PNE WIND Stock

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PNE H1 2026 Results Conference Call. I'm Vicki, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Heiko Wuttke, CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, also from my side. Thank you for joining us today in this conference call regarding the half year financial report for 2026. My name is Heiko Wuttke, CEO of PNE AG, and I'm accompanied by Dirk Simons, CFO.

Before I begin with the presentation itself, I would like to comment on the latest news. On Monday evening, we published an ad hoc announcement in reaction to recent media reports. Since these reports had cited a possible price range that did not reflect the current demand situation, we were, from a purely legal standpoint, obliged to respond and set the record straight. In the announcement, we provided an update on the current status of the sales process, which we have initiated to identifying investors as part of the further development of our business strategy. However, it is currently uncertain whether a transaction will materialize and what its terms would be. Please understand that we are unable to comment further on the ongoing process, but we will inform the market of any relevant further developments in accordance with applicable law.

So let me give you an overview of the presentation and the course of today's webcast on Slide 3 of the presentation. As usual, I will begin with a summary of the H1 2026, followed by an update regarding the operating business. Then I will pass over to Dirk for the financials. After that, I will conclude the presentation with the outlook for the remainder of 2026. We will then open the line for questions. And as always, our slides can be found on our Investor Relations website.

Before I continue with the operating business, I would like to welcome Dirk to his first webcast in his role as CFO of PNE AG. As you know, our former CFO, Harald Wilbert, has asked the Supervisory Board to release him from his duties as a Member of the Board of Management for personal reasons. And Dirk, who was our former Chairman of the Supervisory Board, took over and provides a very strong solution to address the upcoming task. Thank you, Dirk. We are really happy to have you on board.

Having said this, I would now like to draw your attention to Slide 5. Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to share that we have achieved important milestones in a challenging first half of 2026. We successfully sold projects in our core markets, Germany, Poland and France, with a total output of 163 megawatts in total. 5 wind projects with a total capacity of 122 megawatts and 1 PV project with 41 megawatt peak. In addition, we completed 2 wind projects with 52 megawatts, 1 with 18 megawatts for our IPP and with 34 megawatts for third parties.

Our own IPP portfolio now stands at 484 megawatts after the successful sale of the wind farm Bokel with 25 megawatts and the addition of Gnutz Ost with 18 megawatts. Power generation increased to 408 gigawatt hours, which is an increase of 11% compared to H1 2025 due to higher wind yields in the German onshore wind market. And also, the total output of our services business grew to EUR 20 million, a plus of 12% year-over-year with good margins. I will elaborate in more detail on the next slide.

Our total output in the first half of 2026 was at EUR 123.3 million. Revenue grew to EUR 96.8 million, which is an increase of 31% year-over-year. Our normalized EBITDA adjusted for one-off items and our EBITDA increased to EUR 27.4 million, clearly up from EUR 4.7 million in H1 2025. And please remember, from 2026 financial year onwards, normalized EBITDA will serve as a key financial performance indicator for our guidance as it provides a better and more accurate picture of our operating performance.

With this, let's move on to the project pipeline on Slide 7. Our project pipeline, wind onshore and PV remained stable compared to the end of 2025 at 21.7 gigawatts. Thereof, the pipeline in core markets, Germany, France and Poland, is on a high level with 12 gigawatts. I will go into more detail on the next slide.

On Slide 8, you can see our project pipeline, onshore wind, which was stable compared to end of 2025 at 14.6 gigawatts. Our home and core market, Germany, which accounts for more than 40% of our project pipeline remains strong with 6 gigawatts. As mentioned earlier, we sold 3 wind farms with a total capacity of 39.6 megawatts, including Bokel with 25.2 megawatts. 1 wind farm with 80 megawatt was completed for IPP and 1 with 34 megawatts for third parties. In addition, 4 wind farms with 59 megawatts were under construction in Germany, plus another 4 wind farms with 59.2 megawatts for third parties. And we received new permits here for 5 wind farms with 186 megawatts in total.

With respect to our core market, France, we see a stable project pipeline with 1.5 gigawatts, and we sold a wind farm with 10.8 megawatts. With the transfer of the project to JP Energie Environment, we now completed our second project sale in France with a partner. Located in the Hauts-de-France region in Northern France, the wind farm was developed by PNE France and advanced to ready-to-build status. Effective value engineering has made it possible to significantly increase the height of the wind turbines and electricity generation. Under a project development agreement, PNE France will continue to support the buyer with selected development activities following the closing of the transaction.

Regarding our core market, Poland, we also sold 1 wind farm project to a global player in the energy transition. The wind farm consists of 10 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 72 megawatts. We will further develop this project to the ready-to-build stage, which is scheduled for 2029 with the commissioning planned for 2030.

Coming to Slide 9. We see that our PV pipeline was stable as well at 7.1 gigawatt peak. Our development activity is continuing to show good progress from projects to the later project phases, resulting in a 26% growth of Phase 3 projects to 1,059 megawatt peak coming from 842 megawatt peak at the end of 2025. We successfully sold a 40.8 megawatt peak PV project to Poland's leading energy utility ORLEN. The project stands out due to its strategic location and technical configuration.

The PV farm will be connected directly to the internal power grid of the Plock's refinery. This behind-the-meter approach offers significant advantages. By not using the general grid, it reduces regulatory risks and simplifies administrative procedures during development and construction. In addition, we received new permits in South Africa with 130-megawatt peak, in our core market Poland with 81.4 megawatt peak, in Italy with 29.9 and as well in our core market France with 12.3 megawatt peak.

If you look at our own IPP portfolio in H2 2026 on Slide 10, you see that the megawatt in operation slightly decreased compared to the end of 2025 as we have successfully sold the Bokel wind farm with 25.2 megawatts in Q1 2026, but added Gnutz Ost with 18 megawatts in Q2 2026. The total megawatt in operation now amounts to 484 megawatts at the end of H1 2026. 468 megawatts are coming from the wind onshore Germany, 11 megawatts coming from wind onshore France and 6 megawatts coming from the wood-fired combined heat and power plant Silbitz.

Due to the comparatively higher wind yields, we produced 408 gigawatt hours of green energy in the first half year of 2026, which is an increase of 11% and avoided 308 kilotons of CO2 equivalents. The hidden reserves accumulated in our portfolio decreased to EUR 153.1 million compared to EUR 159.3 million by the end of 2025, which is partly because they are gradually recognized over the lifetime of these projects and partly because of project sales.

More than 90% of our IPP projects are based on feed-in tariffs for 20 years, leading to an average weighted contracted tenure for the IPP portfolio of more than 15 years. This shows an interesting upside opportunity through short- and medium-term PPAs that are more attractive than the EEG remuneration and about 40% of our IPP portfolio already have a PPA.

Let me also give you some more information about our services business on Slide 11, since it continued to perform well and delivers growing high-margin returns through long-running contracts. So first of all, operational management and technical inspections continue to grow. The assets under operational management increased to 3.3 gigawatts, and we had a great customer retention rate for the operational management of about 99%. After the successful market entrance by the end of 2025, we now have an additional BESS asset under contract and as well as further contracts under negotiation. And last but not least, we conducted approximately 570 technical inspections in wind farms in the first half of 2026.

The strong performance in wind and sites continued with approximately 300 wind assessments and expert opinions in the first half of 2026. And we have conducted approximately 190 LiDAR verifications. With these figures, we are well on the way to matching or even exceeding last year's very good results.

In addition, we had a good performance of our PPA as a Service business under the new brand Wattmate with 24 wind and PV PPA projects and a total output of approximately 243 megawatts and a transaction volume of around 430 gigawatt hours. And also, Bitbloom continued to show assets under monitoring of approximately 4.5 gigawatts with a high customer retention rate.

Here, a new German IPP was contracted for monitoring service after a successful trial, multiple additional one-off performance verification assessments took place during Q2 and the monitoring for a new EU customer has commenced. So we are very happy with the performance of the services segment.

And with this, I would now like to hand over to Dirk for the financials.

Thank you, Heiko. First of all, I also would like to welcome everyone on this call.

Looking at Slide 13, you see that revenue grew to EUR 96.8 million, which is an increase of 31% year-over-year. This was mainly driven by increased project sales as well as improved results in the power generation in H1. Our total output decreased to EUR 123.3 million, which was because fewer projects were built turnkey in H1. This is also reflected in significantly lower cost of materials.

Our EBITDA and EBITDA normalized increased significantly to EUR 27.4 million compared to EUR 4.7 million in the previous year, especially due to project sales, mainly the wind farm Bokel and the improved power generation results due to the higher wind yields. The onetime effects of the first quarter of EUR 1.3 million were offset by the end of Q2. The decrease in the financial result of minus EUR 5.1 million was mainly driven by the valuation of interest rate swaps. The negative tax effect was mainly attributable to deferred tax arising in connection with project settlements due to IFRS 15, the capitalization of lease agreements, IFRS 16 and various consolidation entries.

Looking at the segments on Slide 14, I would like to mention that previous year's figures were adjusted due to changes in the segment reporting. The consolidation now includes all group consolidations as well as general overhead costs that could not be reliably allocated to operational segments. Consolidation was therefore renamed to corporate functions and consolidation.

Having said that, we see growth in power generation and services by the decreasing output in project development in the first quarter 2026. In the project development segment, revenues increased by 36% due to the increase in project sales. Total output, however, decreased to EUR 85.7 million compared to EUR 149.6 million in the previous year due to lower construction activities. Thus, EBITDA of the segment project development decreased to minus EUR 4.1 million from EUR 8.8 million in the previous year.

Total output of the segment power generation increased to EUR 49.6 million compared to EUR 40.2 million in the previous year due to comparatively higher wind yields and improved prices. EBITDA in the segment power generation improved in the first half 2026 by 17% due to EUR 34.1 million. Total output of the segment services increased to EUR 20 million compared to EUR 17.9 million in the previous year, driven by a strong order book. EBITDA-wise, the services segment contributed EUR 4.3 million, which has increased by 16%.

Regarding the consolidation, eliminations of intragroup profits in the first half of 2026 were significantly lower than in the corresponding period, mainly due to more external sales and less intra-group construction activities and thus led to an improved result.

Balance sheet. On the asset side, we see on Slide 15 that most is allocated to property, plant and equipment as well as inventories, what we see as investments in stable values and recurring cash flows. Our cash position fell to EUR 56.9 million due to investments in project development but is still on a good level. Equity decreased to EUR 131.4 million, reflecting the negative net income. The equity ratio was 11.6%. However, we continue to aim for an equity ratio of 20% or more in the midterm and already expect a clear improvement in 2026. Adjusted for hidden reserves, the equity ratio was at a comfortable 22.2%.

Liabilities to banks remain stable, resulting in a net debt of EUR 723.5 million. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the majority of the bank liabilities are non-recourse project financing. To further optimize our maturity profile, we issued the 2026/2031 corporate bond in the first half of 2026 with a volume of EUR 36 million, thereby taking early steps to extend our maturity profile and to partially redeem the corporate bond maturing in mid-2027 with a former face value of EUR 65 million.

Whilst existing investors showed considerable interest, there was also a noticeable degree of caution amongst new investors, which is not primarily attributable to PNE itself, but it's closely linked to the challenging environment in the renewable energy sector. We continue to examine various options for strengthening our capital base. This includes considering possible capital measures, including debt financing. The final decision on this matter has not yet been taken.

With that, I would like to hand back to Heiko for the outlook.

Thank you, Dirk. Ladies and gentlemen, this leads me to the outlook on Slide 17. Like the rest of the industry, we have been navigating difficult waters so far in 2026. We are aware of the challenges, which still have to overcome. Nonetheless, we confirm our guidance for the 2026 financial year of EBITDA normalized between EUR 110 million to EUR 140 million.

Regarding our operating business, we aim to sell further projects in the second half of the year. At the end of July, we have already completed the sale of 2 further projects in Germany with a capacity of 45 megawatts. The expansion of our IPP portfolio will be consolidated this year before we further build it up in midterm. According to our stronger focus on selected core markets, exit for Turkey and Canada are targeted for 2026.

With our focus and deliver transformation and cost reduction program, we remain firmly on track. In the first half of 2026, however, these cost positions still include program-related expenses associated with the implementation of the transformation measures. As we continue to execute the program, we expect further efficiency gains over the coming quarters. And as already mentioned last time, we now focus even more on projects and solutions with high system and grid compatibility, such as BESS applications to meet upcoming German legislation.

Coming to the end of my presentation, I would like to emphasize again, we are committed to future-proof sustainable growth and value creation.

And with this, I would like to conclude our presentation and open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Karsten Von Blumenthal, First Berlin Equity Research.

My first question is regarding the new EEG. The German cabinet has pushed it through. And as far as I understand, it doesn't look very promising. So perhaps you could elaborate on your impressions on the new EEG and how this affects your business.

Yes. Thank you, Karsten, for your question. In fact, this is, of course, something we very closely monitor. And in general, actually, it's not just about the EEG amendment and as well on the grid package, which is accompanying to that. There are some aspects which are leading in the right direction. For instance, if you look at the additional volume of 12 gigawatts that are planned to increase the auction volume until 2030. So there is a higher volume, and this should be a positive signal to the industry.

However, what we still see, and this is mainly related to the grid package that we -- what was formerly called Redispatch-Vorbehalt has now a different name. It is now capacity constraints, bottleneck areas. There we really see issues which have to be resolved in the ongoing process in the parliament, because we, of course, have projects which are not just on those areas. So we're not just completely hit.

On the other hand, there are unclear and not very straightforward stipulations, which are not very clear how this will result in the business case. For instance, how to deal with the 5% restricted areas? What is the average looking backwards 1 year or 5 years of these constraints? And there are clearly topics which still need to be addressed. And the same is on limitations on the overall capacity, which could result in redesigning wind projects and wind turbines and which cannot be done that fast. So there must be another deadline, for instance.

So overall, I think from our side, where we supported this, in the associations where we are active in, there have been many proposals, and we count on the parliament as well on the federal states because you have to remember that all 16 federal states have objection on the Redispatch-Vorbehalt, so on this capacity constrained measures for wind and PV farms. And it's our understanding that the cabinet at the end of the day has to react on that.

We are still closely on it. Of course, we -- in the areas where we are active, we are promoting this. Overall, one can say there is some positive parts in the amendment, but we are not overly happy with that. Looking at the grid package, we fortunately not only having projects which are in these grid constrained areas, but in other areas. So it will not completely hit us. However, it needs better regulation to, at the end of the day, meet the 12 gigawatts -- additional 12 gigawatts that are now on the table, because otherwise, you have a higher volume, but it's not feasible to invest in projects to meet that volume.

I hope that answers your question.

Yes, that is of great help for elaborating on this. One follow-up to it. Have you a rough idea how much of your German pipeline could be affected by the capacity limited areas or so-called Redispatch-Vorbehalt?

Well, we have an idea. But to be clear, it's hard to say today. As I said, there are not very clear stipulations currently in there. So what will be the trigger point to take -- to judge on 5% of curtailment measures within 1 year? What is the exact area? That's not fixed. And as long as this is not fixed, it's not very clear to be answered. All I can say is that based on the maps that we have currently, we will not be affected that much. However, if you don't have regulations, it's hard to really judge on it.

Okay. Fully understood. So let's wait until the Bundestag pushes through the law and see what the outcome will be. I have another question for Dirk. I was a bit puzzled regarding your depreciation, which were much lower in Q2 compared to Q1, if I saw it right. Perhaps you could elaborate on that.

So there is actually one impact that is from the sale of the project Bokel. That obviously also then has an impact on overall depreciation.

The next question is from Holger Steffen, SMC Research.

I have only a few further questions. Once again, about depreciation, it was very low in the second quarter comparing to first quarter, and I see no special effects in the first quarter. And I think that the sale of Bokel is not enough to explain this. Are there any other effects?

So obviously, there are some other effects like the maturity of assets and other things. But if we actually need -- so we need to have a look in more detail, and we'll come back to this.

Okay. One another question in this area. Receivables amounting to EUR 3.5 million were written off. What are the circumstances behind this?

So there actually is one main effect behind this. There was an arbitration result in Sweden that actually affected one of our receivables. And so we lost the case, so to say, and actually needed to adjust.

Okay. I think to meet your guidance, it is likely that further sales from the portfolio will be necessary this year. To what extent approximately are disposals of existing wind farms planned?

Yes. Holger, that's correct. We plan, as I mentioned, further sales of the projects. And that includes some projects from the existing wind farms. That's why I mentioned in the outlook that we are consolidating this year whilst building the IPP portfolio up in the midterm. So your observation is correct.

And maybe -- can you give us an idea about the amount of disposals from your portfolio?

Well, it will be a couple of projects, 2 or 3, we will see, but in that area.

Okay. That's fine. The sale of the wind farms from the portfolio in the first half of the year generated a deconsolidation gain of EUR 2.3 million, perhaps you could explain this figure in a little more detail and provide an outlook on what consolidation gains might be achievable from the sale of further wind farms from the portfolio because I think it's important for your guidance.

So in more general to the deconsolidation gains, the situation in 2026 compared to 2025 is slightly different, because this year, we are actually having more external sales compared to last year, yes. So as you know, when we are constructing projects and handing them over to IPP, there is a negative consolidation impact related to this, whereas when we are selling projects to externals, then obviously, there is no adjustment in deconsolidation. And hence, the deconsolidation result is obviously much better.

As far as I understood, the EUR 2.3 million are the separate deconsolidation gain of Bokel. So I read your report, and that seems to be low to me. So I ask if you could explain me this special figure.

So actually, this impact is not just related to Bokel, but it's actually an impact from previous year included in there as well. So actually, it's a net amount overall.

Okay. Great. My last question is about your PV pipeline in Germany. I think projects in Phase 2 and 3 were reduced by a total of 58 megawatt peak in the second quarter. Perhaps you could provide us with a brief explanation of this.

Yes, Holger. Well, that's correct. As you know, the PV market in Germany has mainly its future, not only stand-alone but hybrid projects compared with batteries. And as we constantly monitor the quality of projects that will really -- that can really succeed, we have identified that amount that is not -- that we don't see able to be -- yes, to succeed or to be profitable enough. That's the reason behind.

The next question is from Guido Hoymann, Metzler.

I have 2 questions, please. Maybe we do it one by one. So the first one would be on PPAs. You mentioned the PPAs and the relevance of PPAs for your company in your presentation. And now again, on the new EEG, it looks like under this new regime, it is possible to opt out of the CFD, which is to come once. So my question is, can you imagine that the market will split into sort of 2 segments, one CFD-covered segment with low financing costs. Banks will still appreciate the state guarantees and -- but also low returns.

And the other one then with PPAs only, higher funding costs, but also higher returns. So the question is, do you expect the PPA market to rather expand from next year onwards under the new regime or to rather decline?

Yes. Thanks for your question, Guido. First of all, the new law is not yet set or cast in stone. There are quite some discussions that especially having direct PPAs because industry is really lacking and actually longing for direct contracts, that this shall be included, and we see at least signals that it could go into the direction.

And I think, yes, your observation is correct. EEG will remain and we can opt out. It depends secondly on the auction level that we currently will see from our point of view, because it will be on a very low level, there are more options that you, at the end of the day, really go out in a PPA at a certain stage. So the PPA market there will remain. And if you have projects where you can have a kind of financing with this rather shorter PPA cycles compared to the EEG tariff then the market -- the PPA market still has, let's say, a reason for existence and it can be profitable.

So we are -- let's say, we are, on one hand, confident that there are a bit more possibilities in the upcoming EEG. And we see on the level that we are currently seeing on the auction prices, possibilities to boost projects that are going in with a lower tariff and then switching later on into a PPA with a higher return in the projects. So it's both, I would say.

Okay. And yes, sort of connected to that, the second question, in the May tender, I think you were awarded for 2 projects, I think one Brandenburg, one in Lower Saxony, at about EUR 0.051 per kilowatt hour. So obviously, a relatively low price. And we have already discussed that countermeasures are necessary to develop said projects to profitability under these terms. And maybe based on these 2 cases, can you describe what you are doing differently now to ensure their success? And I'm thinking of renegotiating lease terms, maybe also renegotiating with the turbine manufacturers. So maybe on these 2 examples, yes, it would be interesting to see what is changing, what you are doing differently now that you have to live with this EUR 0.051?

Yes, thanks. It's, of course, a very low level compared to the recent years. What we are doing mainly in order to still be successful in those tenders is that, one is a certain goal that we internally have is really only the best projects will survive. And the question is how we do this? And we do -- and this is really a team and even department following this, we do consequently value engineering in the project. So we early on really turn each stone of the whole business case coming from development, CapEx and the OpEx side. And that includes some of the points that you have mentioned in order to not just renegotiate, yes, this is one element, but really improve at the end of the day, the output in terms of turbine choice, in terms of setting up and micro siting.

So there are many, many elements. The main point is you have to do this very early on, which we are doing in our stage gate process. And with that, we are confident that we are -- that we still can participate with profitable projects on that low level. However, of course, the level is very low, and there's a lot of pressure in all these elements, especially on the CapEx side when talking to all the stakeholders involved.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions registered. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Wuttke for any closing remarks. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. Well, if there are no further questions, we would like to thank you for your participation in today's webcast. We look forward to welcoming you next time, maybe at our next webcast on the publication of our quarterly statement for Q3 2026, which is scheduled for the 12th of November 2026. So have a great day. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today in this conference call regarding the quarterly statement for the first quarter 2026. My name is Heiko Wuttke, CEO of PNE AG, and I'm accompanied by Harald Wilbert, CFO. So let me first give you an overview of the presentation and the course of today's webcast on Slide 3 of the presentation. As usual, I will begin with a summary of Q1 2026, followed by an update regarding the operating business. Then I will pass over to Harald for the financials. After that, I will conclude the presentation with the outlook for 2026. We will then open the line for questions. As always, our slides can be found on our Investor Relations website. Before I continue with the operating business, I would like to address the upcoming changes in the Board of Management and Supervisory Board we announced end of April.

My colleague, Harald Wilbert, asked the Supervisory Board to release him from his duties as a member of the Board of Management for personal reasons. The Supervisory Board has agreed to this request. We regret that Harald leaves the company and would like to thank him for his work over the past years. He has made a significant contribution to the transformation of PNE AG. We wish him all the best for the future. The CFO position is to be assumed on an interim basis by Dirk Simons, currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board. This provides a very strong short-term solution to address the upcoming task. He is expected to be appointed to the Board of Management and to assume the role of CFO until 19th May 2027.

In this case, Dirk Simons, would no longer be available to serve as Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Supervisory Board member, Marcel Egger, has expressed his willingness to assume the Chairmanship subject to his election by the Supervisory Board. This ensures continuity both on the Management Board and the Supervisory Board of PNE AG. Having said this, I would now like to draw your attention to Slide 5. Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to share that we had a good start into the financial year 2026 and that we are on track to achieve our full year targets.

We successfully sold projects in our core markets, Germany and Poland with a total output of 152 megawatts in the first quarter, 4 wind projects with a total capacity of 111 megawatts and 1 PV project with 41-megawatt peak. In addition, we completed 1 wind farm project with 34 megawatts for third parties. As mentioned in our last webcast, we consolidated our own IPP portfolio at 466 megawatts after the successful sale of the wind farm Bokel with 25 megawatts. Power generation increased to 262 gigawatt hours, which is an increase of 33% compared to Q1 2025 due to higher wind yields in the German onshore wind market, where according to the ERA5 data, wind speeds were approximately 8.5% higher than in the same period last year.

Also, the total output of our Services business grew to EUR 10.3 million, a plus of 17% year-over-year with good margins. I will elaborate in more detail on the next slide. In financial terms, the first quarter 2026 was successful as well. Our total output grew to EUR 68.9 million, which is a plus of 24%. Our normalized EBITDA adjusted for one-off items reached EUR 17.9 million, while our EBITDA increased to EUR 16.6 million, clearly up from EUR 3.6 million in Q1 2025.

And please remember, from the 2026 financial year onwards, normalized EBITDA will serve as a key financial performance indicator for our forecast as it provides a better and more accurate picture of our operating performance. And with this, let's move on to the Project Pipeline on Slide 7. In Q1 2026, we decided to discontinue our offshore Project development activities in Vietnam since we have not been considered as an investor in this nearshore project, which had a capacity of up to 2,000 megawatts. The project was thus taken out of our project pipeline. As we did not capitalize any costs, no impairments had to be made. Our project pipeline, wind onshore and PV remained stable compared to the end of 2025 at 21.7 gigawatt, Thereof, the pipeline in core markets, Germany, France and Poland is on a high level with 12 gigawatts.

I will go in more detail on the next slide. On Slide 8, you can see our project pipeline onshore wind, which was stable compared to the end 2025 at 14.6 gigawatt. Our home market and core market, Germany, which accounts for more than 40% of the project pipeline remains strong with 6.1 gigawatts. As mentioned earlier, we sold 3 wind farms with a total capacity of 39.6 megawatts, including Bokel with 25.2 megawatts. One wind farm with 34 megawatts was completed for third parties. In addition, 4 wind farms with 63 megawatts were under construction in Germany, plus another 4 wind farms with 59 megawatts for third parties.

And we received new permits here for 172.8 megawatts. With respect to our core market, France, we see a stable project pipeline with 1.5 gigawatt, and we received a new permit of 10.8 megawatts. Regarding our core market, Poland, we sold 1 wind farm project to a global player in the energy transition. The wind farm consists of 10 wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 72 megawatts. We will further develop this project to the ready-to-build stage, which is scheduled for 2029 with commissioning planned for 2030.

Coming to Slide 9, we see that our PV pipeline was stable as well at 7.1 gigawatt peak. Our development activity is continuing to show good progress from projects to the later project phases, resulting in a 22% growth of Phase 3 projects to 1,027 megawatt peak coming from 824 megawatt peak at the end of '25. We successfully sold a 40.8 megawatt peak PV project to Poland's leading energy utility, ORLEN. The project stands out due to its strategic location and technical configuration.

The PV farm will be connected directly to the internal power grid of the Plock refinery. This behind-the-meter approach offers significant advantages. By not using the general grid, it reduces regulatory risks and simplifies administrative procedures during development and construction. In addition, we received new permits in 2025 in South Africa with 75 megawatt peak, in our core market, Poland with 41.4 megawatt peak, in Italy with 23.6 megawatt peak as well as in our core market, France with 12.3 megawatt peak. If you look at our own IPP portfolio in Q1 '26 on Slide 10, you see that the megawatt in operation decreased compared to the end of 2025 as we have successfully sold Bokel Wind Farm at the end of Q1. The total megawatt in operation now amounts to 466 megawatts at the end of the first quarter '26.

450 megawatts are coming from wind onshore Germany after the sale of the wind farm Bokel, 11 megawatts coming from the onshore France and 6 megawatts coming from the wood-fired combined heat at the power plant Silbitz. Due to the comparatively higher wind yields, we produced 262 gigawatt hours of green energy in the first quarter 2026, which is an increase of 33% and avoided 198 kilotons of CO2 emissions.

The hidden reserves accumulated in our portfolio decreased to EUR 155 million compared to EUR 159.3 million by the end of 2025, which is partly because they are gradually recognized over the lifetime of the project and partly because of the project sales. More than 90% of our IPP projects are based on feed-in tariffs for 20 years, leading to an average weighted contracted tenure for the IPP portfolio of more than 15 years. This shows an interesting upside opportunity through short- and medium-term PPAs that are more attractive than the EEG remuneration and about 40% of our IPP portfolio already have a PPA.

Let me also give you some information about our Services business on Slide 11. since it continues to perform well and delivers growing high-margin returns through long-running contracts. So first of all, operational management and technical inspections continue to grow. The assets under operational management increased to 3.2 gigawatts, and we had a good order intake in Germany and internationally with 75% external customers. The customer retention rate for the operational management is above 98%. And after the successful market entrance by the end of 2025, we have further best contracts under negotiation.

Last but not least, we conducted approximately 300 technical inspections in wind farms in the first quarter 2026. The strong performance in wind and sits continued with approximately 150 wind assessments and expert opinions in the first quarter '26, and we conducted approximately 100 LiDAR verifications. With these figures, we are well on the way to matching or even exceeding last year's very good results. In addition, we had a good start of our PPA as a service business under the new brand, what Made to 2026 in a traditionally quiet first quarter with more than 13 wind and PV PPA projects and a total output of approximately 165 megawatts and a transaction volume of around 270 gigawatt hours. And also Bitbloom showed assets under monitoring at approximately 4.5 gigawatts.

But perhaps even more important is a high customer retention rate. As you know, our largest customer recently prolonged this contract by 3 years. So then the second largest customer just added 250 megawatts for performance monitoring and furthermore, a new EU customer just signed a 3-year monitoring contract. Overall, we are very happy with the performance of the Services segment. And with this, I would now like to hand over to Harald for the financials.

Yes. Thank you, Heiko. And first of all, I also would like to welcome everyone here in this call. Looking at Slide 13, you see that our total output increased by 24% to EUR 68.9 million. This was driven by successful project sales, the high development activities as well as the result in Power generation and our Services business. Our EBITDA increased to EUR 16.6 million compared to EUR 3.6 million in the previous year, especially due to project sales, mainly the wind farm Bokel and the improved Power generation result due to the higher wind yields. So the normalized EBITDA adjusted for one-off items reached EUR 17.9 million. The onetime effects of EUR 1.3 million were mainly related to consulting fees for our transformation projects. The decrease in the financial result of minus EUR 4.0 million was mainly driven by higher interest expenses resulting from a higher average volume of project financing. The positive tax effect was mainly attributable to deferred taxes arising in connection with project settlements due to IFRS 15.

Looking at the segments on Slide 14. I would like to mention that previous year's figures were adjusted due to changes in the segment reporting. The Consolidation now includes all group consolidation as well as general overhead costs that could not be reliably allocated to operational segments. Consolidation, therefore, renamed to Corporate functions and Consolidation. Having said that, we see growth in Power generation and Services, but a decreasing output in Project Development in the first quarter 2026.

So total output of the segment Project development decreased to EUR 22.4 million compared to EUR 36.4 million in the previous year due to fewer projects built in Q1. Total output of the segment Power generation increased to EUR 32.3 million compared to EUR 22.0 million in the previous year due to the higher wind yields mentioned before. Total output of the segment Services increased to EUR 10.3 million compared to EUR 8.8 million in the previous year strong order book. EBITDA-wise, the segment Power generation had the highest contribution in the first quarter 2026 with EUR 24.2 million. The Services segment contributed EUR 2.9 million and the EBITDA of the segment Project development decreased to minus EUR 6.3 million.

Balance sheet. On the asset side, we see on Slide 15 that most is allocated to property, plant and equipment as well as inventories, what we see as investments in stable values and recurring cash flows. Our cash position fell to EUR 61.2 million due to investments in Project development, but is still on a good level. Equity decreased to EUR 149.4 million, reflecting the negative net income. The equity ratio was 13.1%. However, we continue to aim for an equity ratio of 20% or more in the midterm and already expect a clear improvement in 2026. Adjusted for hidden reserves, the equity ratio was at comfortable 23.6% Liabilities to banks remained stable, resulting in a net debt of EUR 748.5 million. In addition, it's worth mentioning that the majority of the bank liabilities are nonrecourse project financing. Yes, with that, I would like to hand back to Heiko for the outlook.

Thank you, Harald. Ladies and gentlemen, this leads me to the outlook on Slide 17. Based on the current plan for the 2026 financial year, we continue to expect a group EBITDA normalized for special items or just normalized EBITDA of between EUR 110 million and EUR 140 million. Regarding our operating business, we, of course, aim to sell a significant number of projects in the financial year 2026, for example, in Germany and Poland, and as you have already seen, in South Africa. The expansion of our IPP portfolio will be consolidated this year before we further build it up in midterm.

According to our stronger focus on selected core markets, exits for Turkey and Canada are targeted for 2026. And as already mentioned last time, we now focus even more on projects and solutions with high system and grid compatibility such as BESS applications. Coming to the end of my presentation, I would like to emphasize once again, we are committed to future-proof sustainable growth and value creation. And with this, I would like to conclude our presentation and open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Holger Steffen with SMC Research.

I have some questions about the recent development. First of all, one about your project or your sale of the wind farm Bokel. Are the proceeds from the sale already fully reflected in the figures? And maybe could you describe the impact of the transaction on the income statement?

It's -- the revenue is included in the Q1 and the cash in was in April. So a little bit later, there was a postponement.

Okay. It's -- I would have expected a higher other operating income from this sale. Is this not correct?

Compared to -- this is Heiko, Holger. Compared to the sales that we usually have in an earlier stage or when we still sell turnkey, this farm was in operation and therefore, with project finance and nonrecourse finance, whilst then, of course, part of that is not being reflected in the return and in the results of the first quarter.

Okay. And are you planning any further sales from the existing portfolio in the current year?

Yes, thanks. As we pointed out that this year will be a consolidation year. We plan further sales of the IPP portfolio, not in a significant manner, but to be in the position to flexibly react on market situations. So it's a plan that we sell further without giving a clear number to that.

Okay. Fine. In the first quarter, other operating expenses have risen significantly from EUR 7.2 million to EUR 12.8 million. Could you provide us with further details on this development?

Yes. It's not coming from one position or one item. It's coming from a lot of items. It's a mix from maintenance for the IPP business, from consulting fees for transformation projects. It's from all typical other operating expenses. And then it's connected to the higher volume of the business, of course. You see that we have higher revenue and normally then the operating costs or the other operating expenses are increasing simultaneous too.

Okay. There were no special effects in the first quarter. Okay. I see. The external revenue in the Service segment is declining significantly from EUR 8.1 million to EUR 5.6 million, while internal revenue is increasing. Is this a capacity issue? Or what is the main cause here?

We are looking only now to Q1. So in Q2 or Q3 could look totally different. This is then depends on when we are selling projects. And normally, we sell projects in later phases of the year, so in later quarters. In the last year, there were some when you compare Q1 to last year, there were some sales in the first quarter, what was extraordinary. In this year, we are absolutely on plan. We are a little bit above plan when you look in our internal figures. So we are totally happy with this.

Okay. And my question was belonging to the Service segment. Because we see there lower external revenue in the Service segment and more internal revenue. And my question was, is this a capacity issue because...

It's a capacity issue, but we can deliver this information then afterwards. We have to prepare this, but there's nothing extraordinary what we see here in services. Service running really well. So here, we are on budget. So everything is well there. But we will prepare this information and then come to you.

Okay. That's fine. My last question about the prices in wind energy tenders in Germany. They could fall below -- maybe they could fall below EUR 0.05 in the future. What would that mean for your project pipeline? And will you have to stop some projects? And could there be any write-downs?

Yes. Thanks for that question, Yes, we see quite some competition and therefore, declining prices on the feed-in tariffs. However, there are different ways how to react on that because if that's the case, we have to tackle the whole cost that we see in the system on the CapEx and the OpEx side. And we have seen that there are possibilities to decrease CapEx and OpEx. That's one point. And the other is, I think we mentioned this last year, and this is something we continue to do very, very deeply. We do more thorough value engineering of the projects.

So more or less investigating all possible factors to increase at the end of the day, the profitability and the quality of the project. And by doing that, although we have a very low level of the auctions for this year, we don't see that we have to stop projects at this point in time, but we have to make them better. And one additional remark, I think at the end of the day, this will be a very clear situation for 2026. For 2027, things are to be seen as we will be in a different regime of an EEG, very likely a CfD, two-sided CfD regime. And at least in discussion, I expect that the volumes to be auctions will be adjusted slightly and meaning increased. And both combined with the CapEx and OpEx point that I mentioned, I think will still make at least our projects at PNE viable.

The next question comes from the line of Guido Hoymann with Metzler.

Three questions from me, please. The first one is, do you want to share some details on how far your portfolio streamlining measures have progressed so far this year, for example, in Turkey and Canada. The second would be on the wind speeds, you mentioned they were up 8.5% or I think that's also what I've seen for Germany, so up 8% to 9% in Q1.

Your IPP result is up 50%. So is that due to better prices, i.e., PPAs, maybe in particular, in the context of the Iran prices at least from March onwards? And the third one is a rather, let's say, technical industry or broader industry-related question. On the subject of the grid connection backlogs and all the stuff piling up there. If I understand correctly, a developer can enter tender with the project based on the grid information alone, so.

To your knowledge, do many project developers do that? So for example, to save time? And are you doing this? Or do you participate in tenders only once you've got a lot of specific grid connection point, the concrete grid connection point. I understand that there's a lot of projects also around with the information only, so no fixed connection point. And so could that lead to a bad surprise if it takes longer than 3 or 4 years to get the actual grid connection and from which point penalties would become due or the whole contract award or the guarantees would expire? So a little longer question. Sorry for that. Yes...

Thank you, Guido. Maybe on the third question, I will have a counter question, so to speak. But let me first tackle the first one, the streamlining. We are in the midst of selling/stepping out and liquidating the companies and projects in Turkey and in Canada. So that's an ongoing progress. As you can imagine, having been there for many, many years, there's a lot to be tidied up, but it's on the way. We will stick to that plan. At the end of the day, some formalities may still come up, but we are in good progress here, I would say. And then the question to the wind yields or the results of the IPP. Yes, we had a better first quarter wind-wise this year compared to last year, but the higher increase or let's say, the higher increase of the revenues for IPP is, I think, twofold.

Partly, it's coming out of the sale of Bokel, which was in the segment IPP. And the other is that we have had a higher volume, of course, due to the installations and additions in the IPP portfolio, which resulted in higher revenues. And coming to the third point, if I understood your question correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong then, the question is like when we participate in tenders for the auction for the tariff, wind onshore correct.

That's what I mean.

If we have fixed grid connection points or if we just have, let's say, something that's more a kind of prediction, but not a confirmation, we go the safe way. So at the end of the day, once we receive the tender award, we are not just having the permit, we have the grid connection approval and then can immediately start into the financing then.

Okay. Okay. That's good to hear that my impression is that there are many projects around which do not have that who rely on this paragraph 8, let's say, the general information. And I think given that there are so many projects piling up these days and the grid connection is taking longer and longer, that might turn out to be a problem for those who do not have this concrete connection point. But good to hear that you are actually only participating on the basis of having a grid connection point.

The next question comes from the line of Karsten Von Blumenthal with First Berlin Equity Research.

My first question is regarding the BESS application you mentioned. Perhaps you could elaborate further on it. Is this battery with solar? Is that battery alone? And which sizes are there in consideration? Perhaps you can elaborate on that.

Yes. So Karsten, we are focusing different levels of BESS applications. One is that we are owning and operating different substations where there is some remaining capacity combined with batteries. This is then where the wind farm is connected, providing a certain business case. We also follow hybrid solutions with wind and/or PV and BESS. So typically combined -- there's not yet a clear focus on stand-alone BESS from our side. And we are going for the green battery in some cases, so just within the EEG and without the necessity of having an additional grid capacity approval.

So there are different ways actually. We're not just doing this only in Germany. We're focusing this in Poland. We just recently received a permit in Romania. But to give one disclaimer, it's a process which is highly reliable or highly dependent, sorry, on grid connection approvals. And there, not only in Germany, but in other markets as well.

as well. It's not a clear path how and when this can be granted. So we are lined up there. We've made our homework and ticked all, let's say, criteria boxes that the DSOs have, but it's not a fast track. We have to see.

All right. Pretty interesting. You mentioned that it's BESS also together with wind. Usually, we hear that with PW. Is it BESS and wind in European countries or also in Germany?

That's in Germany.

Okay. Pretty interesting. Okay. Very good. Yes. Second thing, you mentioned that you aim to reach a 20% equity share. Any target -- you said midterm, any target, could you more specify on that when that should be?

Yes, 20% is what we're aiming for or even better. Our target since it's something that has to be evolved over time is to reach that latest 2028.

2028. Okay. You mentioned this interesting Polish project where you deliver behind the meter. Could this be, say, a kind of role model for many other projects, not only in Poland, but in other countries?

Yes. Thanks for that question. This actually is a good example how things can work out if you have industrial partners that have, let's say, different processes and productions are running. And that's something that we currently investigating and actually preparing. It's still on a business development level and not fully operational that we are looking for industrial partners in order to find solutions on their energy demand, on their change from -- to more electrification and using the different processes in production, be it electricity or heat. That's something that's going on.

We think there will be an increasing demand because at the end of the day, not only, let's say, reliable and cheap green electricity is in demand, but to serve more decarbonization that is on everyone's agenda, supplying to the customers is the second point so that the demand there will come up. That's at least what we think. And again, we're investigating this and have the first pilots that we started with that. And the Polish project is a good example how this can work.

Could you remind me the Polish project is PV, isn't it?

That's PV, correct? To a refinery.

Yes, because there is a German company called WindWise claiming that they have developed a special low wind turbine with a certain technology to provide up to 4,000 hours onshore full load hours and producing very stable power during the year. And my question is, is that something you have already spotted? Could this for a project developer such as PNE, could technologies going in this direction. So relatively stable wind production, perhaps also behind the meter, that something that is interesting for you?

Well, in general, we look into many applications, but let's say, I'm in this case, a bit more skeptic when I hear these figures. And well, checking and testing this, yes. On the other hand, we have not the goal to enter into completely new -- using new technology, but we want to use our know-how that we currently have in terms of planning and realization of projects, but not going into a completely new way. So looking at this, yes, will it fly? Let's say, I have my slight doubts on this that you just mentioned.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Heiko Wuttke for any closing remarks. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. If there are no further questions, we would like to thank you for your participation in today's webcast. We look forward to welcoming you next time, maybe at our virtual AGM next week or at our next webcast on the publication of our half year financial report 2026, which is scheduled for the 13th of August 2026. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today in this conference call regarding the quarterly statement for the first quarter 2026. My name is Heiko Wuttke, CEO of PNE AG, and I'm accompanied by Harald Wilbert, CFO. So let me first give you an overview of the presentation and the course of today's webcast on Slide 3 of the presentation. As usual, I will begin with a summary of Q1 2026, followed by an update regarding the operating business. Then I will pass over to Harald for the financials. After that, I will conclude the presentation with the outlook for 2026. We will then open the line for questions. As always, our slides can be found on our Investor Relations website. Before I continue with the operating business, I would like to address the upcoming changes in the Board of Management and Supervisory Board we announced end of April.

My colleague, Harald Wilbert, asked the Supervisory Board to release him from his duties as a member of the Board of Management for personal reasons. The Supervisory Board has agreed to this request. We regret that Harald leaves the company and would like to thank him for his work over the past years. He has made a significant contribution to the transformation of PNE AG. We wish him all the best for the future. The CFO position is to be assumed on an interim basis by Dirk Simons, currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board. This provides a very strong short-term solution to address the upcoming task. He is expected to be appointed to the Board of Management and to assume the role of CFO until 19th May 2027.

In this case, Dirk Simons, would no longer be available to serve as Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Supervisory Board member, Marcel Egger, has expressed his willingness to assume the Chairmanship subject to his election by the Supervisory Board. This ensures continuity both on the Management Board and the Supervisory Board of PNE AG. Having said this, I would now like to draw your attention to Slide 5. Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to share that we had a good start into the financial year 2026 and that we are on track to achieve our full year targets.

We successfully sold projects in our core markets, Germany and Poland with a total output of 152 megawatts in the first quarter, 4 wind projects with a total capacity of 111 megawatts and 1 PV project with 41-megawatt peak. In addition, we completed 1 wind farm project with 34 megawatts for third parties. As mentioned in our last webcast, we consolidated our own IPP portfolio at 466 megawatts after the successful sale of the wind farm Bokel with 25 megawatts. Power generation increased to 262 gigawatt hours, which is an increase of 33% compared to Q1 2025 due to higher wind yields in the German onshore wind market, where according to the ERA5 data, wind speeds were approximately 8.5% higher than in the same period last year.

Also, the total output of our Services business grew to EUR 10.3 million, a plus of 17% year-over-year with good margins. I will elaborate in more detail on the next slide. In financial terms, the first quarter 2026 was successful as well. Our total output grew to EUR 68.9 million, which is a plus of 24%. Our normalized EBITDA adjusted for one-off items reached EUR 17.9 million, while our EBITDA increased to EUR 16.6 million, clearly up from EUR 3.6 million in Q1 2025.

And please remember, from the 2026 financial year onwards, normalized EBITDA will serve as a key financial performance indicator for our forecast as it provides a better and more accurate picture of our operating performance. And with this, let's move on to the Project Pipeline on Slide 7. In Q1 2026, we decided to discontinue our offshore Project development activities in Vietnam since we have not been considered as an investor in this nearshore project, which had a capacity of up to 2,000 megawatts. The project was thus taken out of our project pipeline. As we did not capitalize any costs, no impairments had to be made. Our project pipeline, wind onshore and PV remained stable compared to the end of 2025 at 21.7 gigawatt, Thereof, the pipeline in core markets, Germany, France and Poland is on a high level with 12 gigawatts.

I will go in more detail on the next slide. On Slide 8, you can see our project pipeline onshore wind, which was stable compared to the end 2025 at 14.6 gigawatt. Our home market and core market, Germany, which accounts for more than 40% of the project pipeline remains strong with 6.1 gigawatts. As mentioned earlier, we sold 3 wind farms with a total capacity of 39.6 megawatts, including Bokel with 25.2 megawatts. One wind farm with 34 megawatts was completed for third parties. In addition, 4 wind farms with 63 megawatts were under construction in Germany, plus another 4 wind farms with 59 megawatts for third parties. And we received new permits here for 172.8 megawatts. With respect to our core market, France, we see a stable project pipeline with 1.5 gigawatt, and we received a new permit of 10.8 megawatts. Regarding our core market, Poland, we sold 1 wind farm project to a global player in the energy transition. The wind farm consists of 10 wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 72 megawatts. We will further develop this project to the ready-to-build stage, which is scheduled for 2029 with commissioning planned for 2030.

Coming to Slide 9, we see that our PV pipeline was stable as well at 7.1 gigawatt peak. Our development activity is continuing to show good progress from projects to the later project phases, resulting in a 22% growth of Phase 3 projects to 1,027 megawatt peak coming from 824 megawatt peak at the end of '25. We successfully sold a 40.8 megawatt peak PV project to Poland's leading energy utility, ORLEN. The project stands out due to its strategic location and technical configuration.

The PV farm will be connected directly to the internal power grid of the Plock refinery. This behind-the-meter approach offers significant advantages. By not using the general grid, it reduces regulatory risks and simplifies administrative procedures during development and construction. In addition, we received new permits in 2025 in South Africa with 75 megawatt peak, in our core market, Poland with 41.4 megawatt peak, in Italy with 23.6 megawatt peak as well as in our core market, France with 12.3 megawatt peak. If you look at our own IPP portfolio in Q1 '26 on Slide 10, you see that the megawatt in operation decreased compared to the end of 2025 as we have successfully sold Bokel Wind Farm at the end of Q1. The total megawatt in operation now amounts to 466 megawatts at the end of the first quarter '26.

450 megawatts are coming from wind onshore Germany after the sale of the wind farm Bokel, 11 megawatts coming from the onshore France and 6 megawatts coming from the wood-fired combined heat at the power plant Silbitz. Due to the comparatively higher wind yields, we produced 262 gigawatt hours of green energy in the first quarter 2026, which is an increase of 33% and avoided 198 kilotons of CO2 emissions.

The hidden reserves accumulated in our portfolio decreased to EUR 155 million compared to EUR 159.3 million by the end of 2025, which is partly because they are gradually recognized over the lifetime of the project and partly because of the project sales. More than 90% of our IPP projects are based on feed-in tariffs for 20 years, leading to an average weighted contracted tenure for the IPP portfolio of more than 15 years. This shows an interesting upside opportunity through short- and medium-term PPAs that are more attractive than the EEG remuneration and about 40% of our IPP portfolio already have a PPA.

Let me also give you some information about our Services business on Slide 11. since it continues to perform well and delivers growing high-margin returns through long-running contracts. So first of all, operational management and technical inspections continue to grow. The assets under operational management increased to 3.2 gigawatts, and we had a good order intake in Germany and internationally with 75% external customers. The customer retention rate for the operational management is above 98%. And after the successful market entrance by the end of 2025, we have further best contracts under negotiation.

Last but not least, we conducted approximately 300 technical inspections in wind farms in the first quarter 2026. The strong performance in wind and sits continued with approximately 150 wind assessments and expert opinions in the first quarter '26, and we conducted approximately 100 LiDAR verifications. With these figures, we are well on the way to matching or even exceeding last year's very good results. In addition, we had a good start of our PPA as a service business under the new brand, what Made to 2026 in a traditionally quiet first quarter with more than 13 wind and PV PPA projects and a total output of approximately 165 megawatts and a transaction volume of around 270 gigawatt hours. And also Bitbloom showed assets under monitoring at approximately 4.5 gigawatts.

But perhaps even more important is a high customer retention rate. As you know, our largest customer recently prolonged this contract by 3 years. So then the second largest customer just added 250 megawatts for performance monitoring and furthermore, a new EU customer just signed a 3-year monitoring contract. Overall, we are very happy with the performance of the Services segment. And with this, I would now like to hand over to Harald for the financials.

Yes. Thank you, Heiko. And first of all, I also would like to welcome everyone here in this call. Looking at Slide 13, you see that our total output increased by 24% to EUR 68.9 million. This was driven by successful project sales, the high development activities as well as the result in Power generation and our Services business. Our EBITDA increased to EUR 16.6 million compared to EUR 3.6 million in the previous year, especially due to project sales, mainly the wind farm Bokel and the improved Power generation result due to the higher wind yields. So the normalized EBITDA adjusted for one-off items reached EUR 17.9 million. The onetime effects of EUR 1.3 million were mainly related to consulting fees for our transformation projects. The decrease in the financial result of minus EUR 4.0 million was mainly driven by higher interest expenses resulting from a higher average volume of project financing. The positive tax effect was mainly attributable to deferred taxes arising in connection with project settlements due to IFRS 15.

Looking at the segments on Slide 14. I would like to mention that previous year's figures were adjusted due to changes in the segment reporting. The Consolidation now includes all group consolidation as well as general overhead costs that could not be reliably allocated to operational segments. Consolidation, therefore, renamed to Corporate functions and Consolidation. Having said that, we see growth in Power generation and Services, but a decreasing output in Project Development in the first quarter 2026.

So total output of the segment Project development decreased to EUR 22.4 million compared to EUR 36.4 million in the previous year due to fewer projects built in Q1. Total output of the segment Power generation increased to EUR 32.3 million compared to EUR 22.0 million in the previous year due to the higher wind yields mentioned before. Total output of the segment Services increased to EUR 10.3 million compared to EUR 8.8 million in the previous year strong order book. EBITDA-wise, the segment Power generation had the highest contribution in the first quarter 2026 with EUR 24.2 million. The Services segment contributed EUR 2.9 million and the EBITDA of the segment Project development decreased to minus EUR 6.3 million.

Balance sheet. On the asset side, we see on Slide 15 that most is allocated to property, plant and equipment as well as inventories, what we see as investments in stable values and recurring cash flows. Our cash position fell to EUR 61.2 million due to investments in Project development, but is still on a good level. Equity decreased to EUR 149.4 million, reflecting the negative net income. The equity ratio was 13.1%. However, we continue to aim for an equity ratio of 20% or more in the midterm and already expect a clear improvement in 2026. Adjusted for hidden reserves, the equity ratio was at comfortable 23.6% Liabilities to banks remained stable, resulting in a net debt of EUR 748.5 million. In addition, it's worth mentioning that the majority of the bank liabilities are nonrecourse project financing. Yes, with that, I would like to hand back to Heiko for the outlook.

Thank you, Harald. Ladies and gentlemen, this leads me to the outlook on Slide 17. Based on the current plan for the 2026 financial year, we continue to expect a group EBITDA normalized for special items or just normalized EBITDA of between EUR 110 million and EUR 140 million. Regarding our operating business, we, of course, aim to sell a significant number of projects in the financial year 2026, for example, in Germany and Poland, and as you have already seen, in South Africa. The expansion of our IPP portfolio will be consolidated this year before we further build it up in midterm.

According to our stronger focus on selected core markets, exits for Turkey and Canada are targeted for 2026. And as already mentioned last time, we now focus even more on projects and solutions with high system and grid compatibility such as BESS applications. Coming to the end of my presentation, I would like to emphasize once again, we are committed to future-proof sustainable growth and value creation. And with this, I would like to conclude our presentation and open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Holger Steffen with SMC Research.

I have some questions about the recent development. First of all, one about your project or your sale of the wind farm Bokel. Are the proceeds from the sale already fully reflected in the figures? And maybe could you describe the impact of the transaction on the income statement?

It's -- the revenue is included in the Q1 and the cash in was in April. So a little bit later, there was a postponement.

Okay. It's -- I would have expected a higher other operating income from this sale. Is this not correct?

Compared to -- this is Heiko [indiscernible]. Compared to the sales that we usually have in an earlier stage or when we still sell turnkey, this farm was in operation and therefore, with project finance and nonrecourse finance, whilst then, of course, part of that is not being reflected in the return and in the results of the first quarter.

Okay. And are you planning any further sales from the existing portfolio in the current year?

Yes, thanks. As we pointed out that this year will be a consolidation year. We plan further sales of the IPP portfolio, not in a significant manner, but to be in the position to flexibly react on market situations. So it's a plan that we sell further without giving a clear number to that.

Okay. Fine. In the first quarter, other operating expenses have risen significantly from EUR 7.2 million to EUR 12.8 million. Could you provide us with further details on this development?

Yes. It's not coming from one position or one item. It's coming from a lot of items. It's a mix from maintenance for the IPP business, from consulting fees for transformation projects. It's from all typical other operating expenses. And then it's connected to the higher volume of the business, of course. You see that we have higher revenue and normally then the operating costs or the other operating expenses are increasing simultaneous too.

Okay. There were no special effects in the first quarter. Okay. I see. The external revenue in the Service segment is declining significantly from EUR 8.1 million to EUR 5.6 million, while internal revenue is increasing. Is this a capacity issue? Or what is the main cause here?

We are looking only now to Q1. So in Q2 or Q3 could look totally different. This is then depends on when we are selling projects. And normally, we sell projects in later phases of the year, so in later quarters. In the last year, there were some when you compare Q1 to last year, there were some sales in the first quarter, what was extraordinary. In this year, we are absolutely on plan. We are a little bit above plan when you look in our internal figures. So we are totally happy with this.

Okay. And my question was belonging to the Service segment. Because we see there lower external revenue in the Service segment and more internal revenue. And my question was, is this a capacity issue because...

It's a capacity issue, but we can deliver this information then afterwards. We have to prepare this, but there's nothing extraordinary what we see here in services. Service running really well. So here, we are on budget. So everything is well there. But we will prepare this information and then come to you.

Okay. That's fine. My last question about the prices in wind energy tenders in Germany. They could fall below -- maybe they could fall below EUR 0.05 in the future. What would that mean for your project pipeline? And will you have to stop some projects? And could there be any write-downs?

Yes. Thanks for that question, Yes, we see quite some competition and therefore, declining prices on the feed-in tariffs. However, there are different ways how to react on that because if that's the case, we have to tackle the whole cost that we see in the system on the CapEx and the OpEx side. And we have seen that there are possibilities to decrease CapEx and OpEx. That's one point. And the other is, I think we mentioned this last year, and this is something we continue to do very, very deeply. We do more thorough value engineering of the projects.

So more or less investigating all possible factors to increase at the end of the day, the profitability and the quality of the project. And by doing that, although we have a very low level of the auctions for this year, we don't see that we have to stop projects at this point in time, but we have to make them better. And one additional remark, I think at the end of the day, this will be a very clear situation for 2026. For 2027, things are to be seen as we will be in a different regime of an EEG, very likely a CfD, two-sided CfD regime. And at least in discussion, I expect that the volumes to be auctions will be adjusted slightly and meaning increased. And both combined with the CapEx and OpEx point that I mentioned, I think will still make at least our projects at PNE viable.

The next question comes from the line of Guido Hoymann with Metzler.

Three questions from me, please. The first one is, do you want to share some details on how far your portfolio streamlining measures have progressed so far this year, for example, in Turkey and Canada. The second would be on the wind speeds, you mentioned they were up 8.5% or I think that's also what I've seen for Germany, so up 8% to 9% in Q1.

Your IPP result is up 50%. So is that due to better prices, i.e., PPAs, maybe in particular, in the context of the Iran prices at least from March onwards? And the third one is a rather, let's say, technical industry or broader industry-related question. On the subject of the grid connection backlogs and all the stuff piling up there. If I understand correctly, a developer can enter tender with the project based on the grid information alone, so.

To your knowledge, do many project developers do that? So for example, to save time? And are you doing this? Or do you participate in tenders only once you've got a lot of specific grid connection point, the concrete grid connection point. I understand that there's a lot of projects also around with the information only, so no fixed connection point. And so could that lead to a bad surprise if it takes longer than 3 or 4 years to get the actual grid connection and from which point penalties would become due or the whole contract award or the guarantees would expire? So a little longer question. Sorry for that. Yes...

Thank you, Guido. Maybe on the third question, I will have a counter question, so to speak. But let me first tackle the first one, the streamlining. We are in the midst of selling/stepping out and liquidating the companies and projects in Turkey and in Canada. So that's an ongoing progress. As you can imagine, having been there for many, many years, there's a lot to be tidied up, but it's on the way. We will stick to that plan. At the end of the day, some formalities may still come up, but we are in good progress here, I would say. And then the question to the wind yields or the results of the IPP. Yes, we had a better first quarter wind-wise this year compared to last year, but the higher increase or let's say, the higher increase of the revenues for IPP is, I think, twofold.

Partly, it's coming out of the sale of Bokel, which was in the segment IPP. And the other is that we have had a higher volume, of course, due to the installations and additions in the IPP portfolio, which resulted in higher revenues. And coming to the third point, if I understood your question correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong then, the question is like when we participate in tenders for the auction for the tariff, wind onshore correct.

That's what I mean.

If we have fixed grid connection points or if we just have, let's say, something that's more a kind of prediction, but not a confirmation, we go the safe way. So at the end of the day, once we receive the tender award, we are not just having the permit, we have the grid connection approval and then can immediately start into the financing then.

Okay. Okay. That's good to hear that my impression is that there are many projects around which do not have that who rely on this paragraph 8, let's say, the general information. And I think given that there are so many projects piling up these days and the grid connection is taking longer and longer, that might turn out to be a problem for those who do not have this concrete connection point. But good to hear that you are actually only participating on the basis of having a grid connection point.

The next question comes from the line of Karsten Von Blumenthal with First Berlin Equity Research.

My first question is regarding the BESS application you mentioned. Perhaps you could elaborate further on it. Is this battery with solar? Is that battery alone? And which sizes are there in consideration? Perhaps you can elaborate on that.

Yes. So Karsten, we are focusing different levels of BESS applications. One is that we are owning and operating different substations where there is some remaining capacity combined with batteries. This is then where the wind farm is connected, providing a certain business case. We also follow hybrid solutions with wind and/or PV and BESS. So typically combined -- there's not yet a clear focus on stand-alone BESS from our side. And we are going for the green battery in some cases, so just within the EEG and without the necessity of having an additional grid capacity approval.

So there are different ways actually. We're not just doing this only in Germany. We're focusing this in Poland. We just recently received a permit in Romania. But to give one disclaimer, it's a process which is highly reliable or highly dependent, sorry, on grid connection approvals. And there, not only in Germany, but in other markets as well.

as well. It's not a clear path how and when this can be granted. So we are lined up there. We've made our homework and ticked all, let's say, criteria boxes that the DSOs have, but it's not a fast track. We have to see.

All right. Pretty interesting. You mentioned that it's BESS also together with wind. Usually, we hear that with PW. Is it BESS and wind in European countries or also in Germany?

That's in Germany.

Okay. Pretty interesting. Okay. Very good. Yes. Second thing, you mentioned that you aim to reach a 20% equity share. Any target -- you said midterm, any target, could you more specify on that when that should be?

Yes, 20% is what we're aiming for or even better. Our target since it's something that has to be evolved over time is to reach that latest 2028.

2028. Okay. You mentioned this interesting Polish project where you deliver behind the meter. Could this be, say, a kind of role model for many other projects, not only in Poland, but in other countries?

Yes. Thanks for that question. This actually is a good example how things can work out if you have industrial partners that have, let's say, different processes and productions are running. And that's something that we currently investigating and actually preparing. It's still on a business development level and not fully operational that we are looking for industrial partners in order to find solutions on their energy demand, on their change from -- to more electrification and using the different processes in production, be it electricity or heat. That's something that's going on.

We think there will be an increasing demand because at the end of the day, not only, let's say, reliable and cheap green electricity is in demand, but to serve more decarbonization that is on everyone's agenda, supplying to the customers is the second point so that the demand there will come up. That's at least what we think. And again, we're investigating this and have the first pilots that we started with that. And the Polish project is a good example how this can work.

Could you remind me the Polish project is PV, isn't it?

That's PV, correct? To a refinery.

Yes, because there is a German company called WindWise claiming that they have developed a special low wind turbine with a certain technology to provide up to 4,000 hours onshore full load hours and producing very stable power during the year. And my question is, is that something you have already spotted? Could this for a project developer such as PNE, could technologies going in this direction. So relatively stable wind production, perhaps also behind the meter, that something that is interesting for you?

Well, in general, we look into many applications, but let's say, I'm in this case, a bit more skeptic when I hear these figures. And well, checking and testing this, yes. On the other hand, we have not the goal to enter into completely new -- using new technology, but we want to use our know-how that we currently have in terms of planning and realization of projects, but not going into a completely new way. So looking at this, yes, will it fly? Let's say, I have my slight doubts on this that you just mentioned.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Heiko Wuttke for any closing remarks. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. If there are no further questions, we would like to thank you for your participation in today's webcast. We look forward to welcoming you next time, maybe at our virtual AGM next week or at our next webcast on the publication of our half year financial report 2026, which is scheduled for the 13th of August 2026. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PNE AG Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call. I am Shari, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Heiko Wuttke, CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, also from my side. Thank you for joining us today in this conference call regarding the results of the fiscal year 2025.

My name is Heiko Wuttke, CEO of PNE AG, and I'm accompanied by Harald Wilbert, CFO.

So let me first give you an overview of the presentation and the course of today's webcast on Slide 3 of the presentation. As usual, I will begin with a summary of 2025, followed by an update regarding the operating business. Then I will pass over to Harald for the financials. After that, I will give you a short update on our strategy and our transformation program and conclude the presentation with the outlook for 2026. We will then open the line for questions. As always, our slides can be found on our Investor Relations website.

Having said this, I would now like to draw your attention to Slide 5. Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to share that we had a successful fiscal year 2025 with high development and sales activity. We've successfully sold projects with a total output of 428 megawatts in 2025, 12 wind farms with a total capacity of 287 megawatts and 1 PV project with 140. [Technical Difficulty].

2025 was also characterized by a very good progress in our construction activities, especially in Germany and France, where we completed 10 projects with a total capacity of 215 megawatts. We received new permits for wind onshore and PV projects with a total capacity of 1.1 gigawatts in 2025. This is a remarkable figure and a reflection of the steady flow of valuable projects progressing through our pipeline.

The expansion of our own IPP portfolio also continued, reaching 497 megawatts as we added 68 megawatts in 2025.

Power generation increased despite very weak wind yields in the German onshore wind market, which according to the Anemos Wind and Yield Index 2025 was 12% below the long-term average. Also, our services business continued to grow with good margins. In addition, the first asset management contract for German BESS Park with a capacity of 100 megawatts was signed at the end of 2025, marking a successful entry into this promising market.

In financial terms, the year 2025 was successful as well. Our total output grew to EUR 376.4 million, which is another record level in PNE history. Our normalized EBITDA adjusted for one-off items reached EUR 87 million and was, therefore, in line with our original guidance between EUR 70 million and EUR 110 million. From the 2026 financial year onwards, normalized EBITDA will serve as a key financial performance indicator for our forecast as it provides a better and more accurate picture of our operating performance. We will get back to that later. And finally, a dividend of EUR 0.04 per share was proposed.

With this, let's move to project pipeline on Slide 7. Our project pipeline was impacted by several effects in 2025. First of all, we have made some changes to the scope of our pipeline. The pipeline numbers now also include projects in the early exploration phase called Phase 0. The change was made to show the full scope of the projects we are working on. To ensure comparability, the previous year's figures have, of course, been adjusted accordingly.

Secondly, we have streamlined our project pipeline. This was necessary due to significantly changed market conditions, particularly in the international markets of Canada, Spain and Romania. Streamlining the pipeline is an important part of our strategic focus on profitable markets and projects, which improves our risk profile further.

And finally, we have completed the exit from Panama. As a result of those effects, the total project pipeline decreased to 23.8 megawatts compared to the previous year's 27.9 gigawatt. Having said that, our pipeline continued to shift from lower value markets to higher value markets. This is reflected by the fact that while the overall pipeline decreased, the pipeline in our core markets, Germany and France and Poland remained on a high level at 12 gigawatts.

Having a look at the subdivisions, wind onshore decreased to 14.6 gigawatts. PV decreased to 7.2 gigawatt peak and wind offshore decreased to 2 gigawatt. In offshore, the 0.5 gigawatt in Latvia were value adjusted as well as of Q4 2025, and it is under review whether the 2 gigawatt in Vietnam will also be adjusted in Q1 2026 after PNE was not considered as investor for the project.

Moving on to Slide 8. The streamlining of our project pipeline was also visible in the project pipeline for onshore wind 2025 with 14.6 gigawatts, as I said, coming from 16 gigawatts at the end of 2024. Our home market, Germany, which accounts for more than 40% of our project pipeline remains strong with 6 gigawatts. We sold the wind farms, Sundern and Bebensee with 34 megawatts each to Encavis. And shortly before the end of the year, we also sold a wind farm portfolio, comprising 6 wind farms in various stages of development with a total capacity of 91 megawatts to Qualitas Energy Deutschland GmbH. 6 wind farms amounting to 107 megawatts were completed and put into operation plus 3 wind farms for third parties with 97 megawatts.

In addition, 4 wind farms with 63 megawatts were under construction in Germany, plus 5 wind farms with 93 megawatts for third parties. And we received permits here for another 141 megawatts in 2025.

With respect to France, we sold the first wind farms, Clermont and Genouillé with 14 megawatts and 11 megawatts and received new permits of 25 megawatts.

Regarding other markets, we sold 2 wind farms with a total capacity of 103 megawatts in Panama, where respective milestone payments are possible and completed our planned market exit there.

Our project pipeline in South Africa remained stable at 2.3 gigawatts, and we received new permits in Poland and in Turkey of 27 megawatts and 79 megawatts, respectively.

Coming to Slide 9, we see that also the PV was impacted by the value adjustment and thus decreased to 7.2 gigawatt peak. But our development activity is continuing to show good progress from projects to the later project phases, resulting in 51% growth of Phase 3 projects to 842 megawatt peak coming from 558 megawatt peak in 2024. Especially in our core market, France, we see a favorable increase of our PV project pipeline by 51% to 538 megawatt peak. And our PV project pipeline in Italy also grew by 23% to 928 megawatt peak.

In addition, we received new permits in 2025 in our core markets, Germany and Poland with 124-megawatt peak and 181 megawatt peak as well as in South Africa and Italy with 490-megawatt peak and 50-megawatt peak, respectively.

And finally, we sold 1 PV project with 140-megawatt peak in Panama, where respective milestone payments are also possible as part of our market exit.

If you look at the expansion of our own power generation portfolio in 2025 on Slide 10, you see that we made good progress here as well. We added 68 megawatts to the IPP portfolio and with that increased the total megawatt in operation to 497 megawatts at the end of 2025. 480 megawatts are coming from wind onshore Germany, 11 megawatts coming from wind onshore France and 6 megawatts coming from the wood-fired combined heat and power plant Silbitz.

Despite the comparatively lower wind yields, we produced 822 gigawatts of green energy in 2025, which is an increase of 10% and avoided 620 kilotons of CO2 emissions. The hidden reserves accumulated in our portfolio decreased to EUR 159.3 million compared to EUR 195.3 million by the end of 2024, which is partly because they are gradually recognized over the lifetime of the projects and partly because of project sales.

More than 90% of our IPP projects are based on feed-in tariffs for 20 years, leading to an average weighted contracted tenor for the IPP portfolio of more than 15 years. This shows an interesting upside opportunity through short- and medium-term PPAs that are more attractive than the EEG remuneration and about 40% of our IPP portfolio already have PPA.

Let me also give you some information about our services business on Slide 11, since it continues to perform well and delivers growing high-margin returns through long-running contracts. So first of all, O&M management and technical inspections continue to grow. The assets under O&M management increased by 250 megawatts to 3.1 gigawatts, and we had a good order intake in Germany and internationally with 75% external customers.

As mentioned before, we had a successful market entrance in BESS with the first contract closed for a German BESS park with 100 megawatts at the end of 2025, and we conducted more than 1,000 technical inspections in wind farms. We also had a strong performance in Wind & Sites with more than 500 wind assessments and expert opinions, and we concluded more than 300 LiDAR verifications.

In addition, we had a good start of our PPA-as-a-Service business under the new brand, Wattmate, with more than 80 wind and PV PPA projects and a total output of approximately 1.1 gigawatts and a transaction volume of around 1,700 gigawatt hours.

And also Bitbloom further grew the assets under monitoring to 5 gigawatts. But perhaps even more important is the higher customer retention rate. Our largest customer prolonged his contract by 3 years. And furthermore, the second largest customer just added 250 megawatts for performance monitoring. You see the Services segment is another exciting segment and integral part of our business.

And with this, I would now like to hand over to Harald for the financials.

Thank you, Heiko. And first of all, I also would like to welcome everyone here in this call. Looking at Slide 13, you see that our total output increased by 10% to EUR 376.4 million, which is the highest level in the PNE history, as already mentioned before. This was driven by the successful project sales, the high development activities as well as the results in power generation and our services business.

Personnel expenses rose due to an increase in the average number of employees of 39. We saw now more many years -- we saw now for many years, an increase of the number of employees. For the near future, we do not see any further growth of our headcount. In the context of our transformation program, we want to, among other aspects, optimize costs, including overhead, personnel and material costs through many measures.

Our EBITDA decreased to EUR 55.3 million compared to EUR 69.0 million in the previous year, especially due to the following onetime effects. First of all, the beforementioned impairments of the project pipeline of EUR 28.1 million, which are included in work in progress and in other operating expenses. Second, the deconsolidation of Panama amounting to minus EUR 3.6 million. So the normalized EBITDA adjusted for the one-off items reached EUR 87.0 million.

The decrease in the financial result of minus EUR 6.8 million was mainly driven by higher interest expenses resulting from a higher average volume of project financing. The increase of expenses for taxes in 2025 compared to 2024 is mainly attributable to deferred taxes of EUR 20.3 million compared to only EUR 5.8 million in the previous year.

By the way, you may recall that some of last year's figures were slightly different. In 2025, the PNE Group identified that the subsequent measurement of certain financial liabilities arising from low interest loans, especially here the KfW loans in prior fiscal years had not been applied in full compliance with the requirements of IFRS 9. Correcting this error has had an impact of minus EUR 9 million in 2023 and plus EUR 9 million in 2024 on the consolidated net income. The total effect on consolidated net income and equity amounted to only minus EUR 0.1 million in 2024. It is worth noting that this IFRS adjustment to the valuation is not related to operating results and has no impact on liquidity.

Looking at the segments on Slide 14, I would like to mention that previous year's figures were adjusted due to changes in the segment reporting. The consolidation now includes all group consolidation as well as general overhead costs that could not be reliably allocated to operational segments. Consolidation was therefore, renamed to corporate functions and consolidation.

Having said that, we see growth in all operating segments. Total output of the segment project development increased to EUR 314.7 million compared to EUR 252.7 million in the previous year due to high construction and development activities. Total output of the segment power generation increased to EUR 104.2 million compared to EUR 92.0 million in the previous year despite the lower wind yields mentioned before. Total services increased to EUR 38.0 million compared to EUR 35.4 million in the previous year, driven by a strong order book.

EBITDA-wise, the segment Power generation had the highest contribution in 2025 with EUR 73.1 million despite the weaker wind yields. EBITDA from the segment project development increased to EUR 40.8 million, and the Services segment contributed EUR 7.9 million.

Balance sheet. On the asset side, we see on Slide 14 that most is allocated to property, plant and equipment as well as inventories, what we see as investment and stable values in recurring cash flows. Inventories decreased as a result of the project sales and impairments. Our cash position fell to EUR 78.1 million due to the investments in project development and our IPP portfolio, but is still on a good level.

Equity decreased to EUR 154.1 million, reflecting the negative net income. The equity ratio was 13.0%. However, we continue to aim for an equity ratio of 20% or more in the midterm and already expect a clear improvement in 2026. Adjusted for hidden reserves, the equity ratio was at comfortable 23.4%. In the second quarter 2025, we increased our existing bond by a EUR 10 million step.

Liabilities to banks decreased, resulting in a clearly reduced net debt of EUR 731.3 million. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the majority of the bank liabilities are nonrecourse project financing.

With that, I would like to hand back to Heiko for the brief update on our strategy and our transformation program as well as for the outlook.

Thank you, Harald. Ladies and gentlemen, this leads me to the strategy and transformation program on Slide 17. The market environment in the renewable energy sector is changing rapidly at present. Interest rates have risen sharply and auction prices have fallen significantly. In addition, the cost of machines and materials have increased. Moreover, the political framework conditions are partly unclear.

In our core market, Germany, for example, auctions for wind energy onshore are significantly oversubscribed. As a consequence, it has become more difficult for projects to secure an award and the remuneration for successful bids have decreased. Nevertheless, PNE has been awarded the contract in every tender it has entered, which speaks to its in-depth knowledge of the market.

In the new Renewable Energy Sources Act, EEG regime, the awarded bid prices may again develop in the opposite direction. At the same time, in Germany as well as in other parts of Europe, grid access and the associated pace of expansion of renewable energies are increasingly being discussed. We have recognized these challenges and are addressing them and are responding strategically, for example, through value engineering of the entire pipeline, system requirements orientated project development and co-location projects.

Last year, we informed you about our transformation program and the numerous measures associated with it. These measures continuously help us focus strategically on our core business and reduce costs to form the base for sustainable and balanced growth. The working title is focus and deliver, meaning building on what we are good at and while evolving to strive in the new environment.

So what are we focusing on? We have our strategic focus on the markets and technologies with the highest earnings potential. We streamline our pipeline, rationalize our footprint and closely monitor opportunity markets. We will consolidate the IPP expansion in 2026 before continue the buildup in the midterm. We want to deliver best-in-class project development and focus on system compatibility through storage solutions. But we will also strengthen our internal efficiency and organizational performance via value engineering as well as process optimization and digitalization of corporate functions and operations and strengthen our economic performance, profitability and liquidity by optimizing our overhead efficiency and reducing costs, personnel and OpEx of some EUR 20 million to EUR 30 million.

We expect regulatory framework that rewards grid-friendly behavior. That is why we are expanding our offerings to include integrated systemic solutions. Our actions should, therefore, contribute more than ever to grid and system stability. With all this, we are creating a lean, flexible and agile PNE that focuses on its core competencies to be able to deal with fast-moving markets. And we are setting up our business for sustainable and balanced growth.

With that in mind, let me move on to the outlook for 2026 on Slide 19. Based on the current plan for the 2026 financial year, we expect the group EBITDA normalized for special items or just normalized EBITDA of between EUR 110 million and EUR 140 million. Normalized EBITDA is adjusted for one-off nonoperating items that are not attributable to the PNE's ordinary operating business activities. For 2026, these one-off effects are expected to amount to approximately EUR 20 million.

Regarding our operating business, we, of course, aim to sell a significant number of projects in the financial year 2026, for example, in Germany and Poland. The expansion of our IPP portfolio will be consolidated this year before we further build it up in midterm. According to our stronger focus on selected core markets, exits for Turkey and Canada are targeted for 2026. And as mentioned before, we focus on projects and solutions with high system and grid compatibility.

Coming to an end of my presentation, I would like to emphasize again, we are committed to future-proof sustainable growth and value creation.

With this, I would like to conclude our presentation and open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Karsten Von Blumenthal, First Berlin Equity Research.

A couple of questions from my side. In your corporate news, you said that you are looking for a more balanced mix between projects and IPP expansion. Could you elaborate on that? So what is your target regarding your own plant portfolio? What does it mean to have a more balanced mix? Is that a 50-50 share? How can we make this clearer?

Yes. Thank you, Karsten, for your question. Well, actually, we -- I think as mentioned throughout last year, we are acting in a flexible manner in order to see that we, at the end of the day, will receive and have a result which has the highest profitability of our business. And that's why we don't give out a certain number of what we want to add at the end of the day of IPP or sales. But what can be made clear, I think, for 2026 is that we concentrate in general on the sales of projects, while not in this year increasing IPP projects, given the circumstances to prepare for more challenging market environments.

All right. That is a very clear answer. So there will be no increase in your IPP portfolio this year according to your current plans. Understood. Okay.

Yesterday or the day before the German government in the new climate protection program said that they want to add 12 gigawatts extra for the tenders, which should be built until 2030. Could you elaborate on what this means for the onshore wind market? Have you any insight when the first bid will start? In which tender is this the August tender, the November tender? Perhaps you could elaborate on that point.

Yes, happy to do so. Actually, yes, first of all, I think it's good news that the government decided to increase the auction volume until 2030. And I think it's a reaction of what we see in the market with increasing -- the increasing number of projects being permitted.

As far as we understand, these additional 12 gigawatts are meant to fall into the period from 2027 until 2030. So will not be part of this year's auction. But this is not very clear yet because the ministry, neither the -- from the economics, [indiscernible] or the Environment Ministry has made their specific number. What our sources say it very likely is not increasing this year's auction volume. However, there is another initiative, surprisingly coming from Bavaria 5 gigawatts for this year, and this is still under consideration.

I think it makes its way into the Bundesrat, first of all, to be considered and then further on goes into the parliament. We will see what will be the outcome. But for us, this definitely is a positive signal to the renewables industry, especially onshore wind industry.

Thanks for clarifying on the 12 gigawatt. My next question is, if I look into the leaked EEG suggestion and into the grid package, German Netzpaket, my feeling is, will it really help to have more gigawatt if on the other hand, the conditions to build onshore wind farms deteriorate because of this redispatch 10 years and many other hurdles that are erected at the moment. So how do you see this EEG leak and the grid package for your company?

Well, I think one has to distinguish between those. On the revision of the EEG, actually, we don't see this and we don't expect that this is a major issue for us. We know, of course, expecting 2-sided CfD, how to handle this from other markets. It's, of course, open if a onetime step out of the EEG and going into a PPA coming back, if this is possible. But I think the major changes are more expected to impact mainly small PV where, yes, we are not active in.

So EEG renewal is not really where we are -- where we see issues. You mentioned the grid package. Yes, this is much more critical. and the so-called redispatch forward says that if the projects are in the areas with grid constraints, you might not be reimbursed. And that, of course, could affect certain regions and projects in that region where you, yes, will not be able to be financed and then will be realized.

But regarding our projects, because we looked into this already, our projects, we -- when we compare it on a map where our projects are and where grid congestion is, we are not that much affected. This also shows that we are -- have already in the past, looked into, let's say, low or grid connection constraints and moved our project development activities towards that direction. And one, of course, is that we are following up a key mitigation measure of that is colocation too, that we might not be affected that much. But it's a topic we very closely monitor, as you can imagine.

Yes. And thanks for giving me this insight that is very helpful. Not easy from outside to know which projects, how many projects will be affected by this.

My next question is regarding your offshore wind business. You very unfortunately were not successful in Vietnam. You now said that in the Latvia project, you have written it down. Given that it is very, very difficult for medium-sized companies to act in this very -- this business for very large companies, usually the offshore wind business. Do you think about leaving this segment altogether?

Yes. Offshore, I think, first of all, it's not just necessarily a question of size depending on the market. And I think we have done a very good job when entering Vietnam and doing the development work. And it was always our focus to, at the end of the day, partner up with another company.

Unfortunately, the EOI process was not successful for us there. And -- but we are still considering if and how we can be involved in the further development of the projects, but not as an owner or the owner of the rights there.

In general, we are now evaluating how we deal with that situation since we have quite some offshore knowledge in the company, which we might use on the consulting side on one hand. And the other is, of course, that we -- in this moment in time where we said we want to focus on core markets and on profitable markets, we are not looking to go and look for new offshore markets. That's the current situation. And we will -- if we change that, we will inform them accordingly.

All right. Very helpful. In your presentation, you mentioned that you want to reduce costs in OpEx and personnel by EUR 20 million to EUR 30 million. This is quite a high figure. So when do you want to have reached this? And what does this mean for your overall cost basis? Will that fall in coming years? Will it be stable given that you might try to grow somewhat? Could you reflect on that?

Well, I think PNE has in the past grown quite significantly for good reasons, but in different market environments. And looking forward, I think we have to see what that means if at the end of the day, there are more challenges ahead. And while doing this, this you can do geographically, of course, what we do, which has a cost impact as well that we decrease. So exiting markets.

But yes, the EUR 20 million to EUR 30 million is a significant figure, which we think is necessary on one hand, which will not happen in a year, but in a bunch of years, looking into the next 3 years actually. And it will mean that the cost base on the OpEx or other OpEx part and the personnel expenses will decrease to bring us -- I think one area I mentioned that we will become a leaner company. And this means in terms of new processes, digitization and then focusing on certain areas. This makes us leaner.

And then, of course, we don't need and will have the, let's say, the same level of costs and employees as we had before. So I think it's a consequential way that we do. And I would like to emphasize, we do this quite ahead of the times that we look at. So there's not the pressure yet, but we think we have to react in time much earlier before in order not to be challenged later on.

Yes. That is also my impression that you are before the curve and not behind. That is highly appreciated.

In your presentation or in your guidance, you say that you now switch to a normalized EBITDA and that you have EUR 20 million in one-offs to come to the EBITDA, which is then shown. This EUR 20 million in one-offs, could you elaborate on that? What is in there?

Karsten, Harald here. I take over this question, especially for the deconsolidation of our exit markets. That's one thing, and we have this transformation program with cost cuts, for example, for headcount, this could be part of this, too. Yes, these are the 2 main factors for the adjustment of the EBITDA.

Yes, that fits.

Last question from my side regarding your PV business. I mean you have reduced your pipeline by revaluing it. Can we expect any PV project being built and commissioned this year?

Yes. Thanks for touching that area. It depends on the markets you look at. We are seeing quite some challenges of the stand-alone PV market in Germany. And there, we are really focusing on the colocation, which -- where we will not see the effect this year. We are, however, solely concentrating on PV in Italy. There, we have been awarded last year in the new tenders that have been published and are now in the brink to realize those projects.

It's not very clear if they will, at the end of the day, be commissioned this year, very likely next year, but we will start with the implementation this year. And we see for France, an increasing pipeline and expect this in the next years then to come. So there is no realized projects, but there's still PV activities going on in those markets, plus in markets like Poland and in South Africa. Whilst in South Africa, our business model, as you may know, is slightly different where we mainly sell project rights and at an earlier stage, but those include PV projects as well.

The next question comes from the line of Holger Steffen, SMC Research.

Only a few additional questions from my side. Maybe let us start with your impairments last year, which were forced by the market conditions. What would be a scenario that would necessitate further write-downs? And in which countries do the greatest write-down risk currently remain?

Thanks, Steffen. As we last year really thoroughly looked into the portfolio. We came to the conclusion and with the market conditions accompanying to that, that we have to have projects. However, that means that we don't see currently any further impairments of the projects since it was not a small number of projects. You never know what will happen, of course, in terms of market changes. But as we are downsizing our market footprint and concentrate on the markets where we think the conditions are still stable or promising, we don't expect further impairments.

Okay. So we won't see any impairments for offshore projects or it's a different topic?

I think that you kind of look at that because we mentioned we are considering what's happening in Vietnam, and that's the truth. However, the offshore business, not -- if stepping out, will not have an effect of any impairments to our results.

Maybe I can add, we haven't capitalized any inventories or assets in offshore. So there's nothing to impair.

Okay. That's great. Okay. Let us move on to the balance sheet. The improvement in the equity ratio has not yet been achieved due to the impairments. Are you relying on the 2026 results here to improve or are supplementary measures such as capital increase also being considered?

Yes. Regarding the equity ratio, we expect a rise in this year. This is based of the sale of a lot of projects -- and our EBITDA normalized or EBITDA forecast what is between EUR 90 million and EUR 120 million. Yes, that's the main reason why we see here a better equity ratio equity for 2026.

So you -- we won't see a capital increase?

Will be an agenda item this year, too at the AGM. But the last 5, 6 years, this was not possible to do this, but you never know, that item.

Okay. That would be a possibility if you get the acceptance of the AGM. Okay. My final question.

Yes, we would be, of course, happy to do so. This is why we are a listed company.

Okay. My final question is about the bond that matures in 2027. When will the refinancing of the bond be addressed?

Yes. We already started here the process for the replacement. There are 3 windows we see before the summer break, after the summer break or then winter. So the process has started and takes a while and we have to see. So -- but it's activated.

The next question comes from the line of Guido Hoymann, Metzler.

One question, please. Given the headwinds from the falling tariffs and the high interest rates, all these headwinds, actually, negotiations with wind turbine suppliers are probably also part of your daily business. So the question is, do you feel that they -- these turbine suppliers that they are listening to you? And are they willing to make concessions? And the same question regarding the, say, landlords. I guess that you're also renegotiating leases. Do you experience concessions here?

Thanks, Guido, for that question. Well, of course, we -- in this market environment, we look for all the cost items and especially in wind projects, the turbines have the most impact. And since it was in the past, let's say, quite a good seller's market for them, I think the situation changes now.

And yes, we are in negotiations for the projects to come. And we see willingness there to move. I think there, it's important that we, as PNE have in the past, proven and this more now since more than 30 years to be a very reliable customer who, at the end of the day, delivers projects. And so the OEMs concentrate on those developers who are able to deliver, and we are amongst those. So therefore, I'm pretty confident that this would have an impact.

And coming to the land leases, yes, that it's a bit more difficult, I would say. However, we are approaching the landlords in Germany on that because at the end of the day, we are all in the same boat. And we have to deliver the best economic projects in order to be successful in the auctions. And therefore, let's say, we have to all work together and maybe not in all, but in many projects, we will see movement there. That's at least our hope, and we have started these activities to change on a moderate level, the land lease fees as well.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Heiko Wuttke for the final remarks.

Okay. Thank you. Well, if there are no further questions, we would like to thank you all for your participation in today's webcast. We look forward to welcoming you next time, maybe at our next webcast on the publication of our quarterly statement Q1 2026, which is scheduled for the 13th of May 2026. Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PNE AG Q3 2025 Results Conference Call. I'm Lorenzo, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Heiko Wuttke, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone, also from my side. Thank you for joining us today in this conference call regarding the results of the first 9 months of 2025. My name is Heiko Wuttke, CEO of PNE AG, and I'm accompanied by Harald Wilbert, CFO. So let me first give you an overview of the presentation and the course of today's webcast on Slide 3 of the presentation. As usual, I will begin with a summary of the first 9 months of 2025, followed by an update regarding the operating business. Then I will pass over to Harald for an update on the financials. And after that, I will conclude the presentation with the outlook for the remainder of 2025. We will then open the line for questions. As always, our slides can be found on our Investor Relations website.

Having said this, I would now like to draw your attention to Slide 5. Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to share that we had a successful operational development in the first 9 months and that we are well on our way to achieve our targets for 2025. As expected, we successfully sold several projects in the third quarter. These sales included the wind farm Sundern-Allendorf in Germany with 34 megawatts, Clermont in France with 14.4 megawatts and 3 projects in Panama with 103 megawatts wind onshore and 140-megawatt peak PV. In October, we closed the sale of another French project, Genouillé with 11.3 megawatts. So in total, since the beginning of the year, we have sold projects with a capacity of around 302 megawatts.

In addition, several other sales processes are currently ongoing, and we are optimistic to successfully close some of them in the near future. The first 9 months were also characterized by very good progress in our development and construction activities, especially in Germany and France, where we completed 5 projects with a total capacity of 76 megawatts. At the end of September '25, 10 owned wind farms with 169 megawatts plus 2 wind farms for third parties with 43 megawatts were under construction. We have already received permits for wind onshore and photovoltaic projects with a total capacity of 510 megawatts in the first 9 months of 2025. This is a remarkable figure and reflection of the steady flow of valuable projects progressing through our pipeline.

The expansion of our own IPP portfolio continued to 502 megawatts as we added the 5 projects was completed -- we completed in Germany and France with a total capacity of 76 megawatts in the first 9 months of 2025. I would like to point out that the total IPP figure will change somewhat by the end of the year as project with 11.3 megawatt, which was included temporarily, has successfully been sold in October and another project with around 25 megawatts could also be sold in the remainder of the year. Power generation after the first 9 months was still burdened by the very weak wind yields in Q1. Even though the wind performance has improved since the second quarter, it was unable to compensate for the very weak first 3 months. According to BDEW, the German onshore wind market declined by 12% in the first 9 months of 2025 compared to the previous year.

Our service business continued to develop well. I will comment on the developments in more detail later in the presentation. Driven mainly by the project sales completed in Q3, the financials improved significantly compared to H1 and also compared to the previous year. Total output grew to EUR 263.7 million, and EBITDA increased significantly to EUR 26.6 million. With this, let's move on to the project pipeline on Slide 7. As you can see in the chart on the right-hand side of the slide, the project pipeline of 18.6 megawatts in the first 9 months of 2025 was below the 18.9 gigawatt from the year-end, but increased compared to the previous year with 17.8 gigawatts. The pipeline in our markets, Germany, France, Poland and Italy grew by 21% year-over-year to 8.6 gigawatts.

Having a look at the subdivisions, wind onshore increased by 5% or 0.4 gigawatt to 9.6 gigawatts. PV increased by 7% or 0.4 gigawatt peak to 6.5 gigawatt peak, and wind offshore was stable at 2.5 gigawatt. The total project pipeline, wind onshore, which is the basis for our IPP portfolio, grew to 9.6 gigawatts coming from 9.2 at the end of Q3 2024. Our home market, Germany, which accounts for 33% of our project pipeline increased by a strong 20% to 3.1 gigawatts. The wind farms, Stuvenborn, 6 megawatts; Herbsleben, 11 megawatt; Bokel 25 megawatt; and Gnutz West 22 megawatts were completed and put into operation for our own IPP portfolio plus 2 wind farms for third parties with 88 megawatts.

In addition, 10 wind farms with 169 megawatts were under construction in Germany, plus 2 wind farms with 43 megawatts for third parties. And we received permits here for another 167 megawatts in the first 9 months of 2025. With respect to France, we sold the wind farm Clermont with 14 megawatts to JPEE and have completed the wind onshore project Genouillé with 11 megawatts. As mentioned before, the latter was temporarily put into operation for our own IPP portfolio, but has meanwhile been sold to Soregies in October 2025. In Panama, we have made good progress with the planned market exit by successfully selling 2 wind farms with 103 megawatts and 1 PV project with 140-megawatt peak, where respective milestone payments are possible. Further companies are to be sold in the fourth quarter so that the exit from Panama can be completed as planned in 2025.

Moving on to Slide 9. We see that the PV pipeline grew nicely to 6.5 gigawatt peak compared to 6.1 in the previous year, and development activity is picking up. This results in good progress from projects to the later project phases, resulting in a 100% growth of Phase III projects to 777 megawatt peak coming from 389 megawatts peak in the first 9 months of 2024. Especially in our core markets, Germany and Italy, we see a favorable increase of our PV project pipeline with 30% to 946 megawatt peak and 83% to 834 megawatt peak. We are also happy that we received new permits in our core markets, Germany and Poland, with 124 megawatt peak and 112-megawatt peak in the first 9 months of 2025. And finally, already -- as already mentioned above, we sold 1 PV project with 140-megawatt peak in Panama.

If you look at the expansion of our own generation portfolio in the first 9 months of 2025 on Slide 10, you see that we made good progress here as well. We added 76 megawatts to the IPP portfolio in the first 9 months. And with that, temporarily increased the total megawatt in operation to 502 megawatts at the end of the first 9 months of 2025. 475 megawatts are coming from wind onshore Germany, 22 megawatts coming from wind onshore France and 6 megawatts coming from the wood-fired combined heat and power plant Silbitz. But as already mentioned, one project with 11.3 megawatts has meanwhile been sold in October and another project with around 25 megawatts could also be sold in the remainder of the year, so that the total IPP figure might still change somewhat.

Further 169 megawatts in Germany were under construction at the end of the first 9 months 2025, partially intended for the IPP portfolio. Despite the low wind yields, we produced 527 gigawatt hours of green energy in the first 9 months of 2025 and saved 400 kilotons CO2 equivalents. The hidden reserves accumulated in our portfolio increased to EUR 199.6 million compared to EUR 195.3 million by the end of '24.

As mentioned earlier, our services agreement is developing very well. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to give you an overview of our services portfolio and some highlights on Slide 11. As illustrated in the diagram on the left, the portfolio extends across the full life cycle of wind and PV projects from planning to financing, construction and commissioning, operation, dismantling, continued operation and repowering. In addition to the PNE brand, we offer our services under our other service brands. Energy Consult is a provider of O&M management and technical services and inspections. It also supports with repowering, grid connection, on-demand nighttime market and construction management and financing. Bitbloom covers the operational data analysis, meaning performance monitoring, condition monitoring and regulatory compliance. Pavana is responsible for planning and execution of wind measurements, including the evaluation of recorded data, wind assessments and expert opinions as well as LiDAR verification.

And last but not least, Wattmate offers intermediary services for power marketing and sales as well as different marketing concepts with optional access to EEG subsidy support. As you can see in the services segment, we offer not only state-of-the-art, but also innovative services, an area where demand is continuously growing. In addition, to the services segment, we benefit from cross-selling effects in project development, such as repowering. And with this, I would now like to hand over to Harald for the financials.

Yes. Thank you, Heiko. First of all, I also would like to welcome everyone here in this call. Looking at Slide 13, the financials in the first 9 months 2025 reflect the first project sales in the third quarter, our high development and construction activities, the addition of further projects to our IPP as well as the impact from the weak wind yields in Q1. Overall, total output significantly increased by 25% to EUR 263.7 million compared to EUR 210.9 million in the previous year. Cost of materials increased while the cost of materials ratio improved. Personnel expenses rose due to an increase in the average number of employees of 47. We saw now for many years an increase of the number of employees, which peaked in Q2 this year. For the near future, we do not see any further growth of our headcount.

In the context of our transformation program, we want, among other aspects, optimize cost, inclusive personnel costs through many measures. The increase of other operating expenses can be explained by the higher business volume, expenses from exchange rate differences and consulting costs from the transformation program. Our EBITDA strongly increased to EUR 26.6 million compared to EUR 6.2 million in the previous year despite the lower wind yields due to the project sales and proceeds from the third-party projects. Depreciation increased due to the continued IPP buildup. Financial result improved due to valuation effects caused by subsequent measurements of the interest rate swaps and KFW loan liabilities. The increase of expenses for taxes in 2025 compared to 2024 is based approximately by 50% in deferred taxes. The remaining 50% derives from corporate and trade tax expenses.

Looking at the segments on Slide 14. We see growth in project development and services after the first 9 months 2025. Total output of the segment project development increased to EUR 215.1 million compared to EUR 170.8 million in the previous year due to project sales and high construction and development activities. Total output of the segment power generation slightly decreased to EUR 54.4 million compared to EUR 55.3 million in the previous year due to the lower wind yields mentioned before. Total output of the segment Services increased to EUR 28.0 million compared to EUR 26.5 million in the previous year, driven by a strong order book.

EBITDA-wise, the segment Power generation has the highest contribution in the first 9 months of 2025 with EUR 33.8 million, even if it decreased due to the weaker wind yields. EBITDA from the segment project development increased to EUR 1.9 million and the Services segment contributed EUR 1.5 million. However, I would like to mention in this context that a new allocation formula for the distribution of overhead costs led to personnel and other expenses by segment not being comparable with the previous year. And as always, consolidation was driven by the elimination of project development for our IPP portfolio.

Balance sheet. On the asset side, we see on Slide 15 that most is allocated to property, plant and equipment as well as inventories, what we see as investment in stable values and recurring cash flow. Our cash position fell to EUR 62.1 million as did our equity, which amounted to EUR 160.2 million. The equity ratio was 12.4%. The decline of our cash position, equity and equity ratio can be explained by the construction projects during the year and the sale of projects at the end of the year. So these KPIs will recover at the end of the year. However, we continue to aim for a target equity ratio of 20% or more. Adjusted for hidden reserves, the equity ratio was at comfortable 24.1%.

In the second quarter 2025, we increased our existing bond tap by EUR 10 million tap and also liabilities to banks further increased as the buildup of our IPP portfolio continued. It is worth mentioning that the majority of these bank liabilities are nonrecourse project financing. With that, I would like to hand back to Heiko for the outlook.

Thank you, Harald. Ladies and gentlemen, this leads me to the outlook on Slide 17. First of all, let me assure you that we confirm our guidance for the full year 2025 with the group EBITDA in the range of EUR 70 million to EUR 110 million. Our high development activity in the first 9 months of 2025 is a prerequisite for the additional project sales in the remainder of the year and the years to come. We are currently working on several other sales processes, for example, in Germany and Poland, which we expect to close in the near future. According to our stronger focus on selected core markets, we expect the finalization of the targeted market exit for Panama before the end of this year.

In expectation of a changing and increasingly challenging market environment, we have introduced a comprehensive efficiency transformation program already in the beginning of the year as a key tool to support and improve profitability. We have identified and defined more than 100 measures, which are to be finalized by the end of 2027. So far, the implementation is progressing according to plan. Be assured that we take this program very seriously because in a dynamic market and competitive environment, we want to and must be well prepared. Therefore, let me emphasize once again, we are committed to sustainable growth and value creation. With this, I would like to conclude our presentation and open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Guido Hoymann from Metzler.

Two questions, please. First one is one of your competitors has reported recently margin pressure on ready-to-build projects in Germany. And they also mentioned higher equity requirements from banks for project financing. Have you noticed this too would be one question. And is that a problem for you, i.e., more rigid investment or financing requirements from banks? The second one, again, on your cost cutting or cost reduction plans, can you provide maybe a little more details on that? For example, the targeted cost savings or any other details, if possible.

Thank you very much for your question. Coming to the first one, the competitiveness in the market and effects on margin or equity requirement. Actually, currently, we don't see that so far. I think this is always in conjunction with how I would call it the quality of projects. And I think we have been able to provide to the banks and especially then to the market, very competitive projects. So up to now, we don't see that. But of course, we are monitoring this very closely.

Coming to your second question, I would like to emphasize it's a transformation program. It's not just a cost-cutting program. So it refers to efficiencies and many more things to be organized much more efficiently. At this moment, we are not disclosing any figures of the outcome. But I can assure you we will follow this very thoroughly and expect, of course, quite some benefits of that.

The next question comes from the line of Holger Steffen from SMC Research.

I have some additional questions. First of all, about Panama. The company sold the rights of 2 wind farm projects and 1 PV project. That was more than we previously saw in the pipeline. How did that happen?

Thanks for your question. Actually, the Panamanian sale, we -- when we decided to exit the market, we looked into, let's say, everything on projects available that might be of interest for the market. And since we don't report, let's say, very early stage projects always, we have included all those projects. So there, the difference might come from. At the end of the day, we are happy that we found a buyer who thinks who can develop those projects further.

Okay. Fine. One follow-up about this. Can you tell us anything about the terms and conditions, including for the planned further sale in Q4? Are there any write-downs?

Actually. So this is not referring to Panama now, but in general, is that the question?

No, only Panama. If you have any write-downs in connection with the sold projects or with the coming projects, which you will sell in Q4?

Yes. Well, I can, first of all, say, okay, we are finalizing not just only on the projects, but of course, the company levels that are to be exited and then sold. But for the, let's say, financial impact on that, I hand over to Harald in this case.

Yes, we have to liquidate some legal entities there, and then we will deconsolidate Panama and will have a smaller impact, maybe EUR 2 million, EUR 3 million -- minus EUR 2 million, EUR 3 million. We do not have the exact numbers now, but it's not a big impact what we see now.

Okay. That's perfect. Okay. One question about your PV pipeline. You revised your pipeline for Spain and South Africa downwards slightly in the third quarter. Can you tell us a few words about the background to this?

Actually, the revision of the pipeline in Spain, of course, we always look into or let's say, try to validate the project's value, so to speak. And in Spain, since there are some tenders are open, we decided that certain projects will not be followed up closely. Actually, for South Africa, I'm not aware and would like to take that question back if there is a real change because we have been successfully closing a deal in summer. So something might have gone out. But maybe we can come back to that directly, if you allow.

Okay. That's no problem. My last question, you have stated that you are already preparing for the foreseeable regulatory changes in the German market. What conditions do you expect in the future? And what adjustments are you making right now?

Well, it's a fair question. Thank you. On the other hand, it's not very well foreseeable. Yes, we expect a change in regulations because one has to come, which is in 2027, a change of the EEG in the auction scheme. And the other is more the direction of the government since there are no clear criteria right now, no concrete parameters and figures, it's very difficult to really look into the future there. However, in general, I think it will be more competitive.

And as I explained earlier, if you have good projects, we feel prepared to face that pretty well. But concrete figures and concrete measures can only be done on -- if the information coming from especially the Ministry of Affairs, Economic Affairs and Energy are much more clear, which we expect early next year. And then we are -- we will have a better view, I guess.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Karsten Von Blumenthal from First Berlin Equity Research.

We have seen a lot of negative news flow in the offshore wind business. And I would like to know whether your projects have so far been developing as planned.

Yes. Thank you, Karsten, for asking that question. Well, offshore, I think the main point is in which region you are looking at, we have seen a downside on the German side because the auction system doesn't seem to be attractive, but we are not active there. Since we have decided to look into what I would call more niche market at a very early stage development, we are still confident to proceed, especially looking to Asia, where we have managed to -- that our project is now part of the national product development program. So it's, at this stage, too early to say if there are real big obstacles in those markets where we have seen no bids, et cetera, we have not been active and will not be active. So therefore, at this stage, no change for us.

However, as always, and we are focusing Vietnam and Latvia, if regulatory frameworks are not developing in the right direction, which will enable a profitable development and other -- and later on operation, of course, things will not move. So therefore, we are working on that this will happen in those countries where we are active.

All right. A further question regarding your onshore wind business. Have you perceived more difficult bargaining environment? I mean you have successfully sold some projects in the first 9 months. You plan to sell more projects in Q4 and will be quite significant because that's the basis for reaching your guidance. And as my colleague already said, other market players say that it is getting more difficult. So in your recent negotiations, what was your feeling? It's still running well? Or is it changing towards tougher conditions for you? Yes, perhaps you could shed some light on this.

Well, I think we have made 2 major comments. One is we stick to our guidance, which, of course, includes that we are very confident, and that's the other point, confident in succeeding with the sales still to come in this quarter. So therefore, we -- I would simply stick to that. Is it harder? Or is the negotiation tougher? Well, somewhat yes. On the other hand, I again bring the point if you are able to deliver projects in the right quality, then it's, of course, less demanding, I would say. So therefore, for this year, we don't see an impact on that and are very confident to close this without any turmoil. However, it's not all done yet. That's for sure. The confidence is very high on our side.

Okay. One question perhaps for Harald. When I look into your quarterly figures on the segment level, I perceive that in the Power Production segment, you had similar sales in Q3 and Q2 and -- but a much higher EBITDA in Q3 than in the previous quarter. Could you shed some light on this?

Yes. For the power generation, we have the total output here is 55.3 million in the previous year to 54 in this year. So it's more or less on the same level despite there we have the weak first quarter, Q1 with -- coming from the wind yields. This explains why the EBITDA decreased a little bit. Another reason why it decreased so is that in 2024, we had PPAs with high or high price PPAs, which expired now from the old times. So this normalized now a little bit. But if you put into account a normal Q1 -- a normalized Q1 in this year, EBITDA had been much higher, EUR 8 million, EUR 9 million higher. So this was the impact here from the wind yields in Q1.

All right. And then I perceive that your Q3 service sales were very strong. Has there anything happened in Q3?

Yes. Total output-wise or revenue-wise, it's strong. It's stronger than the year before. And EBITDA-wise, it decreased, and this is what we explained that it's coming from the new allocation formula. We allocate more overhead cost to services compared to the past. And if you adjust this, then the EBITDA of the service business had been higher by EUR 5 million or so.

And maybe to be added, yes, the demand on the services side has simply increased.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Heiko Wuttke for any closing remarks.

So if there are no further questions, we'd like to thank you for your participation in today's webcast. We look forward to welcoming you next time, maybe at our next webcast on the publication of our annual report 2025, which is scheduled for the 26th of March 2026. Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your line. Goodbye.