Australia’s Imdex has reported lower first-half profit and revenues but continues to see strong growth in its large technology business, which upped sales 72% year-on-year in the period.
The company said a constrained global mineral exploration market dented revenue, which was down 10% yoy to A$212 million in the first six months of FY25. Net profit was 24% lower for the latest half at $21.9 million and “normalised” EBITDA was down 10% yoy at $64m.
“Our revenue performance was strong, particularly given the 19% contraction in exploration activity over the same period,” Imdex CEO Paul House said. “Encouragingly, our half-on-half revenue increased, reflecting market share gains in our core business – including the expansion of Devico sensor revenues through the IMDEX sales network – as well as growing contributions from our new business units.
“As expected, normalised EBITDA declined in line with lower revenue. However, our EBITDA margin of 30.2% remained in line with 1H24, underpinned by disciplined cost management in an inflationary environment and the effective delivery of synergies.”
Imdex cut net debt from $45.7m at the end of 2023 to $15m at the end of 2024 and is aiming for a net cash position in FY26.
House said sensor and software revenues grew 72% yoy in the latest half, with Imdex Mining Technology (IMT) products now deployed at more than 40 sites globally.
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue generated by 40%-owned Canadian drilling analytics software company, Krux, grew 46% yoy while SaaS revenues for 51%-owned Australian mining software firm Datarock more than doubled versus the first six months of FY24.
Imdex says it will buy the remaining 49% of Datarock, one of the standout scale-ups in the global mining tech space in the past five years, by January next year.
House said the outlook for FY26 and beyond remained positive, with long-term industry fundamentals and short-term market drivers indicating market activity was likely to improve in FY26.
He said Imdex was positioned to capitalise on a sector recovery.
The Australian Securities Exchange-listed company’s share price is up about 25% year-to-date, capitalising Imdex at circa-$1.52 billion.
