Monarch Surveyors and Engineering Consultants Ltd Management Discussions

MANAGEMENT COMMENTARY

Indias civil infrastructure consulting market is entering a long, policy-backed capex cycle, and for Monarch, the question isnt market size — its whether the Company can capture a disproportionate share of it.

The Union Budget allocated f 11.21 lakh crore to capex in FY 2025-26 (3.1% of GDP), rising to f 12.2 lakh crore in FY 2026-27, backed by 50- year interest-free loans to states. India is projected to invest around f143 lakh crore in infrastructure between FY24 and FY30 — more than double the previous seven years — with construction growing 6-8% annually through the decade. Numbers at this scale can feel abstract, but they translate into a very specific opportunity for firms positioned upstream: every rupee spent on execution depends on decisions made earlier, at the survey and design stage, where Monarch operates.

Value in this cycle is shifting from pure EPC execution toward the knowledge-intensive layer that determines whether projects succeed: DPRs, geotechnical investigations, final location surveys, land acquisition support, EIA/SIA, GIS-led corridor planning, and integrated design.

These services cost only 2-3% of project value but shape nearly every downstream decision — a misaligned corridor or weak land strategy can destroy far more value than any consulting fee saves. This is a low-cost, high-consequence part of the project chain, and its exactly where a firms judgment, not just its manpower, gets tested.

Sector trends reinforce this. Indias 69,427-km rail network is now over 99% electrified, with Budget 2026-27 sustaining high allocations for new lines, safety, and seven high-speed rail corridors spanning nearly 4,000 km. The national highway network has grown roughly 60% since 2014 to about 1,47,000 km, backed by a f8.3 lakh crore PPP pipeline and 35 multimodal logistics parks worth ~f46,000 crore.

Smart Cities and AMRUT 2.0 (f2.99 lakh crore) are driving GIS-based master planning, while an estimated f36.6 lakh crore in green infrastructure through FY30 is pushing hydrology, flood resilience, and renewable integration into mainstream project scope. These trends align closely with Monarchs core strengths — surveys, DPRs, geospatial intelligence, design engineering, land support, and ESG.

Firms that can link alignments, land, environment, and logistics on a single spatial canvas will outperform those offering isolated services. Monarchs investment in LiDAR, UAV surveys, GIS portals, and digital twins supports that integrated model, combining geospatial capability with engineering depth — a combination thats still relatively rare among domestic mid-tier consultancies, most of whom remain strong in one discipline but thin across the rest.

Competition is intensifying at both ends — global majors with deeper balance sheets, and domestic firms racing to build similar digital capability. With 130+ active assignments, 800+ completed projects, and a 710-strong team, Monarch sits near the top of the mid-tier cohort, though scale alone wont decide the winners.

Three shifts stand out: clients now expect digital deliverables (LiDAR point clouds, BIM models, GIS dashboards) over drawings alone; they increasingly prefer one integrated partner over multiple fragmented vendors; and fee pressure remains structural, with consulting fees of 1-3% of project value under continued pricing pressure even as the liabilities consultants carry keep growing. Monarchs response is to differentiate on integration and digital capability rather than compete purely on price, and to be selective about mandates where that integrated model can justify a premium.

Some headwinds are structural and wont ease with a single budget cycle. Land acquisition remains the

biggest schedule risk across highways, rail, and transmission, driven by right-of-way disputes, tribal land protections, and fragmented land records. Working capital stays stretched under milestone-billed government contracts, with 90120-day payment lags common and no easy fix given how public-sector billing cycles work.

Talent in geotechnical, GIS, and transport planning roles is increasingly scarce, as EPC firms, government departments, and overseas markets all compete for the same pool of mid-to-senior professionals. Regulatory churn in EIA norms, forest diversion rules, and state-level land regimes adds further approval risk — one that needs real regulatory judgment to navigate, not routine paperwork.

Monarch closed FY2025-26 with revenue of f 17,170 lakh, EBITDA of f5,100 lakh, net profit of f3,723 lakh, and an order book of ~f61,500 lakh — about 3.5 years of revenue visibility at current run-rates. Its BSE-SME listing has strengthened governance standards while the Australian acquisition opens a developed-market foothold and a channel for two-way technical learning.

Growth from here depends less on the size of the opportunity and more on how disciplined the execution is — deepening capability in rail, expressways, and geospatial services, managing working capital carefully given the payment cycles involved, and investing in the technology that lets the Company do more with the same team, rather than adding headcount to keep pace with demand.

INDUSTRY STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENTS

Monarch works in the upstream layer of multi-year capex cycle — surveys, DPRs, design, geospatial intelligence, and ESG — the stage where a projects viability and eventual execution risk are largely determined.

This is not a one-off budget cycle. Public capital expenditure has grown from ?2 lakh crore in FY15 to a budgeted ?12.2 lakh crore in FY27, and CRISIL projects around ?143 lakh crore in infrastructure spending between FY24 and FY30 — more than double the previous seven years combined.

Monarch sits at the upstream end of this cycle, handling surveys, DPRs, geospatial intelligence, design engineering, and environmental studies before construction begins. This is where the current spending cycle intersects most directly with the Companys capabilities.

Infrastructure has become one of the central drivers of Indias growth strategy, with consistent political backing across administrations and formal

frameworks like the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) and PM Gati Shakti supporting it. The NIP currently holds over 13,000 projects, and government ministries are now required to use spatial data in planning — which means demand for upstream technical work is built into how these projects get approved, not incidental to it.

PM Gati Shakti illustrates the scale involved. As of November 2025, it had evaluated 352 projects worth ?16.10 lakh crore, and each of these evaluations depends on accurate geospatial data, corridor analysis, and technical groundwork — the area where Monarch has built its capability. This is recurring, structural demand rather than a series of isolated contracts.

Indian Railways is in the midst of a significant modernisation phase: broad-gauge electrification is above 99%, FY27 capex allocation stands at ?2.93 lakh crore, and seven high-speed rail corridors covering roughly 4,000 km and ?16 lakh crore are planned. Each corridor requires substantial preparatory work — final location surveys, geotechnical investigations, alignment studies, environmental and social impact assessments, and terminal planning. Monarch has delivered over 14,000 km of DPRs to date, and its LiDAR-based survey capability supports this kind of large-scale corridor work.

National highways have grown 61% since 2014, reaching 1.47 lakh km, with a current PPP pipeline of 13,400 km worth ?8.3 lakh crore and 35 planned multimodal logistics parks. Road projects increasingly require more than construction planning alone — traffic modelling, hydrology, land strategy, digital twins, and social impact assessment are now standard requirements. Monarchs combined road and rail capability is useful here, since projects increasingly cross both domains.

Urban planning faces similar pressure, with city growth outpacing the capacity of conventional planning processes in many areas. Projects now need to account for spatial, environmental, and regulatory factors together, not sequentially. Monarchs urban planning team — planners, GIS specialists, transport engineers, economists, and environmental experts — is structured to work across these areas as project requirements demand.

Water infrastructure is capital-intensive and technically demanding, and the number of consultancies with genuine depth in this area remains limited. Indian urban water infrastructure is estimated to need around $150 billion over the next 15 years, with the sector projected to grow from $2.87 billion in 2024 to $4.65 billion by 2030, an 8.3% CAGR.

Climate-related risks — dam safety, urban flooding, groundwater depletion, coastal erosion — are increasingly treated as near-term planning concerns rather than long-term contingencies.

Programmes such as the River Basin Management Scheme now require basin-level planning, which drives demand for hydrological modelling, drainage design, river rejuvenation work, CRZ studies, and 3D hydraulic simulation. Monarchs water practice covers engineering, environmental assessment, and climate risk analysis together, which is not common among firms operating in this space.

Geospatial technology underpins much of this shift. PM Gati Shakti and related initiatives have made LiDAR, drone mapping, mobile mapping, digital twins, and spatial analytics standard requirements for project evaluation. The Indian geospatial industry is currently valued at around $4 billion, growing 12-15% annually, and is projected to reach ?1 lakh crore by 2030. The global LiDAR market is projected to grow from $2.58 billion in 2025 to $15.37 billion by 2033.

Monarchs work has moved from basic mapping toward integrated planning support — combining terrain data, utility mapping, land records, environmental layers, and socio-economic data within a single planning framework, which supports better-informed project decisions earlier in the cycle.

A growing share of infrastructure delays in India stems from ESG-related gaps — land disputes, delayed environmental clearances, forest diversion issues, community opposition, and unaddressed climate risk. Green finance flows have grown from $16 billion to $55 billion over eight years, and sustainable private equity and venture capital is expected to reach $125 billion by 2026. Lenders are increasingly requiring social impact assessments, climate-risk modelling, and clear resettlement frameworks before releasing funding. Monarchs ESG practice is built to support this — not simply to produce compliance documentation, but to help identify and manage the risks that affect whether a project gets financed and completed.

Monarchs strategy reflects this positioning:

• Upstream focus: concentrating on surveys, DPRs, geospatial data, design, and ESG — the higher-margin, decision-shaping stages of a project.

• Integrated service model: offering survey-to- commissioning support so clients work with one partner instead of coordinating multiple vendors.

• Technology-driven scale: converting field data into usable digital platforms through LiDAR, drone surveys, digital twins, and analytics.

• Selective international expansion: growing overseas through capital-light, capability-led acquisitions, such as the recent move into Australia.

• Talent investment: building institutional knowledge and specialised engineering expertise as a long-term competitive advantage.

Indias infrastructure decade will be shaped by digital planning, multimodal connectivity, climate resilience, and ESG-linked financing. In this environment, the firms that capture the most value are likely to be those who prepare projects well enough to make them investable and executable

from the outset — not necessarily those with the largest construction footprint. That is the position Monarch has been building toward, and the basis for its continued growth.

OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS

Indias infrastructure spending isnt purely a function of the annual budget cycle — its now anchored in longer-term frameworks such as the National Infrastructure Pipeline and PM Gati Shakti

The construction sector is projected to grow 6-8% in 2026, supported by logistics modernisation, multimodal connectivity, and urban expansion. For Monarch, this gives reasonable multi-year visibility, since upstream consulting demand is tied to project preparation rather than execution timelines, which makes it somewhat less exposed to short-term swings in construction activity. Monarch operates in the stage of the value chain where projects are conceived, evaluated, and made ready for financing.

Railways: Indian Railways has electrified 99% of its broad-gauge network and allocated ?2.93 lakh crore for FY27. Seven high-speed rail corridors, spanning roughly 4,000 km, represent a ?16 lakh crore investment pipeline.

These projects require a sequence of upstream work — final location surveys, geotechnical investigations, alignment studies, environmental and social impact assessments, terminal planning, and regulatory clearances. Monarchs experience delivering over 14,000 km of DPRs, along with its LiDAR-based corridor mapping and early international work, supports this kind of large- scale, multi-stage engagement.

Roads & Highways: National highways have grown 61% since 2014, to 1.47 lakh km. MoRTHs PPP pipeline includes 13,400 km worth ?8.3 lakh crore, along with 35 multimodal logistics parks under Bharatmala.

Road projects increasingly require more than construction planning — traffic modelling, hydrology, land acquisition strategy, geospatial mapping, structural design, and environmental and social assessment are now standard requirements. Monarchs combined road and rail capability, along with its digital-twin workflows, is relevant where these disciplines overlap.

Geospatial Intelligence: Indias geospatial sector is valued at around $4 billion, growing 12-15% annually, and is projected to reach ? 1 lakh crore by 2030. PM Gati Shakti has made LiDAR, drone photogrammetry, mobile mapping, digital twins, and spatial analytics standard requirements for project evaluation.

Monarchs shift from basic mapping toward integrated planning support — combining terrain, utility, land record, environmental, and socioeconomic data into a single framework — is a reasonable direction given where the market is heading, though its still early to say how much of an advantage this creates over competitors making similar investments.

Water & Environment: Urban water infrastructure alone will require an estimated $150 billion over the next 15 years, with the broader water infrastructure market projected to grow from $2.87 billion in 2024 to $4.65 billion by 2030 (8.3% CAGR). Climate-related risk is adding technical complexity across dam safety, urban flooding, groundwater depletion, coastal erosion, and river rejuvenation work. The River Basin Management Scheme now requires basin-level planning, which is driving demand for hydrological modelling, flood- risk analysis, bathymetric surveys, and integrated wastewater planning. Monarchs combination of LiDAR terrain analysis, hydrometric data collection, and 1D/2D/3D hydraulic modelling is relevant to this kind of work.

ESG: Indias green finance flows have grown from $16 billion to $55 billion over eight years, and sustainable investing in PE/VC is projected to reach $125 billion by 2026. Lenders increasingly require social and environmental impact assessments. They require climate-risk modelling, resettlement planning, and grievance frameworks as major conditions for financing the projects.

Monarchs ESG work is integrated into its survey, design, and planning functions rather than run as a separate compliance function, which is useful given that ESG gaps are a common source of project delay, cost overrun, and financing difficulty.

CHALLENGES FACING MONARCH

Land acquisition remains the single largest cause of infrastructure delay in India, a pattern confirmed repeatedly in PRAGATI reviews. Legal disputes, compensation disagreements, and community resistance can stall projects for years. For an upstream consultant, this creates timing risk — a project can be sanctioned without ever reaching the survey or design stage. Monarchs revenue is currently concentrated in Maharashtra (around 90%), which increases its exposure to regional land-acquisition issues, though this concentration is expected to reduce as the Company expands geographically.

regional land-acquisition issues, though this concentration is expected to reduce as the Company expands geographically.

Environmental clearances can take 12-18 months, and while the PARIVESH portal has made the process more transparent, it hasnt made it noticeably faster.

Financing remains uneven — public capex is rising, but private investment is still relatively subdued, with liquidity pressure, delayed payments, and cautious lending affecting contractors and developers across the sector. Monarch raised ?93.75 crore through its IPO in July 2025, which has strengthened its balance sheet, but sector-wide financing constraints could still slow how quickly new projects move forward.

Competition is increasing. The global civil engineering market is projected to reach USD 10.29 trillion by 2034 (7.02% CAGR), and this is drawing in more competitors — domestic as well as larger global consultancies - all investing in LiDAR, digital twins, and Al-based analytics

Monarchs constraint here isnt technical capability so much as scale: larger competitors can price more aggressively, absorb project delays more easily, and invest faster in new technology.

Talent is another constraint. Demand for BIM specialists, drone pilots, geospatial analysts, hydrologists, and sustainability experts is currently outpacing supply, and for a business built on technical expertise, this directly affects how much work the Company can take on and deliver well.

SEGMENT-WISE

PERFORMANCE

FY26 marked Monarchs first full year as a listed company, with 11% revenue growth, a shift to higher-margin digital services, and a stronger national footprint, even as working capital and talent constraints demanded disciplined execution.

FY 2025-26 was Monarch Surveyors and Engineering Consultants Limiteds first full financial year as a listed company, following our BSE SME listing in July 2025. The year was largely about building on that listing — expanding into higher-margin, technology-driven design and lifecycle consulting work as Indias infrastructure sector continues to move toward more technically demanding, spatially precise project requirements.

For the year ended 31 March 2026, revenue from operations grew 11.39% to ? 17,169 lakh while net profit rose to ?3,723 lakh. Beyond the topline growth, FY26 also reflects a shift in revenue mix — away from pure survey hours and toward higher-yield, platform-based engineering and data services.

For statutory purposes, the Company operates as a single segment: survey, engineering services, and land acquisition. In practice, the operating structure is more differentiated. The Company works across railways engineering, roads and highways, urban planning and GIS, water and environmental engineering, geospatial and LiDAR technologies, project management consultancy, and buildings and structural engineering. These verticals are not run as independent businesses; they form a single platform serving a market that has become more digital, more multimodal, and more dependent on defensible data at the approval stage.

This growth was accompanied by stress on working capital. Debtor turnover extended to 113 days during the year, reflecting the billing cycles typical of public-sector contracts. Management has responded by tightening milestone terms on new contracts and expanding the Companys private-sector client base.

The balance sheet remains a source of strength: the Company is close to debt-free, with a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, providing capacity to fund continued technology investment without recourse to additional borrowing.

Transportation (Railways and Highways)

Transportation remains the Companys principal segment, accounting for approximately 48% of the active order book. Funding under the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan has driven a significant share of this years project awards, and those awards have grown more technically demanding.

The Company secured a ? 13,000 lakh Northern Railway rate contract, spanning 36 months, for engineering surveys and land acquisition management. It also undertook project management services for the upgrade of the Ghorpadi (Pune) and Wadi Bunder (Mumbai) depots under the Vande Bharat network.

The Company adopted Trimble GEDO CE 2.0 trolley systems for railway track geometry audits, reducing manual survey lag. The use of mobile mappers, including the MX-9, reduced highway survey timelines by approximately 35%. This improvement in turnaround has a direct bearing on the Companys ability to bid competitively for government contracts, which typically carry penalty clauses for delay.

On the roads side, land acquisition and design consultancy for the Somnath-Dwarka Expressway packages in Gujarat exceeded ? 10,000 lakh in aggregate value.

Water Solutions & Hydraulic Engineering

The Water Solutions vertical has become an increasingly reliable contributor to revenue, reflecting sustained pressure on urban and rural water systems from climate-related risk. The nature of the work has changed materially, moving from asset-mapping and localised pipe-routing toward river-basin modelling and coastal erosion infrastructure design. Margins in this segment held up well over the year. Standardisation of GIS workflows reduced manual data-processing time by 40%, allowing senior engineering staff to be redeployed from baseline mapping to higher-value hydraulic advisory work.

Geospatial Consulting

The principal structural development this year was the transition of the Geospatial division from an internal support function to a standalone business segment.

Client requirements have shifted from static engineering drawings toward continuously updated data. The Company now delivers GIS and BIM outputs through web-based platforms rather than as fixed deliverables.

Field data collection is increasingly structured as a recurring, subscription-based asset management service for municipal bodies and commercial developers, representing a more durable revenue model than project-based survey work.

Energy & Utility Integration

The Energy segment maintained a steady position, addressing the regulatory and environmental constraints that typically govern large power generation and distribution projects. The work combines engineering survey with forest diversion services and land acquisition consultancy; in most cases, regulatory clearance is the more time-consuming element of the assignment, not the engineering itself.

Taken together, the Companys financial performance this year reflects growth accompanied by continued control over overhead.

Personnel costs rose in the near term to support the technology transition, but the same transition has reduced the Companys dependence on manual labour, which is expected to support operating margins over the medium term.

Core Performance Metrics	FY 2025	FY 2026	Change (%)
Revenue from Operations	?15,413.62	?17,169.00	11.39%
Net Profit After Tax (PAT)	?3,483.22	?3,723.00	6.89%
Debt-to-Equity Ratio	0.52	0.21	-58.51%
Promoter Shareholding %	98.36	72.32	-26.47%

Capital raised through the July 2025 IPO enabled the Company to extend beyond its earlier regional base and establish a more credible national presence. This is reflected both in scale and in operating capability.

Ownership of fixed-wing LiDAR systems and drone fleets has given the Company control over the full data lifecycle, from capture through processing to delivery, reducing dependence on third-party providers for critical stages of that process. This has produced measurable improvements in turnaround time on several large assignments during the year.

Engineering for Communities

The Companys social feasibility and environmental compliance teams engaged directly with nearly 200 local communities along proposed highway and railway corridors during FY26.

Land acquisition and alignment decisions carry direct consequences for affected landowners and businesses, and the Companys approach is oriented toward minimising disruption wherever the alignment permits.

Headcount grew by 18% during the fiscal year. The Company invested over 12,000 hours in training field survey personnel on updated digital tools, intended in part to keep experienced staff current with newer equipment used by recent hires.

Looking beyond FY26, the Companys longer-term development priorities centre on sustainable construction and green surveying practices.

Infrastructure clients are increasingly required to account for environmental impact and carbon footprint over a projects lifecycle. Combining high-resolution terrain analysis with hydrological modelling allows developers to reduce earthwork volumes and material waste at the design stage, rather than addressing these issues after construction has begun.

OUTLOOK

Indias infrastructure cycle is now sustained and policy-backed; Monarchs opportunity lies in capturing a larger share of upstream, knowledge-intensive work that shapes project viability before capital is committed.

Indias infrastructure cycle has moved from periodic capex spurts to a sustained, policy-backed build-out. The relevant question for Monarch is not the aggregate size of construction spending, but the proportion of that spend that passes through the upstream, knowledge-intensive services in which the Company operates — surveys, DPRs, geospatial intelligence, design, and project management.

A Long, Policy-Backed Cycle

The Union Budget 2025-26 raised capital expenditure to ? 11.21 lakh crore, or 3.1% of GDP. Public capex has grown from approximately ?2 lakh crore in FY15 to over ?12 lakh crore in FY27 (BE) — a sixfold increase over little more than a decade. CRISIL projects nearly ?143 lakh crore in infrastructure spending between FY24 and FY30, more than double the preceding seven years, with roughly ?36.6 lakh crore earmarked for green investment.

For Monarch, this does not translate simply into a larger volume of projects. It means a growing share of national infrastructure activity will be delivered through structured programmes in transport, logistics, urban systems, water, and energy — each requiring surveys, DPRs, geotechnical investigation, ESG assessment, land planning, design, and project management well ahead of construction.

Where Demand Will Concentrate

Demand is likely to concentrate where spending is both large in scale and technically complex.

Roads and highways account for the largest near-term pipeline. MoRTH has outlined a PPP programme of approximately 13,400 km at an estimated cost of ?8.3 lakh crore over the next three years, alongside 35 multimodal logistics parks under PPP involving around ?46,000 crore of investment. This sustains multi-year demand for alignment studies, engineering surveys, traffic analysis, land acquisition support, and project management.

Rail and metro will continue to generate demand for corridor planning, geotechnical work, final location surveys, and multimodal integration, supported by near-complete electrification and continued investment in new lines, capacity augmentation, safety works, and high-speed corridors.

Urban infrastructure is under increasing pressure from growth in mobility demand, water supply, drainage, and land-use planning. This is driving investment in GIS-based planning, transit

integration, and network upgrades — areas that call directly on geospatial intelligence, urban planning, and engineering design capability.

Water and energy programmes are generating steady demand for hydrology, network design, environmental and social impact studies, and climate-resilient engineering, driven by flooding risk, wastewater regulation, and renewable energy integration.

Across each of these areas, value is increasingly created at the project-preparation stage, which is where Monarch is positioned.

From Assets to Networks

The nature of demand is also changing shape. GIS-led planning frameworks are pushing India toward conceiving infrastructure as interconnected networks rather than standalone assets. A highway functions as a logistics corridor linking ports, industrial clusters, urban centres, and airports. A railway line forms part of a multimodal spine that must align with freight flows, warehousing, and last-mile connectivity.

Airport and port expansions are increasingly evaluated alongside regional road and rail links, land-use change, and environmental constraint. This has a direct bearing on Monarchs position, because integrated infrastructure requires integrated consulting.

Corridor studies now combine urban impact, land systems, environmental, and social assessment within a single scope. Route decisions weigh engineering feasibility against cost, time, risk, and ESG considerations together, rather than sequentially. Firms able to combine surveys, design, geospatial intelligence, ESG, and regulatory support within a single delivery framework are consequently better positioned to win this work.

Monarchs combination of LiDAR and UAV survey capability, GIS platforms, engineering design, and ESG and social study expertise aligns with this shift, and supports the Companys ability to take on larger, more coordinated infrastructure programmes.

Competitive Dynamics

Monarchs principal competitors are not EPC contractors but specialised engineering and planning consultancies operating in the advisory-led part of the project lifecycle.

The basis of competition is shifting along three lines. Projects are becoming more data-intensive, involving LiDAR point clouds, satellite imagery, traffic models, and climate risk scenarios. Regulatory requirements around ESG, land, environment, and safety are intensifying. And corridor design increasingly needs to be optimised across transport modes rather than within a single mode in isolation.

Firms that can reduce uncertainty for clients before capital is committed are best placed to compete on these terms. Monarchs combination of field survey capability, geospatial tools, environmental assessment, and engineering depth is directly relevant to that role.

Integration as Differentiation

Surveys, design, and ESG assessment are each available separately from a range of providers.

What distinguishes Monarch is the ability to deliver these as a single, coordinated project-preparation package — one that reduces diligence risk for project sponsors and lenders rather than leaving them to reconcile outputs from multiple consultants.

As Indias infrastructure networks become more multimodal and more data-dependent, project sponsors have less appetite for coordinating that integration themselves, and correspondingly more reason to pay for it upfront.

Sustainability

Green financing and ESG requirements are now part of how infrastructure projects are funded. Monarchs work in environmental and social studies, climate-resilient engineering, and sustainability advisory is no longer treated as a formality. It sits directly on the path to project approval and financial closure.

This area of work is likely to generate steadier and higher-value revenue than survey assignments priced only by volume. The reason is simple: approval and funding depend on these studies, not just on the physical scope of construction.

The Companys opportunity lies in turning Indias infrastructure complexity into integrated consulting mandates. Survey, design, geospatial intelligence, ESG, and digital engineering are delivered together. This makes large projects easier to finance and execute.

To sustain this position, Monarch must keep building technical capability, execute current mandates with discipline, and stay aligned with public capital expenditure themes. Transport, water, and urban infrastructure have shown durability across budget cycles. They are less dependent on individual schemes or election cycles.

Near-term priorities remain consistent: invest in technology, strengthen technical talent, and deliver on secured mandates.

As projects grow larger and more multidisciplinary, clients are consolidating advisory relationships. They prefer fewer firms that can cover survey, design, and regulatory work under one mandate. This trend supports Monarchs existing strengths.

In addition, Monarch sees scope to expand its ESG practice into areas such as resettlement planning, climate-risk modelling, and grievance frameworks.

These services are increasingly linked to financing conditions. By combining technical depth with regulatory insight, the Company can help projects move faster from planning to approval. This strengthens both client confidence and long-term revenue stability.

RISKS AND CONCERNS

Execution risk in Monarchs business isnt whether a project gets delivered — it usually does — but whether delays in approvals, land access, or subcontractor milestones quietly erode margin along the way

Monarchs risk exposure follows from the nature of the business: project-based revenue, milestone billing, dependence on statutory approvals, reliance on specialised technical talent, and growing use of digital survey tools. None of these are unusual for an infrastructure consultancy. What has changed over the past year is the extent to which the Company manages them through defined processes rather than through case-by-case intervention.

Execution risk

This is the most immediate risk in the business. A delay in survey mobilisation, a hold-up in statutory approval, a subcontractor missing a milestone, or a land access dispute can each affect billing schedules and working capital, independent of whether the underlying engineering work is sound. The Companys exposure here is less about whether projects eventually get delivered — they generally do — and more about whether delays erode margin along the way. Monarch has built processes to identify such risks slipping early before it affects a billing milestone.

Concentration risk

Specialised consultancies tend to build depth in a small number of sectors or client relationships, and that depth is also where the exposure sits. A business weighted too heavily toward a narrow set of public agencies, geographies, or service lines is vulnerable to slower tender cycles.

Monarchs presence across rail, roads, geospatial, water, environmental services, and urban planning reduces this exposure in practice, since a slowdown in one client segment or state is less likely to affect the order book as a whole.

Regulatory and compliance risk

Tender rules, environmental clearances, land documentation, and client-specific technical standards each carry their own compliance burden, and as a listed SME, Monarch also carries disclosure and governance obligations that a private company of the same size would not. The practical implication is that compliance needs to be checked at the point of contracting and at each project milestone, not reviewed retrospectively once an issue has already affected delivery.

People and technology risk

The business depends on specialised technical staff and attrition affects delivery continuity more than it would in a less specialised business. The Companys growing reliance on LiDAR, UAV survey equipment, GIS platforms, and mobile mapping systems introduces dependence on system uptime, data integrity, and cyber security that did not exist to the same degree five years ago. Training, retention incentives, and documented handover processes on the talent side while system redundancy and access controls on the technology side are the primary mitigants.Taken together, these risks are manageable individually, but the Companys ability to identify and act determines whether risk management shows up as a cost or as a source of client confidence.

INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEMS AND THEIR ADEQUACY

Monarchs statutory auditor issued an unmodified opinion on internal financial controls as at March 31,2026 — independent confirmation that the Companys reporting discipline holds up under the scrutiny of a listed entity

Monarch treats internal financial controls (IFC) as core to how the Company operates and reports, not as a compliance exercise layered on top of the business. In an engineering and infrastructure consulting business, where project timing, revenue recognition, and working capital cycles carry genuine complexity, the reliability of financial reporting depends directly on the strength of this control environment. The Companys framework is built on risk-based principles consistent with the Companies Act, 2013, and the ICAI Guidance Note on Audit of Internal Financial Controls over Financial Reporting.

Risk-Based Control Framework

Responsibility for IFC under Indian law sits with both the Board and the statutory auditors. Section 134(5)(e) of the Companies Act requires directors to confirm that the Company has adequate and effective internal financial controls. Section 143(3) (i) requires the statutory auditor to independently opine on their adequacy and operating effectiveness. Monarchs IFC framework is designed to meet both requirements directly, rather than as a retrofit to satisfy audit sign-off.

The Company has identified financial and operational risks across revenue, costs, assets, liabilities, and disclosures, and mapped each to the process it affects. Controls are built around the orderly conduct of business, adherence to policy, safeguarding of assets, prevention and detection of

fraud and error, accuracy of accounting records, and timely preparation of reliable financial information.

The underlying logic is straightforward: identify what could go wrong in a given process first, then design the preventive and detective control around that specific risk, rather than applying a generic control template across all processes regardless of relevance.

Control Environment

The control environment reflects the Companys size and the nature of its operations. A defined delegation of authority (DoA) framework sets approval limits for commitments and transactions affecting assets, liabilities, income, or expenditure, which supports segregation of duties and prevents decision-making authority from concentrating with any single individual. The Company is implementing an integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform to bring project management, finance, procurement, HR, and administration onto a single system rather than the fragmented spreadsheet-based tracking typical of project-driven businesses at this scale.

Over time, the ERP is expected to improve realtime visibility into project-level costs, margins, and cash flows; reduce manual errors and duplicate data entry; strengthen preventive controls through system-based validations, tolerance checks, and approval workflows; and enable systematic monitoring of exceptions and anomalies rather than relying on manual review to catch them.

Internal Audit as an Independent Assurance Layer

Monarch has appointed an independent internal auditor to conduct audits across the Companys activities and operations, working under an annual risk-based audit plan prepared in consultation with the statutory auditors and approved by the Audit Committee.

Internal audit coverage extends to process and control effectiveness rather than narrow transaction testing, and includes software delivery and project execution, accounting and finance, procurement, employee engagement and travel, insurance, IT general controls, and the operations of subsidiaries and branch offices.

This coverage reflects risk areas specific to engineering and construction businesses — job costing accuracy, contract terms, subcontractor payments, and documentation quality — rather than a generic audit checklist.

The Company also commissions periodic reviews by specialised third-party consultants in areas such as quality management, service management, and information security, in addition to internal audit. The Audit Committee reviews reports from management, internal audit, and external reviewers on an ongoing basis, tracks remediation of identified findings, and assesses whether corrective actions have actually been implemented rather than simply logged as closed.

The Committee also meets the statutory auditors, C R Sagdeo & Co., independently of management when required, so that the auditors assessment of control adequacy is not filtered through managements own view of the same issues.

This structure is consistent with Part C of Schedule II of the LODR Regulations, which sets out the Audit Committees role in reviewing internal financial controls and risk management systems. Having management, internal audit, and statutory audit each report independently reduces the likelihood that a control weakness identified by one party goes unaddressed because it was never surfaced to the others.

Statutory Auditors Opinion on IFC

In accordance with Section 143(3)(i) of the Companies Act and the ICAI Guidance Note, C R Sagdeo & Co. audited Monarchs internal financial controls with reference to the standalone financial statements as at March 31,2026. Their procedures included understanding the Companys processes, assessing control design, performing walkthroughs, and testing operating effectiveness.

The auditors have expressed an unmodified opinion that the Company has, in all material respects, adequate internal financial controls with reference to financial statements, and that such controls were operating effectively as at March 31, 2026. They have further stated that Monarchs internal audit system is commensurate with the size and nature of its business, and that internal audit reports were considered in forming this conclusion.

Continuous Improvement

Management and the Board are responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining effective IFC, including ensuring adherence to policy, safeguarding assets from unauthorised access/use, preventing and detecting fraud and error, maintaining accurate accounting records, and preparing reliable financial information on a timely basis.

IFC requirements are not fixed once designed — as the business scales, the mix of project types changes, and digital tools expand, the underlying risk profile shifts with them. The Companys approach to keeping pace with this includes recalibrating the internal audit plan as risk assessments are updated, strengthening IT controls and data security as the ERP and other digital systems mature, and updating process documentation and training as roles, systems, or policies change.

Inherent Limitations and Forward-Looking Conclusion

Internal financial controls, however well designed, have limits. Collusion or management override can circumvent even a properly designed system, and controls that are adequate today may not remain so as business conditions change. For this reason, the applicable standard is reasonable assurance that material misstatements will be prevented or detected in a timely manner, not a guarantee that no misstatement can occur.

Based on its evaluation under Section 177 of the Companies Act and Regulation 18 of the SEBI LODR Regulations, the Audit Committee has concluded that Monarchs internal financial controls were adequate and operating effectively as of March 31, 2026, consistent with the statutory auditors unqualified opinion on the same date. For a listed company operating in a project-driven, execution-intensive sector, the strength of this control environment has a direct bearing on the reliability of reported earnings and on the Companys ability to sustain growth without a corresponding increase in reporting risk

DISCUSSION ON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE WITH RESPECT TO OPERATIONS

Monarchs FY26 performance combined double-digit revenue growth, approx. 30% EBITDA margins, strong cash of approx.284 crore, minimal debt, and a robust >615 crore order book. Australian acquisition strengthened liquidity, capability, and diversification, positioning the Company for scalable, technology-led growth with disciplined capital allocation.

Monarch delivered a genuinely transformational financial performance in FY 2025-26. Revenue from operations grew to 17170 lakhs, up about 11-14% year-on-year depending on the baseline used, while net profit increased to 3720 lakhs, translating into a net margin of roughly 21-22%. EBITDA stood at about 5100 lakhs, implying an operating margin near 30%.

This is high for an infrastructure-linked business and reflects a model built around high valueadded services rather than asset-heavy execution. For investors, this combination of double-digit growth and robust margins is a clear indicator that Monarch can scale without diluting economics.

The year was also a turning point in how the balance sheet supports growth. The July 2025 BSE-SME listing raised 9,375 lakhs of fresh capital at an offer price band of 237-250 per share, with 37.5 lakhs new shares issued and no offer for sale component. IPO proceeds, along with internal accruals, helped lift cash and cash equivalents to about 28450 lakhs by year-end, while keeping debt at minimal levels. This gives Monarch genuine financial flexibility: it can continue investing in technology, talent, working capital and selective M&A without stretching the capital structure. In a project-led business where public clients can elongate receivable cycles, liquidity strength is not just a comfort metric; it is a competitive advantage. Top-line momentum was underpinned by a broad and growing order book. FY26 disclosures and post-result commentary point to strong order inflows and a closing order book of over 615 lakhs, with more than 130 projects in execution across rail, roads, metros, geospatial, water and urban assignments. This breadth matters for two reasons. First, it reduces dependence on any single client, sector or geography. Second, it allows the Company to deploy its

Strategic Project Highlights

Somnath-Dwarka Expressway, Gujarat

Land acquisition consultancy across multiple highway packages

North Central Railway

Final location survey, geotechnical studies, DPR & EPC consultancy

Maharashtra Land Records Department

Licensed surveyor services across designated regions

NMRDA Outer Ring Road, Nagpur

End-to-end land acquisition support

Strategic infrastructure consulting across transport, land and urban development sectors

technology stack LiDAR, UAV surveys, mobile mapping and advanced GIS across multiple revenue lines, improving utilisation and preserving margins The income statement also signals sound cost discipline. While FY26 revenue grew by roughly 11-14%, net profit rose by about 7% and EBITDA by a similar order, despite some pressure in the second half when H2 income declined by around 11-14% year-on-year due to project timing and billing patterns.

The business model benefits from operational efficiency, specialised technical capabilities, and scalable project execution expertise; enabling the Company to achieve healthy margin levels through effective resource utilisation and disciplined project management. This operational discipline strengthens profitability while supporting scalable and sustainable long-term growth. It also reflects the Companys ability to maintain execution efficiency and financial resilience across varying project cycles and market conditions.

Key Financial Ratios

Pursuant to the requirements of Schedule III to the Companies Act, 2013, the following key financial ratios are disclosed along with explanations for significant changes of 25% or more compared to the previous year.

Particulars	FY 2025-26	FY 202425	Explanation for Significant Change
Current Ratio	4.38	1.71	Increase in Other current Assets and Trade Receivable
Debt-Equity Ratio	0.21	0.52	Increase in Equity share capital
Debtors (Trade Receivables) Turnover Ratio	3.7	6.3	Increase in Revenue and timely collection
Return on Capital employed	0.22	0.4	Increase in Security Premium and Equity Shares
Return on Net Worth (Return on Equity)	16.00%	32.00%	Increase in Equity share capital
Trade payables turnover ratio	3.47	5.18	Increase in Revenue and Timely Collection

Over time, this is expected to reduce Monarchs dependence on any single geography and allow practices developed in a more mature market to be applied across the group. The principal financial watchpoints going forward are integration cost, the pace at which new order intake ramps up, and whether group-level margins can be maintained while the new platform is absorbed into existing operations.

Working Capital

Debtor days remained in the range of 110-115 days, reflecting the scale of current mandates, milestone-based billing, and client approval timelines. This is consistent with the broader pattern in Indian infrastructure consulting, where public-sector clients typically release payment against clustered milestones rather than on a rolling basis.

The Companys cash position is sufficient to carry this working capital load at present, but sustaining growth at the current pace will require tighter milestone structuring in new contracts and continued discipline in collections, rather than relying on cash reserves to absorb further lengthening.

Outlook for FY27

Four factors are likely to shape financial performance going into FY27. Continued deployment of LiDAR, GIS, and digital twin technology should compress survey and design cycles, which has a direct effect on both revenue quality and cost. Utilisation and project selection will need to improve in step with headcount growth, to prevent overhead from growing faster than revenue as the organisation scales.

Participation across rail, roads, urban, water, and environmental mandates should help smooth revenue across cycles, particularly as maintenance, rehabilitation, and asset management markets grow at a faster rate than new-build work.

And any further acquisitions should be evaluated primarily on whether they are earnings accretive and operationally compatible with the existing business, rather than on strategic scope alone.

The Company enters FY27 with a stronger cash position, a larger order book, and an early international footprint through the Australian transaction. The task ahead is less about adding new capability and more about maintaining the discipline that produced this years results — selective project intake, tight working capital management, continued technology investment, and a service mix weighted toward advisory work rather than lower-margin support functions.

HUMAN RESOURCE:

MATERIAL DEVELOPMENTS

Culture at Monarch shows up as operating discipline, not messaging — training tied to live project needs, and management systems built to hold consistent as headcount grows past a few hundred people.

Monarchs workforce is central to its delivery model. In a business built on field survey, engineering judgment, and sustained client relationships, execution quality depends on the people carrying out the work as much as on the technical tools available to them.

The Company positions itself internally as a long- established organisation retaining the working style of a smaller, faster one — combining process discipline built over more than two decades with the flexibility required of field-based project work. This positioning is reflected in the Companys stated emphasis on collaboration, integrity, precision, and accessible leadership, values that matter directly, where coordination between site and office affects delivery outcomes as much as individual technical skill.

Training is treated as a delivery requirement rather than a standalone HR function. The Company runs structured training, webinars, self-paced learning modules, and certification programmes aimed at keeping technical staff current on drone-based survey methods, GIS integration, environmental compliance, Building Information Modeling (BIM), and data analytics — domains where tools and standards change often enough that a static skill set becomes a liability within a few years.

The Companys approach reflects a view that in professional services, the ability of teams to adopt new methods on live projects is as important to competitiveness as the depth of prior experience.

Retention in a field-heavy business depends on more than compensation. Field engineers and surveyors frequently work at remote project sites, under project deadlines, and with limited direct supervision, conditions where whether an employee feels supported and trusted has a direct bearing on how they handle judgment calls in the field.

The Companys stated approach — built around recognition, visible career progression, and accessible leadership — is intended to address this directly, though the effectiveness of that approach is better measured over time through attrition and engagement data than asserted as an outcome.

The Company is working to convert these cultural principles into consistent management practice rather than leaving them dependent on individual managers or informal norms. This includes standardised onboarding, defined performance frameworks, transparent promotion criteria, regular engagement surveys, and manager training intended to reinforce consistent behavioural expectations across teams. The purpose is scalability.

The principal challenge going forward is consistency — ensuring that training quality, management practice, and employee experience hold at a similar standard across a workforce spread over more than 20 states, rather than concentrating in a few well-run teams while others lag. Addressing this is a matter of management system design and ongoing measurement, not a stated cultural value on its own.

MACROECONOMIC

INDICATORS

FY26s macro backdrop supports sustained, programme-driven infrastructure demand in rail, roads, logistics and aviation, aligning closely with Monarchs upstream, knowledge-intensive service mix and multi-year execution visibility.

India enters FY 2026 with a macroeconomic environment that bears directly on demand for infrastructure-enabling services. Real GDP growth for FY 2025-26 is estimated at 7.4%, with FY 2026-27 projected in the 6.8-7.2% range, supported by domestic demand, stable inflation, and continued public investment.

The Economic Survey 2025-26 notes that inflation moderated, the current account remained manageable, and foreign exchange reserves rose to cover approximately 11 months of imports, while investment held near 30% of GDP, driven by public capex and a gradual recovery in private investment. For a business dependent on multi-year

infrastructure programmes, this stability matters less as a macro indicator and more because it improves the likelihood that a project sequenced today — survey, DPR, land acquisition, design — will still be funded and proceeding to construction two or three budget cycles later.

Public capital expenditure remains the primary driver of this cycle. Central capex has risen more than fourfold over the past decade, and the Union Budget 2026-27 raised infrastructure spending by a further 11.4% to ?12.2 lakh crore, approximately 3.2% of GDP. The composition of this spending has also shifted — rather than funding isolated projects, government programmes increasingly build long-term platforms across roads, rail, logistics, aviation, and urban systems.

This shift extends the demand window for the pre-construction services Monarch provides: surveys, DPRs, geotechnical investigation, land and environmental studies, alignment design, and project management. Railways illustrate this shift concretely. Indian Railways had electrified over 99% of its broad-gauge network by late 2025, and continues to invest in new lines, capacity augmentation, safety works, and high-speed corridors.

For Monarch, this has moved rail work beyond occasional individual assignments toward sustained demand across corridor studies, final location surveys, geotechnical work, and integrated engineering support rail.

Roads and logistics show a comparable pattern. Indias national highway network has grown approximately 61% since 2014, to over 1,47,000 km, with four-lane and above highways more than doubling over the same period.

Under Bharatmala, approximately 34,800 km of national highway development is planned, and the government has identified a PPP pipeline of 13,400 km at an estimated cost of ?8.3 lakh crore over the next three years.

A further 35 multimodal logistics parks, representing approximately ?46,000 crore of investment, are in development — reflecting a shift toward corridor-linked logistics rather than

standalone road construction. Integrated corridors of this type require survey, mapping, land assembly, environmental appraisal, traffic planning, and engineering design to be coordinated from the outset, rather than procured separately as the project progresses.

Aviation adds a further dimension. India is now the worlds third-largest domestic aviation market, and the number of operational airports has grown from 74 in 2014 to around 164 by 2025, driven by the UDAN scheme and continued airport modernisation.

Each new or expanded airport typically requires supporting road access, multimodal connectivity, logistics infrastructure, and adjacent land-use planning, which extends demand beyond the airport project itself into the surrounding transport and urban planning work.

Government planning practice has also shifted toward viewing infrastructure as an interdependent network rather than a set of standalone assets, with projects increasingly evaluated against digital master plans overlaying transport, logistics, land, ecological, and economic data.

Sector Development	Latest Industry Position
Freight Corridors Operational	2,741 Km
Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals	128 Commissioned
Railway Renewable Energy Target	30 GW by 2030
Airport Cargo Handling Capacity	8 Million MT
Railway Freight Loading FY26	1.67 Billion Tonnes

This has two practical implications for Monarchs work: corridor planning now needs to account for logistics flows, urban impact, environmental constraint, and land acquisition together rather than sequentially, and clients increasingly prefer firms that can deliver spatial intelligence, planning, design, and regulatory support within a single engagement.

This shift also affects the durability of consulting demand. As government programmes move from one-off projects to rolling, multi-year programmes, the addressable opportunity for a firm like Monarch extends across feasibility, survey, approvals, detailed design, risk assessment, ESG studies, and implementation support, rather than being limited to winning a single tender.

Monarchs revenue is accordingly tied more closely to the pace of structured public programmes in rail, highways, logistics, airports, cities, and water than to the timing of individual construction cycles.

Monarchs service mix — engineering surveys, DPRs, alignment design, geotechnical investigation, and multimodal planning in transport; GIS-based planning, drainage design, environmental and social studies, and climate-resilient engineering in urban and water work — is positioned against this demand pattern.

As Indias infrastructure priorities shift from basic asset creation toward network optimisation and resilience, the nature of the work required shifts correspondingly toward more technically demanding, knowledge-intensive consulting, which favours firms with established technical capability over those competing primarily on cost.

Taken together, the macroeconomic environment for FY 2026 supports a multi-year demand pool across the sectors in which Monarch operates, underpinned by sustained public capital expenditure rather than short-term project awards.

GMR ACQUISITION:

A STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Monarchs AUD 1.81 million acquisition of GMR Engineering Services provides a capital-light, capability-led entry into Australias infrastructure consulting market, combining local delivery strength with Monarchs governance.

Monarch entered the Australian infrastructure consulting market through acquisition of GMR Engineering Services. This is a capability-led entry. It combines GMRs local presence with Monarchs technical and geospatial strength. Monarch gains panel relationships, local delivery capacity, and revenue in Australian dollars. GMR gains access to Monarchs surveying, LiDAR, and GIS capability. GMR also gains the institutional systems of a listed parent company.

Strategic Context

Australia is one of the more attractive

infrastructure consulting markets in the world. It has long-duration public infrastructure programmes. Its procurement processes are transparent. It also has a persistent shortage of qualified engineering talent. Demand covers transport, water, regional development, climate resilience, and renewable energy transition work.

Most of this demand is concentrated in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and Western Australia. For Monarch, this market offers entry into a developed consulting ecosystem. Here, engineering services are judged mainly on compliance, quality, and continuity of delivery, not on price. The existing talent shortage also gives a multidisciplinary firm like Monarch room to establish a position faster than it could in a less constrained market.

Rationale for Acquisition-Led Entry

The Company evaluated two options: build a new presence in Australia, or acquire an existing business. Building a new presence would require legal structuring, registrations, panel pre

qualification, insurance, equipment, and years of relationship-building. GMR has operated in

Australia for over 20 years. The Company estimates that replicating GMRs position from scratch would cost approximately AUD 3-5 million and take 3-4 years. The actual transaction cost was AUD 1.81 million. On this basis, acquisition is expected to reach a comparable market position at a lower cost and in less time than building from the ground up.

Structure of the Partnership

The transaction is designed to preserve GMRs local brand, client relationships, and delivery continuity. Monarchs systems will not replace these immediately. GMR will keep operating under its existing name and client interface in the near term.

Monarchs technical capability will be introduced selectively, on priority projects only. This sequencing is meant to protect existing client relationships during the transition. It also allows capability transfer to happen without an abrupt change to how GMRs team works day to day.

Strategic Fit and Joint Capabilities

GMR reported FY2025 revenue of approximately AUD 1.8 million. It has a debt-free balance sheet. Approximately 80% of its work comes from repeat clients. GMR holds panel pre-qualifications with VicRoads, regional water authorities, Parks

Victoria, the CFA, and the Department of Transport & Planning. It also has established relationships with regional councils. This access would be difficult to replicate quickly. A new entrants application process in Australia can itself take years to complete.

The combined capabilities bring together two strengths. GMR offers local delivery strength: civil and structural design, surveying, UAV and drone operations, water engineering, GIS asset

management, and project management.

Monarch offers LiDAR and geospatial analytics capability, multidisciplinary engineering design capacity, and the governance systems that come with being a listed parent.

Capital Allocation

The transaction is structured to be capital-light relative to the market access it provides. It is meant to be largely self-funding, through GMRs continuing operations and targeted reinvestment. Monarch is not expected to deploy significant additional capital beyond the acquisition cost itself. The transaction should generate AUD-denominated revenue from the outset. This adds geographic diversification to Monarchs revenue base without materially increasing balance sheet risk.

Risks and Mitigation

Key person dependence is the most significant risk in the near term, given that GMRs client relationships are concentrated around its existing leadership. This is addressed through a transition and retention plan that aligns incentives for GMRs leadership to remain through the integration period and progressively transfers client relationships and technical delivery capability to a broader team.

Regulatory and compliance risk is addressed through the joint engagement of Australian legal, tax, and procurement advisers to confirm registration, insurance, and panel compliance requirements are met on an ongoing basis, not

only at the point of transaction close.

Integration risk is managed through a phased approach: GMRs brand and operational independence are retained initially,

Monarchs systems are introduced selectively rather than in full, and the near-term focus is on capability transfer rather than aggressive cost synergies, which reduces the likelihood of disrupting the client relationships that make the acquisition valuable in the first place.

A joint governance forum will oversee delivery performance, integration milestones, and client-retention metrics.

Execution Priorities

The immediate priorities following completion are clear.

• Maintain GMRs existing project delivery quality and client interface without disruption. Client trust took years to build and can be lost quickly during a transition.

• Put in place formal retention and knowledge transfer arrangements for key GMR personnel, so that institutional knowledge does not sit with one or two individuals.

• Introduce Monarchs LiDAR and geospatial capability on selected priority projects rather than across the business simultaneously, allowing the team to absorb new tools without disrupting live delivery.

• Establish a joint steering committee with a defined reporting cadence and commercial performance metrics to track progress against these priorities.

Conclusion

The GMR transaction reflects Monarchs approach to international expansion: measured in scale, financed conservatively, and structured to prioritise continuity over rapid consolidation. If integration proceeds as planned, it gives Monarch its first operating presence in a developed infrastructure market and a basis for further selective expansion across Victoria and neighbouring states, evaluated on the same discipline applied to this transaction.