Cenergy Stock

Welcome this afternoon to our 2026 first semester financial results conference call.

Let's see first our major highlight points of the semester that has just ended. So first of all, we are in a record backlog figure following IPTO's frame agreements on the North Aegean and Dodecanese interconnections. The project execution was very good in the semester, delivering high margins in most projects. We continue to build up capacity since our backlog is expected to grow even further. The returns to our shareholders remain attractive, and our leverage profile is also solid even after expanding a significant amount for CapEx in the first semester.

The numbers that are highlighted in our press release and in our financial results are as follows. First of all, we have an increase in revenue of 13% year-on-year, above the threshold of EUR 1 billion at a level of EUR 1.15 billion. This higher revenue actually doubles in terms of profitability, in terms of profitability delta. And we have an increase of the operational profitability of 26% compared to the first semester of 2025, reaching a number of EUR 216 million. Again, that once more, it shows that our focus is on value and not on volume.

Margins remain high, around 19%, almost 200 basis points higher than the corresponding semester of last year, slightly lower than the 19.7% that we had in Q1. As we had already forecasted, the introduction of land cables, extra capacity in Thiva and Eleonas has driven slightly down those margins, since in Q1 we had a disproportionately high percentage of offshore cable in our revenues.

Our backlog reaches EUR 3.9 billion. This is mostly due to the IPTO interconnection of the 4 interconnections in Greece, which is valued at EUR 1.15 billion. I will come back to it in a while. CapEx for the first semester was EUR 165 million, an important number, with EUR 67 million out of which were in facilities outside Greece.

We reiterate in that way our commitment to a global positioning, both for our cable segment that is expected to start its U.S. operations in the second semester of 2027, which means 12 months from now or a little bit more than 12 months, 12 to 13 months from now, as well as the new pipes facility in the U.K.

The bottom line is at EUR 177 million, 43% higher than last year and an EPS of EUR 0.65, 45% higher than last year. And given these very strong results of H1 and the growing backlog, the company has decided to upgrade its full year 2026 guidance for operational profitability to EUR 390 million to EUR 420 million range of adjusted EBITDA.

Let's look into a little bit more detail the figures for 2026, starting from revenue. As I said, the revenue exceeded EUR 1.1 billion. The strongest change is found in the cable products business unit at EUR 352 million for the first 6 months, a 20% increase from the corresponding semester of '25. But the largest share of revenue is, of course, in cable projects, more than 40% of total revenue, and this is the most profitable segment, as you all know.

There is a strong increase in steel pipes projects of 13% in money terms. The only constant part of our business line is hollow sections. But as I told you quite often in the past, this is not a focus point for our group. It's more of a continuing business from the 20th century years of Corinth Pipeworks, and it's really a very small part of the Corinth Pipeworks business right now.

The sales are dispersed. Of course, the larger part is still found in Europe. We're a Europe-centric company. More than 60% of our sales are in Europe for the last 2 years. The rest of the world has shown quite a considerable increase. It now takes 14% of our sales from 7% in the corresponding semester of '25. The U.S. is constant at around 7%.

And the increase of 13% of revenue, as I said before, has led to a 26% increase in operational profitability at EUR 216 million. That operational profitability is further boosted by EUR 7 million of positive metal result for a total EBITDA of EUR 223 million. Of course, that metal result, as you all know, is only an accounting profit number, and it's not considered to be a recurring amount.

Now how do we go from last year's first semester to this year's one? It's really the cables providing most of that change in the profit before tax, EUR 52.3 million out of the EUR 53.5 million change. The SG&As are higher as sales have increased, but also as labor costs have gone up. And this is partly due to our good performance in '25, which led the company to really contribute and give some bonus payments and incentive payments to our staff because as we always say, the most important part behind our factories and our products is our people.

And we -- the company wanted to congratulate the staff, all the labor, both workers and white collar workers in the group, congratulate by some extra payments for the good performance of '25.

Now the operational profitability, of course, trickles down to PBT at EUR 177 million. And that, of course, also trickles down to a profit after tax of EUR 138 million, 45% higher than the corresponding semester last year. Most importantly, however, it is the view that we have on our backlog. The first reading of the numbers show just a EUR 500 million increase from December 2025.

You all know the projects that we have announced in the first quarter, the project in the Netherlands and the project in Poland. But a much more important landmark for us is -- was the frame agreement that was signed between Hellenic Cables and IPTO -- ADMIE in Greek -- of EUR 1.15 billion, which relates to the connection of -- 4 important connections in the Northern and Eastern part of the Aegean.

First, the connection between Thraki and Limnos, then between Lesvos and Limnos, Lesvos and Chios is the third one and between Kos and Rodos, the fourth one. These are really strategic projects for the country. The project includes almost 700 kilometers of submarine cables and another 230 kilometers of land cables. It's an EPCI project, as we call it a turnkey project. And we are very confident that there is more to come in project awards until the end of the year.

Now how is this backlog distributed? In cables, the backlog is really European and Greek. And it's a large part -- the largest part of it is interconnections. A smaller part is offshore wind farms. And that is important because the interconnections give us much more stability and visibility for the future.

We have clients in interconnections, which are semipublic entities that do invest a lot in important projects for their countries. They are much higher -- they have much higher creditworthiness than offshore wind farm developers. And that gives us a much better degree of confidence for the visibility of our backlog.

For the steel pipes, the steel pipes backlog remains around EUR 500 million. EUR 500 million is almost 1.5 years of revenue. And it is this year concentrated in the Americas and the rest in Europe. And it is diversified, I would say, evenly distributed between oil, natural gas, hydrogen and a small part in CCS, around 10%.

Given the backlog that we do have and the growth that we do want to achieve in the medium-term in the future, we have spent an important amount of money, I would say, EUR 165 million in the first 6 months to support that next growth phase of the group. These are all strategic investments, split between cables and steel pipes, with cables having the lion's share. EUR 50 million was spent for the new Maryland plant in the U.S. and another almost EUR 90 million spent for Corinth and Thiva, the 2 factories in Greece.

These 2 last parts were concerned actually the optimization of the new capacity that we have installed since 2024, whereas in the U.S., the story I've described it quite often in the past, it is getting a local base for that important large and growing market for cables in the U.S.

Then there is another amount of almost EUR 30 million, which was spent by the steel pipe segment. The largest part being the acquisition and the start of recommissioning for the Hartlepool, LSAW pipe facility in the U.K.

Now that is also an important project for us. It gives us additional capacity in LSAW pipes. And as I will make a little bit clear in a while, the LSAW pipes are the most valuable projects for the group and for globally, not just for us. And it also -- it's also a door to a very interesting market, which is the U.K. for us.

So the CapEx is spent, but it is spent to support the next growth phase of Cenergy. Despite that CapEx, the leverage remains very manageable at 1.1x EBITDA for the 6 months. Clearly, there is an increase of almost EUR 180 million from working capital, which translates to a EUR 230 million difference in net debt.

We expect these figures to normalize by the end of the year and the leverage to hover around the level of 1x EBITDA by the end of the year. And we believe that we have really offered some good returns to our shareholders. The returns remain attractive.

We have a 45% increase in earnings per share since the corresponding semester of '25 and more than 15% upside in the share price since December 2025, despite some hiccups that we've seen in the share price in June and July. The return of capital employed remains very strong at 28% as it was also in 2025.

Turning at the segments. Clearly, as I said until now, the important contributor of Cenergy profitability and growth up to now is the Cable segment. We have a turnover of EUR 842 million of sales, most of it in projects, so more than 50% in projects and the rest in products. That turnover is converted actually to EUR 164 million of operational profitability with margins reaching 19.5%. This average margin includes both the margins from projects, which, as I stated quite often in the past, are above the 20% mark and the margins from products, which are lower. So we have an average of 19.5%.

The increase of 36% in EBITDA is, as is clear, due to the disciplined and successful execution of important projects for the segment as well as trying to give the best and the most profitable solution, the most efficient solution for cables to our clients.

Working capital has increased, of course, by almost EUR 170 million since December. That also boosted net debt by EUR 155 million, but still the profitability of the segment is strong enough to keep the leverage profile very sound -- at very sound levels.

For steel pipes, the story is a little bit different. There is an increase in turnover at EUR 312 million. That increase in turnover by 11% is actually volume-driven. So it is not a result of higher prices. I would say that prices are slightly lower from the last semester of 2025.

The profitability stays around EUR 51 million to EUR 52 million as was last year, but the margins are lower. Don't forget that 2025 was really the annus mirabilis of Corinth Pipeworks with extraordinary operational profits of EUR 108 million. This year, we are keeping close, I think, to those levels, but we are not supposed to actually reach those EUR 108 million, but it's still a very strong year for CPW despite the fact that the market does not really enjoy the positive tailwinds that you have in the cables segment.

Let's turn now to, I think, the most important part of this presentation, which is the outlook for the rest of the year and for 2027. I would say that starting from cables that the most interesting growth themes for cables are as follows: First of all, the transmission projects. HVDC, subsea transmissions. These are the most attractive profit pool for cables, not only for Hellenic Cables, but also for the other cable operators. The growth is driven mainly by the European interconnectors, the export cables of offshore wind farms, some island interconnections like in our case, and grid security. And margins remain structurally superior to other cable businesses. We are talking about margins which are close or higher than 20% for all of the competitors and ourselves. And the importance of that growth point is that it will remain. It is driven not by fading choice in energy sourcing, but from a much more stable choice of energy stability and energy resilience.

The second growth theme, which evolves, the second major growth engine for cables is AI and data centers. And they emerge as that growth engine, not only as an electricity story, but also as demand for fiber optic cables for connections of the data centers to the grid of upgrades to the transmission mechanisms. And that is an important step because it gives, at least for us, a very good argument for our North American foothold because the data center story is much hotter in the North American continent, and that's where a large part of the demand is expected to come.

Third point is the modernization of the grid. The International Energy Agency actually has identified that grid congestion and delays in connections are one of the biggest bottlenecks to the energy transition. And that's why utilities in Europe and in North America, they accelerate investments in transmission networks, underground cables, especially for areas which are struck by tornadoes or by large physical phenomena.

Distribution upgrades, we all know the stories about lack of charging stations in urban areas in Europe, but also in the U.S. and the resilience of the grid. So all of these growth themes are important for the cables.

The geographic winners, I would say, are in Europe, the offshore wind in the North Sea, the interconnections in the Mediterranean and the grid reinforcement programs. Whereas in the North America, it would be data center upgrades in the grid and medium and high-voltage land cables since submarine is much rarer in the U.S., as you all know.

So what is the key takeaway of our outlook for the next 1.5 years? We have a very strong demand from the grid and high-quality earnings from transmission projects. So the growth thesis is now broadening. It's not anymore renewables and electrification. It's becoming AI, data and electrification. And this is important because it gives us a much more stable and a wider range of possible projects for Hellenic Cables in the future.

Steel Pipes is a slightly different story, as I said. Steel pipes, first of all, it's clear that Corinth Pipeworks is playing a role as a top Tier 1 player. It's not there to target every new pipeline that will come up in the Middle East or elsewhere. So to be very clear, Corinth Pipeworks is not really targeting the pipelines that you might have read about in the news and which are planned in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf. For many reasons, one of which being that these countries have their own local producers. There are already 7 or 8 different steel pipe factories in the Middle East, in the Gulf. And we're also talking about onshore pipelines, which are clearly lower margin bringing than the offshore pipelines.

Secondly, with our acquisition of the U.K. facility, we are putting a lot of interest in the LSAW market. Now the LSAW market, the market for pipelines, which are welded across the pipeline. So it's not a spiral welding, it's a longitudinal welding, is the most profitable and growth promising segment of the oil and gas pipelines.

Geographically, we would say that they are -- the projects are concentrated in the U.S. Gulf Coast and in the U.S. in general and also, of course, in Asia. Now in the former, we have a very good positioning, whereas in the latter, in Asia and in Saudi Arabia, as I told you, we are not that much interested for projects there. But the market volume is so large. Actually, Global Energy Monitor talk something about more than 200,000 kilometers of gas pipelines in development globally. So half of them are in areas where we are present and in areas where we are leaders. So just that part of the story is enough to keep us growing for the next medium-term.

Secondly, LSAW drives a lot of projects that are related to LNG and energy security. Clearly, it also -- it is related to the local changes that happen in the transportation of oil in the Middle East. But we are -- as I said, we will not be present there. The margins are very attractive for LSAW, and they are attractive for booked and for high-spec players. We are not trying to underwrite the margins in order to get some business. The level of quality and the level of delivery that Corinth Pipeworks is offering to its clients, which are all the major oil and gas companies around the world, means that we can keep margins to the good/sound 2-digit, double-digit levels, even though we will not be, of course, able to reach the 19% and the 18.7% that we had in the past.

In a nutshell, the LSAW market is not a broad commodity market. It is selectively a selective market, a market that is working on Tier 1 oil and gas approvals on strong backlog, on high utilization, on the ability to actually pass through a part of the steel cost to the final client. And CPW is very well positioned to take advantage of that market.

Third point in steel pipes is the U.K. market. Actually, the U.K. market is a very interesting situation because our acquisition in Hartlepool has actually allowed us to enter a market which is closed "to everyone else". What do I mean by that? I mean that all the competitors of Corinth Pipeworks, whether they are German or Indian or South American, they have shut out of that market because of local content clauses, which means that the acquisition of Hartlepool offers an almost captive market, which, of course, is not booming in terms of oil and gas development given the U.K. government's decision on renewables, but it is a very promising market to other projects such as hydrogen and CCS, carbon capture. And also, it is a very good opening for the transatlantic market due to the proximity to the U.S.

So Corinth Pipeworks will continue to select projects in a disciplined way, some important awards are on the way, and hopefully, I will be able to say more during our next meeting in November. But it's always -- the focus of Corinth Pipeworks is disciplined execution, niche projects and really exploiting our top quality producer of steel pipes.

The combination of very good H1 results and a growing backlog has led the company to upgrade our guidance for the end of 2026 by EUR 20 million in both ends of the interval. So we are now forecasting that our operational profitability will be between EUR 390 million to EUR 420 million for the year with the usual assumptions, of course, a smooth execution, no material deterioration in the availability or the cost of key inputs, that the demand remains healthy for products and that we are -- we have a limited impact from major geopolitical risks.

I will finish the presentation with our financial calendar. Our next appointment is for mid-November. In 16 of September, of course, we will publish our interim report for the 6-month period of '26. But mid-November, we will have our appointment for the Q3 trading update. And then early March '27 come the full year financial results with the general meeting following at the end of May.

I now turn back to our operator to start the Q&A section. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, before we begin the Q&A session, we would like to briefly explain how questions will be managed. [Operator Instructions]

We do have -- I see we have some raised hands here. I start with Mr. Marios Bourazanis -- in an alphabetical order. I'm sorry. So I start with Mr. Marios Bourazanis. Marios, you have the floor.

I hope you can hear me. Just a couple of questions from my side. So the first one is on the order intake. Following the strong H1 intake, I'm wondering how we should think about the backlog development through the year-end of 2026 and how tendering activity has gone so far in H2 and if there is scope for meaningful awards for the rest of the year? That's my first question.

And my second question is, as the group moves past the peak of the current CapEx cycle, I was wondering how you're thinking about the next phase of growth. Are you assessing any opportunities to expand the cables footprint more ambitiously, either in Europe or in the U.S.? And if any attractive opportunities arise, how do you think we should think about funding capacity across your cash flows, your debt headroom and potentially any other sources of capital?

Sure, Marios. Thank you. So first, yes, the order intake was really good for the first H1. And I really -- don't believe, I'm very, very confident that it will be even better in the second semester, not only for cables, but also for steel pipes. So we expect our backlog to grow significantly in the second semester. We also -- I forgot to say, and this is maybe related to the new awards that Hellenic Cables, I think it has already disclosed that it has officially -- it was certified for the 525 kV cable solutions. So that's a very important result. And it will, of course, affect the awards that we will get in the second semester.

As for the CapEx cycle, it is true that we do still have some strategic CapEx to do in the U.S. So until the end of the year, we expect construction works to finish. A couple of equipment is already on their way or they have already arrived in the U.S. and will be installed by the end of the year, by December, so that our -- the objective is that by February '27, we will start producing samples, first, medium-voltage samples and later on high-voltage samples because as you know, we need some certification for that. So the CapEx cycle is expected to go back to a much lower level of CapEx in '27, but since there will be some good cash flow generation in '27 and '28, of course, the opportunities are open.

We may examine some investment in -- further investment in the U.S. to actually grow the business there or some expansion of our facilities in Greece with further optimization. But that will be done following important awards in our backlog, so that -- as we always follow that same path. So we first have the awards and then we plan our expansion of capacity accordingly.

I then ask Mr. Thijs Berkelder to take the floor, please.

You hear me?

Yes, yes, we can hear you, Thijs.

Can you maybe give CapEx guidance for the second half of the year, and maybe also explicitly for the Maryland factory for the second half of the year? And in the press release you just stated you expect sort of end of construction before year-end. Does it mean so much lower CapEx than in principle for the U.S. next year?

Second question, just a data fact. Assets under construction in terms of value end of the first half, how large was the amount?

And for now, the third question is on the margins within cables. Is it real that product margins have improved to 10% or so?

Okay. So I'll start with the CapEx. You're right. In the second half, of course, we will have -- we still have an important part of CapEx to be spent. Let me clarify that this slight delay in spending the CapEx is due to invoice delays. It is not due to work delays. So whereas in theory, one could say that if you want to spend EUR 170 million, almost EUR 170 million for the U.S. plant in 2026, that would be split in equal parts between every -- each semester. But it wasn't. It's a little lower in H1. It's EUR 50 million in H1. So the rest, the other EUR 120 million will be spent in the second semester. And the works will be finished by December, which means that what is left for '27 is much lower. '27, we are only expecting certain expenditure for peripheral units or commissioning of the equipment, but not something important in the U.S.

As for the margins, it is true, Thijs, that products have shown quite a strong level of around 10% in the first quarter. However, the margin expansion is due, as I said before, it's due to the mix shift to what is the mix between projects and products and what is -- and how that mix shifts. The importance for us is that our backlog is composed right now of interconnection projects mostly. And this is important because it gives us the security of a higher margin. Offshore wind, as you know, might lead to some repricing of the projects and so on, and that might be a little bit kind of changing the forecast of the margin, whereas grid projects, transmission projects give us a higher stability.

Now the fact that we have expanded the facilities in Greece, in the land facilities in Greece as well does not mean that we will focus on products, but at the same time, it doesn't mean that we will not focus on products. The approach of Hellenic Cables is a balanced approach. We do not want to become a project-only company. We don't want to go back to a commodity -- cable commodity company. It is important for us to keep growing more in the areas where the margins are better, CF, offshore, so submarine interconnections and so on, but without leaving behind the foundation of our company, which are cable products, land cables and so on.

So it's all -- I believe right now, the marketing project is supply constrained. The marketing product is related to a business cycle. It has some good results in H1. We expect it to have good results in H2 as well. And we do have the capacity to serve a higher demand for products for land, medium voltage and low voltage in the second semester. So we expect these margins to stay where they are for the rest of the year and the beginning of '27.

There is then a question -- there was a question, a written question by Mr. Katsios of Optima Bank. He would like an update on Maryland and Hartlepool.

I believe Mr. Katsios, I've answered the question on Maryland. About the Hartlepool plant in the U.K. The Hartlepool plant is -- was a plant that was nonoperational for 9 months. We've acquired it. We've cleaned it up. We brought back all the labor back to the factory. There are some important commissioning works that have to be done, maintenance of the machines, putting back some raw material so that it can start working. We expect to commence operations there even by September this year. Of course, we are not expecting to have high utilization rates for Hartlepool. Hartlepool was an investment decision made in terms -- on the basis of a very low cost and on the basis of the opportunity that such acquisition was opening up for the segment.

We did not have an order book already built for the U.K. facility. But as I told you, it is an opening to an almost reserved market locally and a very good facility in terms of proximity for the U.S. market. Since we are very active in the U.S., and we expect more awards to come from there, including the famous Alaska pipeline, we are more than confident that some of that demand will be serviced by the U.K. facility. Mr. Peter Testa is adding -- is asking some questions on the capacity added in Corinth and Eleonas.

In the Corinth facility in -- when we started in 2024 and finished in 2025 in 2 years, we can actually say that we doubled the capacity for submarine cables. And we are now working at a capacity which could be measured in terms of kilometers, but that might not be a very, very good expectation of forecast because it supposes actually that you will be producing only one kind of cables in the Corinth facility. But if you assume that we produce one type of cables, we could say that the offshore capacity of Corinth is now close to 2,000 kilometers of inter-array cables and another 800 kilometers of DC export high-voltage AC and DC cables.

For Eleonas and Thiva, things are different. In Thiva, we have actually doubled again. We passed from 3 to 5 insulation machines and now to 6 insulation machines, which means again that we have doubled capacity. We're talking about Thiva having a capacity of more than 60,000 tonnes in land cables and Eleonas a similar amount. Now will there be some progress in the high-voltage market? Well, the high-voltage market, we are already there for the European market. In the U.S., this is our next Phase 2. So the U.S., we will first wait to see how the medium-voltage land cables market evolves. And we will go to a later phase, we'll go to some development of the high voltage there in '28, '29, some investments there.

There is another question -- there is a question by Mr. Kaparis. So Efstathios, you can have the floor, and then I will go on with the other written questions.

I've got 2, if I may. The first one is on the margin -- the cable margin. I don't know what you could say. I'm trying to isolate the one-off timing impact. Can you hear me?

Yes, we lost you a little bit, Efstathios.

I was actually asking about the cable in H1, it's significantly stronger. You have explained the reasons. But I wanted to isolate the one-off effects of the mix and potential timing -- project timing, just to understand what the underlying cable margin is expected. What was it in Q2 potentially versus Q1? What was the difference? That's number one.

And number two, on the cash flow, I'm trying to reconcile the pretty much stable net debt between H1 and H2. I suspect the 1.1:1 leverage is justified by the increased the LTM EBITDA. So that leaves us with net cash flow of 0. If my calculation is correct, you should generate EUR 150 million operating cash flow. Working capital is a reversal of probably more than EUR 100 million. And then you have EUR 20 million of dividend and then the CapEx, you mentioned is probably EUR 120 million in Maryland because, if I remember well, the Hartlepool you guided for EUR 15 million to EUR 20 million, you've already paid that. So that leaves -- potentially that leaves EUR 100 million, EUR 150 million.

Well, let's start with -- you understand, Efstathios, that I cannot really give numbers here.

No, no, just direction.

Just direction. Okay. The cable margin was right now at above 19%. Now that cable margin is a combination of the projects and the products. It is true, as Thijs mentioned before, that the products have given us almost a 10% margin, which is good. And that combines with the 20-plus margins from projects to give a level of 19%.

What we expect the levels to be at the end of the year is around that level, around 19 -- 18% to 19%. It all depends on the product mix and on which projects will be executed until year-end. But these are the ranges, the trends that we expect -- the cables are expected to turn in around 18% margins for the year, 18%, 18.5% margins for the year.

Now the free cash flow, you're right, we have another EUR 120 million to spend on the U.S. This is out of the share capital increase. So it doesn't really affect the cash flow generation. But the overall story that you are describing is more or less correct. So there will be less than almost, I'd say, less than EUR 30 million in a sense, EUR 25 million to EUR 30 million left for CapEx non-U.S.-related in the second half. And that will allow us -- linked, of course, to the generation from profitability that allow us some good cash flow production by the end of the year. And in 2027, things will be better in that sense since we do not expect to have the same CapEx levels as we had in the past, the EUR 235 million of '25 or even more than EUR 235 million this year, including the U.S. So this is the correct trend for the future.

I turn to some written questions because there is -- time is a little bit limiting. There is a question by [ Mr. Bruno Lage ]. How could I describe the current pipeline of opportunities in steel pipes? Is it bigger, more attractive than a year ago or about stable?

I believe it is more attractive than a year ago, not because the market has grown up a lot, but because we have been able to show to our prospective clients that we can be there in the very difficult projects that they are thinking about, so in projects that are demanding and that either local producers or lower quality producers cannot deliver. So it is an attractive market for '27. And we have -- we are very close to some awards that can actually give us visibility further in '28 for steel pipes.

Now cables, correct, we announced that our HVDC capabilities have been certified. That opens up additional project opportunities. You are absolutely right because it opens up the opportunity for HVDC, more HVDC projects in Europe, not only in Greece but also in Europe. Absolutely correct.

There is a question by Mr. Tanu Shekar on future acquisitions in the U.S. in the next 5 years. Well, it's -- we know we could theoretically talk about that around a cup of tea, but it's -- the market and the U.S. market is actually so fluid that there could be opportunities. You're right. Some other large manufacturers, our large competitors have acquired companies in the U.S. The U.S. will have a lot of -- the U.S. market and the U.S. producers will have a lot of consolidation in the years to come. So once our facility there is stable and produces good revenues, we may, of course, examine acquisition opportunities over there.

Mr. Jannik Mett, does the somewhat higher oil price change the outlook for steel pipes a bit over the next few years compared to the beginning of the year?

I would say, yes, because you have new oil routes being designed, but not very much for our side since we are more axed around demanding projects, offshore projects and so on. So I do not -- yes, it's good to have a high oil price for us for this segment. A low oil price means that exploiting new -- developing new fields is not interesting. And therefore, if it's not interesting, you do not need pipelines to actually transport the oil or the natural gas. So clearly, higher oil prices are important. But it's the more general picture that we get in the international oil and gas market and not specific news that may come in the Gulf or in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. The more general picture is clearly positive.

There is then a question -- actually, a couple of questions on -- by Mr. David Longo. He asked me to confirm EUR 120 million of CapEx for H2.

The EUR 120 million is what I mentioned is the CapEx for the U.S. plant, and I confirm that clearly for the U.S. plant in the second semester. But I cannot really confirm anything else for the second semester. But clearly, for the U.S. plant, that's the amount of money we will need to finish up construction by December.

The working capital dynamics. Now the working capital dynamics are quite seasonal because we do have milestone payments and advance payments throughout the year, especially in the last 2 months of the year. So it is -- yes, we are expecting to get back to a lower level of net debt-to-EBITDA around 1 by the end of the year, even lower than 1, but it will depend on the scheduling of payments of milestone payments that will also affect working capital by the end of the year.

And finally, again, yes, the CapEx for 2027, since the U.S. will not be there and most of the large capacity expansions in Greece have been completed, the CapEx in '27 will be much lower. We're talking about around EUR 60 million to EUR 70 million maintenance CapEx for both segments, plus a small number for optimization projects here and there. I do not include in these numbers either the U.K. plant that may need maybe EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million for full commissioning or the small amounts that may be needed in the U.S. in 2027. Unless, of course, the scope of our U.S. presence changes. And this is still under discussion. No decision has been made.

I will want -- since we are kind of limited in time, I would like to give the floor to certain people that have not asked questions before. So Mr. Testa and Mr. Berkelder you will excuse me, but I have to give the floor to a couple of participants that have not asked questions in the past. So [ Mr. Bhavin Thakkar ], you have the floor, please.

I have one on your outlook as to what you're assuming on the low end and the high end of your adjusted EBITDA outlook. So if I recollect your commentary about cable margins remaining strong in 2H, plus U.K. Hartlepool facility becoming operational from September onward, though at a lower utilization level. Can you please share like what -- like what you're assuming at the high end and the low end, like what is keeping us away from the high end, to be honest?

Well, what is keeping us away from the high end is the uncertainty around the global market, to be very honest with you. If that uncertainty is not there, then we are closer to the high end for sure because the first semester, the EUR 216 million has already given us a very, very good foundation on which to base the profitability for the year. But there are a lot of factors which are unknown at the time. And one day, we're reading about something in the Strait of Hormuz. Next day, we're reading about AI being a total bubble and so on.

So the cautiousness that we want to keep is what makes us put down a lower end in our profitability interval. So you're right. If these things do not exist, then we will be above the midpoint of our interval for sure.

And one more from me on your subsea cable capacity utilization, could you share an approximate like where the current utilization may have been in 1H?

The subsea cable utilization is very close to full utilization. The Corinth plant is working 7 days a week. Well, 6 days a week, the seventh day is really for maintaining and tuning up the equipment and 3 shifts a day. So it's at full utilization. It's -- there's no question on that.

The land cables are a little bit lower because we are still ramping up the last insulation machine, which will be fully operational by early September. And so that will also go towards 85 plus utilization. So yes, we are working at very good levels for cables.

Steel pipes is different. El Sao is very well utilized, the capacity, at 3 shifts a day, 5 days a week. Spiral and ERW is a little bit lower, and we do have space for the larger projects to come like the Alaska pipeline.

And finally, [ Mr. Gianarikas ], I ask you to be quite brief because we are already at 4:00. Thank you.

I wanted to come back to cable margins. The participation of projects in the mix executed this half was similar to last year.

The sound is not very good, George. Could you please repeat because the sound is a little bit muffled.

I said that I wanted to come back to the cable margin. The participation of projects in the first half this year was similar, actually a bit lower than last year, but the margin was a lot higher. Even if one assumes that the products have a margin of close to 10%, which is higher than in the past, the resulting margin for the projects is a lot higher. And I was wondering, is this due to the execution of specific projects? Or is this a permanently higher pricing level that we should expect to continue going forward and whether this sort of margin is embedded in your backlog.

Right. Okay. It is not.

It looks more like 30 minus than 20% plus in the...

I get the question. It is not an increase. It is not due to a permanent price increase in projects, no. It is due to the mix of projects we have executed. And let's not forget that executing a project means that in certain cases, we have a larger share of the installation part, which means that without a significant cost, you do have a part of the profitability.

So what may happen is that being in the installation part, even without your vessel, if you're -- if the subcontractor has a vessel, the Hellenic Cables, that is the project manager can actually make a good profit on a part where it is not spending money because it is not actually using a vessel since we don't have a vessel. It is not spending money for raw material or other production. And it is getting a part of the profit after paying the installer as a subcontractor. And there have been a couple of projects like that, where the nonproduction -- so there were projects with a lower production part.

So the margins that you may think about 19%, 20%, 25%, 25% is when I have a cable, I produce it and then I install it and I make a profit on the full amount. If I produce a little bit, but I take a higher part of profit on the installation, these margins can go much higher. I cannot say more than that, but you understand the small detail which comes out of that. So it's not a permanent price increase. It is clearly a product -- a mix effect, not a permanent price increase. And we were very happy to have very good projects this first semester. That's why I said that overall in the year, we expect the margins to stay between the 18% and 19% level for cables.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Sorry for being over the time. Thank you so much for being with us in this August afternoon. I wish everyone a very happy and relaxing vacation, and I reiterate our next appointment for mid-November. Thank you very much, and have a nice afternoon.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon from Athens. I'm Alex Benos, the CFO of Cenergy Holdings, and I'd like to welcome you to today's live webcast of our company's 2026 Q1 condensed financial results.

I would like first to highlight the main points of our Q1 of 2026. We had a very good start of the year with record margins. This exactly demonstrates the success of prioritizing value over volume. Demand is really strong. Demand is also structural and that underpins further growth for our companies for the rest of the year and in the medium term.

The first key highlight I would like to stress is that operational profitability surpassed EUR 100 million. It is actually equal to EUR 100.4 million due to a very favorable product mix of cable projects, which are heavily tilted towards offshore cables for Q1.

Revenue growth is moderate, 5% increase over the corresponding first quarter of 2025, a total of EUR 511 million as the new capacity of land cables that we have developed in both the Thiva factory and the Eleonas factory are gradually coming into play.

The backlog is "still stable." I would put that word in quotes, around EUR 3.3 billion and I will explain in a while why I do put it in quotes because that may give the wrong signal to you and to the rest of the investment community.

The fourth point is that our strategic investments in the U.S. and the U.K. are developing as originally planned and I'll give you some more information on both of these. Margins are at record level at 19.7% for the group with the steel pipes segment still surprising us positively.

The margins are expected, of course, to normalize by year-end. And when I mean normalize -- when I say normalized, I mean that we are expecting them to be 1 to 2 percentage points lower and I'll get -- I'll give you an explanation for that too.

Net profit reached EUR 74 million, a very strong number for a first quarter and earnings of EUR 0.35 per share. We also confirm guidance of EUR 370 million to EUR 400 million adjusted EBITDA for 2026.

As pointed earlier, the performance -- okay. Here you are. The performance is very solid for the first quarter. If you look at turnover, all first quarters have a positive increase in sales.

Adjusted EBITDA is increasing by around 30% -- more than 30% from the corresponding Q1s of previous years. The same thing happens for EBITDA without the adjustments. So the number that includes one-offs, the difference this year comes from a positive metal result.

Here, we have increases of more than 45% year-on-year and PBT as well as profit after tax also increased by more than 70% year-on-year for the last 2 years. So these are very strong results, which are due overall to an improved sales mix.

Now if we take a magnifying glass, I would say, and we look at the quarters, the last 4 quarters plus Q1 of 2026. Let's look at what we observe on our screen right now. Our business really is a seasonal one. And when I say seasonal, it's not because it depends on good or bad weather, but because we are an energy projects enabler and these contracts that we execute have, in a sense, their own life cycle.

Usually, the year will start slowly. Q2 will be a little bit stronger. I'm talking about profitability. Then the pace will pick up, then Q3 is usually slightly slower due to the summer. I remind you that we are selling -- our geographies of sales are mainly Northern Europe and North America. And Q4 is coming strong as clients rush to close the projects delivered to them, but also to secure capacity for the coming year.

2025 was almost like this with the Q4 being a little bit slower, not as strong as we expected it, but still a very strong one. This year, Q1 surprised us very positively. It shows an abnormally high percentage of offshore projects in the cables revenue.

And these projects, as you all know, contribute margins above 20% for the segment's revenue, while the Corinth Pipeworks company, our steel pipe segment, continues to have high EBITDA projects in their backlog and they continue to execute them.

So the 19.7% margin that we observed in quarter 1 of this year is expected to go down, go back to a more normal level of 17% plus as land cable projects will pick up execution in Thiva and Eleonas, both do have this extra capacity added throughout the previous 2 years. You remember that investment cycle mostly finished by December '25.

And these land cable projects, they contribute to our cables revenue, but with lower margins than the offshore ones. Therefore, the average number that we will get out will get back to a lower level -- to a less extreme level, I would say.

Turning to backlog. Backlog is a very interesting number because it might give you -- if you look at its "stability" in quotes, I put this word, it may give you a wrong impression, a wrong message. First, I would like to stress that there have been 2 projects awarded and disclosed in Q1, one in Poland and one in the Netherlands. Alliander is one of the major distribution operators of the country.

The total backlog is EUR 2.7 billion in cables and another EUR 600 million in steel pipes for a total of EUR 3.3 billion. It remains very well diversified, both in geographies and in energy applications. You see that we are not really serving only interconnections or only CCS or only Europe for steel pipes.

We do have a diversified backlog portfolio. But still, we expect that backlog to increase considerably by year-end. And why is that? There are 2 reasons.

The first reason is that there is a very strong tendering in the cables market, both in offshore with numbers being estimated above EUR 5 billion for the rest of the year as well as onshore with the corresponding amount there being over around EUR 3 billion.

Cables, Hellenic Cables has already been picked as an exclusive supplier of 2 important projects. But since these contracts have not yet been signed, we do not include them in our backlog. So that's the first reason for an expectation of a higher backlog by the end of the year.

The second reason is that there are other projects that we have already agreed with our clients and either they depend -- their final investment decision depends on funding from the client, I would just mention here the success that we are expecting from the share capital increase of the [ TSO ] in Greece or the client is not allowing us yet to disclose the project because the final signature with his financial institutions are not over.

So we are very confident that by the end of the year, we will show a significantly higher backlog. The potential for further increase is there and will materialize in the quarters to come.

That is why we are -- we want to give you some information and to show you the development of our international expansion. First of all, starting from the Maryland factory, the U.S. factory. I remind you, we are now building a land cables facility in Baltimore, Maryland. The rationale behind it stays the same and even became stronger in the last year. The rationale is that you have very strong fundamentals in the USA.

These fundamentals can be described by different factors, the hardening of the grid, new interconnections which are necessary, the proliferation of data storage and data centers, the fact that more than 70% of the U.S. grid is older than 25 years old, the damage which is caused very often by storms in the United States and the different studies from research centers that show the electricity demand hiking up by more than 25% until 2030.

All of these strong megatrends in the U.S. find behind them a very strong support by the U.S. policy. I am mentioning here the famous BABA Act, Build America and Buy American, which supports all direct investments in the country and it leads to a very strong and powerful momentum.

The Princeton study has concluded that the transmission capacity in the U.S. necessary until 2050 should be more than 3x what is existent right now. And another study by McKinsey has actually found out that we expect more than 2x the current spending for electricity transmission by 2030. So this is a very positive macroeconomic background fundamental growth.

The U.S. is a very scattered market. Just to give you an idea of how scattered it is, there exists in the U.S. more than 2,000 publicly owned utilities to which one can add around 800 cooperative utilities. I'm talking just for electricity and the largest ones, which are another 170 of what the Americans call investor-owned utilities, meaning utilities that have shareholders widely spread.

So we are talking about more than 3,000 different utilities, different DSOs and TSOs compared to the 2 that we have in Greece or to a handful that most European countries have.

To that number, we should add that the electricity market in the U.S. has a lot of market participants. When I talk about market participants, we mean distributors of electricity, developers of renewables, installers of the grid, consultants around the electricity market, EPC contractors.

And all of these have several modes of interaction with the cable or accessory suppliers. So it is not an easy market to be. It's not an easy market to grasp. At the same time, it's a very promising market. Data centers definitely represent a strategic growth opportunity for us.

The demand is expected to grow more than 2.5x until 2030. And the Maryland plant is really located at the epicenter of this growth on the East Coast, close to Vermont and the other states where most of the data centers are now being built.

That's why our local commercial team is very active on the field across all the channels I mentioned just before, so that our capacity addition is already very eagerly anticipated by the market participants.

Now as for the funding, the funding, as you all know, is secured until the end of 2026. We may have limited overruns in 2027 since the inflation -- just the inflation impact over these 2 years from the time the share capital increase was realized until now has surpassed 10% to 12%. Plus the scope has a little bit changed in our factory. We want to make it ready to receive some extra capacity, if necessary, in the future.

And the time line that we are looking for that plant is that by the end of '26, we'll start the installation of machinery and equipment. First quarter of '27 to produce samples for certification.

I remind you that the local U.S. certification for cables is indispensable, is you cannot do -- otherwise, you cannot really sell cables in the U.S. if you are not certified according to their own local specs.

And finally, we expect that by the fourth quarter of '27, the substantial part of the factory will be completed. So what is really the -- not the unknown point, but the point on which we are making -- we are putting all our efforts right now, it is staffing. And the staffing plan is very active.

For such a factory, we will need highly qualified and specialized operators as well as technicians. And these guys, even when we will find them, we need some training to be able to produce the high-quality cables that we are producing also in Greece.

Turning to the other strategic investment that was realized in the last days of the Q1. The acquisition of the facility of steel pipes in Hartlepool in the U.K. Hartlepool is close to the Newcastle. To Newcastle, it's in the Durham county.

We are talking about a 100-year-old legacy plant that has served the steel community of the U.K. very well in these last 100 years. We're talking about an acquisition of the facility in the equipment, which came very cheap, around GBP 10 million for a complete production line and LSAW production line with the competent workforce with it.

Of course, it's a factory that needs optimization, that needs to be put back to operation since for the last 9 months, it was idle. But that facility has been and continues to be a trusted supplier of majors in the oil business like Shell, BP and so on and can also support U.K.'s projects in carbon capture.

So for the local market, since we are now satisfying the local content clause of the U.K., it will be a very positive addition. It can also play a globally important role for projects, especially on the other side of the Atlantic since it gives our steel pipe segment a second plan with an LSAW line of production, which is really important.

I remind you, LSAW is really used in the high-margin, high-value projects and pipelines because they are the pipes that are best for high pressure, therefore, thick wall characteristics for large diameter, for structurally demanding applications and pipes that are highly reliable. That's why they are preferred as a solution for all the major projects around the globe.

So what is in front of us right now? Where -- what are we looking at for the rest of the year? In the cable segment, the geopolitics that are right now running in the globe and especially the war between Iran and the U.S., they support really further growth for us. What do I mean by that?

I mean that in such an uncertain environment, the resilience of infrastructure is very important. We already have a backlog which gives us visibility until 2029. So let's see how that global geopolitical turmoil might add to that backlog and might add to that growth in cables.

First of all, subsea interconnectors are not anymore viewed as energy projects. They are viewed as strategic infrastructure assets. And we have large PSO transmission service operators in Europe progressing with their plans of interconnection of electricity.

And there are new private projects, so connecting individual countries in Europe, we're talking about Greece, Egypt here, cable and so on, which are being proposed. Let's not forget that the Greek IPTO/ADMIE's 10-year development plan talks about EUR 7.5 billion worth of projects.

We go to offshore wind. Offshore wind have been mixed in the past year. Certain European countries have experienced delays because of permitting, because of auction redesigns and so on.

But the medium- to long-term outlook remains very strong. We have the Hamburg declaration, that additional 300 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2050. And a lot of European countries, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, among others, are moving towards new offshore wind auctions in 2026.

Then we're talking about land cables. Now land cables, the demand for medium voltage remains very robust, especially because of the need to take -- to continue the general electrification trend in urban and suburban areas by the European distribution operators.

There is also a build-out of data centers across Europe, not as strong as the U.S., but starting to show its growth opportunity. In that part of the market, we are also thinking about the levy as the Greek regulator 5 years investment plan, which amounts to almost EUR 5 billion.

The major trend, however, behind all the rapid expansion in cables are the artificial intelligence and hyperscale data centers, mostly in the U.S., but also starting in a promising way in Europe. I gave you the numbers about the estimates of McKinsey and also estimates by other consultants.

The number, however, which is expected by -- in 2026 by the major hyperscalers in the U.S., I'm talking about Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, we are -- they are discussing numbers around $600 billion in new data center infrastructure.

And this infrastructure already translates into significantly higher electricity demand in the U.S. These hyperscale data centers can exceed 100 megawatts of capacity and they involve several hundred kilometers of medium- and low-voltage power cable within a single data center, within a single hyperscale data center.

Europe is slowing -- is moving a little bit slower. The direction is there as well. It's clearly the same. It will come a little bit later, that's for sure. But it is also very clear that electricity demand driven by AI is a long-term structural driver actually for both our segments since there are now, as we are talking, plans of building natural gas pipelines towards the centers where this data infrastructure is being built in order to have exclusive power generation for the data centers. So it's a very, very positive background for cables in the future.

I should also mention here a positive development, which is that both the EU and the U.K. have taken measures against the unfair Asian competition. And this is important for us because as I stressed many times in the past, Cenergy and its companies are not afraid of competition.

They have shown that they can actually play in that game and be very successful in it. We are all, however, worried about unfairness in that competitive game. And the measures by the EU and the U.K. are definitely a positive step in the good direction.

Turning to the steel pipes. Steel pipes, we should, first of all, reiterate the fact that natural gas still plays an important role. It's important to have secure and diversified supply routes, particularly for Europe, especially now that other routes of fossil fuel distribution may be closed for some time.

There is a significant wave of new LNG export capacity in the U.S., a lot of projects in the U.S. for that, but also in other countries. Across North America, the estimated investment pipeline exceeds EUR 50 billion and it is driven by that LNG exports.

The most well-known example or at least the widest, the most -- the widest distributed examples in the media is the famous Alaska LNG pipeline project where Corinth Pipeworks is already a preferred supplier. I stress here that this is also not in our backlog since the final investment decision has not been officially signed as we speak.

Then we have the carbon capture market. The carbon capture market is in a scale-up phase. The expectation of the International Energy Association forecasts EUR 80 billion of investment globally over the next 5 years.

That is a 15% to 20% estimated annual growth rate throughout 2030. And we see that a lot of projects are starting in the U.S. and Europe. And it is a very good opening for us, especially for our U.K. facility since the U.K. is very active in such projects.

Finally, hydrogen. Hydrogen is still gradual. It's not really as developed as it was expected 5 years ago. But there is some positive movement. In Germany, we have several onshore backbone initiatives coming into play.

There are also offshore infrastructure plans being discussed, the most famous one being the Barcelona-Marseille subsea hydrogen pipeline between Spain and France. We are present there. I remind you that CPW was the first -- globally, the first company certified for high-pressure 100% hydrogen-ready steel pipes.

And in the more traditional market outlook, we do have strong demand for large outer diameter pipes. These are the ones used for natural gas. We have steel quotas that will help our market.

They are positive, the fact that you have steel quotas for Europe. CBAM may also contribute as a barrier of entry mostly, not directly as a competitive advantage or disadvantage. We are, therefore, talking about a thriving market, but a very competitive market at the same time.

The good thing is that Corinth Pipeworks is a top Tier 1 supplier in that market and it is one of the 2 or 3 pipe suppliers in the world which are considered able, capable of delivering high sophistication, difficult, high-value projects. And this is very positive for us.

As for guidance, we have decided not to update our guidance despite the very strong results of Q1. Now should this trend persist in Q2, we'll come back with that in the June 30 results, which are due in the beginning of August.

So here is the finding, new financial calendar that I would like to show you. We have the 3 days 22nd to 24th of June, all the dates related to the dividend payment. Then in the beginning of August, we have our H1 results. And on the 16th of September, we will have our interim report for that -- for the 6-month period. Then in November, Q3 and next year, will be the yearly results for 2026.

This concludes my short presentation on the trading update for Q1 '26. And I'm turning now the floor back to the operator of Euronext Athens for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions]

I see there is Mr. Marios Bourazanis, who has already -- he wants to ask a question. Marios, you have the floor.

Just a couple of questions on my side. So we saw that the reported EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA had quite a large gap. And I was just wondering if you could help us bridge the difference between the 2 in Q1 and if this was mainly related to metal price effects following the...

Absolutely. Absolutely, Marios. This is just metal result. So there's nothing else. There's metal results, EUR 14 million. Positive. It's all a question of difference in the price at which you have metal in your inventory and the price at which you can -- you have to accountingly -- well, actually provide for it in an accounting way. That's it.

That's very clear. And just a follow-up -- given the very strong Q1, I was just wondering how we should think about the EBITDA guidance for the full year? If you see that there is any scope for performance to move closer to what you had previously communicated as a medium-term ambition of EUR 380 million to EUR 420 million EBITDA, assuming that execution goes smooth?

Yes. This is -- I think you understand that it is -- definitely, it's where we are going right now. But given the uncertainty surrounding the markets, we decided not to rush into an update of the guidance and to keep you a little bit on your feet for the next 3 months.

It's not a question of our performance. It's more of a question of the surrounding factors, the external factors. So we would like to see that this positive momentum still goes on for Q2 and then really to move, as you very correctly said, towards the previously midterm ambition that we had communicated in the end of '24, absolutely.

But let's wait to see what will happen. Marios, we had this news that everything would end by today, the war today. And then you have the U.S. attacking Iran again. So you never know what will happen from one day to the other. So we prefer to remain a little bit cautious and to see that this positive momentum realizes also in Q2.

Then there is Mr. Thijs Berkelder for his question. Thijs, you have the floor. We cannot hear you, at least I cannot hear you. Hello, maybe it's a problem of the microphone. In the meantime, in order not to lose time, I give the floor to Mr. Efstathios Kaparis.

Congrats on the strong set of results. I'm trying to understand the margin a bit better. Based on what you say, of course, the mix -- subsea mix has been really, really strong in Q1.

Now thinking about what you said that going ahead and by the end of the year, we'll still have a 17% plus margin, I'm trying to understand, given that the mix -- in theory, the mix of land cables is going to increase given that Thiva is entering gradually this year.

By the end of the year, you guided for 17% plus, which is still meaningfully above last year's -- at least last 3 quarters, which were hovering around 17%. So the question is, where are the improvements coming from? And are they sustainable? How do we think about it?

Of course, no, you're right. So Q1 had a very high percentage of offshore cables in revenue. So if you had a revenue of 100, the percentage of offshore was very high. As you get Thiva in the game, Q2, Q3 and Q4 with margins which are lower than the 20-plus we're observing in the offshore projects, this will come down.

The margins of onshore cables are clearly first of all, medium voltage for utilities will be around 13%, 14%. And medium voltage for offshore wind, so-called inter-arrays are a little bit higher.

But still, the percentage of land cables will be higher at the end of the year, which means that I will be adding percentage-wise projects that have a lower margin to something which is really -- which is at around 19%, around 20% right now, 19.5%.

This means that by the end of the year, it will come down. It doesn't mean that the margins of the land cables are in the -- they are not in the 1 digit, in single-digit area. We are talking about medium voltage.

The capacity expansion in Thiva was in medium voltage and high-voltage land. So they are indeed strong, good, high-value works. Therefore, that's why when you do the calculation, we have our own expectations of how these percentages of revenue will adjust throughout the year, we see a decrease of the margin. But still, it's a very high margin.

I'm just mentioning that, Stathios, because I don't want the market and the investment community to fixate on 20% margin for the rest of the year. It will not be there. It will gradually come down normally to a high level, but normally down.

Why will it be higher than last year? Because we have new capacity and projects with over demand that allow us to charge even for land cables a little bit more than we were charging previously. The revenue of 2025 comes from projects awarded in 2023, right?

So as you evolve, you get higher and higher value of projects. But this is one part of the equation. The important factor here in that averaging is the weight of the 2, of offshore versus onshore.

Yes, but it's still impressive. The actual question was, if you compare Q4 to Q4, and you answered that Q4 '25 to Q4 '26 expected, you get the margin expansion clearly because the market is so healthy and you charge like-for-like, you select the good projects, et cetera. Can you -- sense for the...

Mr. Berkelder, are you -- you have now the -- you have the floor. Thijs, you have the floor. I can't hear him. We cannot hear you. I don't know if it's a problem, but we cannot hear you, Thijs.

Congrats with the Q1 results, Alexandro. First question is on do you see any impact on your operations from recent Middle East events in a direct and maybe indirect manner? Then on future projects, you said you expect first HVDC project to land this year.

Is it logical to then think of IPTO as logically maybe the first customer there? Or is it with Eleonas delivering its high-end vessels this year, is there already any sight on a national grid project nearby?

Then third question is on Corinth Pipeworks at Hartlepool. Do you need to make additional investments there? If so, for roughly how much? And/or do you need to fully go into recruitment mode again to have a staff base there working for you?

Okay. So starting from the Middle East war actually. No, we do not see any operational impact, at least in what we have not really implicated in that area of the world. A couple of years back, we had some small pipe -- steel pipes projects there. We don't have any projects that are -- need supply of products in that area.

But of course, we do is we try to secure our raw material in a better way so that for the first 3, 4 months, we have increased a little bit our inventories so that we can keep the production lines going in the very unprobable case that we will have some short supply chain disruptions. But apart from that, no other operational impact.

Now for the future, you're talking the second point. Yes, it is most probable that the first BC project will come from IPTO. National Grid, we are suppliers, but we do not have yet a signal or a signal of an award to us on that frame contract.

The most probable is that Greek IPTO will be giving us some of the projects that they are about to tender. Of course, that will be clearer once their own share capital increase is complete.

For Hartlepool, we do not really need any new personnel. The personnel, I would say 150 to 160 people is more than enough. The personnel and -- the personnel is more than enough and the personnel is really -- they are competent.

They are -- they want to go back to work. So that's not the point. Clearly, we will need some CapEx because the -- a), the factory has not been working, has not been operational for the last 9 months. So you need some maintenance CapEx, cleaning oils, lubricants and so on. And also maybe a small CapEx to upgrade -- to introduce or upgrade the coating facility of the plant. But these are in the areas of maximum EUR 6 million, EUR 7 million.

So adding to what we have already spent on the facility, which is GBP 10 million or EUR 11 million, I'm not seeing something more than EUR 20 million at the end of the year. These are strategic, of course, investments that will allow us to grasp the growth opportunity in England, of projects in England, but also support some cross-Atlantic projects that may come up in the future. So not more than the EUR 20 million overall, including the purchase of the facility.

I go now back to some written questions. There is a question by Mrs. Fani Tzioukalia.

Would it be possible to provide some color on revenue evolution in first Q '26 as well as the backlog mix going forward? And how do I see the margin evolving for the rest of the year?

I think the latter part was more or less answered through my answer to Mr. Bourazanis. The color -- the revenue evolution for '26, I would say that, that's why I said that the Pipeworks, the Corinth Pipeworks segment continues to surprise us because its revenue -- one could say that it was almost flat.

And despite that, we had a very strong first quarter with a net EBITDA, which is not close, but actually exactly what was needed for the full year results of CPW. And since I had -- in the past, I was expressing a little bit of cautiousness on where these margins will go, we are really very positively surprised by the fact that without some important revenue evolution year-on-year for steel pipes, we do have a good -- well, I wouldn't call it significant, but a good positive increase in the profitability.

Then there is a couple of questions on -- by Mr. [ Mezepatios ]. The first question is, do we consider distributing an interim dividend for this year?

The answer is no, we do not consider distributing an interim dividend. Dividend policy will be decided at the end of the year, taking into account the developments of the U.S. and the U.K. and the profitability of next year as well as other opportunities that may arise until then.

And his second question is, could we give -- could I give some color on the inventory gains this quarter?

I believe you mean [indiscernible], the metal result -- metal result -- positive metal results. It's -- we do not really have expectations of that. So I cannot really tell you what should we expect in 2026.

All of our forecasts are built on a 0 metal result, which means that the adjusted EBITDA and the EBITDA should be the same. So that was a positive result this quarter.

From the unhedged metal inventories, which are there in order to continue to secure production, next quarter, it might be a little bit negative. These are just accounting losses or gains. So we are not really founding or basing our profitability forecast on the metal result on that one-off points.

There is a question by [ Theodore Ezarlus ] on the volume pricing mix dynamics in the cable and in the steel pipes.

I would say that in steel pipes, we -- most of the dynamics in revenue comes from pricing. Volumes are -- will come -- came in '25, we should have some increase in '26, but it is not that important. It may be in the low double digits.

Still, Theodore, we are not putting our interest -- we're not putting -- we're not taking so much care of the top line. The steel pipe segment is really playing a very important top producer role globally, is keeping -- its focus is on keeping that Tier 1 label and its focus is on being on the -- sitting at the same table with the major oil and gas producers around the world and getting orders and awards for difficult and therefore, high-value projects of steel pipes of pipelines. And that's what we will continue to do for the rest of the year.

As for the cables business, the cables business, we definitely have higher volumes. Since we have -- as I mentioned, we have Thiva and in Q3, Eleonas coming in more dynamically. The price may have some impact as well.

But as you see, we are calculating our margins on current revenue. So we are not really adjusting for the revenue without the metal price change. And as metal prices for the last 3, 4, even 5 years have gone up, the denominator, the number on which we are calculating these margins has increased considerably, I would say. Still, our margins have also increased considerably.

Therefore, we don't want to introduce factors of -- that may bring some shadows in and out of the presentation. The dynamics of cables is very positive, again, in terms of profitability. But since we have increased capacity in the last 2.5, 3 years, there will also be an important part, an important impact of volume effect as well.

Then there is a written question by Mr. -- you will -- excuse me if I don't read your name correctly, [ Martin Feya Decasin ], said that we stated that Cenergy expects a strong order intake in the remainder of the year, particularly for cables resulting in a backlog markedly higher than at the end of March 31st.

The envisaged order intake at cable will be more or less equally divided across the board or more geared towards one of the 3 segments, interconnections, wind offshore and other?

No, it will be more geared towards interconnections and frame agreements. These are the large projects that we are expecting right now.

Any more oral questions from the participants? No. I then read a third question by Mr. Berkelder.

Having or hearing your comments with U.S. should expect lower margins in Q2 than in Q1?

Yes, and no because that gradual -- gradual entry of land cables will be towards H2, not only H1. But yes, there will be a slightly maybe lower margin in Q2.

Will it be higher than last year Q2?

That's -- I cannot really answer that question, Thijs. It's all a question of what is realized in voice and so on. What I can really tell you is that you have some revenue growth in Q2, as you correctly state, that will be higher than Q1 as the mid-voltage land lines come in. Now whether the exact number will be 17.8%, 17.9% or 18.1%, it is very hard to answer. I believe the message here is that we are focusing on value over volume.

This is very clear in our strategy for the last 3 to 4 years. It has paid up very well. We continue that as our guiding principle. And we continue on our basic delivering of value to all of our stakeholders, whether they are clients, they are shareholders, they are employees and staff.

That's the important point. Cenergy will try in the years to come to continue delivering high-quality products and high value, sustainably high value for its stakeholders.

I see there is no other question or we can -- yes, there is no other question. So I believe if there's no other question, we could end our Q1 trading update presentation.

I thank all of you for your presence and I give -- we take an appointment for the beginning of August, maybe in your shorts next to the beach for our -- your shorts, not our shorts, we will not be wearing shorts, in beginning of August for our H1 financial results.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attention, and have a nice afternoon.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I am Alex Benos, CFO of Cenergy Holdings, and I'd like to welcome you on this sunny afternoon to today's live webcast on our company's 2025 financial results. Next to me on today's call to comment and discuss our segment's performance and outlook for 2026 are Mr. Ilias Bekiros, General Manager of Corinth Pipeworks; and Mr. Kostas Savvakis, General Manager of Hellenic Cables.

Let us now follow together the highlights of our results. 2025 has been a year of very strong performance. It was characterized by growth both in revenue and operational profitability, disciplined execution in both segments and margin expansion. The adjusted EBITDA for the year was equal to EUR 348 million, an increase of 28% from last year, while the revenue surpassed the EUR 2 billion threshold, reaching EUR 2.1 billion, 15% higher than last year, with both segments showing very strong momentum in sales.

Our backlog is a robust EUR 3.4 billion, slightly higher than the one we announced on Q3 2025. And margins have reached almost 17%, record levels for both segments, especially steel pipes, as we will discuss in a while. The free cash flow generation was also strong at EUR 23 million, which allowed us to finance more than EUR 260 million of CapEx. Leverage is still at very low levels, almost 1x EBITDA and even lower if we allow for the cash we received 15 months ago from the share capital increase in October '24 and with both segments showing important operational achievements, a capacity expansion that we've discussed quite often in the past for the Cables business, both for the offshore facility, which is now completed and for the onshore facilities, the 2 plants in Greece, which is almost done and which is expected to wrap up in the first half of this year.

As for steel pipes, it is showing its commitment to sustainability since it has completed the largest industrial rooftop photovoltaic system in Greece, giving almost 80% of its needs in electricity from renewable energy sources. And at the same time, it has also completed the important cement weight coating for steel pipes, which allows the company to get into deep offshore projects. All of the above has put us in a good path towards setting an EBITDA guidance for 2026 in the range of EUR 370 million to EUR 400 million, meaning that we are very likely to reach the medium-term ambition set in 2024. I remind you that was in the range of EUR 380 million to EUR 420 million. We are expecting to reach those levels 1 year earlier.

So let's see together now the group key financial figures. First, looking at sales. As I said, revenues surpassed EUR 2.06 billion, a 15% increase from last year. And if we break that into the well-known projects and products business units, we start from the focus on cables projects, which showed a 38% increase from last year, reaching almost EUR 790 million for the year, with steel pipes projects following suit with a lower increase in monetary terms, but an important increase in volume terms.

As laid out in our press release, there was an increase of 17% in volume terms, which means that all these production enhancements that were made in the previous years and that lead to better production planning and execution led to higher volumes, which will sooner or later, of course, bring an increase in euro sales, dollar sales, I mean, monetary sales as well. And we should, of course, take into account in this environment that until Q3, the prices in the steel pipe market was -- were lower and that a weak U.S. dollar made receipts in euros seem lower just by the translation effect.

The important thing for steel pipes here is not the 4% increase in monetary value of sales, but the fact that an efficient production and the modern CWC line give a much stronger revenue growth expectation. Then we do have, of course, cable products, which showed a significant increase of 14% in the sales. You should also note that the split that we see between projects and products in cables is clearly moving towards projects. It started in 2024 rather shyly, I would say, with a 52% share for projects at that time, EUR 572 million versus EUR 526 million. And that is now clear. In 2025, we have EUR 789 million from projects and only EUR 600 million from products. So the share of projects this year is around 57%.

I will not comment a lot on the hollow sections sales in the steel pipes, which remain constant around EUR 25 million to EUR 30 million every year. From a geographical standpoint, we should really keep 2 messages if we look at this timeline of evolution for sales. The first one is that the prevailing share of Europe for the group, it has grown from 42% to 48% to 66%. So it's going towards 50-plus or 60-plus percent of the revenues and the shrinking share of Greece.

The penetration in the Americas is still moving around, having its ups, having its downs. This, of course, is expected to change over the next years once the Maryland Cables facility is completed, and that will give an impact on group sales starting in 2028. The value over volume strategy is still a central point in our company. That is clearly shown by the fact that a 15% in turnover translates in almost double increase in operational profitability. So we do care much more about the value we offer our clients and the profit we offer to our stakeholders rather than the volumes per se.

Margins are again very strong. They gained more than 170 basis points from 2024, reaching almost 17%. A part of it is due, of course, to the exceptional performance of Corinth Pipeworks, but the trend in cables is the strong underlying factor since projects will continue to occupy more of the cables revenue and their margins, as we all know, are the stronger ones, and they will keep rising. More of that, of course, will be given to you later by the General Manager of the segment.

Looking at the backlog. The backlog is still a robust number, EUR 3.4 billion at the levels of 2024. This is really, you should look at the backlog as a water tank result. It means that it depends on the inflow of new awards, but also the outflow due to execution. And if we look at the -- first at the Cable segment, the awards that the Cable segment got in 2025 were over EUR 800 million. But as extra Corinth capacity, I mean, the extra capacity in the submarine facility came into play during the same year, we had more than EUR 900 million, EUR 950 million executed for projects of previous years, including parts in the frame agreements, which means that the cables backlog actually shrunk a bit since we had more projects executed than gained. This does not, of course, decrease or diminish in any sense, the very important amount of new awards gained throughout the year.

For steel pipes, the story is a little bit different. The new orders were higher than the projects executed and invoiced during 2025, and that led to a backlog of almost EUR 0.5 billion, EUR 490 million. The important part, however, is found in the right hand of the slide in front of you, which is diversification. If we look at the cables backlog, one could say that it's not a geographical diversification, which is a strong point since most of the backlog is concentrated in Europe. Of course, we plan, as I said, to slowly change that with the cables plant in the U.S., which will be operational in the second semester of '27. The important point of cables is the bottom part, the applications split, which is rather balanced, 44% in interconnections due to grid enhancements necessary in Europe and elsewhere, another 30% in offshore wind and another 30% in other, which include frame agreements.

For CPW, the story is, again, a little bit different. CPW is more diversified in geographies with a large chunk of the backlog of the current backlog in Americas and the rest equally split, one would say, between Europe and the rest of world. An important part here is that CPW is earning awards in the U.S. despite the uncertainty in geopolitics and the tariffs proposed and imposed -- not proposed, imposed by the U.S. Administration. This means that the clients are willing to bear that extra cost in their budget in order to receive top-tier pipes for their project, especially deep offshore where CPW has a clear advantage. And in application using our pipes, we see that a large part, a significant part is in fossil fuel networks, oil and gas, but CCS keeps on a noteworthy 20% share in future revenues.

Profitability. Profitability rose at EUR 250 million profit before taxes from EUR 180 million last year. The important factors that we should follow here is EUR 61 million more gross profit from the Cable segment, EUR 14 million from steel pipes, higher, of course, SG&As because requirements increase with revenue rising lower finance charges of around EUR 18 million, EUR 17.7 million without excluding the FX cost. What is this cost of EUR 6.6 million that you see on the chart. The EUR 6.6 million is the delta from FX losses and gains that we had in 2024. I remind you, these are due to the fact that we have a U.S. dollar exposure. The U.S. dollar exposure is due to the needs that we do have for our U.S. plant. And as the U.S. dollar weakened throughout the year, that produced FX accounting losses.

And there is also a lower impairment -- higher impairment, sorry, than 2024. The rest are just adjustments from last year. So we arrived at a PBT of EUR 249 million, which then translates into EUR 194 million in bottom line profit after tax. I just note here that if you have followed through the financial results of our competitors, you will see that we are now close in absolute terms to the results to the bottom line of 2 out of 3 of our competitors despite the fact, of course, that they do have, I would say, at least 70% to 100% higher revenue than we do. And this is a very promising scenario for us, and we're trying to really keep it going because as you all know, Cenergy Holdings is deeply focused on delivering returns. That was the message of the management throughout all these 3 last years.

The share price has shown tremendous performance. It has more than doubled from its level of the share capital increase in October '24. The return on capital employed is close to 30%. It is the highest versus all competitors in the same industrial sector, and it's due, of course, to the profitability margins, which are very strong. And given these 2 positive metrics, the company would like to share some of this fruit of success with its shareholders and especially those that followed the company in this trip to growth, which is still ongoing. That is why the Board of Directors will propose to the Ordinary General Meeting in May, the distribution of EUR 0.26 of dividends per share, an increase which may seem very large in absolute terms, more than 80%, but still gives a yield of 1.25% compared to the share price of today, in line with industry peers.

The company managed to generate positive free cash flow throughout the year. The EBITDA of EUR 340 million was enough, together with the changes in working capital, was enough to repay -- to pay income tax, to pay finance charges and to cover all CapEx payments for the year, excluding those that were due to be financed by the share capital increase. So if we look at the adjusted free cash flow, as we call it here, this is a positive EUR 23 million. It might not seem as a high conversion rate of EBITDA to free cash flow, but it is still very positive given the important amount of CapEx undertaken throughout the year. If we, of course, deduce the CapEx payments for the U.S. plant, which are financed by the share capital increase cash, this turns into a negative free cash flow, and then you have almost the same amount of money that we had in the beginning of the year. We are left with the same amount of money at the end of the year.

In this calculation, of course, I should be very clear to say that the CapEx, which is not due, but which is -- but whose objective is to develop the U.S. plant has a specific availability through what I would call cash in the drawer. So although in accounting terms, it is included in the CapEx payments of the group and of the Cable segment, from an analysis point of view, it should be kept aside in a sense, it is like developing like establishing a new company from the bottom up in the United States of America. For that company, we have received money through the share capital increase. This money will be spent most of it in this year as well as construction works are in progress as planned. And if need be, next year, we will see alternative ways to finance maybe working capital or other small charges that will come up after the factory is close to operation.

The balance sheet remains very disciplined. As I told you, there were EUR 263 million, almost EUR 264 million addition to assets, EUR 43 million for the U.S. plants, EUR 94 million for the offshore cables facility in Corinth, EUR 98 million for the 2 facilities in Thiva and Eleonas. Thiva is almost finished. Eleonas is also in very good shape. It will be fully really operational and ready to show its image as a center of excellence for low voltage and telecommunication cables in September this year and another EUR 29 million from the Steel Pipe segment. The net debt is low. We had only an increase of EUR 50 million, which leads to a leverage ratio of 0.6x if the cash from the share capital increase is included. If it isn't, this 0.6 increases to 1.04, which is very respectable indeed.

Finally, the negative working capital that we see at the end of the year is really an issue of our business models with both segments dealing primarily with projects, which means that the project execution timelines and the revenue recognition timeline affect the working capital, which is recorded on a specific date. Milestone payments during the last month of the year may push working capital lower. Now they pushed it to a negative level. For your analysis, however, you should keep in mind that the normalized level of working capital for the group would be between 6% and 9% of sales, as we have also mentioned in the past.

Turning to segments. I start with cables. Cables, the story, I think, is a very clear and positive one. You have a 20% increase in sales, a 34% increase in EBITDA and a 44% increase in earnings. That's the usual waterfall of a successful company in a growing sector. Our competitive advantage, as we said often in the past, is the same and remains the same, operational efficiency, flexibility and commitment to quality. Mr. Savvakis will elaborate on all these points later.

As for CPW, the story here is a 4% increase in revenue in turnover. That translates to a 15% increase in adjusted EBITDA and to a double -- more than double, 36% increase in EBT. This is an amazing performance of a top-tier industrial producer in a rather mature sector where some larger competitors are already showing serious weaknesses. And the very low net debt is really linked to the great working capital management for a sector where the raw material still cannot really enjoy the privilege of market quoted commodity as is aluminum and copper. Finally, after all that, we will now turn into the forward-looking perspectives of the company.

I will first pass on the floor to Mr. Kostas Savvakis, General Manager of Hellenic Cables, for his thoughts on 2026.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Alexandros. I would also like to welcome you today in this webcast with the Cenergy Holdings results. May I say that in 2025, we are glad to say that the Cable segment achieved the most successful year-to-date. This was actually based on strong foundations that we decided the previous years, and we also took advantage favorable market conditions. All this resulted in a record-breaking turnover and profitability, as Mr. Benos, as Alexandros just said. We need also to highlight that major expansion programs across both onshore and offshore manufacturing plants in Greece are nearly completed. And there is also significant progress that has been made in the construction of our Maryland facility in the United States.

A couple of financials. We just saw that revenue for 2025 reached EUR 1.46 billion, marking a 20% year-over-year increase. This important growth was actually driven by the continued execution of submarine and underground projects, along with resilient demand that we faced for cable products. A couple of examples of notable deliveries last year, we had the Ostwind 3 project for 50 hertz in Germany. We also produced the export and the inter-array cables for the Baltic 2 and 3 offshore wind farms in Poland for Equinor. And also in the land cable side, we manufactured the 220-kilovolt underground cables for the Gennaker projects sold.

Adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 241 million with the margins improving to 16.5%, reflecting disciplined project execution high utilization rates across our production facilities and of course, favorable evolution of the sales mix. We -- Alexandros said with you, we are happy to say that we had EUR 800 million of new awards last year in both land cables and subsea and offshore business, which resulted in a backlog of almost EUR 3 billion, actually it's EUR 2.9 billion. And this order book includes turnkey projects in the high-voltage market as well as long-term framework agreements, primarily in the medium voltage market.

Some recent awards that were also press released is the BC Wind offshore wind farm in Poland by Ocean Winds. The RTE project for Dunkerque Offshore Wind Farm in France and also here in Greece by our client IPTO. It's the interconnection between Corfu Island and Igoumenitsa. And of course, on top of that, we have several framework agreements with European distribution networks that mainly involve low and medium voltage cables. This diversified backlog in applications, products and geographies continues to bolster confidence in our future performance.

On top of that, this order book provides very strong visibility for the coming years and reinforces our position, the position of Hellenic Cables as a key enabler in the energy transition. For 2026, may I say that we expect full utilization of all our manufacturing plants. If we want to go to Cross Atlantic now, turning to United States. The development of our cable manufacturing facility in Maryland is progressing on schedule. We are on track. And we anticipate to enter the dynamic market of North America in the second half of 2027.

It's important to say that U.S.A. market conditions remain strong. The grid needs to be replaced due to its age. It's quite old, the U.S. grid. And it also needs to be expanded and modernized in order to accommodate the increased demand for the data centers. And the Maryland facility, it's important to highlight this once operational, will be strategically located and positioned in the data center's development map. If you have a look on the East Coast, you will realize that we are exactly on the center on the epicenter of this development.

Our segment continues to experience strong demand across onshore and offshore projects as well as solid demand for the cable products. The high-voltage market, it is mainly driven by interconnections and offshore wind. This market remains robust. And we just stated that electricity grids are expected to see further growth, fueled mainly by investments in the replacement extension or modernization. Our investments and capabilities are designed to capitalize on these strengths, in order to enter the next phase of growth with enhanced manufacturing capacities and strong commercial momentum.

In summary, for the Cable segment, please allow me to say that the ongoing transformation of the energy landscape is generating demand for our products and services. We face favorable market conditions driven by rising electricity needs, increased integration of renewable energy sources and the replacement of aging networks. All these have generated strong traction for Hellenic Cables. This is a positive trend that we expect to remain in the coming years. Overall, the capacity expansions at our manufacturing facilities, our entry in the North American market through the Maryland plant and our substantial backlog of orders reinforce optimism about our future performance.

That was about the Cables segment, Alexandros.

Thank you, Kostas, very much. Thank you. So now I will turn -- I will give the -- pass on the floor to Ilias Bekiros, the General Manager of Steel Pipe segment, to talk about the outlook and the performance of the steel pipes.

Thank you, Alexandros. Thank you, Kostas. Also, I'd like also to welcome all in this 2025 review of a truly outstanding year for Cenergy for cables. And as you can see also for our Steel Pipe segment, it has indeed been a year of records as it was last year, but even more than that, we have reached right now, as Mr. Benos mentioned already, record numbers in terms of EBITDA at EUR 108 million, record numbers in turnover, almost EUR 600 million, record number in terms of margin of 18.1% in terms of EBITDA. And at the same time, as mentioned already, with a very reasonable working capital percentage of around 5% to 6% and leverage of debt to EBITDA of 0.3, return on capital employed over 30%.

These are outstanding numbers for a sector, as we mentioned, that it is considered to be mature and not at a growth phase. And maturity means both in terms of demand and also, of course, in terms of competition that we closely monitor. So there are competitors from outside that are far away right now from our numbers and our performance and face strong hurdles and strong headwinds in terms of their backlog. While at the same time, we grow and we capitalize more and more in what we do. This is a Corinth Pipeworks model that obviously works, and we are very proud about that.

At the same time, from the demand side, we can say that generally, there is a sustained demand when it comes to natural gas across the globe. We always look at the large diameter pipes in demand on a global scale, on a global basis. We can see a lot of demand in Asia Pacific right now. North America is super strong. The offshore and deep offshore market are always remain quite strong. Europe is weak from the traditional markets, but heading towards stronger terms when it comes to carbon capture and storage mainly.

And hydrogen, even though lagging a little bit. Let's not forget, of course, that for us, what is important is that the infrastructure is being built right now, both for carbon capture and for hydrogen. The molecule of hydrogen will come at a certain point to get into the grid, but the infrastructure needs to be done right here right now and the backbone is being built with us having a very strong participation on all this.

So all in all, we are cautiously optimistic for the next 2 to 3 years when it comes to the momentum of the sector, and we are truly optimistic on what we do. From the Greek side, from the Greek facility, also, as you can see from the more analytical figures, our CapEx gets smaller year-on-year basis. We have done already our investments in debottlenecking, in incremental capacity increases and cost efficiency. Let's not forget that one of the key points of our success is not only the increased sales in terms of value, but of course, the cost efficiency and the cost effectiveness. This is the model that we keep being very focused on and having a very strong control in our cost structure, and this is going truly well.

Last but not least, probably you have seen our latest news, today's news of an acquisition of a new facility, Hartlepool LSAW line in the U.K. is part of our own -- of our plants now of Corinth Pipeworks strong force. This is an LSAW plant with a very strong heritage from the past, very similar business model in the past with the LSAW part of Corinth Pipeworks. Nevertheless, this plant has suffered a lot of changes of ownership without any one of them being fully focused on the pipe sector. So right now, we -- this was an asset deal, not a company deal, and these assets are being -- going to be fully utilized by Corinth Pipeworks, and we are really proud for that.

This doubles our LSAW capacity and brings us with a new non-EU production footprint that is definitely important for various places geographically. And of course, very important even for the U.K. decarbonization sector, which is strong and very -- and powerful right now with various carbon capture projects and hydrogen projects being built and also designed for the future. So all in all, we remain optimistic. We are keeping costs under control, margins under control, and we look at the future with quite a lot of optimism, at least for the next 2, 3 years that we can foresee right now. Thank you, Alexandros.

Thank you, Ilias. So I will go back now to our boring numbers and the story continues. Given all the above, the performance of this year and the outlook ahead, we estimate operational profitability for next year between EUR 370 million to EUR 400 million, reaching our medium-term ambitions a year earlier.

I will close with a note on our financial calendar since it is slightly altered than last year. By the end of March, our annual report will be published. End of May, we do have our Ordinary General Meeting of '26 and the Trading Update on the first quarter results. And this year, it comes earlier just before your summer vacation. We will announce in the first week of August, the financial results for the first semester of 2026.

I would like to thank you so much for your attention, and I now turn to our operator to give you a brief guidance on how questions and answers will work.

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you, Mrs. Koraka. I will start with a question that was, in a sense, answered through the presentation, question by Mr. [ Bruno Rage ]. The capacity expansions in cables for Europe, I mean, for Greece, they are all in production in operation right now. The only part which is expected to enter in 2026 is the small part concerning the land, the onshore cables in Thiva and Eleonas, medium and high voltage and mostly low voltage.

As for North America, as we said, the operation of the plant will start in the second semester of 2027. Of course, it will need at least 15 months to ramp up. So that means that the actual monetary impact on revenue will be seen in 2028.

I now turn -- there is a question by Mr. Marios Bourazanis. Mr. Bourazanis, you have the floor.

Great. I hope you can hear me. Just a couple of questions on my side. I just wanted to ask, given the recent developments involving Iran and considering that aluminum is a key input for cables, if you see any potential impact on your supply chain or on any input availability? And if you could give us an indication of maybe how long your current inventories could cover production needs if these disruptions were to persist? That's my first question.

I could also ask my second question. I also wanted to ask on Maryland. You mentioned in the presentation right now that you're expecting the first year to be 2028 of production. Will this be full production? Or will ramp-up be, as you said, more gradual and maybe it will contribute for half a year in 2028. Those are my 2 questions.

Okay. Let me again clarify that, Marios, for the U.S., and then I will let, of course, Mr. Savvakis answer the first question. What we say is that the factory will be operational in the second semester of '27. The factory being operational means it will be producing and selling but no one can expect that in September or October '27, the sales of a brand-new facility will be enough to impact, I use the word impact the Group's revenue. It may be a revenue of $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, which means that the EBITDA will be in the single digits.

So that is not something that will change the picture that you see right now. That picture will change by the end of fiscal year '28 when we will have much more ramped up production in the areas of hundreds of millions of dollars. I've many times, I often said that the capacity of that plant is around $250 million. Nobody can say when exactly that capacity will be reached, but we are confident that it will be reached by the end of '28. That's why the impact to the Group's numbers will be in '28. The factory will be, however, operational, producing and selling by the second semester of '27.

Kostas, you have the floor on the aluminum supply chain question, please.

Yes. Indeed, that's a very reasonable question. We actually have no issues due to the war in Iran. We are -- our supply chain has not been disrupted at all, and it's not expected to be all the critical materials we already have in big safety stock in our yard. So I don't see any issue coming up.

That's clear. Just to clarify maybe on Maryland, I was just asking maybe more around licensing and that sort of part of the equation, not so much about production. Maybe if you can comment on that about the timing for 2028 production.

Alexandros, may I?

Yes, of course, of course. Of course.

So indeed, certifications in North America is also part of the process. It's depending on the product range, it can last from months or less actually. So this has been included in our forecast when we say that our first financial year, gradually, it will be the 2028.

That's clear.

There is a question by Mr. Stathis Kaparis. Please, Stathis. We cannot hear you.

Can you hear me now?

Yes. Yes, we can hear you.

I've got 2 questions, if I may. The first one is around CapEx expectations for 2026, including Maryland. Does it make sense that they should remain at around these levels? Again, including the CapEx spend in Maryland and maintenance CapEx for pipes and cables. That's number one.

And number two, if you can give us a color on embedded margins on the order book, especially on the pipe segment. I understand you're fairly optimistic. There seems to be quite a decent demand. Do we -- can we maintain the margins around these levels?

Okay. I will start with the CapEx question, and then I will leave, of course, Mr. Bekiros to give you a little bit more color. The CapEx, as I said, for the U.S. plant is another EUR 120 million at least for 2026. And this is just by subtracting out of the EUR 200 million, what has already been spent in '25 and a part of '24. So if we leave out the EUR 120 million, you should expect an amount around EUR 100 million for the non-U.S. plants, meaning Greece maybe the new CPW plant, if Mr. Bekiros wants to give some color on that. The Thiva and Eleonas, and of course, a large part of this EUR 100 million is maintenance because maintenance turns around EUR 55 million to EUR 60 million. So you are left with investments of another -- I would call them -- I wouldn't call them strategic, but value creation investments of EUR 40 million to EUR 45 million for the 2 segments.

Ilias, I remind there are 2 questions. The one was about the margins of CPW. If you want to add some color about the Hartlepool plant, please you're welcome.

Yes. So the margins question is a very understandable one, and I can see that there is also a written question around that from Mr. [ Koriass ]. Yes. So you can imagine, first of all, when you are into the project business and there's basically no commodity base load or not really a product base load to be working on or it's very small. That means that depending on the mix of the projects, the margins could really be affected significantly.

Nevertheless, as I said, our model lies more on the very demanding sectors on the applications, the offshore, deep offshore applications where the biggest turnover and profitability come from. And this is what you expect to have also in the future. So yes, the 80% is an outstanding number. we might see that going down a little bit in the future. But we expect that we will still be more than an average of the competition right now or the sector which might be at 10% or 12% as a standard or as a good case. Therefore, maybe if a 10%, 12% is a characteristic of the sector, we expect to be at a 14% to 16% or even to 18%, as you can see there, and this will remain sustainable.

Of course, on the other side, we need to look at the percentages on one side and the values on the other side. So having another facility, of course, brings more quantity that needs to enter into the market. So we expect to increase our turnover in the future with the addition of Hartlepool right now from the U.K. facility. We expect that the margins will be kept at least a sector base plus CPW. And there is the chance, of course, and the possibility that in terms of values, the EBITDA will increase, and we will strive and we will do our best to keep the percentages as high as possible, of course, in all the markets that we are in right now.

Okay. Now there is a question by Mr. Thijs Berkelder. Thijs, you have the floor. Yes. We cannot hear you. Well, maybe it's a technical problem. I will -- we will wait a little bit. I'll come back to you, Thijs. Mr. [ Peter Testa ] now can have -- ask his question.

Yes. Can you hear me fine?

Sure, sure. Absolutely.

Maybe just continuing on from the pipe side since we just touched on that with the new facility. You talked about the capacity related to LSAW relative to current. I was wondering if you could give some sort of context for pipes as a whole as to how much capacity you've acquired? And what do you think the opportunity in the existing backlog? Or is it new business that will bring that business up to current sort of margins?

Yes. So I'd say that generally, as we mentioned, the market is considered to be a mature market. Therefore, we do not foresee that on a global scale on a global basis, especially when it comes to the LSAW part, the demand is rising significantly. Incrementally, we would say that it is rising. And we always need to see on the regional aspects, of course, of this increase. For example, as we said, Asia Pacific is showing increased growth. Middle East is showing increased growth. North America, also other markets in the traditional sector like Europe or like other markets, they are not so strong.

But at the same time, we also see increased growth in carbon capture and hydrogen. And this is where mainly also our additional capacity comes into play. So the U.K. facility will accommodate for the North market a lot for the North European market and the Northwest Continental shelf as well as also the offshore and deep offshore markets, especially with carbon capture and hydrogen on a global scale.

It's hard to put a number on the total demand globally, how much this increases. There are lots of applications, lots of sectors and subsectors in this. But as mentioned, we expect a small incremental increase in demand, and we expect that we grab a significant piece out of this with the additional capacity that we will have. Especially in the demanding applications, of course.

Okay. And what is the revenue capacity or tonnage? How can you put the context in the totality of current pipe as opposed to just LSAW?

Yes, that is a good point. So right now, if you add up the numbers, you can see that we have around 400,000 tons of capacity spiral, another 400,000 tons of ERW, this is 800,000 tons. Another 400,000 tons of LSW, 1.2 million tons. We have a small ERW line, which adds to 0.15 million tons. So 1.35 million tons is the capacity right now, the nominal capacity of CBW in Greece. And you can add approximately the same level of the LSAW capacity that we have in Greece, it's going to be added from the U.K. facility. So another 400,000 tons. So we reached 1.75 million tons of total capacity of all manufacturing processes right now.

That's very clear. And then on...

Sorry, Peter, because there's a lot of other people waiting. So I have to change a little bit the form. If we do have time, you can come back. All the capacity numbers, of course, Ilias, are nominal.

Nominal as I mentioned.

Okay. So I have to give back the floor to Thijs Berkelder because he was not able to comment before. So Thijs, can you hear us? And can we hear you?

I can year you.

We can hear you. Okay, we can hear you, please.

Great. First, congrats with the strong results and the strong outlook. Can you remind us what the cable project margins were in '25? And yes, I'm also puzzling on Hartlepool, of course, but we meanwhile got some indications. Is Hartlepool already included in your 2026 guidance on revenues and EBITDA or not yet? And what size of order backlog does Hartlepool already have?

Thirdly -- sorry, we've seen quite a lot of cable projects being announced by IPTO, but also a lot of pipeline projects being announced, for instance, by Alaska LNG. Can you give us an update when you expect to announce your first HVDC project? And/or when we can expect Alaska LNG to take off?

Okay. I will get the easy ones, and then I will let the difficult ones to my colleagues. The margins of projects, as always, I remind you are as follows: submarine cable projects, they turn at 22%, 23% plus and a little bit higher if it is an EPCI one. Onshore projects, if they are related to an offshore, they are close to 18% to 20%. If not, if they are -- sorry, medium voltage, medium voltage offshore, they are close to 20% if they are related to the submarine and to an offshore wind farm. I'm talking about inter-arrays. If not, the medium voltage cables have lower project margins. As for low voltage and communication, they are in the single digit 5% to 6% to 7%.

Now, the Hartlepool numbers have not been included in our budget, neither in terms of revenue nor in terms of EBITDA, nor in terms of guidance, so they are not there. And I will let Ilias, there's a question of when will -- and what do we expect from Hartlepool in terms of money. And for Kostas, what is the expected time of the first HVDC project.

Yes. Just to add on the expectation from Hartlepool and also for Alaska pipeline. Both questions are very accurate and very good ones, good points. So first of all, we have been expecting that Hartlepool since this was operational until around November. There was no backlog heritage that we would get. So actually, right now, the contracts, the customer contracts that we are inheriting are very, very small, up to negligible, I'd say. So we need to build a new backlog or transfer backlog, of course, from what we have and increase furthermore our backlog now for both sides and both facilities.

So you can imagine, first of all, exactly as [ Sir Benos ] said, we have not included any provision. The announcement was just done today. So there's no provision on the results from Hartlepool. The second part is also we do not expect significant numbers during 2026 coming from Hartlepool activity exactly because as you can imagine, we need to bring this facility back into normal operation, and there is a need for some minor -- medium minor CapEx that needs to be done, maintenance mainly in order to get that back in order and of course, build new backlog for this facility, which cannot, of course, be expected to be done within 2 or 3 months. This will take a little bit more time. So you will need -- we will need to see later during the year what this might mean for Hartlepool. Yet, we are optimistic that we will build more activity there.

From the Alaska side, Alaska Pipeline side, yes, you've seen the news that there is a conditional award right now, which means basically a promise of a commitment from Alaska LNG from Glenfarne to CPW for actually approximately 230,000 to 240,000 tons. This is 1/3 of the project. This is a significant number. It has not been included in any, of course, forecast that we do because it is not an award. It is a conditional one. And of course, as this is a humongous project and needs back in financing, government financing, we expect this to happen within the coming months, but we cannot, of course, commit into whether this is going to happen as an investment decision and a PO in March or in April or in May. I would say though, somewhere within the coming 3 months, we expect more firm news from this project.

Kostas?

Yes. So there was a question about the DC market and products regarding Hellenic. May I little bit highlight and remind that in 2025, we completed the entire 525 kilovolt DC qualification. So Hellenic cables on top of the 320 kV solution, now we are successfully qualified also for the 525 kV. We also press released some months ago that we are approved and we have joined the National Grid in U.K. for the 525 kV frame agreement we have with them. So if I may say, we are heavily tendering for DC projects. And we are on the very right track to step in this market as well.

Kostas, I would like -- since we are discussing on the outlook, there is a chat which was sent out by Martin about our optimism on the offshore wind farm in Northern -- offshore wind farms in Northern Europe. They write lately, many projects have been canceled or postponed. So that makes us a little bit surprised by that statement. Could you explain your optimism? So how many offshore wind farm tenders will be this year in '27? And when looking at the production capacity for inter-array cables, what do we see happening in Europe?

So we have some facts about offshore wind. We see some projects being moving a little bit slower than initially anticipated, but there are some facts. First of all, we had recently a very good announcement from U.K. about the latest allocation round, the AR7, which was marked as the largest auction of its kind in Europe, which had a very, very good outcome of this auction. And we know that in U.K., which is a very mature market, there is the allocation round 8 coming, maybe this year, latest in 1 year time from now.

We have seen also other countries getting a little bit -- having a step forward. For example, Poland awarded tariffs to 3 projects in December, 3.4 gigawatt. In Ireland, we saw also project with 1 giga. And if I may go in a little bit more political side, we saw recently the recent North Summit, which was 9 countries, 9 head states, they signed a declaration aiming for 300 gigawatt of offshore wind capacity by 2050.

And on top of that, if I may add the energy security and energy independence agenda, in my view and in our view, offshore wind is a necessity for Europe. So yes, indeed, the initial timelines may be moving a little bit slower than initially anticipated, but the facts that I just shared with you are -- we can say that the market remains robust.

I think this is clear. I can have one other -- because I was a little bit abrupt with my friend, Mr. Testa. So if you still have your question, you are still with us, we could go with your last question on that because we are already above our 1-hour slot. Peter, if you can hear us, please jump in. If not -- no, maybe he has left. I will apologize to him later on.

So ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your patience and for your attention. I wish you a very nice afternoon. Thank you again from all of us. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon from Athens. I am Alex Benos, the Chief Financial Officer of Cenergy Holdings, and I'd like to welcome you to today's live webcast on our company's 2025 9-month period financial update. Let's see together the main points of the results up to the end of September. Clearly, the third quarter has been a very good quarter with efficient project execution, strong margins and a continuing trends towards higher profitability. These results, combined with our strong first semester allows us to upgrade the guidance that we give to the community for full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA to the range of EUR 335 million to EUR 350 million.

Being the 9 months revenue has surpassed EUR 1.5 billion. It is actually equal to EUR 1.55 billion. As the new capacity in Corinth submarine cables factory is now fully operational and the enhancements that are underway in Thiva's land cables factory also produce at very satisfactory yields.

So the cable sales for that period are well above EUR 1 billion with steel pipes following suite. Secondly, the operational profitability for the 9 months reached EUR 261 million, 35% higher than the corresponding 9-month period of 2024, this was due to a very positive projects mix.

The cables profitability is up compared always to the corresponding period of 2024 is up by around 44%, steel pipes are up by 18% and margins stayed close to 17% for the entire group. Our Backlog is also stable around EUR 3.3 billion. Both segments have executed approximately EUR 1 billion worth of projects in the first 9 months of the year, so since December 31, and they signed an additional EUR 900 million worth of new contracts in these 9 months, prospects for '26 are also very good.

I will come back to that point later on in my presentation. These -- all these factors give us really good confidence to update our guidance to EUR 335 million to EUR 350 million adjusted EBITDA, which is an increase of around 25% from last year. Now let's turn to some numbers for Q3. Q3, as I said, is characterized by keeping the momentum of high margins over 17%.

The overall conclusion is that it is a quarter that turned down to be very similar to Q2, revenue above EUR 520 million adjusted EBITDA around EUR 90 million. That, of course, leads the way for EBITDA, PBT and PAT.

All of them are at Q2 levels higher than the first quarter. And taking into account that the seasonality that we observed "seasonality" that we observed in our results, even a cautious Q4 will let us quite confidently achieve the target EBITDA that we do have of median amounts around EUR 340 million for the end of the year.

Now if I look to Q3, combined with the previous semester, it leads to very strong 9-month results. We are 23% higher in top line, 35% higher in EBITDA and from 56% to 47%, it depends on your metric better than last year in bottom line. So the message here that I would like to share with the investment community is that Cenergy Holdings delivers, delivers returns and it delivers returns in any form that the interest party may look at. So whether these returns are in an accounting form like earnings per share, we have an increase of 32% at EUR 0.70 per share earnings for 9 months or whether it is in a financial markets metric.

Share price has gone up since the end of '24 by almost 56%, Or even for those of you who follow return on capital employed, we do have a return on capital employed, which is around 28% for the 9 months 2025. The backlog of the company stays comfortably above EUR 3.3 billion. There were 3 projects won during Q3 and announced through our press releases to the public.

First of all, the EAST ANGLIA 2 offshore wind farm project where we are delivering inter-array cables, submarine inter-array cables for the wind farm in East Anglia. Secondly, the Igoumenitsa - Corfu interconnection which deals with high-voltage subsea and land cables for the connection in the western part of Greece. And thirdly, the Greece-North Macedonia interconnector of gas networks with helical welded pipes project won by CPW.

Further increase is coming in the next months, and we are quite optimistic and positive about the backlog in 2026. I will try to give you some insights on our tendering activity right now for both our segments in order to quell some concerns that a number of you may have.

First of all, cables are present in a large number of large-sized tenders, both within offshore and onshore projects that are expected to be finalized until the first 3 quarters of '26. All of these projects are with reputable partners and versus very large and strong clients like Equinor, RWE, SSC and so on. And in a number of these projects, we are either very close to completing the tender and winning it, of course, or we are in an exclusive tendering agreement with our client.

Of course, we will not disclose our backlog the contracts in our backlog until we do have a final answer on being a preferred supplier or until the contract is signed with the client as we always do. CPW, Corinth Pipeworks, is also active in a large number of projects. Their focus is on offshore in offshore projects where the competitive advantage of the company is the strongest. And I would also like to make a point here on the offshore wind farms and renewables in general.

In the last 3 months, maybe more than 3 months, there were a number of articles in the news saying that offshore wind is slowing down considerably.

Well, really, there is some truth in it. And this truth is due to the fact that it's not really a change of references from the side of governments or from the side of developers this slowdown is due mostly from -- its due mostly to the low prices that are offered in the development of these farms by governments during the auctions that were planned mostly in Northern Europe.

In 2024, the cost of producing a megawatt from offshore wind farms was around $75 to $80 for the construction and the cost of producing it. Now it is above $130 per megawatt hour. And this is, of course, due to raw materials, climbing up in price, having certain squeezes in the supply chain and so on. Now even there are projects in the -- not in the U.S., in the U.K., actually, which indicate levelized cost of energy of over $200 per megawatt hour. This means that when the government set a price, which is much lower than that, there are no interested parties.

In 2026, we expect some modest decrease in those costs because of the easing in the international markets, that will go towards $125 per megawatt hour, which means that the schemes that the governments have for auctioning out offshore wind farms have to be adjusted, and the procedures also have to be reformed. The important time point here is the auction in the U.K., which is expected to take place in the January '26, which will set the tone for the rest of auctions in the Northern Europe. This auction in the U.K. is concerned 5 to 6 gigawatts. The Danish government will follow through. And even Italy is also pulling up the pace of offshore wind with proposed farms of 1.3 gigawatts for '26.

In brief, we believe that renewables is the only alternative for Europe. So sooner or later, they will -- all governments will go back to that source of electricity since Europe does not have the fossil fuel alternatives that the U.S. has or other batteries -- in other countries in the world.

Let me close this short presentation by giving you a little bit of outlook for both segments. And I will start with cables. As I said, the new capacity is gradually in production, gradually for Thiva the land cables and fully, of course, operational in Corinth. The offshore wind farms in the EU is still strong. The story I gave you just now is clear of what is going on in Europe. But also if we read news even yesterday's, we found out that, for example, TotalEnergies filed for permits in Germany for 3 gigawatts of wind in the U.K. Ocean Wind is supposed to pay more than 300 pounds per megawatt for the lease in the Celtic Sea for a floating wind farm that floating wind farm is one of the first ones that will be constructed and will be powering more than 4 million homes.

Spanish firm called Hine is developing it's building a new offshore wind manufacturing hub in Poland. So all of these news, which I again stress, they come only from yesterday's news just one day's information show that the offshore wind market and the renewables market is very strong in Europe.

In the U.S., a completely different story in the U.S. the story behind the electricity demand comes from artificial intelligence and data centers. That story, of course, will come to Europe sooner or later. But if we look at news that broke out, for example, yesterday concerning the U.S. data centers. We have the information that a French company, a very well-known French company in electrical engineer has signed a couple of agreements with data center operators in the U.S., which will generate for them $2.3 billion in sales they claim that their solution is very efficient because they can scale AI capacity without raising power demand, and that's the main point of interest here because the estimates by large investment banks, including Morgan Stanley, for example, is that global power demand from data centers will triple in the next 3 years. And this puts, of course, a lot of pressure on the U.S. grid and these are extremely good news for our U.S. plant, which is progressing as planned.

We have the contractor is doing foundation work for example, is doing what we call rigid inclusions in order to improve soil stability. They are also working towards bidding for electrical works, et cetera. So the U.S. plant progresses exactly as planned. As for steel pipes, the gas and oil market stays strong energy security continues to drive the expansion of networks all around the globe.

The news about exploration and production are coming from the U.S. baby -- drill, baby, drill idea even to our backyard, you have learned about the interest of exploration, which is in our area, Block 2 in the Ionian Sea, the Western Greece and so on. Plus, there are even CCS projects coming our way. For example, there's a discussion about having a CCS project that will drive carbon dioxide to the old Prinos depleted gas field near Kavala. Then there are a lot of discussions between 3 countries in our neighborhood, Israel, Egypt and Cyprus about cooperating for gas field developments. We are already present in the Israeli gas field exploration with Leviathan and [indiscernible].

Tamar, Egypt wants to revive the Zohr field and Cyprus is trying to get into the exploring the production phase of Aphrodite. So all of these are very positive news for Corinth Pipeworks, which has already won the Tier 1 label globally and is preferred by the large players of the oil and gas market.

Finally, CCS in general, is strong. There has been some slight delays in European carbon capture projects. Due to some delays in FID in the financial investment -- final investment decision, but they will definitely happen in 2026. We already have a couple of them signed in our backlog. So I'm here talking about the supplementary ones. And one note about the EU safeguard in steel, which will definitely affect in a positive way. Our company you all know that the quarters that were imposed by the EU brings down, first of all, very much -- very high restrictions for commodity pipes as we call them, so for the pipes that go from 20 to 26 inches when there is even a more severe restriction of a 94% decrease in the amount of imports, which is allowed in the EU for the large diameter pipes that are really are strong points. So that will definitely give a boost for EU-based producers like Corinth Pipeworks.

All of these news and all of these estimates about the future make us confident to upgrade our guidance for the full year 2025 to EUR 335 million to EUR 350 million. I remind you last year, our EBITDA was at EUR 272 million. So this year, it will be between EUR 335 million and EUR 350 million. That's an increase of almost 25%. With this, I would like to conclude my short presentation, I turn over now to the FX exchange operator for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions]

Until someone decides to ask a question with physical presence, I would read a question I received from Mr. [Nestor Cacos] who mentioned that we have previously guided for a medium-term EBITDA profitability of EUR 380 million to EUR 400 million, excluding the U.S. plan. So the question is, should you expect profitability in that range in 2026 considering that all non-U.S. investments would be fully operative.

This is absolutely correct. That was our medium-term ambition. Medium-term was originally aimed at the 2027 fiscal year, given that our investments are fully operative it is very possible -- probable that we will be aiming at these levels. But of course, the guidance will be communicated to you when our 2025 fiscal year results will be disclosed in the beginning of March '26.

We have some questions from the attendees. Yes, there is a question that I received from [Mr. John Bonfield], do you intend to play some shares on the market to increase the free float.

Well Cenergy will not place Cenergy does not own shares of itself in order to place in the market. This is a decision that has to be taken by our share -- major shareholders. I'm not in place right now to have any information on that. And I cannot really answer that question. What I can answer is that corresponding to a transaction like the one that we did last year, the share capital increase, there is no necessity right now for a similar share capital increase in the short to medium-term.

Then Mr. Marios Bourazanis is asking me a question about a bit more color on the increase in net debt in Q3.

It is true that debt has increased. It is mainly a working capital effect. We we are very confident that this will go back to the levels of ['24 ] and even lower. So we're talking about a leverage ratio of around [1%] as was the level last year. So it is a temporary effect.

Then there is a question that I read from [ Myles Doran ]. We stated that you are now qualified 525 kV and actively tendering and hope to getting an award until the year-end. Would you need further CapEx such as the new extrusion tower to account for this?

No, we don't. So there is no need for new CapEx for DC project.

What management would you expect -- what margin basis points. Sorry, would you expect this to have on your Cable project segments as they are secured over time? So '26 and to '27 the project, if it is awarded, will not have any effect because we will mostly execute the projects that we have on our backlog, which are AC projects. That might have an effect in '28, but I'm not really in place. I'm not really ready to give you margin A delta in the margin estimate for 2028.

There is also a question by [indiscernible] on our dividend policy for 2025. I think this is a very good question. We have been following quite a conservative approach to dividend policy. Until now, the objective is to gradually increase the absolute amount of cents paid out to our shareholders in terms of dividends and to gradually steadily and gradually go towards a higher dividend payout ratio right now, it is below 20%.

So increase it towards 2025, even 30% in the medium term, 3, 4 years from now. But I cannot give you any more information on the exact amount of dividends. It is clear, however, that we want to give back to our investors as part of that profitability in terms of dividends together with the very good capital gains that they have made on our share price.

Then Mr. Bourazanis asks about margins in medium and low voltage. The margins in medium and low voltage are not following really a trend they are following a cycle, I would say, there are years were due to a higher GDP growth, you have higher demand, so the low voltage might go close to 10%, years that it is less than 10%.

This year is one of the latter. So our low-voltage commodity products turn around margin, which is less than 10%. They are -- we are not really defining a very strong pricing policy in that area. This is an area where there's a lot of competition. It is an area that is not our focal point for developing. It's an area of, let's say, market segments that we need to be present because we have long-standing commercial relations with a large number of clients that we would like to keep as clients, but it is not the focal point of growth for the company.

And that was clear, I think, made by the fact that we have increased capacity for the projects-related factories Corinth and Thiva actually freeing up some space in Thiva to allow for the capacity increase in Thiva there are -- I see there are also some live questions, so I would give now the floor to [Mr. Peter Testa].

Hello. Can you hear me.

Yes, yes, we can hear you.

Okay, super. The first question, please. If you look at Corinth pipeworks, you're talking about more opportunities in the Eastern Mediterranean, where you've had some very good margin projects and execution during this year. And I was curious whether you thought as a result of these opportunities that the, say, margin mix in Corinth Pipeworks would should be able to be sustained a bit further forward than just 2025 as a result of these opportunities.

Oh, yes, you're right. Yes, it is -- you're right. We do have a lot of opportunity based on Mediterranean. And I mentioned also the new cooperation that is being built between the 3 countries. Israel, we already very present there. So yes, we believe that these high margins, maybe not at the 18% level that we had until now. But they can be sustained around the 16% range for '26 as well. I wouldn't like to make a similar statement for '27 onwards, because, a, our backlog does not really allow such visibility. The backlog of steel pipes turns around 12 to 14 months of turnover.

So let's see until the mid-'26 to be able to give a better estimate of how things will go in '27.

Okay. And then the second question, please. If you look at the impact of facility ramp up, your -- as you say, Corinth is going well you're ramping up the other facilities. If you look at the likely impact of facility ramp-up in '26 compared to what you've seen in '25, are there any factors you'd like to point out are the positive or negative in that trend?

Well, no, actually, the ramp-up that we had in Corinth for the submarine cables was actually quite successful. The first quarter was always -- it was a little bit a question mark for us because it was just the first month when the new equipment has to be -- had to be used, but Q2 made a very good comeback and it was really, I wouldn't call it a flawless, but a very, very smooth ramp-up for the submarine equipment.

Now in Thiva, we are trying to do the same. Thiva is not the -- we do not have a doubling of the capacity, doubling I mean, of the equipments that produces the cables. So it's only 2 new -- 2 new machines compared to the 3 that we already own. So it's a little like 2/3 increase. We are already using and testing the new equipment, and I believe that we may -- we will be able to achieve the same -- well, not short, but normal ramp-up, and we will not have any hiccups in the operational in the -- in putting into operational phase in new equipment in Thiva.

Great. Okay. And then just lastly, to understand, you gave a bit of an understanding on how you see the offshore industry working. You've also talked about a fair bit of order pipeline opportunity, both on and offshore. I was wondering if you could just give a sense of the offshore part, how that matches against your comments about requiring government help for new projects, which I guess would be more 2020, '30, '29 work versus the orders you're talking about.

And then on the onshore, there's some significant opportunities in the Greek Islands and others, if you could give any sense as to how you think these will come through.

You're right. You're right, Peter. The projects, if we win them, they will be really produced and yielding profits in '29, 2030.

You're right, you're absolutely right.

But the thing is that -- what I was trying to comment on was the supposedly -- supposed slowing down of the offshore wind and some auctions in the U.K. that were canceled and so on. this, we see that turning around. That's what I'm trying to pass us information. We see that as turning around. It's turning around because the governments also understand that the cost of building an offshore wind farm has gone up, and they are ready to include some of this effect in there in the prices they will guarantee to the developers.

And we also see Southern European countries, Italy in -- as an example, to be interested in picking up the pace for offshore wind farms, whereas Italy was not that hot in the area. Of course, since Italy has its own national champion, Prysmian there -- it is -- we are not really expecting to be the preferred supplier for an offshore wind farm.

So that's not related to how much of our backlog will go up. It's just a signal and information that shows the offshore wind market is not as bad as certain websites and certain news pages have hinted that it is. It is dead in the U.S., but it is not dead in Europe. And the reform of auctions is also an important point here. How -- what is the procedure of the auction, how the prices may be adopted in the future if there are any changes in costs and so on. So that gives us some optimism about the tendering, which will go on in '27 and '28 because it's clear that certain of our large clients, especially in the U.K. are waiting for that auction in January to find out to actually test the water of how the government will react to see if they will develop, and therefore, they will come back to us to put some orders for cables. That's more or less the story.

Okay. And then on -- just maybe just to frame it into 1 question. Your comments about expecting significant orders to be converted through the first 9 months of next year. you're essentially suggesting that your order backlog will start to take another step up.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Correct. There is Mr, another question by Mr. Kaparis. So Mr. Kaparis you have the floor.

Congrats on yet another strong set of results. Can we get an indication of trends in growth, end margins into [H4] for the 2 subdivisions, pipes and cables. You did say that pipes -- at least the backlog in the pipes division, you see -- you still see that quite strong margins. But I was wondering whether revenue -- what are the revenue trends for the 2 divisions? That's number one.

And number two, it's clear that 2026, you expect an inflection point in the backlog in H1, you commented that potentially 2025, you would be exiting with higher backlog. Is that still the case? Or these projects, you mentioned some of them have slipped later on because of the bidding process, can give us some on the backlog.

For Corinth pipeworks, it is true that we cannot expect the profitability to stay at the range it was in 2025, with margins 18% and so on. However, the backlog gives us a very good visibility on the revenue. So we do have a backlog, which is around EUR 500 million. And by the end of the year, we expect it to be somewhat higher. So there are awards that are coming and they will be signed open until the end of the year. So there will be a delta there in the backlog of Cenergy as a whole, but of course, from CPW.

The revenue is expected, therefore, to stay at the levels where we are in '25, '24 and '25. So around the EUR 550 million to EUR 600 million to EUR 580 million in '26 as well. But the product mix, well, the project mix in the case of CPW is not expected to be that good. It will be a good product mix. It will give some good profitability but not at the 18% range of margins. So most probably around 15% to 16%.

Afterwards, in '27 and '28 we are really cautious. I don't want to give any forecast for many reasons, one of the reasons being the uncertainty in the global approach to energy needs because the Corinth Pipeworks, the steel pipe segment is more open to such changes in global trends than cables.

Cables is related more or less to a necessity. We need more electricity. There is more electricity demand in the world, whether this will come from renewables or not, is a concern, but not the major concern, we will definitely need cables, and we will definitely need a lot of cables for the grids and for the electrification of the economy whereas -- whether natural gas networks will be expanded is a question that is let's be honest, related also to the security to the Russian-Ukraine war, you've heard about 28 points of plan of the U.S. to end the war within Ukraine.

So things may happen, and this might shift the interest from LNG to natural gas through pipelines and vice versa. Or so that might be positive, it might be negative. So I don't want to take right now a stance on how things will be in '27. What is clear is that '26 will turn for Corinth pipe works, I mean, at the levels of revenue top line, '25 and in terms of profitability, it will also be a very good year in profitability, maybe not as good as the 1 we see this year, but clearly much higher than what we've seen in 2019 before the crisis and even in 2023 or 2024.

Okay. And on the cable side, if we can give us qualitatively again some trends...

Cables will stay at where it was at H1. It will not change. We try to increase our overall mix towards projects, but that will not happen for H2. It will be clear from '27 onwards, okay? Because in a sense, even though capacity is expanding in Thiva. The projects that we have already in our backlog are locked in terms of profitability, right? They are signed.

So the amount of profitability is more or less determined. It cannot vary by much. And our total mix of revenue right now, as I told you, is around 2:1. So we have 2 offshore, 1 onshore, that will remain in '26 as well. Maybe onshore will pick up a little bit. But the products mix will remain not 50-50 for projects a little bit more for projects, but it will not change significantly to affect the average margin my point because the margin is a weighted average margin. So it needs 1 side of the business to change a lot in order to see a change in the weighted average. That's what I was trying to say.

That's very clear.

Sure. There are some questions now from the Q&A reading a question from [ Mr. Field Dorvarelas ]. What was net debt in 3Q and how you expect it to the end of the year.

We are not disclosing exact numbers. What we can disclose is that Q3 was higher than the than the debt level in Page 2. Working capital is the main issue here. I mentioned that at the beginning of my talk, we expect the net debt to go back to the normal levels of 1x leverage ratio of 1x EBITDA by the end of the year. It also field or as you know, this -- there is a lot of -- and not uncertainty, a lot of variation in a sense to the net debt number, because of the payments, the milestone payments received for specific projects.

So whether you will receive this payment in December or in January may change a lot the working capital and also the net debt. So for the time being, we are not really counting on an important amount of cash being received until the end of the year. So we expect the net debt to go towards normal levels.

I remind you, last year, we had negative working capital, negative working capital was due to the timing of the payments and not, of course, due anything sustainable and deeply rooted in our business.

As for the second part of his question of his question [Mr. Dorvarelas] question is that there are reports indicating EUR 10 billion of cable tenders going forward to 2030. I definitely think that this is a very -- even a very conservative number. We could go maybe more than that. I would say that, that EUR 10 billion cable tenders might be present until the end of '27, not even in '30, so there's much more tendering that we expect to come by 2030.

I will then go to a question by [Mr. Gerard Moussay]. His questions concern the tubes business. Does the actual backlog allow you to continue to do some growth?

Yes, for '26, I mean, small single-digit growth. Are the H1 margin of cable sustainable?

No, I think I've answered that before. There is also a question by [Myers Doreen] on the USA Baltimore plant confirmed in the HOCHTIEF report that they are contracted to work on the Baltimore side as [New York 1]. I'm not really following exactly your question. The, our contractor is not HOCHTIEF contractor is [Turner]. They are working on that on that plans and on the site, and it is progressing, as I told you before, according to the plan.

U.S. will be operative in mid-2027 will be operative. It doesn't mean that by the end of 2027, it will have full capacity utilization or full financial impact on the group's numbers. That should be expected by 2029 you need at least 1 year, 1.5 years for a greenfield in a sense to work out the sicknesses of infancy, right? So we should expect full capacity utilization and full financial impact by fiscal year '29.

There is another question by [Myers Doreen] what rough percentage split of CapEx has been sent on Thiva and the Eleonas side?

It's a good and interesting question. There is -- if I take total CapEx from since 2022, I would say that maybe more than 55% of CapEx was spent on the Corinth site on the Fulgor submarine cables factory. Thiva started its CapEx -- it's a major CapEx projects later on started by beginning of '24. And it's not even a 75-25 split with Eleonas. It is more like an 80-20 since the equipment, and the work operating in the Thiva is -- was a more expensive project.

Of course, I do not include in those calculations or in those estimates, the original amount spent for the purchase of the Eleonas plant, which was around EUR 8 million, if I remember correctly. The recent CapEx right now, it is around -- yes, right now, it is around 3 to 1 or 2.5 to 2 in favor of Thiva. Eleonas will be a more low voltage cables factory, compound factory that will serve the Greek market.

We try to do it as automated as possible, as modern as possible and to really build a center of excellence there. Thiva is, however, the more heavy factory act towards the demand of land cables in the years to come. Let's see if there are any other questions from live, I don't see any more raised little hands.

So I think I would -- we can end the conference call for today. I would like to thank you again for attending that conference call. The Q3 has been a very good quarter. We expect also the year '25 to grow on in a -- to a very positive outcome and 2026 also to follow in the same steps as 2025. Our motto, as also expressed by our CEO is to try and give high-quality products create value for our customers and keep up the good references and the good results that we have in the past, both at the technical and at the financial level. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I wish to all of you a nice afternoon. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. My name is Alex Benos. I am the CFO of Cenergy Holding. And I welcome you to today's live webcast on our company's 2025 first semester financial results.

Our agenda today is to present first group financial figures. Give you a short overview per segment and then talk a little bit more about what is coming up for the end of the year and for 2026.

So the main point of our results is really the following. We had a very strong semester -- first semester, both at the top line and at the bottom line. Both facts have led us to update our 2025 fiscal year guidance on adjusted EBITDA, as I will make clear in the following notes.

First of all, our revenue has exceeded the EUR 1 billion mark on a semester basis. I remind you, it was only 2021 when we hovered around EUR 1 billion for yearly sales. Now we have come really a long way since then, and we've gone over the EUR 1 billion mark for the first semester a 26% increase year-on-year, so related to H1 2024.

At the same time, that increase in sales is coupled with an operational profitability which is above EUR 170 million, 43% higher than the first semester of 2024, with both segments exhibiting superior performance. The steel pipes achieved an exceptional margin over 18% due to their favorable product mix, while cables have incorporated the additional capacity on the submarine cables that was developed at the end of last year in the Corinth plant of Fulgor, and can now reap the fruits of that additional capacity. There was a ramp-up -- that took a little bit more time than the first quarter. Now all new lines are fully operational. That's why Q2 is really much stronger than Q1.

Margins for both segments have increased more than 200 basis points compared to those in the first semester of '24, while the backlog is still very strong at EUR 3.33 billion, which gives us a clear visibility of over 3 years for cables and a period around 18 months for steel pipes. All of those, of course, lead us to update our 2025 financial year guidance on adjusted EBITDA to EUR 310 million to EUR 340 million, which is EUR 10 million up for both ends of the interval. The return on capital employed is also very strong at 29%, and it is expected to stay there for the year-end.

Now the figures per product line show clearly our strategy, which is focusing on value-adding and therefore, high-margin areas. If you look at the details of that slide, the split between Hellenic Cables, so the cable segments and the steel pipe segments is a 70-30 split, both in terms of sales and in terms of profits. But it is also clear that what we name projects in both segments have received or have produced. It depends on the way of -- on the way you look at them, the lion's share of profitability.

So Hellenic Cables projects at EUR 409 million of sales higher -- 63% higher than the corresponding semester of '24 are representing 55% of the revenue of cables, but around 80% to 82% of the profitability of cables. At the same time, steel pipes projects, which is really the lion's share, again, of the -- of Corinth Pipework sales represents EUR 260 million, so 93% of the revenue and more than 95% of the profitability.

So it is clear that -- the project is where both segments are focusing on, and that is what they wanted to keep on developing for the years to come. Our sales remain geographically dispersed, although we can see that there is a kind of slow shift towards Europe at least more than what was true 1 or 2 years earlier.

Now some of it is due to specific projects that were executed in 2023. For example, in 2023, the large share of Greece was due to the execution of the interconnection projects in the Cyclades and in the Ionian Sea, in the Zakynthos, whereas in 2024, the large share of the rest of world was really due to two projects by steel pipes, one in -- by Chevron in the coast of Israel and another one by Total in Australia.

So that shift is not a shift that has been made away from Greece or away from the rest of the world, but it is true that our interest is centering around Europe. More for the cable segment since the cables are really playing very strongly the card of Europe's energy transition and its focus on renewables while we develop, of course, our factory in the U.S. to serve the American market.

On the other hand, Corinth Pipeworks remains a truly global player. So it doesn't have well, I wouldn't say a lot, but it doesn't have a significant amount of sales in Greece apart from simpler and smaller DESFA projects. It's really aiming at a global presence.

The growth in top line, of course, is very good, as I presented before, we have a 26% increase year-on-year with Q2 being better than Q1, due to the increased capacity in the Greek factories of LME cables. In the value-added areas, which are, what we call, projects, this means that the delta of turnover translates by a multiplier of more than 1.6x to an increase in profitability. So the 26% increase in revenue becomes a 43% increase in profitability and we reached a number of EUR 171 million for the semester.

The weighted average margin of this is at 16.7%. As I said, more than 200 bps higher than last year for both segments. And the backlog is also above EUR 3.3 billion, rather stable, mostly in the Hellenic Cables segment. And we have, of course, the potential for further increase by the end of 2025.

The stability of the backlog in Hellenic Cables is not something that is alarming for us. Much the contrary, we have earned some good awards like the Dunkerque Offshore Wind Farm by RTE and very recently announced interconnection between Igoumenitsa and Corfu in Greece. It's just due to the fact that during the first quarter, Hellenic Cables executed a much larger amounts in Euros of its existing backlog than the awards it won in the first semester.

On the contrary, CPW actually had the opposite effect. It executed less than the new awards. It got -- that's why its backlog is now up to around EUR 560 million. We are also present, as I told you, in the U.S., the cables, this cables project is a project of 230 kV subsea export cables for the U.S. It's a part of our backlog. But of course, it will link very favorably to our local factory when that will become operational in around 1.5 years.

What is more interesting are, is the non-quantitative features of that backlog. And that's what I would like to mention to you right now.

First of all, the cables backlog is more balanced between offshore and onshore project than it was in December 2024. With all the questions that have been raised lately on global offshore wind farms and so on, I believe that this is a much more prudent approach for our segments. And on the other hand, as I said before, Corinth Pipeworks, the steel pipe segment is now a global Tier 1 top supplier of large diameter welded steel pipes.

Why is that important? Because natural gas remains indeed the largest part of its order book, but it has a very strong presence in the new energy transition projects, meaning the carbon capture projects and less the hydrogen-related projects.

I just mentioned the Liverpool Bay CCS project in the U.K., the BP CCS project also in the U.K. The Adriatica lots that we got by Snam in Italy, which require hydrogen-ready, 100% hydrogen-ready pipes though hydrogen is still considered a long-term eventuality in the market. But it shows that CPW may have a large part of its current backlog in the natural gas market, but it has a strong presence as well in the new energy transition areas like CCS and hydrogen.

Of course, the high profitability will trickle down from EBITDA to profit before tax and to profit after tax. So profit before tax and profit after tax are up by 70% compared to the corresponding semester of 2024. We are very happy that we have achieved that for all our shareholders and stakeholders, and we believe we will keep on doing that for the year-end as well.

And if we look at the gaps, the bridge between what was true last year, EUR 73 million PBT. And this year, EUR 123 million, it is clear that this increase in profitability came from operational profit in both segments, EUR 43 million in cables, EUR 10 million in CPW and another impact a smaller one, the lower finance expenses, which led to the EUR 124 million number.

Now this net finance expenses are lower by EUR 2.4 million. We had lower interest expenses for our debt-bearing instruments by more than EUR 6.5 million due to lower spreads and lower reference rates and also a positive impact from interest received on the amount that we raised last year from the share capital increase. That was counterbalanced in a significant part by accounting losses on our FX -- on our FX positions.

Due just to the fact that for hedging purposes, we had a part of that amount raised in the share capital increase turned into dollars at rates, which at the time we converted it were much higher for the dollar than they are right now. So we have to write this accounting loss on FX as a finance expense.

Turning to the returns. As noted in our CEO's message, Cenergy keeps on delivering returns, both to our shareholders, older and newer, those that joined us after October 2024 and also all the other stakeholders. The earnings per share are up by 50% to EUR 0.45 per share. The share price has reached levels more than EUR 11, which is 25% higher than the share capital increased price. And as I mentioned before, the adjusted return on capital employed has gone over 29% and is expected to stay there until year-end.

Profitability also fuels some capital expenditures and is fueled by these capital expenditures. I must admit that these capital expenditures are at a lower pace than last year, but they still -- they are still important to keep the business growing.

Our net debt has increased to EUR 343 million in June, mainly due to the rise in working capital of EUR 157 million to levels which are clearly closer to what we would call stable ones. I remind you that the negative EUR 6 million of working capital for December 2024 was really an extraordinary amount. It was due to specific down payments that we received in the last month of the year. And as I have also mentioned again many times in the past, the normal working capital levels of the segments can be found around the 7% vicinity for Hellenic Cables and the 10% for Corinth Pipeworks. So that's where we really expect in a steady state our working capital needs to be.

Our CapEx this semester was at EUR 119 million. It is broken down as follows: we have spent EUR 40 million -- EUR 49 million, sorry, for the finishing up of the expansion of the Corinth Plants, another EUR 40 million for the land cables factories, which are upgrade and the upgrade of the Thiva plant is expected to be completed by the end of '25.

In Eleonas, which has been operational since last year, there is an ongoing ramp-up. Eleonas is really a full development from scratch, I would say, from the old Petetacis factory that we acquired some time ago. We are now building there a center of excellence for low-voltage power cables.

In the U.S., the expense in the first semester of '25 was EUR 15 million, a little bit less than forecasted, it will clearly ramp up in the second semester. And let me be clear here, this lower expense in the first semester does not mean that there has been a slowdown of works, this was only due to some delays in our suppliers invoicing. So there is no delay in the building and the development of our Maryland cables facility.

Finally, another EUR 10.5 million were spent by the Corinth Pipeworks for upgrades of export, improvements in coating, and cutting and also in developing much greener energy for the production facility as we will announce very shortly a major project that we did on the Thisvi plant. All of this CapEx, of course, was financed partly by the new debt, and partly by the profitability. So in a sense, the change of net debt that we have shown in our financial results is due to an increase of the working capital, as I told you, and the rest is a need for capital expenditures.

Now if I go to the overview per segment. It's clear that we have a very good performance by cables. They still run on that megatrend of electrification and greener energy that has really pushed their profitability to EUR 121 million for the first semester at margins which are extremely strong 16.3% weighted average, which is really something between the 20-plus margins that we get on projects, especially the submarine turnkey projects and the single to low double-digit margins that we get on the commodity products. The net debt, of course, is higher, because most of the working capital needs and the increased CapEx was done on the cable segment.

For the steel pipes, I should really congratulate the segment on achieving a very strong and exceptional 18.2% EBITDA margin on their sales of the first semester. This is really due to a quite favorable product mix, but also to the position of Corinth Pipeworks as a global top quality provider of steel pipe or different gas fuel networks. They do not have anything special to show either in net debt or in working capital, they are a much more mature segment right now.

So that brings us to what we expect for next year -- sorry, the year that finishes and for next year.

Let me start with cables, and I believe this is one of the most important points that I would like to note this afternoon. There has been a lot of discussion on the possible decrease, the possible crisis in an offshore wind farms, in the offshore wind market and so on. This is really something that we do not observe in Europe. In Europe, offshore wind farms and renewables remain very strong.

Hellenic Cables is positively engaged in a number of tenders in the U.K., in Scandinavia and elsewhere and in a number of frame agreements. And that has shown by their success and will be shown by their success in a market which continues at having quite significant amounts tendered. Just to give you an example, the total projects, which will be tendered offshore by the end of the year and beginning of '26 are over EUR 6 billion.

And for onshore, this total is around EUR 3 billion. And we are talking about big clients like RWE, Scottish & Southern Power, Copenhagen developers, Energinet, E.ON 50 hertz, large European TSOs, transmission operators, DSOs, distribution operators, and also offshore wind developers, which are continuing to bring to the market projects important for the electrification of Europe for the greener energy and greener electricity in Europe. That's why our backlog is expected to rise significantly until the year-end, I mean, the cables backlog. We are around EUR 2.8 billion.

Now as announced last week, the Igoumenitsa project is only a small part of this extra amount that we expect and we are confident that until the end of the year, there will be more awards to Hellenic Cables.

A second important point is the demand for power grid enhancements. Now that is clearly related to the need for electrification. The grid operators, what we call the DSOs want to modernize and expand their networks and research papers show that medium voltage demand globally could reach $66 billion by 2030. I repeat, this is a $66 billion demand for medium voltage cables. I stress the medium voltage because this is where most of the distribution cables are located.

The research of specialized institutions show also that electrification will lead to between to a CAGR to a constant annual growth rate of around 5% to 8% a year with the U.S. getting 25% of that and Europe getting around 30% of that.

So imagine we are talking about EUR 60 billion divide by 4. So the U.S., we get around EUR 15 billion, and Europe we get around EUR 18 billion of that demand. So that is extremely important for us, because it gives us quite a satisfactory visibility for our U.S. factory, which will begin its operations in 2027, and we are confident that there will be a lot of demand in '28, '29 and 2030 to fill up the factory and bring some profits to the group. That point is also linked to -- especially for the U.S. to a rise in electricity demand.

The American Institute for Energy Autonomy has shown -- has produced -- has published a report that it's the first time in 2024 that the global demand of electricity in the U.S., so the demand for electricity in the whole country has increased by 2%. All previous years, the demand for electricity was rather stable. And that demand for electricity is expected to run at higher paces until 2050. They actually predicted that computing needs will be what we need most of electricity by 2050 with ventilation and air conditioning, unfortunately, I would say, taking second place in the need for our electricity by that time.

Finally, I would like to give you some update on our U.S. plant. As I said, the small delay in the CapEx spending is in no way related to delay of works. Works are going as expected. Our foundations are ongoing. We have finished the sole removal, and we turn to what we call rigid inclusions and the formation of roads inside the area by the end of the year.

In the meantime, the company, our company in the U.S. focuses on four areas concerning our future operation there. First of all, the qualifications that we need to get for our cables, qualifications, I mean the qualifications for cables to be accepted and by the local utilities, the famous UL mark, product development specific for the American market and so on.

The second area is, of course, tendering. We try to be present, although we don't have a factory to be present already and to develop the intelligence that is needed not only for short-term bids, but also for long-term multiyear contracts.

A third area of focus is, of course, organizing the teams there and building the teams of sales of engineering of finance and so on, that will be necessary.

And finally, marketing let's not forget that area of business, meaning that the teams there have to be present, and they are present in all conferences, trade shows, road shows that concern the cables market at a large in all of the American -- in all of the United States.

As for steel pipes now, steel pipes, the first point that I would like to make is that natural gas is still the main energy source. All institutions and all institutes that do research, they do not expect natural gas to peak until after 2035, so it remains the main energy source of our Earth. This demand as a total energy demand is also growing. It's growing maybe not in where we had assumed or expected at first.

For example, hydrogen, being the clean gas and the clean production of energy. But in the '26 and '27, most of the cleaner fuel market will be taken by carbon capture projects. There are a lot of opportunities for steel pipes in Asia and Pacific. Also in Indonesia, Malaysia and so on. And also, the demand for LSAW pipes, the longitudinally welded pipes remains very favorable until the end of '27.

About specific markets, I would say that for us, for Corinth Pipeworks, the U.S. offshore market is a good environment for our development since that is where high quality is absolutely necessary. When I say U.S. offshore market, we really mean Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America, depends on how you call it. The U.S. onshore market is not is mainly not controlled, but mainly served by domestic producers. We have, of course, some opportunities there, but they are more limited due to the tariffs as well coming in.

In Europe, the offshore market is also very strong. We are talking about good prospects at the CCS area, especially in Scandinavia and in terms of oil and gas in the Mediterranean and the Caspian Sea, whereas onshore, there is demand for onshore networks in Italy, in Germany, the U.K., both for gas and CCS.

Of course, there's competition. That competition and the globality of presence of CPW makes our visibility more limited. The competition mainly comes from the Indians that do invest a lot in increasing their capacity. Koreans and Chinese are strong, but they are strong in simpler products. I mean, more commoditized products, not the niche high-quality sophisticated pipelines that Corinth Pipeworks producers.

Of course, politics are not that favorable for them right now. So they are not that present in the global markets or in the western market to be more precise as in the past. All of the above led us to be a little bit more optimistic about the end of the year. That's why we upgrade our guidance for the fiscal year 2025 to a range for our adjusted EBITDA between EUR 310 million to EUR 340 million.

I also remind you our financial calendar until next year. On the 19th of November, there will be a trading update on our Q3 results. On the 20th of November, I will be happy to welcome you again and give you an update on that Q3, then we do have the financial results of 2025. The press release will come out on March 4, 2026 with the conference call following a day later. And the ordinary general meeting for Cenergy Holdings is expected on the 25th of May 2026.

So this concludes my short discussion on the 2025 H1 financial results.

I now turn to the operator to organize a little better the Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]

So I start with a couple of attendees that have asked -- who are that are asking questions live. I turn now the floor to Mr. Marios Bourazanis for his question.

Just a couple of questions from my side. Starting off with cables. Could you clarify whether the margin improvement in H1 was primarily volume-driven, given the greater contribution of high voltage or does this also reflect the higher quality backlog itself?

And my second question is on receivables and the contract assets. I just wanted to ask, we noticed that these were somewhat elevated in H1. Could you share whether this was mainly timing related and normalization is expected in H2? Or should we expect these levels to remain for the full year?

Okay. Great. Marios, thank you so much. The first answer is, yes, it is volume driven. It's just an impact of the weighting -- calculating a weighted average. So we have more projects coming in. They have higher margins. That's why you do have a higher overall margin for cables. So that is expected in a sense to continue in the second semester and in the years to come. That's why we actually expanded and developed.

First of all, the submarine plant, which is producing the most profitable product of our line and then the Thiva plant, which will be producing -- which is producing the second most profitable, meaning land cables for projects and then the Eleonas, which will be more of a commodity production facility.

As for the current assets, you're right, current assets, I mean, as for the contract assets, you're right. Contract assets are higher than they were in the corresponding quarter last year. This is just a combination of the backlog of cables being rather stable, meaning that you do not get any advanced payments on new awards or higher advanced payments from new awards than last year. And at the same time, you execute more of the projects that were already in the backlog, and we have not invoiced them yet. That's why you have the increase in the contract assets. That will come back to a more balanced situation by the end of the year or at least not that high increase that you observed in the first semester for sure.

There is a question by Mr. Stathis Kaparis. Stathis, you have the floor.

Congrats for the good quarter. I've got two questions, if I may. The first one is on the CapEx side. If you can give us a rough idea on the main moving parts for H2 and expectations for 2025, if I remember when we go for normalization, we're expecting normalization of CapEx '26, sorry, and beyond. And then, in terms of capital allocation, does it make any sense to optimize the gross debt situation, maybe pay a bit gross debt to reduce further interest costs?

Sure. So this question of CapEx is really, I think, an important one. It is also asked by other participants as well, namely Mr. Tasios. So I will give an answer for both parts. In H2 '25, we expect our non-U.S.-related capital expenditure to be much lower than it were in H1 and also to go towards numbers before the factory, the submarine and land cables factory developments.

So if we leave out the U.S. expansion, and I leave it out because that U.S. expansion is covered by our share capital and increase money. We expect the CapEx for the rest of the group to be much lower than the 200 -- if I'm not mistaken, -- EUR 259 million that were shown by the end of 2024 okay? So we are expecting almost half of it to be the CapEx for the entire year compared to 2024.

The U.S. expansion will need around EUR 80 million -- EUR 70 million to EUR 80 million in '25 and the larger part of what is left in 2026. Out of this EUR 70 million to EUR 80 million, only EUR 15 million were spent in the first semester, which means that in the second semester, we have quite an important outflow, but this is definitely coming from the share capital increase. And I actually get this opportunity here to answer a question by [ Ms. Vani Jhukalya ] who asks about costs involving in line with the budget. Yes, they do. They evolve really broadly in line with the budget up to now the money we're spending in the U.S. through, of course, capital injections to our U.S. subsidiary are fully used -- fully paid by the share capital increase.

We have to wait and see how 2026 invoicing will develop. And if necessary, we will seek some additional lines by the end of '26. But this is not something that is currently under consideration for '25 and half of '26 for sure. So it's not important. We are not outside our range for the budget used in the U.S. facility development.

Stathis, I don't know if I answered the question completely. I believe, yes, you had the -- for 2026, therefore, you will have the right -- so to wrap up. In 2026, you will have the rest for the U.S. facility, around EUR 100 million, which I leave out, and the rest will come towards the levels of maintenance plus small improvements for the segments in Greece. So that will be it.

Maintenance, you can think of it around to EUR 50 million to EUR 70 million -- EUR 50 million to EUR 60 million, EUR 65 million for both segments as maintenance each year.

I will turn now to finish the questions. There was a question asked by the Q&A method by Ms. [ Jhukalya ]. She also asked if I could provide some color on the working capital outlook. For me, as I said, we believe that a working capital for steel pipes should be around 8% to 10% of their sales. That's where it is right now. That's where it will be also at the end of the year. Anything lower than that is due to an extra ordinary payment that we get a little bit earlier or we don't get in time, and we'll get a little bit later around the 31st of December.

This is not something very -- that happens very often in the steel pipes, but it happens much more often in the cable segment, meaning that you have a higher volatility, if I can use this word, for the working capital estimate of cables than for steel pipes. But the numbers we expect by the end of the year are the numbers I also mentioned in my short presentation, 6% to 7% for the cables, 8% to 10% of sales for the steel pipes. That's what we are expecting working capital to be by the end of the year.

For [ Anastasios Tasios ], you're asking about margins on the second semester of 2025 and 2026. It's really a mix, Mr. Tasios, it's a mix. The mix was good in the first semester. In cables, we expect the same mix to continue for the second semester as well, then for steel pipes, although it's -- it all depends on production planning.

Now for 2026, I would say that the expectation is also that margins for steel pipes will remain at those levels, maybe not at 18%, but clearly in the 15%, 16% range. Cables has another driver behind it, and it is as, was correctly pointed out by Mr. Bourazanis in the beginning. It's a weighted average result. So it's a volume-driven result as we get more and more, a higher and higher proportion of the cables revenues coming from projects, the weighted average margin will be increasing, slowly but steadily.

There are then -- there is then a question by [ Mr. Dhanush Aher ] on challenges in the U.S. offshore. You're right. Yes, there are challenges. Actually, the U.S. offshore, I would say that it is now held in its frozen for the time being. We are not exposed to the U.S. offshore at all, apart from the project that I showed you there and which will be for delivery much later, so it is for delivery in '28 to 2028 and further on. And it's a very small part of our entire backlog.

So yes, it is frozen. I believe that at some point, that will change, of course, but it's a market that we are trying actually to get into the American market, not by the offshore wind or the offshore cables, but by the land cables. That's why our facility is producing -- will be producing land cables for utilities and for distribution for connections.

Then I have a couple of questions from Mr. [ Nikos Kyriakakis ] of Alpha Finance. Do we see any headwinds or delays regarding the silver run expansion project, the one I showed you as in our backlog, which was added to our backlog around June?

No, hence I do not see any headwinds, it delays, we have just been awarded the project. As I said, it is for much later on. There is no information that this will be delayed or canceled or whatever. As, is there are no delays for the start of the construction of the plant. Actually, we have already started construction of the plan. As I mentioned, we have the foundation work is ongoing. We are right now opening up roads inside this land plot. I remind you that was a land plot, which was totally undeveloped. It only had a cost line that we are turning into a port and a couple of rail road lines going through the middle.

So we have to open roads for the trucks to come in. We have to update the railroad line to use it for logistics and so on. So there are no delays. We're actually doing, following our plan as before. And there are now by the end of Q4, we will have also completed what we call rigid inclusions -- rigid inclusions are the formation of rigid foundations for the heavy machinery that will come to sit on top of the concrete base. So you have to do some kind of work strengthening the subsoil to accept very large and heavy machines. The rhythm of these things are around 30 to 40 a day. So we are really, really on time, no delays on that.

Then there is also a question by Mr. Mantzavras. First of all, you correctly points out that projects were 82% of cable's total EBITDA. That is correct. The rest of 18% was by products. Does this imply some decline for cable projects?

No. It just shows that products have also achieved quite an important number. If I -- if I go back to my notes, we are talking about 55% of the revenue for cables is in projects, 82% of profits. And the 45% of revenue is in products and 20%, so 18% in profits. So there is no decline in cable projects. There is an increase in that, in any cable projects together [ for '09. ] I think also my slide is clear on that. If I could go back to that, I don't want to bother you too much. But if we go back to that, I believe it's we will show something, doesn't I go back, it goes back, let's see.

There is 63% from last year and more than almost 3x from '23. So no projects are important. It's -- they still remain important. That's why, why we mean, we have increased. Oh, he corrected his question. He means products, the margin of products. The margin of products is not as high as it has been, you're right, at the end of 2024, correct? So -- but the products are -- whether you have a margin of 12% or 13%, this is extraordinary. It's the same thing as having an 18% in steel pipes.

Products are considered to have an EBITDA margin of single digit -- high single digits, 7%, 8%, 9%, 10%. So yes, the margin of products is -- has gone back to the standard, the long-term average, which is in the high single digits, not in the double digit that we had in '24. That you're right, absolutely.

We see if I have anything else, there is -- of course, as [ Ms. Kalamara ] is asking, this presentation will immediately be uploaded to our website. So you will have all the information that was shown here today on our website.

Are there any other questions? I think you have -- we have a couple of questions coming in. Mr. -- we see here [ Thomas Gamini ] is asking me, what is the target in terms of order intake? The more the better they say. So I cannot really tell you what is the target. We do have the capacity to serve them. Of course, everybody knows in the projects business that their requests will be served after 2028, actually starting in 2029, but all the other three large cable producers are doing exactly the same. So we're talking about Prysmian and Nexans. They are fully booked until 2030, 2031.

So I believe that clients know that, and that's why the tenders are -- they concern deliveries after '28 to 29, okay? So it's not that, of course, we would like to have a lot of them. And what I were mostly expecting is to get our first award for high-voltage DC cables. That's what we would like to get until the end of the year.

Mr. [indiscernible] asks the question. It seems H2 is usually a bigger half in terms of sales profits. Would you agree there is such seasonality. In general, yes, there is such a seasonality. So we expect H2 to be at least as good as H1. The seasonality, of course, is not something that is written in stone or is guaranteed. We believe that there is always some kind of better cash flow results in the last quarter, because everyone is trying actually to close up their errands that they have at the end of the year and close up any open orders and so on and so forth.

But I believe that the second quarter will be as good as H1 at least. So no, Mr. [indiscernible], the upgraded guidance does not imply a flat performance in H2. It's just a calculation. Well, we are not going by the calculation. I'm just saying that we are not any more between EUR 300 million and EUR 330 million. We are EUR 310 million to EUR 340 million. Now it's just -- it may be a coincidence that 170 times 2 is 340, but that is just a coincidence. We are not working with multiplication tables. We are working with a business plan.

As I also mentioned, there is no project on HVDC, yet awarded. That does not mean that we are not hoping to get an HVDC. It means that we are qualified, we hope to get it and we are very close to getting it.

If you follow the company, you will well know, I think that we are not really have throwing out parties for our awards. We are keeping a rather low profile, and we would like to work as hard as we can in order to get the success that we have enjoyed until now in the global market.

So we are qualified of the 525 kV cables. We are aligned to our peers, but getting the first project is another story. So we're working -- our commercial teams are working hard for it. I will -- I'm sure that we will have good news by the end of this year.

So since we are now close to our 4 p.m. at Greek time, I would like to thank everyone of you for your patience listening to all these technical details sometimes, that I presented. I would like to thank you, therefore, for your patience. Thank you for following with us the results of the first semester, and I give you the next -- our next [indiscernible], our next meeting in a couple of months on the 20th of November for discussing the results of Q3. Thanks again, and have a nice afternoon.