's not a one-off benefit. There's two things I'd say to that. I think firstly, focusing on the H1 numbers in particular, as we highlighted in the presentation, we did a particularly soft first half in FY205. So that improvement in margin that you see in our H1-26 numbers is absolutely Zooming out a little bit in terms of what we're trying to achieve strategically with this business, there's a clear focus on sustainable margin growth and creation as we move through. That's really what underpins everything we're doing in terms of focusing on quality of revenue growth, focusing on organisation transformation, and it underpins You think about capital allocation as well. So it's a clear strategic objective for us to deliver sustainable margin growth as well as revenue growth assistance over the strategic window.

You have mentioned that you are prioritising higher margin software and recurring revenues. How far along that transition are you and what proportion of revenue is now recurring versus project-based?

As we discussed at the start of the Q&A, we've got about a third of the group's revenue is now recurring, and hopefully you saw on the technology and services slide how that is progressing. So I would say we're pleased with progress, but we still see ourselves at an early stage in that journey, and coming back to what I was just talking about in terms of margin growth, that focus on revenue quality also underpins everything we're doing in terms of tactical and strategic decisions for growing business.

Thank you. What's the biggest risk investors are probably underestimating?

Yeah, good question. Good question. One to scratch the head over a little bit. Look, I think that we operate in a that are cyclical, so the long-term trajectory of investment in critical infrastructure I think is a good place to be from that point of view. We also, in terms of what we provide into that and the intrinsic nature of how we help our customers run their operations, we're very sticky in terms of being a critical part how we help them run their operations. So once you are, it can be challenging to penetrate into a new customer, but once you are there, you are relatively well protected, given the importance and the criticality of what we do. So I think that's all good. some of the things outside of our control, whether that's what's going on in the geopolitical environments, change of governments, priorities within governments for where they deploy capital, sometimes can be frustrating to us or not as predictable as we would like. These industries also tend to move relatively slow when it comes to adoption of new technologies. So that can be also a little frustrating to us. We would often like people to move at a faster pace, but it's kind of the nature of the end markets that we're serving. So I don't think there's anything of any sort of existential threat that people aren't seeing. It's more the dynamics of the world sometimes don't move at the pace that we would like them to move at. So being able to demonstrate growth on the back of that can be pretty challenging at times. And hence the importance for us to kind of be less reliant on UK rail, if you like. It's a critical core market of ours and clearly one that we continue to be very focused ourselves accordingly for what GDR brings. But then the importance of diversifying the portfolio so that we've kind of got Andy and I talked with us having more shots on goal so that we can be less exposed or reliant on a particular part of our portfolio. So that's the way I think we think about it. There's clearly a lot of talk at the moment about the impact of AI. and the threat that that presents to certain businesses, particularly software businesses. But we're very clear that given the fact that we are working within critical infrastructure and markets, that we are so deeply entrenched in the way we help our customers run their operations, the deep domain expertise that we have as a business to enable all of that, They call it a defensive moat, but we are well protected from that point of view, and therefore look to embrace AI. I think this is one of the questions maybe coming later. We look to embrace AI in all of what we do to drive efficiency within our own business, as well as deploy AI tools within our product sets to help our their ways of working.

If UK rail spending slows further, how resilient is the business?

The business is very resilient in that scenario. I think coming back to the quantum of recurring revenue that we've got as a foundation, as David just touched on, most of what we offer is mission-critical software solutions that are well embedded with our customers. We've got a strong balance sheet. And let's not forget that we've got the data analytics consultancy events division, which contributes over half of our revenue currently that isn't exposed to UK rail sending. So sending slowly further, it may well cause us a bit of heartburn in terms of of being able to deliver the growth rate that we're ambitious to do. But the resilience of the business as a whole is pretty strong in that scenario.

Thank you. How is Tractors as a business affected by the conflict in the Middle East?

Yeah, look, I think I'd say to that that we're not directly impacted in terms of our day-to-day operations as a business. We don't trade in that part of the world. We don't rely on supplies coming from that part of the world necessarily. We are, of course, impacted like everybody in terms of pressure it puts on, inflationary pressure it puts on our daily lives, the energy situation that we're all facing. Of course, we're caught up in that like anybody else is. But there isn't anything specific that causes Andy and I to be overly concerned by what's going on in our part of the world right now from the business standpoint at least.

How are you using AI within the business?

Yeah, I sort of touched on this earlier. Apologies, I had a side of this question coming. So I'll share with you some thoughts on how we think about AI and the impact that that can have on many, many businesses, but there's certain concerns around software businesses right now and how we feel well protected by the nature of what we do. And therefore, AI for us is something that we embrace and embrace to strengthen the competitive position that we have in our markets, whether that's through driving internal efficiencies in the way that we work, whether it's in our support functions or, indeed, whether it's how we deploy AI into how we code software. So all of that is happening today, as well as then how we think about building what they call a Gentic AI into some of the product offerings that we present into the market that really then helps the users of our software suite to be more efficient in their day So very much embracing. We, as I mentioned, recently hired a new CTO into the business about a month ago. And that individual brings a wealth of experience in deployment of AI tools right across the spectrum that I've described. So we're pretty excited about AI being a real accelerator for us. within our products we've planned for.

Are customers signing longer-term contracts now or still short-cycle?

Yeah, I wouldn't describe the contract situation as short-cycle. I think we are seeing customers signing longer-term contracts. If I think about recent contract wins, the geo-intelligence contracts with the UK government is a 10-year contract. The train dispatch contract in North America is a multi-year contract. The tap converter contract that we're deploying in the summer is a multi-year contract. So the majority of what we are signing up to are multi-year agreements. And that really reflects, again, what we've touched on already today is the criticality of the software solutions that we provide for our customers. to run their operations. And in the UK talk environment, that's where this question was kind of pointed towards, we are still seeing an appetite with our customers to look in for longer term deals to have that security of supply and certainty of being able to run their operations. So it is a slightly mixed bag across our revenue piece. We do have some annual renewals, but with a high level of renewal. But we're definitely not facing into a kind of restrictive contract environment about customers right now.

Thank you. How much PAYG transactional revenue are you expecting once the system is running nationwide?

It's a great question and it's very difficult to answer right now. And the reason I say that is that the model there, the revenue model is we essentially get paid on a per click basis for every fair calculation that we do on the platform. So ultimately the revenue opportunity will be driven by the number of transactions that we're processing. We are providing that technology solution on a B2B basis and the rollout of the pay-as-you-go technology will be controlled through transport authorities, train operators and other bodies on a B2C basis that we're not in direct control of. So rather than sort of make predictions of uptick and growth rates there that we simply can't be informed about at this stage, our guidance, if you like, our policy is to price into our forecast 12-month run rate that we're seeing at the moment, with the anticipation that there is some asymmetric upside opportunity against that as technology gets rolled out and as adoption increases, but without trying to be disingenuously scientific about predicting the shape that care is going to take.

Thank you. Our next question is, what million pound of M&A costs Are these some costs or has this created an active pipeline of opportunities? Secondly, have noted the increased facility in addition to the £25 million net cash on the balance sheet. Does this open you the possibility of transformation M&A? Thank you.

Yeah, let me touch on the M&A costs so far. So that does include investment in our pipeline. We have got an active pipeline of opportunities that we're working at the moment. Hopefully you'll understand given the nature of that that there's only so much we can say in a session like this. But we are working through a number of opportunities in a disciplined way. And that discipline does include if opportunities as they progress do not meet our strict criteria and our investment criteria, then we will move on and look at other opportunities. So you should think about the M&A perspective and size-wise. You know, we were pretty clear that having not done a deal for four years, you know, we were going to walk before we ran. And therefore, you know, an acquisition like SBC is a kind of a bolt-on, a strategic addition to our current capabilities, albeit in a new geography, giving us some revenue diversification, bringing some new talent into the organization. That fits really nicely into the model of what we're looking for. I'm absolutely interested in doing deals like that. The facility is there to give us the flexibility to pick up the pastry with MLA so to continue to contemplate moving in place with opportunities like that and to give us the flexibility as something larger came along that fit in our strategic criteria to also potentially have the opportunity to progress that. So it's really about the flexibility and the optionality it gives us to do all of the above. Thank you.

Can you say something about the geospatial intelligence side of the business? Can expertise here lead to further opportunities?

Yeah, we think it can. The history of our business is really brought up in Ireland, serving public markets, particularly around transportation, agriculture and forestry. And the team there are deploying, their skills are in the deployment of GIS and Earth observation technologies into various application cases within that market space. And they procure that under, typically under framework. So we've got a well-established business there in Ireland doing exactly that. If you recall earlier this year, we announced the first contract win with UK government with to now develop an actual software product that enables DEFRA to understand land use across the farming industry here in the UK. And the technology can actually, actually the definition of technology on that land when it comes to things like subsidies. And prior to this, you know, they would actually send people out to physically inspect what was going on on that territory. So the way we're thinking about the technology going forward is looking at ways in which we bring together all of that capability alongside some of the other software suite that we have to further enhance the understanding of what's going on in particular application cases. So I'll give you a for instance. If you think about we have remote condition monitoring deployed on the UK rail network. which is a data logger capturing data points, feeding up into an IoT platform, and then we're thinking about how we develop analytics to provide insight back to Network Rails to what's happening with that infrastructure. There is an opportunity here for us to bring together GIS and Earth Observation into that so that you can start to understand the movement in the land, how much water there is. There's been recent incidents of landslips happening on the network, and this is the sort of technology that can help predict what's happening. So we like the idea of bringing land together with rail and the technologies that we have together to give our customers more insight as to what's going on we do feel there's a lot more opportunity to more tightly integrate that tech into the other software suite areas that we've got.

The next question is for David. Your predecessor was talking about OneTraxis for several years. It seems to be going on and it's not clear to shareholders what the benefits of this will be. Can we assume much approval to margins and returns as a result of all these changes and exceptional costs?

Yeah, look, I think as I joined the business, moves have been made towards more tightly integrating the acquired companies from the first sort of early days of Traxxas back into the 2004 to 2019 period. where Chris Barnes, my predecessor, his predecessor, John McArthur, was buying these businesses. Chris started to bring them together with Andy to integrate them more tightly, which was the right thing to do. And really what we're doing here is continuing to build on that and taking it to another level whereby we are a one-traxis, single business operating under a functional our structure, led through a series of product lines, which is really important so that we become market-led and invest in a product roadmap that serves the market requirements. That's the key thread of our strategy here. And the way that we're now organizing the teams is that we're removing a lot of duplication in the overhead structure that we have in the business, and that's enabled us to leverage from a margin standpoint, but more importantly, it's enabled us to redeploy that cost in the business into the commercial roles that will drive the organic growth transformation strategy that we have. So I think that's the key takeaway for shareholders, that this isn't seen as, you know, Groundhog Day of, you know, yet another change. important that you see in a connection with putting the foundation, the right structure into our organisation that releases some of the overhead costs to then reinvest back in the roles, the commercial roles that are truly going to drive the growth, and growth will lead to shareholder value if we make good decisions and deploy that appropriately.

What is the competition in the German market? Is it an open market?

The way that I think about this is Mobility Box is the software technology that enables the consumer to buy a digital ticket from one of the train operating companies. The consumer end of that is not what we are doing so there are train operators themselves as well as many other apps and websites that allow you to go and now purchase a digital ticket that could be it could be a hotel chain for instance It could be Uber. So there's many, many, but we consider that kind of the open markets. And there are many players within that. And that's not something that we're going to participate within. Our focus is on the backend software that really connects the consumer wanting to buy a digital ticket with the appropriate trade operating company. And what Disputi have done is found themselves this niche in the middle whereby they are connecting all of that together. And they're doing it through a SaaS product that is truly a product. There is only one code set here. And because of that, it allows them to deploy the technology incredibly quickly. You can get up and running within three or four weeks. And that's part of their of secret sauce, if you like, is the pace at which they move to enable either a third party provider talking to the consumer and or a train operating company to start to be able to sell digital tickets.

Thank you. The next question is, under GPR, will all the contracts have to be renegotiated?

There's no sight of that at the moment. So our contracts with train operators are covered by kind of umbrella agreements already that ensure continuity of provision of service in the event of change of ownership. So even as the train operators are nationalised, that process is pretty well progressed and ongoing. due to be completed at the end of October 2027. But even within that you've got a bunch of train operators that have their own operating processes, their own ways of working, different union agreements and places, so a huge amount of difference across the piece. So there's no umbrella requirement to renegotiate every contract on the way in. and exactly what the landscape looks like as GBR comes into focus. As we said before, that's not yet, so their ability to appoint leadership and really set the structure up is still taking shape. That environment that we'll be facing into when that comes into play is still taking shape. As David talked about earlier, you know, we are focused on making sure the track stays really well positioned in that space. people understand our unique capabilities, our breadth of capability. And going back to the railways bill and what the UK government sets out as its strategic ambitions of railway, we do feel that through medium and longer term practices, businesses really well positioned to help to deliver that future, be a really trustable partner to all of the operators to go through that process.

We are now moving on to our final question for today. If you have any further questions, please email the team who will respond to any questions that were uncovered this afternoon. Does the data analytics consultancy and events offer enough bang for the buck?

I think we touched on some of this before. Our vision and our strategic ambition for the group is pretty clear. And there are capabilities and technologies in that side of the business that we think are really interesting as part of that future. And certainly as we've gone through a period of transition on the rail side of the business, it's given us a nice counterweight, a nice bit of balance in the portfolio. We continue to look at future of the group through that strategic lens of purpose and good vision that we talked about at the start of the presentation. Right now, when you reflect on the market valuation of the business and the sum of the parts, it doesn't feel like that side of the business is fully valued. That's not something that we're in full control of. Our focus is on continuing to run a quality business, continuing to make the business And hopefully the market valuation side of things will take care of itself. So, you know, we continue to be closer to what we're doing from an organisational design perspective, from a product development perspective, and continue to look at all parts of the portfolio through that strategic lens, purpose and vision.

Thank you. We currently have no further questions, so I'll hand back over to David for any closing remarks.

Yeah, thanks, Ellie. Look, hopefully you guys have found that interesting today to get an update on where we're at. We're certainly executing here with purpose, clarity, and discipline, getting the right balance between the near term and continuing to progress against our long-term strategy. We're encouraged to see that our financial performance continues to be in line with the expectations, making good progress in the US with our latest logo win. We're back on the M&A trail, first foray into a new geography with the team at Disputi, and continuing to bring further sharpness into the portfolio as we think about the direction we're looking to take. We're very pleased with the progress that we've made so far in the first half of the year. Look forward to speaking to you again in six months' time when we hope to be able to continue to share, you know, further progress along that direction as we outline here today. So thanks for listening. Appreciate your questions. Look forward to speaking to you next time.

Thank you to David and Andy for joining us today. That concludes the TRAXIS half-year results presentation. Please take a moment to complete a short survey following this event. The recording of this presentation will be made available on Engage Investor. I hope you enjoyed today's webinar.