Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the NKT second quarter report 2023 conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you need to press slowly star one one on your telephone keypad. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, Claes Westerlind, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I would like to start by showing you this slide, that the presentation and also the comments made by the speakers today will contain forward-looking statements. On that note, today, you will listen to myself, Claes Westerlind, the CEO since May of NKT, and also Line Andrea Fandrup, CFO, sitting next to me. On that note, we go into the presentation. First, I would like to just provide some quick updates on NKT Photonics. I think the background is clear for most of you, but nevertheless, in June of 2022, we entered into the agreement with Hamamatsu to divest NKT Photonics. Since then, we received the regulatory approvals or the, the divestment received the regulatory approvals from Germany, the U.K., and also in the U.S.
However, on May the, earlier this year, the Danish Business Authority denied this authorization under the Danish Investment Screening Act, and thereby put a temporary hold to the process. The purchaser has since taken further actions around this matter and has also recently refiled its application to the Danish authorities. Of course, in waiting for, for that decision, we are also continuing to evaluate our options. NKT Photonics continues to be presented as discontinued operations and asset held for sale meanwhile. Coming to the quarterly results in Q2, allow me just to summarize a little bit. We achieved a 26% organic growth in the second quarter compared to the same quarter the year before, and that is contributed by all business lines. Our operational EBITDA on group level reached a new record high level of EUR 58 million.
That's the highest absolute level in any quarter in the company's history. Our high voltage order backlog increased to a record high level of EUR 7.6 billion, and the most significant awards that were added in the second quarter were the East Anglia Three project, Baltic Power, and also Bay of Biscay. On quarterly free cash flow generation of more than EUR 280 million, that was driven mainly by the earnings contribution and significant milestone payments in solution. Some of those milestones were in relation to the investment support given by customers to support NKT's growth plans.
We also launched and announced a moderate investment program of EUR 1 billion that we have discussed with yourselves previously, which is extending the in Karlskrona, both from a factory perspective, a greenfield factory in a brownfield environment, and also adding another vessel to NKT's fleet. The investments will be carried out between now and be concluded in the end of 2026 to become operational in 2027. In support of that process, also, we have completed the rights issue, even though formally that was closed in July. Going into some of the business highlights, when we view the performance in the second quarter, I can conclude that we had satisfactory product execution in solutions.
The revenue growth that we sustained in solutions and, and also in general, was a large attributable to the additional capacity and capabilities that we have added in the solutions business over the recent years. On the application side, we have continued in the second quarter to benefit from a positive performance in the power distribution grid segment, driving both medium voltage and also partly the 1 kV cables. That, that in turn is, of course, supported by the renewable energy transition and also general electrification of the society. Last but not least, service and accessories also had a good quarter, seen versus the same quarter in 2022, and that is basically our accessories business benefiting from the same structural growth trends as we have done in medium voltage and application and also solutions.
That then constituted the growth of 26% in revenue and also a growth of EBITDA with EUR 17 million, reaching to EUR 58 million, taking our operational EBITDA percentage up to 12.4 for the quarter. Diving further into a little bit around solutions, second quarter, as I just said, the revenue increase in solutions is driven by the execution of orders that have been awarded in recent years, paired with the extended capacity that has also gradually coming online and being filled up in solutions. We have continued to execute multiple of our projects in various phases of execution, some of them in production, some in installation.
These projects are including, but not limited to, BorWin5, the Champlain Hudson Power Express, both the US part and also Hertel in Canada, Dogger Bank A, B, and C, Shetland, and also the Corridor projects. For the quarter progress earlier this year, we announced that we have shipped the first drum for SuedLink. As part of the second quarter activities, I'm also happy to see that we have now also shipped the first drum in the SüdOstLink project. Last but not least, NKT Victoria, our current cable lay vessel, was utilized and had a good utilization for various assignments during the quarter. Didn't see her too often in Kastrup, which we are happy for. Revenues, EUR 285 million, and EBITDA, close to EUR 42 million.
Reflecting further on the solution side, looking into the market development, when we view the first half of 2023, we can conclude that in our addressable segment of high voltage, we have seen around EUR 7 billion of orders, which have been awarded, and that's mostly produced in Europe. The trend of the market diversifying between spot and also frameworks is continuing, so we can see activity both across all segments, interconnectors, power from shore and offshore wind, but also for spot projects, so individual project awards and procurement process, and also framework agreements. As far as framework agreements, as you know, the market manifested itself by TenneT awarding the first multi-billion euro framework agreement during May earlier this year. There is further activity around this, which I'll come back to.
The addressable market in 2023, and also in, in 2024, if we look on the full year's expectancy, we now expect to be significantly above EUR 8 billion. Of course, these developments always depends on some very large projects or very large framework agreements. Sometimes if a project slip by three months, then it can go from one year to another. But we see the market in terms of volume, positive for the moment, which is similar to us with what we have said before. Last but not least, also reflecting on the amount, the technology, being activity in the market.
There we can see that DC technology and also higher voltage levels, an example of that is 525 kV, but could also be 400 kV, is the absolute majority of the activity that we can see for the moment. To the right on this page, you will also see some of the particular projects that we have been awarded during the, the first couple of months this year. On this page, I also want to just mention what has been fluctuating quite a bit lately in media and, and around that, and that's around project cancellations and inflation pressure, which is ongoing. This is something that also we have seen and are closely following.
From our perspective, it's not so unexpected that certain projects are delayed to a certain extent, or some processes also in need of resetting, following the unexpectedly high inflation that we have seen for the last two years. Projects resetting themselves to cater for new cost levels is perhaps a natural process of the aftermath of high inflation. I can also just reflect on the fact that the supply-demand balance, when it comes to high voltage cable volumes for the moment, the demand for that is somewhat higher than what the supply capacity can actually support. In that, there is a little bit of a tolerance for what the suppliers, such as NKT, what we also can tolerate in terms of delayed volumes.
Having that said, we also, of course, take extra comfort from the fact that we are leaving the second quarter with the highest backlog that we have ever seen. Should the unexpected happen for a project that we are in pursuit of, or even that we have in the backlog, for our contracts, as we have discussed and disclosed also before, we typically do not commit capacity towards a customer without the commercial commitment in return. We do have protection mechanisms in our contracts. Of course, over and beyond, a compensation does not replace a firm to fixed volume, but we also have replanning possibilities internally. On that note, of course, also a very high backlog that supports us in those kind of opportunities.
While we note that these streams are happening in the market, we are not overly concerned by it from an NKT perspective. On the note of backlog development, we have this picture that I think shows a very nice journey for a cable manufacturer, an increase in the backlog since end of 2019, where we stood at EUR 1.4 billion, up to where we are for the moment of EUR 7.6 billion. In the first half of 2023, we have secured approximately EUR 3.5 billion of new awards. That is, if you look at the total order backlog, about 8% of that is set for execution this year, and 92% set for execution 2024 and beyond.
In the context of backlog as well, and what we just discussed, the spot markets and also framework markets, we have said before, and we continue on that path, that we have now been awarded both frameworks and spot markets, and our intention is also to continue to pursue both of these types of projects. The good aspect with the framework agreement is that they do provide a long-term earnings visibility for us.
They bring us close to our customers, they allow us to focus resources internally, and they allow also for, for better, replanning possibilities should the unexpected happen. We come to applications, which had a strong second quarter, a high revenue level, which was to a large degree due to increased prices, in turn, to compensate for the inflationary pressure that it's is very existing in the application space. We have benefited from a strong offering and also performance in the medium voltage power segment, which is in relation to the power distribution and grid trends driven by the green transition and electrification.
Of course, at the same time, being challenged on the building wire segment, so in the aspects where construction business is on a slowdown, we have seen that also now in the second quarter. Concluding on this, the revenue growth, combined with also the never-ending endeavors around efficiency initiatives, led us to a very decent EBITDA margin, standing at 10%, which is significantly higher than the same quarter last year. Service and accessories business line have also, we have seen, a strong quarter in the second quarter. Revenues and earnings are increased, this is mainly driven by the accessories business, where they have benefited from the same structural trends that we have discussed earlier in the presentation.
From a service side, so far this year, we have not had any offshore repair work, and of course, that brings the totality of the business to a lower level than if we would have had. The recurring business has been largely on a sector-satisfactory level, and we are continuing to focusing on growing on the service side by adding more and more service agreements and also exploring other potentials of business in terms of geographical expansions, et cetera. That left the business line with EUR 51.7 million of revenues and EUR 5.7 million operational EBITDA. With that general introduction, I would like to hand it over to Line for the financial highlights.
Thank you, Claes. Hello, everybody. Here we are on the first page of the financials. We have the income statement. As Claes went through per business line, is consolidating into a nice revenue development for the full company. For the quarter, revenue is up 26%, and for the first half of 2023, we're up 30%, and that is really a contribution across all business lines. Operationally, EBITDA, both in absolute terms, but also percentage margin, is also taking a good step up compared to last year, especially margin, EBITDA margins are driven out of the solutions and applications.
No, we had no one-off items in the quarter. As some already know, that we had an effect of a non-allocated cost of the CEO change of EUR 1.5 million. On the net result, also from continuing operations, a very good step up here. We continue to hire in the right people for driving both our programs now, in terms of investing, but also the expansions in the different business lines. We are today more than 300 people more than last year. We turn to the next slide, zooming in on the working capital, which is quite extraordinary this quarter, we would say.
It's very much the continued support from our customers' willingness to support the supply chain, and, and this is a- across more customers that we've seen this support. That enables a very strong performance on working capital. This pans into cash flow, which we'll come to on the next slide, but also in general, also on, on our ROCE. The contribution of improved cash and stronger earnings, we see a good step up here on the ROCE, where we end the quarter at 10.5% compared to a 4.1% at the same time last year. With this performance on cash, we now have available liquidity res- reserves of EUR 616 million.
This is cash of DKK 416 million, and then our credit facilities of DKK 200 million. In Q3 reporting, we'll see the capital increase, the proceeds of that also coming in. To mention also guarantees, which we have spoken about, more this, this year, than before, we have seen a significant step up in the issued guarantees from Q1 to Q2 here, we would say. This is, of course, because of the high activity level in solutions, very much, you will see this, stepping up as we also head towards growing the top line. Going into the cash flow generation, I'm not repeating myself here.
It's, it's a very strong performance on the working capital, which is good to see, but also, application has, which is a different mechanics in terms of actually getting to a more favorable working capital position, the applications. That's work very diligently with this, and it's also contributing a fair deal here. We are continuing our investment program, and of course, also ramping up on the, on the, on the EUR 1 billion, the new investment program Claes mentioned as a part of the highlights, and much more to come on that ahead of us. Just to mention also the acquisition and divestment of business line of - EUR 9 million. This is related to the associate company in Taiwan with Walsin Lihwa. It's a net zero effect on cash flow.
You would see the corresponding +EUR 9 million in the working capital line. Free cash flow ends up at EUR 281 million for the quarter. Yesterday, we announced a change to our outlook for the year. Following the strong performance in the first half of the year, we have maintained our revenue guidance for the full year of EUR 1.8 billion-EUR 1.9 billion, whereas the operational EBITDA is lifted to EUR 215 million-EUR 255 million. We remain to secure a continuous satisfactory execution of our high voltage investments and projects.
We, the offshore cable repair works, which so far this year we have had one of, and then of course, the environmental impact around us, we should see limited financial impact of that in supply chain and inflationary pressure. Turning to the recap of the key messages from this quarter, a 26% organic growth and also a good step up on the EBITDA, a record high quarterly level. A strong backlog as Claes went through, very good for the visibility of the execution ahead of us. Very strong quarterly free cash flow generation, and very much constituting also the fact of our customers' support into the continued investments in the company.
The actual investment program of the EUR 1 billion on the new factory and the vessel to be executed on in the coming years. With that, we would turn over to Q&A.
Thank you, dear speakers. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, you need to slowly press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by, we will compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now we're going to take our first question. The question comes from line of Casper Blom from Danske Bank. Your line is open, please ask your question.
Thank you very much. I have three questions, please, and I'll try to take them one by one, so Claes and Line doesn't have to write anything down. I would like to start on the subject that Claes also talked about, the sort of current situation within offshore wind, specifically. Claes, you mentioned that should the unexpected happen, that something in the backlog would end up being canceled, then you would have some sort of economic protection. Without going into contract specific, could you give us any kind of indication on what this typically would be? Maybe some sort of percentage of the contract value, for example. Thank you.
Thank you, Casper, for the question. Highly relevant, and I'm not sure how much details I can actually give you. But I can say it is, it is considerable, a considerable amount, so it's not, it's not, not only single-digit percentage of the contract value, that much I can say. But I can also, on the flip side of the coin, say that a project cancellation with that compensation paid will also never, of course, make NKT whole. We would always want the volume and the project better than the compensation. But that's also in the context of the risk.
The more backlog we have and the longer visibility we have, it also helps us, because the next, next to the compensation remedy that we would take is to replan our operations to cater for the potential shortfall that an actual cancellation would leave. I think it's those two things in combination. Typically, you've heard me say in the past that the compensation level is a message, contractual message, don't cancel to the customer. Even if they do, of course, it's part of the band-aid that we need then to repair the damage inflicted.
Okay. Thanks for, thanks for that, Claes. I appreciate it's a, it's a sensitive subject. Moving on to framework activity. We saw your recent announcement, regarding work with SSE that could potentially lead into two framework agreements. Maybe you could give us an update on what other kind of framework projects we should expect that over the next, let's say, 6-12 months, both in terms of how many TSOs, et cetera, you are currently engaging with, and, and also, if possible, how big this could potentially be in economic terms. Thank you.
If we start with the economic terms, I think the frameworks would support the market volumes that I stipulated before in 2023 and 2024. In terms of total size, together with the spot market product, so it is significant volumes. Typically, the frames we saw this year's multi-billion framework, without going into details, I think it's fair to say that also many of the others, most of the others are more than 1 billion, and some of them are significantly larger as well. As you say, we are in the dialogues with SSE for the moment, and there are several other TSOs also in Europe, that for the moment are either in the active process of the tendering of a framework or in startup phases and in the planning and issuing phase of, of the frameworks.
Maybe also in the context of what we talked about, the potential cancellations, I also would like to say there that looking at the frameworks, we have not seen a reduced activity level following the, the, the spot market cancellations, so to speak, that are in, in the wider discussion. These frames, they are scoped and planned recently, as we can see, it also taking into consideration the current cost levels.
Interesting. And then finally, a question on competition within high voltage. There is, of course, your classic competitors, Nexans and Prysmian. We see those all the time. Then we've seen LS Cable and Sumitomo also being mentioned on some of these recent framework agreements. Are you seeing any signs of other competitors trying to enter the European market? As you say, supply can probably not support demand right now, so is that opening a door from for other Asian players, for example?
Yes. We have seen for several years now, it's a continuous pressure from new competitors, depending a little bit on which segment we look at. If we look into the DC segment, which I think, Casper, that you're targeting here, we can see that there are many players wanting, and also some actively trying to get into that segment. That's in light of the supply-demand balance, on the one part, of course. It is the threshold to actually establish yourself is, is quite large, but in general, with the supply-demand balance that is for the moment, we also do not we don't fear competition, but we are also vocal about that the playing field needs to be even. That's also an important thing from a regulatory perspective and also from a tender evaluation perspective.
One example are sustainability matters with CO2 emissions of transportations. That needs to be taken into consideration in the tender evaluations. We can see positive trends there, I would hope and expect from the market in general, that that picks up even further.
Okay. If I, if I may follow up. When, when you have your discussions with the large European developers, the large European TSOs, is it for them a, an, an option to potentially order HVDC cables from Chinese producers? Is that politically not yet a possibility for them?
It would be difficult for me to comment, what our customers ultimately, what, what their, what their position is on that. What I can say is that typically what they are doing is, I mean, they have the qualification process. There is a pass-fail criteria for if you are qualified to participate in a process or not. If you are qualified, it's about the tender evaluation criteria. It was the latter I was talking about with the, with the playing field that needs to be even as well. I think we have seen that there are customers that do entertain cables being supplied from Asia, LS being one example. I think there are examples of it. Whether all would entertain it or not, I would try to refrain from speculating.
Okay, fair enough. Thanks a lot, Claes.
Thanks, Casper.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The next question comes from the line of Lars Topholm from Carnegie. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, thank you. Congrats with a good quarter. A couple of questions for me. One goes to the intragroup eliminations for the quarter, which jumped from EUR 5 million in Q1 to now EUR 13.9 million. I understand it might be currency related, but I just wonder if you can explain this increase and if it's currency related, also, if it has any impact on absolute EBITDA, or if it's in fact something that affects top line negatively but not earnings, which means it would be margin enhancing. The second question goes to the net working capital position, where, of course, I understand we shouldn't necessarily extrapolate on one individual quarter.
I wonder if, if you can give a view on the long-term level of net working capital relative to sales, and maybe also comment on what we should expect over the next three, four quarters. Thank you.
Thank you for the question. On the intersegment transaction, we understand why this hits the eyes when you go through the accounts. I think there's two elements to this. The one thing which has been very consistently, but now we are a growing company with more intercompany trade of both services and goods. That means both from our services to our solutions, our accessories to solutions, but also from our applications to solutions. We made a footprint move, where we're working on that between Germany and Czech, we will have more intercompany trading. Expect this to continue and then level in-... will be going up and down, of course, depending on execution.
You're right on the other side, we have, we also have an impact of hedges, where we eliminate on a group level, for the companies that are in functional local currencies. This is especially for this quarter related to Czech and Poland, but trading in euros, eliminating the impact on the hedging in the local environment. We actually take it out on revenues. We will have you, that's not transparent in the accounts, but you'll have an offsetting effect, further down before operational EBITDA. The impact on the operational EBITDA is almost net zero. On the non-allocated, you'll see - EUR 2.5 million, which is related to currency hedges.
This is the, this is the kind of flow of the account, so very technical. When the currencies change, especially Swedish crowns, the Polish and the Czech currencies, we will have, we will have a revenue indication of that, and we will eliminate on group and cover the exposure.
Line, just to make sure I understand it completely correct. This has a negative impact on top line in this situation, but not on earnings. Is that correct?
Yes, that, that is correct. It's a very small, I would say, a marginal impact on the non-allocated, where you do see, if, if we, if we take that post separately, there's a EUR 1.5 million on the CEO change, and then there's a EUR 2 million-3 million on FX hedges, or something.
Okay. Clear. Thanks.
On the net working capital, I think, what's extraordinary about this quarter, and I think it's the same for every quarter, where you see significant awards for the, for the company. It is the advanced payment from the customers that falls in relation to that. What is then extraordinary of Q2 2023, is that we are getting further support by some of the frame agreements and other customer arrangements we're going into, to, to actually support the investment in the company. I'd say it's extraordinarily favorable. Would we have the same amount of awards in the following quarters? We could probably get to the same extraordinary level, but you will see the fluctuation on this with awards.
So not saying we will maintain it consistently at such a low level ahead of us, no, that would depend on awards. I think the, the basis so far, is that you could look at revenue, working capital to revenue, for at least the 2022, maybe, which, would be the, the market as is. And then with these extraordinary large awards, you will see us turning into even more favorable levels. Yeah.
Going forward from a 10% level, maybe towards a 15% level, would that be sort of a reasonable assumption?
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not being specific of numbers now.
That's fair enough, Line.
But, but obviously, it is also as going back to Claes' comment on, on tender levels, right? That, with frame agreements and more of them ahead of us, and if we are successful, that could mean a, a different level, in the time ahead of us, certainly.
Thank you very much for those explanations, Line. Much appreciated.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes to the line of Adebayo Ogunlesi from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Morning, all. Thank you very much for taking my question. I've just got one today. It's on the applications business. I was wondering if you could provide some color on the pricing trends that you're expecting for the second half of this year. Thank you.
Thank you. It's also a good question, and I think we are, you know, it is, it's a dynamic macroeconomic environment. I think I don't need to educate the people on this line around that. Therefore, we are humble. What I can say in general, if you look on the two primary drivers for the applications business, the one side is the power infrastructure driven one, which is driven in turn then by the green transition and general electrification. I think there we expect the, the volumes to continue to be favorable, and that should also support a decent price level. If we look into the construction segment, both volumes and prices, we don't have any large hopes for the coming quarters to be honestly. I think that's, that's the way I would summarize it without going into percentages.
Super clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Kristian Tornøe Johansen from SEB. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, thank you. Also, a couple of questions for me. First of all, to, to your guidance, you said the upgrade of the EBITDA guidance relate to the strong first half. Just curious into your assumption for the second half of the year. Have you changed any assumptions for the second half of the year in, in your updated guidance?
If I take the question up front here, it's very much first half performances. What we're changing for, for the rest of the year, I think you see the same kind of comments on what needs to happen as first. It's a, it's a ramp up year in terms of the capacity towards the end. I think that's a continuation of what we said before. We also see, as Claes mentioned, some of the larger projects and execution, we need to have satisfactory execution here. That's more listed on solutions, applications. We are not changing our, let's say, approach to the uncertainties around the environment, but also the processes around them. Then we would like to see repair jobs in our services and accessories business.
This is kind of the fundamentals around the outlook for the continued, I would say.
If I understand you correctly, your budget for the second half of the year is roughly unchanged. Is that correct?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Great. Then slightly along the same line, the margin in solution in Q2 is, is a bit lower than what we saw in Q1. If I remember correctly, in Q1, you had some reversal of provisions which sort of helped to boost the margin. Were there any such reversals in Q2? If not, is, is the Q2 margin representative for sort of a base case margin for, for the coming quarters then?
Maybe I can have a go first, a little bit of general reflection, and Line can fill in. Reflecting about solutions in general, it, it is a difficult business to look on from a quarter-to-quarter perspective, seeing that these projects are, some of them as short as three years, most of them five to six years long. The revenue in any given month, any given quarter, any given half year, will be a mix between our various projects. Just estimating for the moment that we have maybe in something like 20-25 large projects in executions, in very various stages, some of them just in engineering stage, some in manufacturing, some in installation. They will mix in the quarters, which product is being executed when. That will vary quarter-to-quarter.
Of course, as every project has a different margin connected to them, a different scope. Some projects have only product, some projects have installation together with it. Some projects have only, for example, sea cable lay installation, some have trenching. So that will push revenues up or down quarter-over-quarter, and also together with that, margins can vary up or down. So the mix aspect is an important one. To your point about reversals of provisions or risk and contingency, as we call it, that also varies quarter-on-quarter, depending on which product is in execution at what time, and what milestones are we reaching.
As an example, if a type test is completed in a certain quarter, and there is some sort of a risk reservation against that, if we are successful, then such a risk will be released to profit. If we are not, then we have to execute part of the test again, we have to consume it and use it for cost instead, and thereby not release the profit. This will also vary greatly quarter to quarter. Last but not least, it's also deserves to be said that the inflation that we talked about, we are also seeing that some of the legacy products, which are also in execution, of course, have been struck in part by the inflation and input cost increases, which also then goes into what I said before about the mix. Some product margins are also impacted.
That's just reflecting a little bit about the margins in Q1. The fact that they're lower in Q2 is, as far as I'm concerned, not necessarily a proxy on how the solutions business is performing from a profitability perspective. To make that kind of judgment, we have to look at many quarters, if, if not, you know, two years or three years. I don't know, Line, if you want to add anything to what I said there?
No, I think, I think that's covered. Unless Kristian has a follow-up?
No, no, I, I think that that's fine. Thank you. Then just my last question here. In, in your initial remarks on NKT Photonics, you said that Hamamatsu has now refiled the application to Danish authorities. Do you have any indication of when the Danish authorities is expected to sort of reply or, or sort of react to this, this new application?
No, we, we, we, we cannot comment on that out in the open. We are, as the rest of you, we are also eagerly waiting and just hope it's in the not-too-distant future.
Fair enough. Great. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Kristian.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The next question comes from the line of Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody. I have a few as well. The first one is on the phasing of the backlog, and here, when I look at your, phasing and implied full year solutions revenues, based on first half revenues and, and what you are implying in your backlog slide, and compare this with Q1, I see you have now roughly EUR 100 million lower solution revenues implied versus before. I was wondering if you can provide any color on that. Is it because of, any delay in ramp up or maybe customers are shifting execution and can comment on that as well?
Hi, Akash, it's Cleas here. It, it's a little bit of a bad line. Maybe it's only on our part, but I understood your question that you say that revenues and solutions will decline in the second half year if you compare to the run rate in the first quarter. I think it goes back to, to, the little bit of the story that I just told before, different mix, different scopes, which can impact both revenues and also margins in any given quarter or half year. I can confirm that it's not due to any delays in our investment projects or inside our projects.
Maybe to rephrase the question, when I look at your Q1 solution revenue, if I look at your Q1 presentation on how much of your backlog is due for 2023, I get implied revenues of around EUR 1,160 million. Now, when I do the same exercise now, I get to EUR 100 million less and about EUR 1,060 million. I was just wondering whether something has changed, or this is just because of some rounding error in the numbers, in the slide that you provided.
Yeah, I, I think it's fair to say that the numbers that you refer to and that we have disclosed are rough numbers, and they need to be treated as such. For, for fine counting, then, we would need to use different sources, or maybe you would have need to have different sources from us.
Thank you. My second one is on the legacy and backlog projects. When we were hearing from your competitors, they basically said number of projects taken before Russia, Ukraine conflict has been a bit lower margin than the projects that has come afterwards. When I look at your backlog, I get around 15%-20% of the backlog could be relatively new deal compared to other projects. Is that the fair assumption?
I apologize, Akash. I, I don't, I don't follow because the sound is very, very bad. I don't know if you're in a bad location. Could the operators confirm? Do you hear the sound as bad as we do, or is it on our end?
Yes, it is Akash's line. It's, pretty bad. Maybe, Akash is on, loudspeaker or something.
Okay. Sorry, Akash, because I, I couldn't follow. If, if you try again, or if you reposition yourself a little bit.
Excuse me, dear speaker. Akash just dropped out from the asking the question.
Okay.
Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Claus Almer, from Nordea. Your line is open, please ask your question.
Thank you. We have also some questions from my side. Coming back to the pipeline and, and the potential order intake in the second half of this year, what do you see, is there more orders to be signed, maybe from a firm and unconditional or, or just conditional, orders? That would be the first one.
Hi, Claus Almer. It's Claes Westerlind here. Thanks. It's a good question, relevant one. I think we can say it's a potential for both. I just again, want to say that, that it is also, as you are well aware, in these processes, the process can easily slip with two months or three months, making it not being in this half year, but in the, in the first half year of 2024. That has no material impact on NKT as such, but of course, has a big impact on, on the quarter in terms of order intake. I just want to give it with that caveat.
Fair enough. Your working assumption is that those projects or some of these projects will materialize or is up in the air?
I think I go back to what, what we discussed in the slides there. We recognize what, what has happened and what we are seeing in the market, that a limited amount of projects gets mildly delayed or some even canceled. The majority of the projects we, we expect them to materialize. It's more a question of timing, when they do. We have a high activity. We, we have a situation whereby we cannot tender for everything which is out there, and that's for two reasons: One, because we don't have the cable capacity to supply, and two, because simply there is so many tenders so that we don't. We are even struggling sometimes with tender resources to do the tenders.
Okay, that means that your working assumptions is that there could be some orders coming in second half. That's how I should read your not really answering my question?
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. No, no, you're reading it correctly. I think we said that, EUR 7 billion has been awarded so far this year, and we see that it's gonna be significantly above EUR 8 billion, which I think, that, that's the answer. Yes, we expect volumes.
Fair enough. Okay, then come back to these projects being delayed or even canceled. Is there some specific type of projects that, that is being canceled, delayed, or how can you, you know, give some more color to, to this, you know, early trend?
Yeah, that's. My reflection is when I see the products which are, and even processes which are questioned, you know, procurement process or how should I put it? Like the CFD process in the UK. When I see both products and these kind of processes, what is common, the common denominator as far as I see it, that is that they are scoped quite a while back. They are planned and scoped and framed a while back. Then, of course, since inflation has caught us all a little bit by surprise, so of course, input cost rises and thereby prices, and that makes the business cases in need for a reset. We have seen it primarily within offshore wind, if you just look at numbers and volumes, which is, as I said, also initially, maybe not a surprise.
Those would be the reasons that I would quote.
Okay, fair enough. Then my, my last question, that goes to execution, especially the, the SuedLink projects are getting closer. Where are you from a, you know, technology product quality point of view? Are you fully, you know, satisfied by the progress or anything we should be aware of?
Typically we don't provide too much specific comments around certain projects, so I will try to be a little bit careful there. The 525 kV technology in general, NKT or at, at that point in time, even was ABB, launched this technology as fully pre-qualified and ready for commercial use in 2014. Now we are in 2023, following the awards in 2020, and we are in production of 525 kV cables. What I can say on the specific projects, we have delivered cables from Cologne to site, both in SuedLink and also SuedOstLink. We don't deliver cables from our facilities lightly, so we do that when we feel comfortable.
Of course, we are humble, and, you know, we are in an environment where a lot of diligence and care has to be taken around quality. That's not only about doing a qualification, that we need to exercise every day, every month, every quarter, to ensure that we also maintain and continue with that.
That sounds good. That was actually all from my, from my side. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Charles.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a final reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Dear speakers, there are no further questions. I would now like to hand the conference over to Claes Westerlind for any closing remarks.
Yes, thank you. I just wish to thank everybody that you took the time to listen in and also take the opportunity to praise also the NKT organization for what has been accomplished in the second quarter. Kudos to all people that work in NKT and actually made it happen. Thanks a lot.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.