GenusPlus Group Shares Climb 5.4 Percent to $9.95 After Notice to Proceed on Parron Farm Substation Work

PERTH — GenusPlus Group shares rose 5.4 percent on Monday, extending a move that began after the power-infrastructure contractor said it can start work on a high-voltage substation for a renewables project.

The stock traded at A$9.95, up A$0.51. Other screens earlier in the session showed it near A$9.85, up about 4.3 percent. The company's market value is about A$1.9 billion. The shares are up roughly 56 percent over the past year, from a 52-week low of A$5.60, and remain below a high of A$11.35. Two analysts rate the stock a strong buy, with an average target of A$12.14, about 23 percent above the latest trade.

The catalyst is a notice to proceed, not a new earnings report. On Oct. 2 GenusPlus told the Australian Securities Exchange that conditions precedent on a design-and-construct contract with Atmos Renewables had been met, and that it had received notice to start work immediately. The contract, awarded on Sept. 24, covers works inside the 330-kilovolt Parron Maam Marang Farm substation. The board authorized the release. The company did not put a dollar value on that job in the notice.

GenusPlus is a Belmont, Western Australia, contractor that builds and maintains power, rail and communications infrastructure for resources, energy and utilities customers. A substation of this size is the connection point between a generation project and the grid. Notice to proceed converts an award into mobilized work, which is the step contractors and their investors treat as the real start of revenue.

The Parron job sits next to a larger battery contract announced last month. On Sept. 14 the company said it had won balance-of-plant work worth about A$160 million on the Birdwood battery project in Wodonga, Victoria, a 400-megawatt, 1.86-gigawatt-hour system for Birdwood Energy Reserve. The scope covers civil, structural and electrical work, high-voltage connection assets, communications and controls, and testing and commissioning. Construction is aimed at completion in late 2028, an 18-month build.

Managing director David Riches said the Birdwood project is a substantial battery development that will play an important role in storing renewable energy and making it available when it is needed most, reflecting the role grid-scale storage is playing in firming intermittent generation on the National Electricity Market.

That is the demand GenusPlus is priced on. Transmission substations and batteries are the scarce pieces of the energy transition in Australia, not the panels and turbines. A contractor that can do both, in Western Australia and Victoria, gets a backlog that does not depend on a single mine or a single utility maintenance cycle. The Sept. 4 announcement that S&P Dow Jones indices would rebalance also put the stock in front of passive buyers, a smaller factor than the contracts but part of the same tape.

Monday's 5.4 percent gain prices the notice more than it prices a surprise. The award was already public. What changed on Oct. 2 was permission to start. Shares often move twice on that sequence: once on the win, again when conditions precedent clear and the delay risk drops. Volume and the exact close will show whether Monday was that second leg or a catch-up after a long weekend.

The limits are ordinary for a contractor. Contract values slip, notices can be followed by variations, and a A$160 million battery job running to late 2028 still has to be built at the margin GenusPlus bid. The company paid A$23.6 million in tax over the past year, an effective rate of about 32.5 percent. Analysts forecast revenue growth of about 22 percent and earnings-per-share growth of about 26 percent over three years. Those numbers assume the order book converts.

At A$9.95 the stock is still short of the A$12.14 target and short of its 52-week high. The notice to proceed says the Parron substation work starts now. The Birdwood battery is the larger published dollar figure. Together they are the reason a specialist grid contractor is being bought on a day the broader market did not need to do much.