@Dangles you are too kind!

And you've given a great report, hitting all the high points, so I'll just make a few selective comments.

Today's +15% SP reaction might seem completely overblown, particularly when you consider the underlying (i.e. pro forma) business performance, which is captured in the following extract from the earning's release. Focus on the numbers on the right hand side of the table below, when considering performance!

Yeah, right, it looks completely underwhelming. What annoyed me was that the CFO spoke of "operating leverage". but in my books, when revenue goes up 1.2%, GM declines -2.3% and EBITDA declines by -6.8%, then that's not positive operating leverage!

In any event, to properly assess the leverage, we really need to see two consecutive clean years - and I am not sure these guys will ever give that to us, given the strategy.

So, @Dangles, to understand the SP reaction, I think you have to go back to last year's AGM, when the outlook was downgraded and then downgraded again earlier this year. In my view, bad though those were, I considered the market to have over-reacted. Analyst downgrades (albeit still with relatively bullish TPs) and a whole bunch of short and medium term technical indicators screamed "sell". And so we've seen a progressive SP decline, which probably included a significant number of investors who have done very well since the IPO but decided that this was "game over" for them and taken their profits.

So today's result (from my perspective) had three material elements:

• Slight outperformance of lowered expectations
• Strong contribution from datacentres (as you say) with a positive outlook and, now, becoming a more material contributor so that you can project it's contribution forward.
• Repeated statements that Commercial/Industrial construction is "turning" from its cyclical low.

The first two points are self-explanatory and @Dangles has covered them.

For the 3rd point, consider the AI Group Construction Index to which the large part of $IPG is exposed:

Source: https://www.aigroup.com.au/resourcecentre/research-economics/australian-industry-index/

Here you can clearly see the cyclical uptick in the Australia PCI (construction) index. Falling interest rates should also (with a lag effect) feed through this channel, although I think Mike Sainsbury was referring to an AI Group report which was more of a leading indicator of activity. Ultimately, much of $IPG's underpeformance in the last year has been the macroeconomic conditions biting.

So, I think the optimism today is that: 1) data centres are growing strongly and 2) the overall cycle is expected to turn. So in that context, I think we've simply got back to a SP that makes more sense.

I am going to go back and have a look at my valuation. I do not think I caught the near term weakness of the construction cycle adequately when I first valued $IPG, and therefore likely over-valued this business. (I was at $5.00 ($4.00-$6.00) in November 2024, when I downgraded my initial rough valuation of $5.40 from July-24.)

Given my long-term thesis of the electrification and data-isation of everything, I'll be honest and say that I expected (wrongly) $IPG to do a better job of outperforming the sector. Now that we have a reasonably clean year or data, I will revisit the valuation.

I'm undecided about $IPG as a long term holding. Certainly, I am interested in the business model and the sectors to which it is exposed. I also think we could start to see an uptick in investment in the sector from cyclical lows. However, caution on this front is required, as overall industry capacity utilisation is still below long term averages. While that is good for inflation, it is not good for construction. So I really do want to see the electrification and data-isation themes driving performance nore explicitly.

As ever, there was a lot of "word salad" in the management presentation, and it was hard to find any real nuggests beyond those pulled out by @Dangles.

And, I also did not like that the Order Book metric has been withdrawn. To me, that means only one thing - it ain't strong!

So, on the one hand, my gut is telling me that it's time to part company with $IPG based more on factors to do with management style and behaviour (yes, @Karmast, I hear you!) On the other hand, my head is telling me that now could be precisely the wrong time to do this, as there could be a set up for another series of strong results.

Oh, and then there is the prospect on new M&A to muddy the waters.

I need to give this one some careful consideration. I expect there will be some positive recommendations coming out, and although maybe today's relief rally could fall back, I don't see any negative short term catalysts.

I'm between 2 camps at the moment, so a HOLD for now.

Disc. Held in RL and SM