Metlen Energy Metals Stock

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Geli, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Metlen Energy & Metals PLC conference call to present and discuss the Metlen First Half 2026 Financial Results.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Evangelos Mytilineos, Executive Chairman; Mr. Christos Gavalas, Group CEO; Ms. Fotini Ioannou Group CFO; and other senior executives. Mr. Mytilineos, you may now proceed.

Good afternoon to good friends. Good morning to our U.K., U.S. and other European -- West European friends. We thank you all for joining us today for Metlen's First Half 2026 Results Conference Call. The presentation materials have already been published and are available on our website. Joining me today are Christos Gavalas, Group Chief Executive Officer; Fotini Ioannou, Group CFO; and members of the executive team.

Let me begin by saying that the first half of 2026 marks an important step forward for Metlen. 15 months ago, we outlined a clear medium-term road map during our Capital Markets Day in London. Today, I'm pleased to say that after setbacks suffered the previous time, we are firing on all cylinders to execute against that plan successfully. And I hope that the underlying strength of our business is becoming increasingly visible to the community.

Our performance during the first 6 months of the year demonstrates the resilience of our integrated business model and the quality of the industrial platform we have built over the years. Sales increased by 11% to almost EUR 4 billion. Group EBITDA rose by 23% to EUR 550 million and net profit attributable to shareholders increased by 23% to EUR 330 million.

Perhaps equally important, operating cash flow exceeded EUR 800 million, allowing us to materially strengthen our balance sheet and reduce net debt by approximately EUR 0.5 billion within 6 months. Our leverage ratio improved significantly to 1.7x net debt to EBITDA, demonstrating both the strong cash generating ability of the group and our continued financial discipline. Fotini will tell you more about the numbers right after.

Looking at our businesses individually, Energy continues to perform strongly. We have successfully completed the simplification of the segment into 2 integrated platforms, creating a more focused structure around our Integrated Utility business and our Renewables, Storage & Energy Transition activities. We are seeing already the benefits of this approach through improved coordination, stronger execution and better capital allocation. At the same time, our partnership with PPC battery storage creates a new growth avenue and further strengthens our position in one of Europe's most promising energy markets.

In Metals, the strategic importance of our investment program continues to grow. During the period, we secured EIB financing and additional institutional support for Europe's first industrial-scale gallium production facility. More importantly, though, that the H1 event, but shows we signed our first commercial gallium contract, covering a significant portion of future production and providing a strong market validation of both the project and our broad Critical and Rare Metals strategy.

This milestone also marks the launch of M-CRM, Metlen Critical and Rare Metals, a new dedicated platform, bringing together critical raw materials and circular metals under a single strategic structure. We believe these activities share common technological, operational and commercial characteristics, creating a unique growth platform positioned at the center of Europe's strategic autonomy agenda.

Following the successful commissioning of the pilot plant and the achievement of recovery rates exceeding expectations, we are steadily advancing towards the commercialization phase, creating a new source of high-value sustainable metals production for the group.

M Technologies also continues to progress rapidly. The expansion of our defense industrial lab in the Volos is advancing ahead of the targets we communicated to investors, while new international partnership continue to strengthen our position within the European defense ecosystem.

As you know, very recently, the business secured an important new contract with HOUTRIS, further enhancing visibility and validating the growth trajectory of the platform in the international markets as well. As the scope and technological focus of the business continue to expand, we are also evaluating the evolution of the brand towards Advanced Metal Technologies, a name that better reflects the broadening capabilities and strategic ambitions of this fast-growing segment. As geopolitical developments continue to reshape defense priorities across Europe, we believe this business is exceptionally well positioned for long-term growth.

Infrastructure and Concessions is emerging as another important growth driver. EBITDA more than doubled during the first half, supported by strong project execution and an expanding backlog, further validating our strategy of building a diversified industrial group with multiple sources of sustainable earnings growth.

At the corporate level, our presence in London continues to strengthen. Our inclusion in the FTSE 100 and the broadening of our international shareholder base represent important milestones for the company and a recognition of the transformation achieved over recent years. The launch of our share buyback program further reflects our confidence in the long-term value of the business and our commitment to shareholder returns.

Looking ahead, we remain confident in our medium-term objectives. The structural themes supporting our growth remain intact. Energy security, critical raw materials, industrial resilience, defense and infrastructure. In all these areas, Metlen is investing, expanding and building capabilities that we believe will continue to create significant value for the shareholders over the coming years.

With that, I will now hand over to Fotini to guide you through the financial performance in more detail, and then we'll be back to you to discuss your questions and remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. As the Chairman highlighted, Metlen delivered a strong performance during the first half of 2026, demonstrating the progress that has been achieved across the group and across all segments.

There are 3 key themes that I would like to underline. First, that we see -- that you see record level performance in all our key financial metrics, supported obviously by EBITDA increase in all our sectors. Second and most importantly, this increase in profitability translated into very strong cash generation. And third, the combination of the 2 allowed us to materially strengthen our balance sheet while obviously continuing to execute our strategic investment program.

Turning to the group's financial performance and in order to elaborate a little bit more. Our revenues increased by 11% year-on-year to almost EUR 4 billion, and the group EBITDA increased by 23% to EUR 550 million compared to EUR 445 million. Net profit after minorities increased again by 23% to EUR 313 million, while EPS rose to EUR 2.18 compared with EUR 1.8 in H1 2025.

Going to each sector one by one, looking first at Energy. Our whole Energy sector delivered EBITDA of EUR 331 million, increasing by 15% year-on-year, supported by stronger performance across both of our integrated platforms, the Integrated Utility platform and M RESET. Going first to M RESET, we had a good start to the year with EBITDA coming in at EUR 116 million, roughly 30% higher year-on-year, with significant achievements across asset rotation and EPC and operational risk.

We completed the sale, as you know, of roughly 280-megawatts solar portfolio in the United Kingdom as part of our Asset Rotation strategy, demonstrating the group's ability to develop, mature and monetize renewable energy assets across geographies. Significant progress has also been made across energy storage. And as we have communicated in the past, more than 400 megawatts of BESS projects were energized across Greece and Italy during the period.

Most importantly, we made significant progress in executing what used to be the old MPP projects, the legacy contracts that affected our 2025 performance. We have committed to the market that by the end of this year, we would deliver the vast majority of these projects, and we're well in line with that commitment.

Since the beginning of the year, we achieved significant milestones in all projects and especially the 3 problematic ones. We achieved First Fire milestone at the Grudziadz project. We handed over 1 of the 3 OCGTs for the Drax contract, and we already reached the Readiness to Receive Waste milestone at Protos in the U.K.

As I'm sure you appreciate, as the legacy projects are approaching completion, we recognized additional completion costs in our H1 results as these projects continue to the final stages of delivery. The enhanced controls that we have communicated in the previous conference call, and they were introduced in the period following the challenges that we had in 2025, remain firmly in place and bear fruit.

Moving on to the Fully Integrated Utility, also a solid performance. EBITDA increased by 8% to EUR 215 million, and this performance importantly was achieved despite lower wholesale electricity prices and obviously demonstrate the strength of our integrated model across generation and supply. Power generation in Greece reached about 4.4 terawatt hours, while our market share in electricity through Protergia increased to 21.5%, roughly 1.5 -- 150 basis points versus H1 2025.

Moving to Metals. Our EBITDA increased by 15% year-on-year to almost EUR 150 million, and this was obviously driven primarily by stronger aluminum prices and enhanced cost efficiency. As you know, through our hedging ahead strategy, our aluminum and majority of calcined alumina sales for 2026 to 2028 have been hedged at progressively higher prices. And together with the hedging of the key input costs, it provides us with increased visibility on earnings, margins and cash flows in the coming years. The group also continued to shift our alumina sales towards contracts linked to LME as opposed to the Alumina Price Index, further supporting the alumina profitability.

Final segment, Infra and Concessions, we delivered another very strong result. EBITDA increased to EUR 82 million, almost tripling the EUR 31 million recorded in the first half of 2025. This performance reflected accelerated project execution, particularly across projects funded through the RRF, disciplined project management and the continued expansion of our Infra and Concessions portfolio. Our total backlog, including projects at an advanced stage, have exceeded EUR 2 billion. And this obviously increases the scale, the quality and the visibility of this segment's future earnings.

Turning now to what I think is the most important feature of this set of results and our first half of performance. We have committed to reach net leverage below 2x by the year-end. We managed to bring that in at the end of H1. Our net leverage decreased to 1.7x compared with 3.1x at the end of 2025. And as you appreciate, this is a significant improvement over a 6-month period. Our cash flow from operating activities exceeded EUR 800 million during the period, reflecting strong cash generation and very disciplined working capital management.

Looking ahead towards the end of the year, despite significant outflows planned for the second half of the year, we remain confident that this leverage ratio will be at least at the same level as it is now.

Closing, the first half in its totality demonstrates our ability to grow our earnings, convert those earnings into cash, continue to fund our investment program, return capital to shareholders and strengthen our balance sheet simultaneously. Thank you.

Thank you, Fotini. We have here -- first of all, apologies for starting 4 minutes late. But we have to expect a lot of friends to join in. And we have, as we speak, 202 friends online. Therefore, again, apologies for the delay.

We have a number of questions that have been sent to us by mail. And we have 1 or 2 questions which have been verbally expressed to us. And of course, everybody is invited to make a comment or raise any questions as the conference call unfolds.

So the first one is from Mr. Alain Gabriel from Morgan Stanley Research, and goes like this. I hope you are well. We are very well, thank you. May I please send through these questions below the call? First one, gallium. Can you give us a bit more color on the commercial terms and how confident you are on your ability to secure similar terms of the remaining 75%?

That's a very interesting question, very much [Foreign Language], as we say in French. It's -- everybody talks about the gas business. I will try to be as open as possible because the disclosure agreement that we have with our buyer -- with our first buyer is extremely, extremely strict.

So on the commercial terms, some people are wondering what is the usual terms of pricing of the critical metals. So this is not like the London Metal Exchange or other exchanges. These prices benchmarked on the publications of Argus and Fastmarkets, which are twice a week each. And that is where the prices are set. If there are discounts, premiums or whatever, this is a different story. But if you want to make, as analysts, your calculation, this is what you have to look at.

Now payment terms, delivery terms and others, unfortunately, we cannot make any comments regarding our ability to sell or secure the sales of the remaining 75%. That could be a nice joke because we could sell not only our 50 tonnes, we could sell 200 tonnes if we had. But unfortunately, we don't have. So the remaining 75% will be sold in the next period of time.

We have here to understand that gallium is because of its dual use in civil and military applications, it's an extremely sensitive product. And one has to be very careful to who it can and to who it cannot sell gallium. That's not any metal. Therefore, we have to take also into account that some of this material we would like to see ending up in European consumers.

But I have to admit that the interest from European consumers is way below the interest of the American, Japanese or South Korean consumers. Therefore, I'm afraid it is a possibility that the Europeans will be left out totally. I'm sorry to say that, but this is a reality.

On the Energy side, development run rate of your renewables projects under construction is now below those that are in operation. Is that a temporary dip? Or is that a new normal? I think that is a temporary dip, and it has to do with many issues. And Christos, who is sitting next to me, may like to add 1 or 2 things about it. Christos?

Thank you, Chairman. So on the M RESET, we call it activity, we have provided 1.5 years back the outlook for the medium term, which is there. I mean, more than EUR 0.5 billion of EBITDA as a contribution to the total profitability going forward.

We see the asset rotation still strong and very promising. In fact, as we currently stand, approximately 2.5 gigawatts of asset rotation projects are under construction. The list is not having the one that we have already sold. And this is an opportunity for us to say that the model is a bit different on the asset rotation activity. We have de-risked it by preselling the assets that we are constructing. So we have a risk-free model, and we are mindful of the third leg of that operation that has to do with connections that we cannot really control. So we are picking only those that do not run this risk.

Last point, if I may make on the blend of what we call now asset rotation in relation to what was the case a few years back. You know that stand-alone solar is suffering on the back of very low pricing. So the demand comes mostly from batteries globally. And this results to a different mix, meaning most of them are coming hybrid as a request, some of them battery stand-alone. And this is going to represent the mix going forward, which is going to be quite the opposite as it used to be in the beginning. I mean, it used to be more solar, less batteries. It's going to be more batteries, less, less solar.

The last point has to do with Australia that is very much linked to that observation, meaning that we are going into hybridize that project as well as the case has been with Chile. And for this reason, we do expect 2027 to be the year of disposing it. Thank you very much.

And the last question of Mr. Gabriel is, can you elaborate more on your net working capital performance over the quarter, which was much better than many have expected. Fotini, please?

Thank you, Chairman. Yes, as I mentioned at the beginning, cash generation and cash management was a key priority for us throughout the first half with a strong focus, obviously, on improving cash conversion across all of our businesses and strengthening working capital. The principal drivers that led to the EUR 820 million operating cash flow in the first half were obviously very strong cash conversion from our traditionally cash-generative businesses, namely the Fully Integrated Utility and the integrated aluminum value chain, together with good asset rotation proceeds and very disciplined working capital management across the group.

Especially in H1, we benefited from the collection of receivables that were overdue in previous periods, as well as commercial arrangements and customer prepayments that we managed to secure in long-term contracts and long-term relationships that we have with our clients. I think as a final point, what I want to point out is that we managed to bring in this net leverage improvement and this operating cash flow without jeopardizing in any way our investment plan or our CapEx plan as that was planned for H1.

Thank you, Fotini. We go to the next question -- set of questions, actually, from Mr. Nestoras Katsios from Optima Bank. Question number one, your strong H1 performance coupled with expectations for an even stronger second half driven by seasonal factors, suggest that full year 2026 results could reach the upper end of your guidance range. Are you considering an upward revision to your guidance? I agree with Mr. Katsios that the results of the first half could merit an upgrade in our guidance. But we prefer to stay on the conservative side and keep the guidance as this.

Second question, how is the METKA IPO progressing? Are you still on track for a potential listing in second half of 2026? Depending on global and local market conditions, the IPO of METKA in the second half of 2026 is a strong possibility.

Number three, could you update us on your aluminum and alumina hedging levels in coming years? And how should we think about the impact on the Metals segment's future profitability? Have you also fully hedged your input costs?

Hedging is a difficult business. And that's why many companies try to avoid it. On the other hand, in situations like the ones that we are going through now and when a company has the possibility to lock in prices that are way above its cost basis, our practice has been to lock in both the prices of the -- the sales prices as well as the prices of the inputs, the main -- at least the main materials. That has now been the case as well. And as you very well point out, it concerns the years '26, '27, '28. This concerns both aluminum and alumina. And following the trend of the prices of the last, I would say, 9 months, the trend of the hedging prices has also been on an upward move.

Mr. Marios Bourazanis from European -- Eurobank Equities. Number one, you have a bond maturing in second half 2026. Are you considering early repayments? And more broadly, do you intend to refinance the bonds or repay it using available cash? So this EUR 500 million maturing bond bears a coupon of 2.25%. Therefore, early repayment makes, as you can realize, absolutely no sense. Whether a repayment of the bond will take place with available cash, I remind you in our results, we speak about a total liquidity of EUR 5 billion, of which EUR 2.6 billion is cash. Whether repayment will take place with this cash or through refinancing operation depends entirely on the market conditions.

In general, repayment of our capital markets obligation is never linked to refinancing. Our operations in the capital markets are totally independent and linked only to what we, as management, consider as appropriate conditions. I want to be very frank and clear about it, never linked the 2 as far as our company is concerned. Repayment of the bond is one thing. Going into the capital markets to raise money is another thing. They don't go together, not for us.

Question number two, on Metals, how should we think about the timing of the recent aluminum pricing uplift in your results? Should the alumina benefit be even more visible in second half due to pricing lag? And will the full aluminum benefit come through mostly over '27, '28? It's a bit early to talk about '27, but I would make a small exception. And I would say without gallium, the results of the Metals sector is going to surprise the market community very much. This is as much as I can say at this stage.

Mr. Ioannis Noikokyrakis from Alpha AXIA Securities. Number one, could you help bridge the gap between EBITDA and operating cash flow in H1? What level of operating cash flow do you expect by year-end 2026?

Chairman, I think this is the same question that I've already replied to. As I explained, operating cash flow was helped by strong cash conversion from our underlying businesses and very focused working capital management. Going forward, net leverage ratio will remain at least at the same levels as where we are now and working capital management will continue to be a priority.

Thank you, Fotini. It doesn't matter to repeat the question and answer in the question twice as long as we make ourselves very clear to all our friends who are now 213, and make sure that they all understand exactly the answer.

Number two, what is your CapEx outlook for the remainder of 2026? Additionally, how much do you expect to invest in '27 and '28? Christos, please.

So we keep on growing. This was clear from the outset, both on Metallurgy and Energy. Numbers is going to be a bit lower compared to what we were anticipating in the beginning of the year because it was a bit higher last year. And it has been, as a result, a bit higher leverage end of 2025 indicated.

So as a total, it's going to be much lower than EUR 1 billion that we have initially thought. It's going to be split between Metallurgy and Energy after many years of spending money only to Energy. So now it's going to be split. You know that we spend money on increasing alumina, bauxite, gallium. On the one hand, defense-related projects that will result in a completely different level of earnings, '27 onwards.

Even though that we anticipate this number to be coming in second half, probably a bit lower than EUR 1 billion, as I told you before. And at the same time, dividend is going to be paid, financial cost and tax. As Fotini said twice, we stick to our commitment on the leverage metrics to stay at least at the levels that we have currently indicated.

So the third question is you previously guided to year-end leverage -- net leverage ratio below 2x. Yet you have already achieved this target in H1 2026. Should investors expect further deleveraging in H2 2026?

For the third time, despite the expected dividend payment and the increased CapEx in H2, as Christos mentioned, we will have ample financial flexibility, and we will remain at least at the levels of leverage where we are now. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Vangelis Karanikas from NBG Securities. Two questions from my side, please, mostly on the Metals business. First, congratulations on signing your first gallium offtake agreement, which provides early commercial validation of the project. Could you provide more color on the pricing mechanism and contract duration? I assume you are not in a position to disclose the identity of the offtaker. Is there room for any potential capacity expansion above the 50 tonnes?

Well, of course, as you say, we cannot disclose the identity of the offtaker. I repeat, this is a very severe disclosure clause in our contracts. We are trying to exhaust our technical possibilities. Not only exhaust, but stretch our technical possibilities to expand our production to 60 tonnes, but we will not be able to say more on this one before the second quarter of 2027. But this is our goal. At the moment, we are talking about 50 tonnes.

About the color on the pricing mechanism, I referred you 5 minutes ago to the Argus and Fastmarkets publications, which publish twice weekly the price of the markets. Almost all contracts for these products are usually made on this basis. Now regarding the rest of our business on the gallium. Again, I have to say that it's only a matter of time or a very short time that we will book as many quantities as we wish to very selective buyers. And we are -- I repeat for a second time, we are really patient in order to cover any European needs that may come up.

So I would like to make it very clear, and I say it again, over and again because we want to avoid criticism, that a European company, which is the first to produce gallium on a commercial scale, is selling the material to the world and not to Europe. I'm sorry, I have this to say once and again.

Regarding the financial side of the gallium, some of you may remember that in the Capital Markets Day in London in April 25, we had -- first of all, we had split between the gallium business and the Circular Metals business. As I said, this is now one division. It's called metal and -- Critical and Rare Metals. This is now one division. And we had said at the time, we had indicated an EBITDA for gallium at EUR 40. At that time, the price was about -- if I remember well, it was about $800 per kilo.

Now the price of Fastmarkets and Argus, and always when you look at these prices, the price we are talking about is the high price because they have a low price and a high price. When talking about commercial sales, it's always the high price. The high price at the moment is $3,250. At that time, as I said, it was $800. You can make your calculations.

What is more important, and I think you should all know, the negotiation with the first buyer, which is a massive company in size, was a lengthy and difficult negotiation, but it was in very good spirits. And I really have very good impression and memory out of this negotiation. There was only one issue that the counterparty made it a deal breaker. And that was a cap on the price that the deal during its duration could not exceed. I cannot, of course, name the price. All I can say is that the price of the cap is way above the current prices.

And the fact that the company of this size and knowledge of the market, the insistence on a cap even at so much higher price, means something to us and our ongoing 5-year business plan. Keep in mind for your own analysis as well. It was the only deal breaker issue.

Second, could you provide an update of the Circular Metals platform? In particular, could you elaborate on your strategy for scandium, germanium and the other critical metals expected to be recovered through the platform, following your comments on the 2026 AGM that additional initiatives are expected to follow?

Scandium and germanium are indeed the 2 rare metals to follow gallium. Our research and development and technical teams have made a lot of progress, and I hope we'll be able to announce positive development in the next months. As for the Circular Metals first plant in Salonica, commissioning is going ahead, first high-purity metal oxides expected in 2027.

Let me make now a definition here, which I think is important for you as well. All these metals: scandium, germanium, gallium, and the more well-known metals like copper, aluminum, zinc, and so on, they're all included in the list of 34 metals of the European Union called critical raw materials.

So as I said before, our divisions now is Metlen CRM, critical raw -- rare metals. Not raw, rare. Why rare? Because scandium, germanium and gallium may be in the same list, but at the same time, they are rare metals. That's why we make the definition in the name of the division so that everybody knows what we're talking about. Usually, the rare metals come in smaller prices and much, much higher prices. Whereas critical metals, they come in much larger quantities and lower prices.

So the Salonica plant is concentrating, as you know, on the extraction of metals from waste materials through proprietary patents that are already established. And our hope for this plant is that it will be an even bigger success than the rare metals, gallium, scandium and germanium. Stay tuned on this one. It is, I can assure you, our best bet.

Some people think it's gallium, scandium and germanium. And indeed, they are, as you can realize from the numbers of the gallium and the cap that the buyers want to put on the price. But if you knew, you would make completely different calculations. But the big quantities and the future is absolutely on the extraction of metals from the waste materials. So big hopes on this one.

Mrs. Agapi Mavrogianni from Beta Securities. Congratulations on the results. Three questions from our side. What is the distinction between critical metals and rare metals? I just said 2 minutes ago. I hope my answer is satisfactory to you. If not, please in the Q&A, please ask me again.

Number two, at the Capital Markets Day, you outlined a number of strategic initiatives. How would you assess the progress made against your objectives, particularly in your new growth platform such as infrastructure, defense and critical raw materials?

That's a question, if I may comment, which is very much the point because the rest of our business is well known to you, and we keep you very well posted about the developments, which are gradually and steadily all the way up. And relatively newer things in which I would not include defense, which we only made a different division, but defense has always been in our portfolio. But thank you.

Allow me to say that infrastructure and construction is superseding all our hopes on its results. And the management had told me that the years '24, '25, '26, every year, we will double the results. And they seem they keep their promise.

On the defense side, they said the same, except for the fact that the results are accelerating a little more speedily. So we had, if I remember well, about EUR 12 million to EUR 15 million EBITDA in '25. We now have EUR 30 million in '26 and the first draft budget for '27 points at EUR 85 million, not to mention '28 or '29. And the last one, which is the critical and rare materials, I just made the comment. I don't need to add or say anything more.

Number three, how do you view the outlook of M Renewables going forward? Christos, please.

I guess most of that has been covered by previous answer. So we stay put with the guidance provided to the market last year. It's going to be a core business for Metlen going forward, more than EUR 0.5 billion medium term as a contribution, which considered to be a core alongside Metals and Utility. Composition is going to be a bit different between storage and solar. So this is again the answer. Thank you for asking.

So these were the written questions. We are now going into the normal session of Q&A. And I can see Jason Fairclough as the first name on the screen. So Jason, please go ahead.

Can you hear me okay?

Can hear you very well, Jason.

Excellent. Look, with a little bit of an apology, I think I'm going to ask you to repeat yourself again, Mr. Mytilineos. You have had quite a tricky 12 months at Metlen because of the legacy MPP projects. We had the 2 profit warnings last year. And I think last year, we thought that you'd fully provisioned for these problem projects. But in the first half, you've had to take more charges on those projects. So I guess, could you give us some confidence that this expensive part of the journey is nearly over? Will you definitely deliver the 3 problem projects this year?

Fotini, please, will answer. If necessary, I will add something.

Jason, thank you for the question. Yes, we -- as I said before, we have committed to deliver 11 out of 13 projects within 2026. We're well in line to do that. As all of these projects, including the main 3 problematic ones, they come to a close and they come close to delivery. I think you can see from what we shared that we made significant progress across all of them, including Protos.

As these come to a close, we have to take additional completion costs, okay? And these are obviously depicted in the overall M RESET profitability. Given that all these projects will be delivered in 2026, I think the worst is behind us, let me put it that way.

Also to add, Jason, that Fotini mentioned 11 out of the 13 projects because the other 2 -- one of the other 2 is the EGL subsea cable between Scotland and England, which is very big, and it's going very well. And another project that is also going very well. So that's the deal.

Okay. Just a second one, if I could. And again, we've sort of touched on this, so I'm going to end up making you repeat yourself a little bit. But the balance sheet deleveraging is quite dramatic, and it does seem to be driven quite a lot by moves in working capital. And so I've got some of investors that are asking how should we think about actual cash flow in the second half? I mean you said leverage likely at least flat into the end of the year. Do any of these working capital moves need to reverse, Fotini?

Not at all, Jason. No, not at all. As I said, commitment is there. Net leverage will be at least where it is now. Working capital management will continue to be a priority. And obviously, that may further reflect positively net leverage in H2.

I think probably your client did not exactly understand that point. The point was that the deleverage will stay at least where it is now, taking into account that we have a much higher capital spending in the second half. But even then, we expect considerable positive cash flow on the other activities. So considering the increased CapEx, I think we will have a balanced second half.

Okay. I'm going to be a little bit cheeky and ask a third one here. One question I've had again from investors is you guys have a very large cash balance. And yet if we look at interest income, it seems to be very, very low. Why don't you do better on your cash balances?

Shall I take this, Chairman? Thank you, Jason. Yes, first, we've discussed this also in the past, and it's a very valid question. First of all, I'm sure you appreciate that the cash balance that is reported at the reporting date is not in any event the average cash balance that we have in the period. Cash accumulation is inherently seasonal and it very much relates to the completion of specific milestones of EPC projects or asset rotation proceeds that come in as was the case, as you remember, with the disposal of the Chilean portfolio at the end of the year.

We have committed, in addition, about a significant part of our group's cash balances are held by entities that are in our SPVs. So -- and a broad -- and within a broad geographical footprint, which basically makes let me call it, cash pooling, a little bit challenging to a certain extent, but we have committed to improve a lot on that in 2026, and it's an ongoing exercise.

Furthermore, I think just as a final point, I'm sure you must have realized by now that we are a group that intentionally prioritizes liquidity and that is a priority. So that's where we are.

May I add on this last one? The question was a little bit contradictory with the previous question, whether we are going to pay out bond maturing in October or we are going to refinance. So I'm very glad to say or to repeat to you that we don't need to refinance because we have quite a lot of cash. So that, I think, should make shareholders happy, not unhappy.

You can always improve on your asset management. But this is a very dynamic exercise. And as Fotini says, the cash balance at the end of the 6-month period does not mean that all throughout the 6 months, you have the same amount of cash in the bank. Thank you, Jason.

The next question is from the line of Krishan Agarwal with Citibank.

Can you hear me?

Please go ahead, Krishan.

Most of the questions have been answered. One question on Metal business, where performance in the first half was very strong. My assumption is that progressively the hedging prices are going better in the second half. So should we expect the overall EBITDA performance more than the implied rate of EUR 300 million for the Metal business for the full year basis?

And related to that, does the large prepayment that you have received from the Metal customer, does it have any relation to this significantly better performance in the Metal business for the first half and second?

So as I said, Krishan, the results of the first half, they may merit an upgrade on the guidance, but we will stick to the conservative side and stay on our guidance as was given during our AGM. Regarding the hedging, it is true that the hedging prices are progressively going up in the next quarters, as the market -- it is following the trend of the physical market of the previous months.

The next question is from the line of Fani Tzioukalia with Euroxx Securities.

Congratulations on a strong set of results. Most of the questions were answered except for one. I was wondering, do you expect the current geopolitical tensions and the upcoming elections in Greece to affect the medium-term road map?

Greece has enjoyed the political stability in the last years and has managed to achieve miracles, I would say, in the global financial scene, and that reflects on the performance of the Greek sovereigns. But even considerably better than the Italian ones, close to the French ones. We only hope that the elections will be smooth, and we will not have any political turbulence that may destabilize the Greek market. That will be extremely unfortunate, and it's up to us all to avoid this kind of developments. But let's keep fingers crossed, not much else to say or do. Thank you.

Mr. Tzioukalia, are you finished with your question?

Yes, that was the only question.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, we are taking one last question from Mr. Richard Hatch with Berenberg.

Just a couple of questions. I'm just curious as we go through the accounts, just on a couple of the items such as the increase in related party transactions year-on-year, EUR 266 million of revenue versus EUR 227 million last year.

And then also, Fotini, just as I go through the balance sheet, there was a sort of a doubling of other long-term payables. I just wonder if you might just be able to help us out just to understand what's going on in those bits of the accounts, please?

Richard, yes, absolutely. In related parties, Richard, these are just commercial arrangements that we have in the normal course of business with specific counterparties, where the arrangement that we have with them reflects -- is a joint venture. And as such, everything in terms of revenues and receivables, is recorded separately. You can find in this particular case, and you can find more information, I think, in Note 19, I think it is, of the financial statements on revenues and receivables.

The main joint ventures that reflect those numbers are 3. 2 of them in the Energy sector, and 1 in the Concessions. And obviously, what you see there are revenues and receivables for the period, okay? So not necessarily -- should not be necessarily compared with the previous period.

As far as revenue recognition is concerned in terms of -- with those joint venture arrangements, the revenue recognition happens the same way as we would recognize revenue in that line of business in any other transaction. So that's on related parties.

I think your next question was on payables. Yes, we do have an increase in payables. Some of it is purely accounting. You can see there that we include the dividends. We include the CO2 liabilities. We include the share buyback. So a big part of that increase is purely the accounting treatment of the payments that, as we have mentioned before, will be made in H2.

And then the other big item is obviously the customer prepayments that as I mentioned, we managed to secure as part of our working capital management.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Q&A session. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Mytilineos for any closing comments. Thank you.

Well, as Jason Fairclough from Bank of America said a few minutes ago, it has been a difficult period for us. And indeed, some, I would say, a few of our long-standing friends of the company and the stock almost lost faith in the company. But just almost.

In the end, I have to underline the loyalty of our shareholders, which gave us the strength to go and fight these mishappenings and turn around the company at a record time. Therefore, on behalf of all the team and all the people that work in this organization, I want to thank shareholders, friends, stakeholders that have stood by us and to reaffirm that the move to London was not for tourism, as some interesting sort of types write in some newspapers. And they will find out shortly.

I think this lesson for the first half after the crisis should make you all pleased and give you all hope for what is to come. We did not go to London just to be in the FTSE 100. We are going to London -- we went to London to move way up the ladder of the FTSE 100. Thank you very much. Enjoy your holidays. Goodbye.