Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Vasileios, your current call operator. Welcome, thank you for joining the HELLENiQ ENERGY Holdings conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. The conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to HELLENiQ ENERGY Holdings management team. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the introduction, and welcome to the financial year 2025 results presentation. We'll be going through the fourth quarter, but also through the full year numbers and key issues that we believe we need to communicate. Group financial highlights, page 4. For a fourth year in a row, we've got very good performance. I won't go through the numbers in detail, they'll be dealt with later on, but it's a clean EBITDA of EUR 1.1 billion, which effectively puts the company for a fourth year in a different league. If I was to take a view on the future, I would probably say that this is something that is expected to continue.
Whether it's gonna be 0.8, 0.9, or 1.2, or 1.3, I don't know, because I don't know what the market's gonna look like. Given that a lot of the new investment is actually more predictable as cash flows, I think we've managed to move up into a different league. On the net income base, we've reached the half a billion, which is good news. On that basis, and given the balance sheet, which is very healthy, we are proposing a EUR 0.60 final dividend, which effectively means EUR 0.40. Sorry, EUR 0.60 per share total dividend, which means EUR 0.40 per share as final dividend.
That's EUR 0.15 up from last year, which covers partly the exceptional dividend that we distribution rather than dividend, which had to do with the sale of DEPA Commercial. Moving on to the next page on the key points. A relatively good market, especially towards the end of the year, with respect to the refining environment. Europe has been benefiting from relatively low prices and low dollar compared to euro, which means that palm prices have been kept at a relatively lower level. That always helps the consumption and demand, which is still growing, not only because of the price levels, but also because we see the economic activity growing as well.
On the electricity side and the nat gas, we've seen some normalization, which is beneficial for the consumption, but still, Europe is suffering from relatively high cost of energy compared to non-EU markets. As a company, we've had a good run. If one takes into consideration the fact that we had Elefsina down for four months in the year, and that Aspropyrgos refinery was at the end of its run before the shutdown, the achievement of a record high production is actually very good news.
From a margin point of view, we had healthy international benchmarks, but on top of that, we managed to improve on that as a result of better supply chain management, procurement, and of course, the fact that the Geneva team is now up and running, which helps increase the overperformance of the system. Moving into more controllable areas, which have to do with marketing. I'm very happy to say that both domestic and international businesses have done very well.
We have the best performance for marketing for a number of years, and that's a result of a very holistic and diligent work done by all the teams, be it market shares, new products, NFR, network expansion, service delivery, all of these things have done very well, and we're pleased to see that actually being capitalized in the, in the form of improved numbers. On the power, clearly, the inclusion of Enerwave in the system for the last part of the year, for the half July, December, is reflected in the consolidation. We've tried to give you a view of the performer, full year performance, so that you get a better idea of the run rate. It's a business which we believe we can improve upon.
The performance of the business was effectively held back by the process of acquisition from one of the two shareholders. I think now it is in good hands, and combined with the renewables portfolio, it will be able to grow even more. On the financials, you can see the performance, and I've talked about the numbers. As key milestones, I would refer to probably a few things that are part of the operating review, but they are also the result of our strategy over the last few years. Starting from the most important thing for us, which is safety, the completion of the Elefsina turnaround earlier in 2025, is something that we're very happy about because it was done safely, within time and within budget.
That's always our number one priority, and that goes for the Aspropyrgos refinery shutdown as well. We managed, after a lot of back and forth and a lot of years, to establish the trading platform in Geneva, with a team that combines external expertise and talent with our own people who relocated there or work from Athens in the refineries. That is something that has already started demonstrating some tangible results with respect to how good we can do there. Marketing, as I said, has been doing very well, and as a result of that, we were able to maintain and extend the BP trademark use for another 10 years. Probably one of the very few countries in Europe that BP has that sort of arrangement.
On the developments point of view, right at the last day of the year, actually, on the eve of, on the 30th rather, of December, we started pumping diesel from Thessaloniki to Skopje. That is a process that we are very happy about because it took us, well, almost 13 years to get this pipeline back in operation. On power, we've done a lot over the last four years. We have even more ambitions going forward. The plan is to develop a second pillar, and we are well on our way to doing that. On top of the downstream capabilities, the power, which is effectively anyways gas and power and renewables, is expected, is planned to deliver up to EUR 0.3 billion of EBITDA by 2030.
Clearly, totally different economics from the current downstream business. Even in between that, we have different economics between power generation, supply business, gas and renewables. Even within renewables, we have different profiles, but it's there. The good thing is, we have a very specific 1.5 GW of portfolio, which is another gigawatt of projects that we fully control in terms of delivery. The FID is entirely up to us, based on specific returns and timing. We beefed up our delivery capacities through the acquisition of a small team in Greece, Georgia. We'll talk a little bit more about it going forward, but we feel more comfortable about that part of the business.
On upstream, I don't think I need to tell you a lot of things because it's been well, well publicized. We've signed the agreement with Chevron for the exploration, and the farming agreement with ExxonMobil in Block 2 has already been signed and announced. Effectively there, what we are saying is, we are being consistent and deliver on the strategy and vision 5 years ago, to convert the E&P business into a portfolio business, whereby we maintain a smaller stake, but a much more diversified stake into various assets. In the meantime, we have our national champion hat, if you will, agenda, which helps this process. Finally, positioning in businesses and running businesses requires good governance and operational excellence.
On that basis, the main drivers, which are effectively, how we run our HR, how we run our systems, the digitalization, procurement efforts, are very high on the agenda. A business is as good as you make it to be. At the same time, we don't forget that we need to be part, an active part of this community, of the society we work in, and proactively participate in CSR initiatives and at the same time, manage our ESG footprint. Even though the discussion has shifted a little bit on the ESG and especially on the CO2 agenda, it is not something that.
we take lightly. In fact, the recent changes are more in line with our original vision, 2025 strategy of transitioning on a realistic path towards a better environmental footprint. With that, I'll pass you on to Kostas. Kostas Karachalios is our new Head of Supply and Trading. Kostas has been with us for a number of years in different positions in the past. His latest position was in international, as Head of International. A lot of the achievements are his doing, but even before that, he spent a lot of time in refineries and in business development. Kostas, welcome to the team in this role. You've been part of the team, and over to you for the industry environment.
Thank you for the intro. Good afternoon to everybody. The industry environment was mixed during this year. The 2025 started off with declining crude prices, particularly sharp during Q2. It also continued well into Q4, ending the year with an average of $69 per barrel, significantly lower than the start of the year. However, there was a robust demand for products, and cracks remained relatively healthy, particularly in Q4, reaching near record levels for middle distillates, which provided a margin to the system of approximately $10 to the barrel on benchmark margins, double what it was in 2024. As previously mentioned, record production during the last quarter with this margins boosted results significantly.
Moving on to slide 9. Natural gas prices started off relatively high in the year and tailed off to EUR 30. Similarly, with electricity prices ending the year overall at the same levels in 2025 on average, as we had in 2024. Carbon emission credit, the EUAs, had a soft start to the year, rallied in Q3 and Q4, reaching at some point, close to $100 per ton. They've eased off since those levels recently. In terms of fuel demand, the domestic market grew mostly in 2025, although Q4 was almost flat. There was a 2% increase overall.
Aviation sales and bunkering sales, aviation sales increased 6% during the year, and bunkering sales, 1%, overall. With those key market developments, I hand over to Vasilis. Thank you.
Thank you, Kostas. Good afternoon, and many thanks for attending our earnings call today. Moving on to discuss our numbers. As we mentioned before, both fourth quarter and the full year exhibited very strong refining production and volumes despite the turnaround at the Elefsina Refinery earlier in the year. Same with marketing, both domestic and international. In power gen, you have the addition of Enerwave during the second half that we started consolidating. In terms of the EBITDA, more than EUR 1.1 billion of Adjusted EBITDA, driven by a very strong fourth quarter. In refining, is the second best quarterly performance ever recorded on the back of the strong refining margins that Kostas mentioned before.
Also, a very good profitability in marketing, both domestic and international, setting up a very, a much higher baseline going forward. Finance costs are lower, and we'll discuss a little bit further. If you look at the reported results, those have been affected largely by the inventory losses on the back of 20%-25% decline in EUR terms, oil, and commodity prices. Adjusted EBITDA, just over EUR 0.5 billion, that enables a very good distribution that Andreas mentioned before. On page 13, a 10% increase in Adjusted EBITDA. If you look at the downstream business, this is mainly driven by the very good environment.
Strong refining margins in the second half, partially offset by the weaker dollar for most of the year, and improved operations in both RS&T refining and marketing, despite the impact of the turnaround at Elefsina in the second quarter. On the power business, you have the addition of Enerwave and the rest, the renewables investments at the end of 2024, that are giving a good EUR 30 million for the second half. The annualized impact of that is double, which we'll see from 2026. With the adverse impact of curtailments mostly, and the lower load factors due to weather conditions for both PV and wind.
Moving on a bit on the cash flows on page 14, 2025 was a year of record investments if you look at the total. We have the usual run rate of staying business CapEx of EUR 250 million, which during 2025 was augmented by the turnaround of Elefsina had a full turnaround in the second quarter, as well as some long-term maintenance in tanks, jetties, and pipelines. In downstream, we invested into mainly some energy efficiency projects at Aspropyrgos Refinery that will be tied in during the turnaround and will yield additional EBITDA benefits of around EUR 15 million from the second quarter on an annualized rate, as well as targeted investments in our marketing business in Greece and internationally.
The bulk of the expansion CapEx goes to power. It includes the 50% of Enerwave acquisition, as well as investments in renewables, mostly outside of Greece during 2025. On a cash flow basis, we start from a what we call normalized cash flow, which includes the EBITDA of the year, the required, let's call it, same business CapEx of EUR 250 million, and any other working capital movements, lease liabilities, so the operating stuff that you need to run your business. We take out the remuneration of our capital providers, that yields more than EUR 300 million of cash flows. We've invested in downstream and mostly in our power business.
That was funded partially by the acceleration of DEPA Commercial sale proceeds that we were able to collect during the year. Certainly, this, these investments are yielding additional EBITDA as we discussed before. Still, that wouldn't move much the total net debt position. However, we had the Solidarity Contribution that was paid in February 2025, as you may recall. A net impact of just over EUR 170 million, as well as the impact of the disruption on the Red Sea routes of the cargos that are coming from Iraq. That is increasing the working capital temporarily. We don't know for how long, obviously, because this is very much a political driven, but it's not something to be repeated in 2026.
We're ending up with a net debt of for the group level of EUR 2.1 billion, flat leverage levels versus last year. Moving on to page 15, looking at the capital structure of our two businesses. It's just under EUR 4 billion of capital employed in our downstream business. We don't see significant movement in the gearing of this business. It oscillates anywhere, the net debt oscillates anywhere between 35%-45%, depending on the working capital needs of the year. It's well-funded by committed facilities, turned out no maturity in 2026. We're certainly gonna continue working during the year, during this year, at improving this even further.
If you look at, if you look at our power business now with the addition of Enerwave, it's just over EUR 1 billion of capital employed. 20% of that is development capital projects that are under construction, especially the 100 MW wind farm at Northeast Romania, which will complete in 2026 and start operating in beginning of 2027. With almost, you know, 50/50 funded between debt and equity, more than half of the debt is project finance, non-recourse project finance at the project level, with maturities of around 15 years on average for the projects that are already operating. You can see the maturity profile on the bottom right. Now, looking at the capitalization, again, of our two businesses.
The leverage of downstream is 1.5 x. We're looking at an absolute net debt levels of, you know, around EUR 1.5 billion, a bit little bit higher, a little bit lower, depending, as I mentioned before, on the working capital financing of the business. Those levels are lower than they used to be 10 or 15 years ago, with EBITDA being, you know, 2.5 x higher. I think it's important to mention that around half of the EBITDA is coming from going to the market for our commercial logistic business, which includes supply and trading, as well as marketing, which, you know, have established a baseline on which we can further grow, with the rest coming from refining.
A much more resilient and stable earnings and cash flow profile versus, you know, ten or eight years ago. For power business, despite the fact that it's a business that it carries a higher level of gearing because of high upfront investment... Still at the end of 2025, the credit merge metrics have improved a lot. Again, let me remind you that this is mostly a non-recourse project finance at the project level, without spillover to either the rest of the power business or the group as a whole. The interest cost, courtesy both of rates reduction as well as spread improvement, has reduced even further for the second year in a row to EUR 110 million.
Important to look how the market perceives the credit. If we're looking at our outstanding loans maturing in 3.5 years, more or less, it's more than 100 basis points of reduction. More than half of that is actually implied spreads that I think it's an important message. In terms of distributions, I mean, if we have over the last few years, we've been returning significant capital to shareholders, driven by the profitability of the business, as well as one-off events that have to do with the sale of our DEPA participation back in 2022, as well as 2024. This is totally in line with our dividend policy.
If you look at the normal, the recurring dividend, it's 20% higher than it used-
To be last year at EUR 0.60 per share. Again, very competitive, both at the Greek stock exchange, as well as the European peer group. Moving on to discuss the performance of our business, starting from Refining, Supply & Trading. As we mentioned before, one of the best performance or the best quarterly performance, both in terms of production and sales, despite the fact that Aspropyrgos was at the end of run with the shutdown currently ongoing. We're halfway through this process, in line with the table, safely execution and aiming to complete by the end of the current quarter, with overall EBITDA 12% higher year-on-year.
In terms of operations, important to note the domestic market sales increasing with market share gains, if you look versus last year, and very strong exports. It's the highest fourth quarter performance in terms of both percentage and absolute export sales we've ever recorded. Very strong, moving on to page 22. Very strong realized margins, $11 per barrel of benchmark margin, with overperformance at almost $10. I mean, we had very good opportunities in the market during the fourth quarter, both on the crude supply side as well as export netbacks.
Now our Geneva desk, with the better market outreach, as well as a much much more solid risk framework that we've established, was able to capitalize on those opportunities and take advantage. This is flowing well into the first quarter of this year. In petrochemicals business, we're certainly in a downside. We've had a lot of capacity additions globally over the last 3 years, which combined with the slow demand growth that we've seen, we're it's resulting at negative margins for most of the quarter. It's improving a bit in the first quarter, but certainly we're not looking at getting back to what used to be normal anytime soon in petrochemicals.
It's important to note that the integration with refining provides a resilience into for this business. You know, it's cyclical. It will certainly, the current overcapacity will certainly prompt capacity rationalization. It is taking a bit more, the business will find a way to rebalance itself. In marketing, we discussed before, or even in previous quarters, the very strong performance, which is consistent and improving on the back of the strength of our EKO brand, structural market share gains in both diesel and gasoline, mostly. High penetration of differentiated fuels, high-margin differentiated fuels, as well as increasing NFR contribution and the best EBITDA performance for several years, at EUR 7 to 1 million. Similarly, international marketing, another record-breaking year.
Similar story, more or less, with domestic, in the sense that NFR contribution has increased notably. The positioning of the group in the regional markets has improved. We're able to take advantage of the geopolitical developments to a large extent. From 2026, we'll also have the additional contribution from the reopening of the start of the Thessaloniki-Skopje pipeline that will reduce the operating cost of transport and fuels to South Balkans, as well as open up market opportunities. We're expecting an additional EBITDA contribution of anywhere between EUR 5 million-EUR 10 million from 2026 from this event. On this note, I'll pass you over to George Alexopoulos to discuss our power business. George?
Thank you, Vasilis. Good afternoon, everybody. This is the first quarter in which we have fully consolidated for the whole quarter, Enerwave. On page 29, you can see, you can look at the entire business, taking Enerwave on a pro forma basis to give you a better picture of the unit. About 1.4 GW of operating capacity, EUR 100 million EBITDA, 3.7 TWh of generation, and about EUR 1 billion of capital employed. If we turn to page 30, and zoom in to the renewables business, it was a quarter with unfavorable weather conditions in both wind and PV, and also continuing curtailments. The profitability was somewhat lower than last year.
The year is just about at the same level as last year. You can see the load factors. Of course, the load factors re-reflect curtailment, as well as weather conditions and the generation and EBITDA mix. As you can see, the work in progress, the projects under development, have increased as our growth plan is being rolled out, and that also has an effect, a short-term effect on profitability, as we haven't adjusted figures for these expenses. Going to page 31, you can see what Andreas mentioned before. We have a secure path to getting to 1.5 GW installed by 2027 starting from our current operating capacity of 0.5 GW.
We expect the 300 or so megawatts under construction to be delivered in the course of this year, and possibly an additional 50 MW of four-hour batteries towards the end of the year. Together with a number of RTB projects in Greece and Bulgaria and Romania, that makes up the composition of the mature pipeline, which can bring us to the 1.5 GW. We have focused on delivery, and we have improved considerably our delivery capabilities through the acquisition of ABO Energy Hellas and the development and construction team. We are diversifying both technologically and in terms of geography, as well as gradually hybridizing our projects to adjust to the market conditions.
We go to page 32. Enerwave again, shown on a pro forma basis, both for... Well, the quarter, it's really the same, whether it is pro forma or not, because we consolidated it fully, but the year is on a pro forma basis. Improved performance as a result of the improved performance in supply following the acquisition of the company and the rebranding in November of last year, and also better energy management account for a 27% increase of the Adjusted EBITDA to EUR 54 million.
In addition to the new identity, it's worth noting that, since we took over the remaining 50% of Enerwave, we reviewed and redesigned the commercial policy and launched new products and solutions, and improved customer experience, reducing also the customer churn, and all that translated already and will translate.
in the following quarters into improved performance. Regarding energy management, we are running now as an integrated portfolio, our conventional units, our renewables units, soon our battery portfolio, and managing the significant short positions we have in retail and in our own consumption. This is very much part of the strategy of our integrated power business, which includes renewables, but also conventional assets and energy management position. I think with this, we've come to the end of the presentation, we will turn it over for Q&A.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Those participating via the webcast, you may submit your written questions using the Ask a Question window. To our audio participants, please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Dilari Giuseppe with Morgan Stanley. Please, go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the presentation and for taking our questions. We have two, if we may. The first one is regarding the one-off items you recorded for the fourth quarter. I think you mentioned it during the presentation, but could you tell us, we can see EUR 29 million in adjustments. Could you give us more color on that? Secondly, your domestic performance in retail has been very strong, so you're clearly benefiting from the lift of the fuel retail cuts in Greece. Could you quantify what the benefit is? Is performance driven by other factors as well? Also, thirdly, if you could like quickly run through sort of an outlook for 2026 in terms of volumes, especially for refining, that would be great, if possible.
Thank you very much.
Okay. I'll ask Vasilis to take the part on the financials, then I'll talk a little bit about the marketing. And on the volumes, maybe Kostas can give us an update on the 2026 projection. Vasilis?
Thank you. Thank you, Giuseppe. I mean, out of the EUR 25 million, we have, I mean, a number of small items. The main ones have to do, one, with a legal case at EKO, a very old, a 30-year-old case that was finally resolved against the company, which is EUR 12 million. The other has to do with the contamination expenses at some products of the refinery at Aspropyrgos. The others are small items of around EUR 5 million here and there.
Thank you. On domestic marketing, the performance is much better in the fourth quarter. Clearly, given the size of the numbers, it's not a totally different ball game, but it's a big improvement. A very small part of this improvement is due to the cap, to the price cap lifting, simply because we refrained from increasing prices. What did happen, however, is that the increase in profitability came from four main drivers. The first one has to do with the crackdown, which the Greek state has affected on petrol stations, which were operating not exactly within the boundaries of legislation and tax provisions.
We've had a couple of campaigns, which led to closure of a number of petrol stations and the change of practices that were destroying the market. That has boosted our quality and reliability message and has given us an advantage in terms of sales volumes. It also reduced the pressure on some areas where margin was depressed as a result of inappropriate behavior on the part of certain petrol stations. The second has to do with the continuous effort on premiumizing our products. we've increased the penetration of premium products in our total sales portfolio, and that is something which is leading to improved margins. The third has to do with NFR, and that is something which is continuously improving.
We have a long way to go, but it is something which is now beginning to show that we're doing very well. I'm just talking about the retail businesses now, I'm not talking about aviation and banking. The final part has to do with the network configuration. New petrol stations, locations, and also the conversion of petrol stations into commercial stations, which effectively increases margins. Those are the key drivers of increased profitability on the petrol stations. Kostas, do you wanna tell us a little bit about the 2026 volume expectations, given we have the shutdown of Aspropyrgos and Thessaloniki?
Exactly. Thank you, Andreas. The volume expectations for 2026 in terms of refinery production, would probably look slightly less than the 2025 numbers. There's the major shutdown of Aspropyrgos, which is expected to last less than last year's Elefsina shutdown, but there's also a maintenance schedule for Thessaloniki as well, that would influence.
Okay. Thank you.
Perfect. That's right. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Grigoriou George with WOOD & Company. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for the presentation. I've got a couple of questions. Going back to what you just mentioned about the shutdowns. Can you give us the timetable when Aspropyrgos and Thessaloniki will be down for the year? That's my first question.
Hello, George. Aspropyrgos is already down for the fourth week now, running. We expect it to be completed by the end of March, give or take a few days. So far, so good. Progressing well. Thessaloniki is expected to go into a maintenance shutdown sometime in Q3 this year. We have to run our full diagnostics and go through the process to define when exactly and for how long.
Okay, thanks. If I may, can ask as well. You mentioned, Vasilis, that there was... If I, if I got it right, there was a EUR 12 million hit to marketing in the fourth quarter from some legal arbitration that actually was settled in the fourth quarter, if I got it right. Vasilis, you also mentioned some improvements in downstream, that you expect to add some EUR million to profitability in 2026, but I didn't catch the number you mentioned.
Correct. George, there are a couple of items here. One has to do with the energy efficiency projects at Aspropyrgos and some debottlenecking at units that will be completed and tied in during the shutdown. We expect a run rate of around EUR 10 million-EUR 15 million at refining, at Aspropyrgos, and the reopening of the Vardax pipeline, the Thessaloniki-Skopje pipeline, will yield another EUR 5 million-EUR 10 million in 2026 onwards, annualized.
Okay, thanks. One last question. Sorry, I don't want to take up your time. Given that there's been talk now about the EU's CO2 emission allowances and what will happen to the EUAs and everything like that, and you can see where the prices have gone for CO2 allowances. Can you quantify, if for an example, if you can give us, I don't want to mention any specific examples, but let's say that I think you've got still free allowances in 2025, you had free allowances. If that was to be sustained until, let's say, the end of this decade, what would be the benefit to EBITDA? Thank you.
If there's no change in the free allowances from 2025, at current rates, we would be looking at around EUR 25 million of EBITDA.
Great, thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Once again, to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. There are no further audio questions. I will now pass the floor to Mr. Katsenos to accommodate any written questions from the webcast participants. Mr. Katsenos, please proceed.
Thank you, operator. We have two questions from PKO BP Securities, and specifically from Adam Milewicz. The first question is whether we expect to pay special dividends also in 2026? The second question relates to the current level of refining margins.
Okay. The special dividends were linked to special transactions, like the sale of DESFA, the sale of DEPA Infrastructure, sale of DEPA Commercial. We don't have something up for sale at this point in time. I have to say that. Never say never, there is no projection for that. Any special dividend will be replaced by what I would call an exceptional performance dividend, if we're blessed with decent refining margins. Sorry, current level of refining margin. Yeah, sorry, I didn't see that. Kostas, do you want to comment on that?
Yes, thank you. The current levels of refining margin, benchmark margin, have rebounded quite strongly. From a weak start of the year, they've in the last week or so, they're between $9 and $11 to the barrel, which is very attractive numbers.
Operator, we don't have any other questions from the webcast. Back to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing statements. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much for your time. I hope that we've been able to convey the message for the performance of the group. It has been a good year. The performance, the financial performance is one indicator of how well the company is doing, clearly affected by the environment. It is clear that we have been blessed with a good environment in the last part of the year, and that added a little bit of profits to the bottom line. However, what we need to take away is the fact that this company, over the last five or six years, has transformed itself. We've managed to establish a baseline, which is EUR 1 billion, something that we've been talking about for a number of years.
A lot of new businesses have come into play, on the renewables part, more than anything, and the conversion of investments into cash flows. I've always maintained that investment should be converted into cash or cash flows. We've converted the Enerwave, the Ortel Paterson investment into cash flows by acquiring the additional 6%, and we converted the DEPA investment into cash by divesting, by selling the 35% that we had. That actually brings about a much better governance and operability of that business. We have been adding new businesses to the group, which are more predictable. Maybe not as predictable as we would like on the renewables, but still, they are not driven by refining margins.
They are establishing a cash flow baseline, clearly a totally different model from the refining baseline, but it is adding to the group's stability. The Enerwave business is something which will provide additional profitability with a diversified profile. The gas and power, and the utility profile is different to the refining profile. I think we've been doing a good job at diversifying the portfolio and also making it more future compatible with a lower environmental footprint as a group. However, we should not ignore the improvements made on our, up until now, core business of downstream, which has to do with the refining, the supply and trading, and the marketing. In fact, I probably feel more proud of the turnaround in the domestic marketing than the investment in growing our portfolio of renewables.
Because that involved a lot of people, changing of cultures, being more aggressive in the market and fixing long-standing issues of management in the group. The expansion in markets outside of Greece, whether it's exports and whether it's trading through the new company, or whether it's acquiring petrol stations or expanding into existing or new markets, again, is something which has been done very, very successfully. Kostas has handed over a portfolio which is in a much better shape than the one he took responsibility for almost 7 or 8 years ago. That is a signal of strength for the group, because I don't know when, but I have no doubt in my mind that refining margins will change again. Maybe they will go down, maybe they will go up.
Chances are that from where we are, we will see lower margins the next three or four years. What provides comfort is the fact that the group has built some sustainability, some strength, some endurance to manage those volatile trends, and we'll continue to deliver very healthy profitability. Over the next few weeks, we will be aiming to address the markets with our new strategy. We have a number of events planned for the next three months. The opening up of the Vardax pipeline ceremony, and things which have to do with other parts of the business. I think we will have the opportunity to expand more on our strategy in the coming months.
Up until then, you have to take away with you a very good performance, a more robust and sustainable performance going forward, a much improved operation and governance structure in the group. A healthy balance sheet, even with half a billion of investment in renewables, which were funded entirely out of debt, project finance, or our own reserves. Even after that, we are still at a very healthy leverage and credit metrics. I believe that is good news for the group going forward. Thank you very much once again, and we'll renew this appointment in 3 months' time. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a pleasant evening.