It's not an industry I love but GenusPlus was worth looking at last year given some of the other attributes it was showing that I did like. These included:

• founder led
• with high insider ownership (over 50%)
• which he was increasing with on market purchases despite recent listing
• viable growth prospects by moving to eastern seaboard, but remaining in core competency
• strong tailwinds given government investment in connecting renewables to the grid
• no net debt

Going back and looking at the half year result I'd say the thesis is still hanging in there but with a few challenges that will need to be overcome. Revenue growth slowed (and even went backwards half on half) and costs continued to rise, which meant half year earnings before tax were the lowest in some time, although still significantly positive. To enable their growth into the eastern states they've been reasonably acquisitive and some of those appear to have integrated better than others.

Despite this I think there is some reason for optimism. The Comms business is a bit of a problem child but commentary suggests the most recent quarter has seen a turnaround - this will be on watch in the full year result. But the real reason for optimism comes from the order book and tendered pipeline, which are at record levels. I like the way GenusPlus break down the order book and pipeline by financial year. My base case has them doing $260m in 2H FY23, which is alot more than their order book for the next six months but they'd only need to deliver about a quarter of their tendered pipeline in order to do that. In the previous two years they delivered 46% and 59% of the pipeline. If they do $260m revenue I think they could come out with profit before tax of around $15m or about 11x their EV - a level I'd be ok with but not too excited about.

If they can get closer to my bull case than I think they would look really good value. To do that they'd need to deliver closer to their historical level of pipeline and do $300m revenue in 2H. At that level they're probably closer to $24m PBT, which is about 6x their EV. Given the combined order book and pipeline for FY24 and beyond, that the looks very interesting.

None of these figures include the Humelink tender (except as pipeline), which they were recently announced as preferred proponent in a JV with two other entities. That deal is worth $3.3b, although it's not clear what portion of that is attributable to Genus.

Still, lots could go wrong:

• Skinny margins make costings critical
• Look likely to continue to be acquisitive, which brings opportunity and risks
• Relative to 12 months ago a lot of the heavy lifting in FY24 looks like needs to be coming from the pipeline. You'd rather that was tied in as firm orders
• Timeline until 'Rewiring the Nation' really gets going is not clear, presenting a potentially awkward patch to get through before tailwinds really kick in

[It's a small real life only position for now. Given tailwinds I may average up into if they deliver]