Welcome, all of you, to this Vestas Annual General Meeting 2025. My name is Anders Runevad, and I'm the Chairman of the Board. Despite being in Vestas for many years, I have still not learned Danish, so I will do my presentation in English. The Board and I are delighted to welcome you here today and to share our reflections on Vestas and, of course, the wind industry in general. In my address, I will be talking about our performance in 2024, but also the opportunities and challenges that I see are laying ahead in the coming years. Before that, I would like to invite Claes Sørgaard from Goes on the Fidelsbyd to once again lay out the formalities so that we ensure that we run everything according to schedule. Claes, over to you.
Mange tak og velkommen.
Thank you very much, and welcome from my part as well. I have to take you through the formalities today. It won't take too long, but I have to mention a few things from the Danish legislation and the Articles of Association. In Section 4 of the Articles of Association, it says that we need to hold the AGM in Central Jutland or in the capital region, and that is a requirement that we comply with. In Section 4.5 and the Danish legislation, the convening notice should be sent out with a notice of between three and five weeks, primarily via email to the shareholders who have registered and through a company announcement, and that happened on the 7th of March this year.
I should also mention that 321 access cards have been issued, 241 to shareholders, of which half of the registered shareholders are here today, so you can all take double portions at the buffet later. No less than 2,825 people have cast their votes already via postal votes or through proxies. About 62% of the total share capital and the total number of shares are represented here. That is quite a handsome representation in light of this very broad ownership that we have in Vestas. An overwhelming majority of the votes cast already are in favor of all of the proposals. Therefore, there will be no voting today unless a shareholder requires a vote. You can do that, but the votes are already cast, and all of the voting results will appear on the company website no later than two weeks after the AGM.
All the proposals today can be adopted with a simple majority, except for item 8.1, which requires a two-thirds majority of the votes cast as well as the represented capital. As mentioned, the simple majority as well as the qualified majority is already guaranteed with the vote cast in advance. That is not any hindrance for a good debate today. If we do have to have a vote today, this will take place through our mobile phones. The first items are the Board of Directors' report and the presentation and adoption of the annual report, and we will take these two items jointly. First, I will give the floor to the Chairman of the Board, Anders Runevad, and he will pass on to CEO Henrik Andersen for the financial statement. After that, there will be a chance for comments and questions.
Should you wish to take the floor, please approach the registration desk up here. I will let you know as we go along. The floor is yours, Anders.
Thank you, Claes. Let me start talking a bit about the global business environment. I can tell you it is a challenge to do an updated slide describing the macro environment or the global business environment in today's market. In 2025, we already see several geopolitical disruptions, and of course, just last week, the U.S. introduced a new round of tariffs to most of the world. I will not add anything or no opinion on all the experts that exist today that speculate in interest rates, inflations, and so on on what this latest tariff means. I think that for us, what we should do is focus on what we can control and what we can influence.
I think we should also make sure that we are agile and that we can adjust to the market as it becomes more clear, because of course, currently, it's very, very low visibility when it comes to the overall macro environment. I also think it's important that we ask ourselves, is there anything that drives our business that has changed a bit more long term? What are the key drivers for wind, for renewable energy, and therefore for Vestas? I believe that the good news is that energy, and especially electrical energy, continue to be the driver for development and growth. This offers opportunities for us and for the whole wind industry. Wind delivers lower energy prices, it builds energy independence, and it helps growing energy demands across the globe.
Compared to the previous year, climate goals have become a more peripheral driver for investment and replaced very much by security and cost of living concerns. These shifts have also made energy and renewables a divisive topic in the public discourse, which is something we have to address more directly in the years to come. In combination, we see these three factors: security, affordability, and sustainability to be the foundation for future growth, and I will get into that a little bit more in detail. If we look at the overall market today, wind electricity accounts for nearly 8% of global electricity generation. As the demand for electricity continues to rise, the expansion for renewable electricity and wind is growing at an even faster rate. This is, of course, driven by the ongoing electrification, but also of decarbonization efforts.
This trend lays the foundation for an addressable market that should see significant growth in the years ahead. The world needs energy like never before. Regardless of which of the scenarios outlined to the right-hand side of the slide, we see a clear uplift and therefore the growth potential in our industry. As I said, a lot of this growth is driven by climate ambition in many of the mature markets, but in the new geopolitical context we operate in, also because the world needs energy that is affordable and secure. Before diving into how Vestas did in 2024, I would therefore like to talk a bit on why we believe wind energy and Vestas can help nations across the globe to make their energy systems more secure and drive for growth.
The geopolitical uncertainty and growing energy needs in many countries have turned energy policy into security policy. Governments, companies, and the public now acknowledge that a key ingredient in building a prosperous society requires a secure and resilient energy system. Second, to build a secure and resilient energy system, you need energy sources that can be deployed fast and operate independently once installed. Wind and Vestas are able to deliver on these needs. Once installed, wind energy has no fuel cost or dependency. It's very fast to deploy compared to non-renewables and nuclear, and the data flows are restricted. Wind also delivers a highly competitive levelized cost of energy, a reduced CO2 emission, and has a sustainable product life cycle.
We believe that wind energy and Vestas offer what our customers and political stakeholders are asking for, and that we are well positioned to grasp these opportunities based on the position we have in today's market. Going in a few words on the performance and where we are at the end of 2024, Vestas continues to be the undisputed leader in the global wind industry, and now a bit over 35,000 employees, 188 GW installed base, 56,000 turbines under service, and close to 240 million tons of CO2 avoided annually. Impressive numbers. Of course, this is based on a very competitive product portfolio where we have turbines both for onshore and offshore and in the different wind classes. Of course, very encouraging that we see a good uptake on the other side of our new EnVentus turbine and also of our new big yesterday installed offshore platform.
We leverage this global scale and also our operating model. Actually, long before we saw a much more regionalized market, we have manufacturing capability and sourcing capabilities in all the key regions of the globe. Looking a bit on the highlights for the year, I will say that first of all, we continued the positive momentum into 2024 with a 12% growth in revenue to EUR 7.2 billion and about 170% growth in EBIT to 4.3%. With that, we also achieved the outlook for the year. We saw a very strong turnaround and a good execution in our largest business, that on onshore turbines. We also had challenges where we need to improve. Rising costs caused a challenge in year four, our service business, where we now have a recovery plan in place that Henrik will talk more about.
We also saw challenges in ramp-up, driving additional costs, especially true for the new offshore turbine. Positive and some things that we need to continue to work on and improve going forward. Last but not least, we had a record year in order intake of around EUR 19 billion due to a solid product portfolio, a commercial discipline, and a strong momentum in both the onshore and offshore market. With that, we ended the year with, I would say, a very solid and strong backlog of around EUR 68 billion. We, from the board, are of course happy that we can come back to being a dividend-paying company, and we propose a dividend of DKK 0.55 and also a share buyback of EUR 100 million.
The long-term ambition remains, and that means to be the market leader in revenue, grow fast in the market, generate best-in-class earnings, which we actually did last year, even if we did not reach up to the 10%. We generated at least the best-in-class earnings, a 20% return on investment over the cycle, a positive cash flow and carbon neutrality across our own operations, and 45% scope three reductions by 2030. Talking a bit about the board activities for last year. Last year, we had an external party evaluating the board. Of course, I am happy to report that I found that the board is running a good structure. We have an open and direct dialogue in the boardroom, and it is seen as being positive, constructive, direct, and without politics.
Also happy to report that we have a high participation rate among the board members, and of course, that shows that they are devoting the time needed for board work. Last but not least, a good interaction with the executive management, actually both in the board meeting and outside. All in all, we had 11 board meetings, six audit committee meetings, five nomination and compensation committee meetings, and six technology and manufacturing meetings. It's also my pleasure then to propose two new members to the board of directors that I'm sure with their deep industrial knowledge will bring a lot of value to the board. Instead of me talking about them, why don't I ask them to introduce themselves? Bruno, please.
Tack and good afternoon. I will go now to English. I'm Bruno Bensasson. I was born 52 years ago in France, in Paris.
I was educated as an engineer, so mainly some mathematics and some physics, a bit of economics. I've now worked some 30 years in the energy domain in different positions. At the beginning, more on the public side, and now for some 15 years on the industrial side. I've been in executive position in different companies, developing all sources of energy, but for the last 10 years, mainly renewables. I've been a customer of Vestas until now for some 10-15 years. I'm very happy today to join if you accept the board of Vestas. I love this market, and I'm very committed to the European industry. I hope I will help Vestas to go even further, and I expect to bring in the board an additional view, perhaps a view more of a customer of the market from the demand side. Thank you very much. Tack.
Thank you, Bruno. Claudio, please.
Thank you. Good day to everyone. Maybe I'll start from taking up from Bruno, why I'm joining the board. First of all, hoping that this will take place during today. I really look forward to continue to contribute because I've been in this space, particularly on the energy transition, on the electrification, on the digitization, on the decarbonization of the energy system for the past two decades. I'm a bit older than Bruno. I'm going to be 60 this year. I handed over my former role as CEO of Hitachi Energy, which was a former joint venture, ABB Power Grids with Hitachi, leading space on the power grids technology globally. Very much similar to Vestas.
I have been also similar to Bruno, not a customer, but a partner and a technology provider to Vestas for the past also 10 years or so. What I really look forward to is that I can contribute and continue to enjoy working with the team, with the Vestas team, of course, contributing to add value for all the stakeholders, starting with the shareholders, of course, but also very much because the closeness of the culture and the purpose that we see in Vestas is very much what I would like to continue to work with. There are definitely some challenges in front of us, as the chair was sharing, but I think we have all the attributes, all the skills, and all the determination to drive this forward. Thank you for your confidence, and I look forward to the next steps. Thank you.
Thank you very much, both of you. Going over to remuneration then. The board of directors received a total remuneration of EUR 1,378,895, to be exact, last year. This was in accordance with the remuneration level approved by the shareholder at last year's annual general meeting, as well as within the remuneration policy. Last year then again, members of the board received a fixed basic annual fee of 4% compared to 2023's level. The proposal for this year then is to have a 3% increase to the board of directors, fixed basic annual fee, and a 3% increase to the committee fee and share fee. With that, I will leave you in the good hands of Henrik to go through the årsrapporten for 2024. Henrik.
Yeah, I mean, I will. Right. I will speak in my native Jutland dialect, as usual.
Of course, Anders might be listening to the translation into English. Apart from that, I would like to welcome you to our headquarters. I can see we have some employees with us today as well. It is always a pleasure to welcome you here to our headquarters and also invite you to have something to eat with us after the AGM. We are always very proud to see our shareholders here at our office premises. When we came out of 2024 and went into 2025, I think we would all say that this has been unprecedented. I think yesterday was a new high when it comes to tariffs and some of the geopolitical developments that we are seeing around us. Here, Vestas has a product that at least contributes to bringing the world forward. It is also just good to see you.
It's nice that we can have a meal together and celebrate paying out a dividend. Some people might say it's not a very sizable dividend, but we'll have a chat about that later. Let's look back at 2024. What were the highlights and the challenges? There is no doubt that achieving a record-breaking order intake of EUR 19 billion is really emphasizing that value goes before volume. That's very important in this industry, and I think we can see that across our industry. We've also carried out a successful turnaround, and that means that we have recreated our earnings when it comes to onshore, and we have started selling turbines again. That was not what we were looking into a few years ago. Investors, these things take time because it takes a while to get through our order backlog.
What is most important of all is that wind is competitive. We can see that it is the fastest to build. It is the lowest possible cost compared to other energy sources, and that is very clear now. Perhaps we should focus even more on that fact. We have a few examples that will bring a smile to my face, at least later in my presentation. When we wake up in the morning these days, things are not always quite as they were when we went to bed in the evening. This kind of geopolitical uncertainty is something we have to live with. It is tiresome to many of our colleagues, but when you are working for the right purpose, it also inspires us to move on. I do not think geopolitical uncertainty is over yet, so we should just buckle up and keep going.
Another challenge was restarting some of our factories and production lines. It can be difficult to bring in new colleagues and get them to all work in the same tempo. Sometimes we've been rearranging shifts, and we have been recruiting many new people. Sometimes we have tried to distribute people so that we make sure we have experienced staff on all production lines. We have seen these challenges in Denmark as well. We are going to be producing a new turbine that has just started production, and the first turbine has left Denmark in order to be assembled in the North Sea in the coming time. Last but not least, we have achieved an adjustment of our service business, which has been one of the more painful developments in 2024.
Therefore, I will also be taking you through the plan that we have made and what the prospects are for our service business, which is an amazing business. The guy running it is right at the end of the row here. There is no symbolism to that, that he is at the end of the row. Some of you might think so, but that is definitely not the case. Let me just give you a few financial highlights. Revenue has grown from EUR 14.5 billion to EUR 17.3 billion. The most important thing here, and I see some recognizable faces here in the front rows, and you all remember the painful result of minus 8% in the EBIT margin in 2022. Now we have reached 4.3%, and we do not stop there. This is a difference of 12.3%.
When we talked about a 10% earnings margin in 2022, we still had 18 percentage points to go. Now the 10% mark is looking more achievable. We had free cash flows of almost EUR 1 billion last year. It's great to see when there's a lot of wind on the international stage. That meant that we could invest a record EUR 1 billion. Most of this is invested in our factories, our tools, and our utilities that we're going to be using for building new turbines. In 2020, we were reminded that it wasn't really nice that we couldn't decide for ourselves when it came to offshore. That really gave rise to a discount on the share price. This year, we are now establishing the first turbine.
Working with these long-term perspectives, it really takes conviction that we are doing the right investments because towards the end of this decade, offshore wind will be one of the preferred energy sources in the EU. We now have an order backlog of EUR 31.6 billion in turbines and EUR 36.8 billion in services. That is a record order backlog of more than EUR 68 billion. Just remember, on onshore, we came out of a tendency and a development without the orders that we would have liked to see. Along the way, we have been considering whether this was the right way to go, but this is what a turnaround looks. We had an EBIT loss by selling our turbine, and that had been reduced to 1.3 in 2023, and now we had a plus of 4.3.
This is 80% of our business, so it's a very, very important division. Let me here just praise our internal employees. They did an amazing job in making this possible, and we couldn't have done it without the link between commercial sales and towards the people actually building the turbine. So a huge thank you from my part. It's a pleasure to be presenting these figures and this development. It's quite moving for a CEO to see this development. It has not been easy, I can tell you that. Order intake was EUR 19 billion from 30 countries. Our top markets are the three flags over here, the U.S., Germany, and the U.K. These are three countries that are really not the worst place to be when we're talking about wind, and we do have great expectations in all of these markets in the coming years.
Let me show you a five-year overview when it comes to order intake and when it comes to GW. That is the number of turbines that we sell. I would like to direct your attention to the fact that in 2020, we sold 17.2 GW at a total value of EUR 12.7 billion. In 2024, we sold 16.8 GW, a bit less when it comes to turbines, but at a value of EUR 19.2 billion. That is the development. That is commercial discipline. That is what you, as shareholders, we, as shareholders, should really be proud of and take note of. If you forget it, if you're reading the newspaper and you can't see any positive news about Vestas, this is it. This is what you should be looking at. That leads me to service.
In 2024, when it comes to this part of the business, it was not really that great because in public, I have compared it to a small minor car crash because we had to transfer millions to contracts that were not realized. That means that in service, we are going to see earnings that are lower than before. That does not mean that the service business is not a good business. It just indicates that we have seen huge fluctuations in inflation and cost levels, and we did not see that coming. Fortunately, the inflation and the general salary index have neared each other more now. That means that we are going to be investing further in this part of the business going forward. Of course, this also gave rise to some considerations as to how we are going to address our service business in the coming years.
Quality is something that we are going to be improving on, and we always look at two indicators here, which is the development in our turbines and what we call the lost production factor, which means how much of the turbine production capacity we are losing. Right now, that factor is around 3%, and it should be lower. It must be lower based on better quality. Another indicator is that we transferred EUR 4.3 million to our warranty costs. That is the lowest level in the past few years. We are going the right way, but still, we must realize that we have components that cause us some surprises, not least in the offshore business. This is something we should pay a lot of attention to in the coming years.
That said, we can see a positive development, and we are working on this in a very disciplined manner, and this is a very important part of our business. We have our capital structure. I can't help but smile when I look at this development. We have no debts. In 2023, we heard a lot of questions about whether this was the right way to go, but we knew that first of all, we had to bring in the money, and then we had to increase our earnings, and then we could see this graph turning towards zero again. When we presented the annual report, we could initiate a share buyback program of EUR 100 million.
This has been carried out at a price of DKK 104, and we are going to be looking at these shares and this share buyback program as part of the dividend to our shareholders this year. Capital structure is important in uncertain times, so therefore, this is one of our primary goals. This is probably the most busy slide that I've been showing you for a long time, but it's just to say that renewables and sustainability is ingrained in everything we do. Here, we have seen an amazing development in Vestas since 2019. We have purchased all of our offshore activities. We've added more than 50% in the amount of turbines under contract, and still, we have reduced our CO2 emissions by 8%. This is not net zero, but when we can achieve this kind of growth and also reduce emissions, then we are doing very well.
If you take a look around our parking lot, you can see that none of the cars that we are driving, that we are paying for, are not on electricity. They all are by now. By 2025, we already achieved this target. It is a good thing to do what you say and say what you do. That is what it is all about in this field. One other thing I would like to emphasize is that it looks like safety is going down, and that is good. In 2024, we had five fatalities, whether it be Vestas colleagues or some of our suppliers or partners, and that is five too many.
I've had the pleasure of visiting one of the sites in Australia just before the New Year, and it's a horrible thing to see when a colleague has passed away, perhaps because we hadn't thought about every circumstance that we could have taken into account. I have two daughters who I took with me to Australia, and one of them said, "If we all," or I thought, "If we all considered each other as I considered my two daughters, then perhaps we could achieve higher safety in our organization. We're all part of the Vestas family, and we need to look out for each other." That said, these are absolute figures. I mean, often you read in the newspapers that Vestas has now thrown overboard their commitment to sustainability, and nothing could be more wrong.
When we are doing business and expanding by perhaps 50% by the end of this decade, we need new targets because offshore wind is different from the business that we had when we set out those targets in 2020. If you do not take the time to read the annual reports or read it thoroughly, we need to make our shareholders aware of the facts at our AGM. Let me just state for the record that it is not the case that Vestas does not believe in sustainability. We have been among the three best companies for years now when it comes to sustainability. Some people actually do manage to read the figures right. We read a lot about the CSRD from the EU, and it is not positive. It is not a positive development.
You cannot prepare Bibles of legislation and think that that will make a difference for the environment or for the climate because Denmark and Finland are the only two countries in the EU that chose to implement this legislation a long time ahead of the rest of the EU. We think that's a shame, but I also think that it's wrong to say that we are going to be stopping the bureaucracy in the EU because I think we actually started it. To our suppliers, I just have to say, "I'm sorry, but it has to trickle down to your end of the value chain because we have to report on what you're doing as well." That doesn't make it any better, and we describe this in our annual report as well.
If you have a bit of time tonight, you can read more about it in the report.
Også lidt mere de længere.
There is the business and the longer view. What are we doing and what are we looking into? Annas, you already showed this slide, and I will not steal your thunder here, but there is no doubt that when we were here three, four years ago and spoke about the green transition and climate, etc., we had a different level. We are talking about different things today. We are talking about energy being robust, something we can decide for ourselves in the individual nations. It has to be affordable, and last but not least, it has to be sustainable.
Those three factors will be very, very important for the next five years, and it will be even more important that Europe understands that this is what gives us an independent Europe energy-wise. Looking at the market environment we are in, we are living in exciting times, and there is only one thing to say: you need to influence what you can with your own will and a lot of determination. We believe in what we do. The market we are facing, well, people have seen the light, and we talk a lot about it. Germany is the good example. I wish more people had gotten on our train so that we could have shown that Germany has gone up seven times on approving projects and giving permits for wind turbines. Now they are putting up more than 10 GW onshore wind per year.
If you translate that into something practical, it's about 8 million households in Germany every year who will get their power from wind turbines. It is possible, of course, it's far to go to get a good example having to go to Germany. Last but not least, where we are working, of course, is on site. What we've seen in the past five years, we started with a difficult 2020 with COVID, and now 2024, we see for the first time that both goods and services can travel freely. We hope that will continue in spite of what happened on the 2nd of April, that now you also need to get a travel permit to go to the U.K. We are still believing in Europe. I just want to show you this one. Why is that? Because this touches me.
On the left, you see a wind farm we are constructing in Ukraine. It is 384 megawatts. It has been organized with the Danish government and IFO, and the previous Export Credit Institute, they have given a guarantee and a bank, and then DTEC, it was our partner in Ukraine. It gives power and energy in Ukraine where the war is taking place, both at the front and by taking away power, because the way you demoralize a population is by taking away their energy and heating. We are very proud to participate in this. That really is not easy. This is hard. This is difficult to build. We have been working more than two years on this, and it is wonderful to see it come to fruition.
Of course, also on this slide, you have the right side, because what's interesting is that when you can do something so difficult in Ukraine, it's depressing that you can't do it right at home, during peace even. Denmark did not pull off the offshore auction. You shouldn't try to secure Denmark's energy generation for many years by seeing it as a money tree. I've heard people say that in several cases. There were so many conditions that meant that nobody wanted to bid. Denmark loses out on not having this offshore auction, and it will now be delayed for another two years, and that's just not good enough. As somebody born in Jutland and as somebody working for Vestas, I'm worried about us being able to do things in the country where we have the technology and the possibility to finance.
This isn't quite positive yet. That's the electricity price. It's still high. The average electricity price was the lowest for four years, but that's the electricity price. I haven't mentioned all the taxes on electricity because that has now started again. That's what this graph shows, that the electricity price is still high, but the energy transition is moving slowly because in many countries, we put tax on electricity with tariffs and taxes that makes electricity three or four times as expensive as the production cost is. Of course, nobody then wants to go green. Often it's three times as expensive than with the tax you have on natural gas. If you want more of something and less of something else, you should look into the way you tax things.
Next time you complain about electricity prices, just remember it's not the electricity price from the turbine that's expensive. It's the taxes. This is our global strategic priorities. Of course, we have added service as our seventh strategy point, and we need to do something about that in 2024, 2025. It's important for us to get this right. Cash is important. Offshore is important. Onshore, we have done a turnaround. Service, I think now this is what it looks like. We have our service one plan, which covers eight quarters, and our long-term goal is still 25% EBIT. What you can see here is we first need to talk to our colleagues in service about finding operational efficiencies.
When we are then sure we do the right thing in the right place with the turbines, of course we need to talk to the customers where we may still have some contracts that are not as value-creating as they were intended. We will have a robust discussion with some customers, and there are also some contracts we will not extend. When we talk about contract trimming, it means that you as shareholders should not be worried when we do not make progress every quarter on the number of GW we have on service. There may easily be a quarter where we have fewer GW because we are not extending some of the contracts that are coming up for renewal, but that will be good for us as shareholders.
This is important, Christian, and this is your plan in service, and here it's all for one and one for all because we will not succeed if Christian doesn't succeed with the service recovery plan. The journey towards the 10%, that is something that came from a previous slide. We're only missing 4.5% here because we're already at 5.5%. How will we get to 10%? That's primarily through these five steps. It's in service here in the middle. The middle bubble here we have service, and that'll help us move towards the 10%. Going through the bubble, we have onshore volume and also improving our project profitability. There's still more we can do also after 2024. There is quality. We need to lower our warranty provisions so that we get to 3% or below.
Last year we were 2.6%, but for the entire year it was 4.3%. There is still something to be gained here. Finally, we are investing in our factories for offshore. It is difficult, but we do not have that many competitors left. That is probably one of the areas where you can see it is the right investment, and you have to do it sometimes also looking towards the end of this decade. When we are talking ramp-up, it means we help each other. This is not going to take a long time, but we are working on it. If you drive past Linne or Nakskov, you will see many lights on 24 hours a day, and that is because we are training a lot of colleagues. Probably the most painful thing in all of my presentation, it is the share price. You have probably not missed this.
When I was here last year, I had about 250,000 shares, and they were about DKK 45 million worth, worth DKK 45 million, and now it's about DKK 20 million. I know all about what the share price has meant. I just want to show you that I cannot decide the share price, and even Anders cannot decide the share price. We are looking back to 2021 when the interest rate was zero and nobody could find any green investments, and our share price was at DKK 300, but our operational performance was going down at that time. Since then, the clean energy index, that's energy shares that have to do with the green transition or green energy globally, and they have on average gone down 70%, and we have gone down about 70%.
We're not particularly worse than other green energy companies, but back in 2021, maybe there was an expectation that this would just grow up, up, up always. I don't know what the opposite of up, up, up is, but I think we're about there now. Even today where we are talking about the multiples Vestas is working on, we need to go back to find those multiples. I have not sold my shares, but I think you have to remember that the pendulum moves back and forth, and we need to understand why it does that. Right now, I'm sure also the U.S. will learn that we need much more energy. I'll just put a bit of perspective into this. This is the EPS, the earnings per share. We've put in here what we did in 2024.
That was 0.5, and that's also because we are paying out DKK 0.55 in dividends. Analysts now look at 2025, and they expect an EPS of 0.80 in 2025, which is more or less the same level as in the mid-2010s. That's because we have made a more resilient Vestas. We have an order lock. We have a lot of work planned. When our earnings get towards 10%, we will have an EPS which will exceed what we've seen previously. We believe we should focus on that when there's so much going on in the rest of the world because we can do a lot for our own performance. Our outlook for the year is EUR 18 billion-EUR 20 billion revenue, EBIT margin 4%-7%, and a total investment around EUR 1.2 billion, which is very much like the end of 2024.
I'll just end with this one. There's no doubt, both in the short and the long term, this is really good. It's good for us. It's good for the next generation. I think we need to consider that also, and also the generation after that maybe. I think it's fun to see that this keeps the price down. You cannot get a lower price in Europe if you don't construct more. We need to construct more wind turbines. They are quick to build. They are quick to approve. Therefore, it's also independent when you buy the right content. I think the world has taught us that in the past five years. You shouldn't believe in all bargains and all software. If you buy a Vestas turbine, you'll get something you can trust.
We are, of course, owned by you as shareholders, and we know it gives us independence and resilience. In Europe, we need more energy. Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable fuels is good. It does not help to just buy fossil fuels in the Middle East instead of Russia. It does not make us more independent. We need to construct our own energy sources, and they have to be renewable and maybe also nuclear power. Those of you who hope for both, I can understand it, but remember there is a difference between 18 months and 18 years, and the price is typically three times as high on nuclear energy. We need to be the green voice in Europe also for energy. This will reduce CO2 emissions.
The last thing I want to say is when we talk about wind, let's not say that this is all very left wing. I'm CEO of Vestas, and I'm not really out there on the left wing of the political spectrum. Whenever you talk about energy, you shouldn't think it's a political spectrum. It's not. Wind energy is independence for our society. It's not a political issue. Germany has shown us the way. Thank you for your continued support. We are plowing on, and I look forward to seeing many of you when we have something to eat after the AGM.
Now you have the chance to ask questions or make comments, and you need to speak from the restroom and register up here to the left of me. The first speaker is Mr. Claus Wiinblad from ATP.
Thank you for the floor.
As mentioned, my name is Claus Wiinblad. I represent ATP. I would like to start by thanking the Chairman of the Board and the CEO for their report and the presentation of the Annual Report 2024. 2024 was a year of progress in several areas for Vestas and a good quarterly progress when it comes to the margins and Power Solutions. On the other hand, the Service business was hard hit due to high costs and quality issues. My primary subject today is the expectations for Vestas' profitability. Since 2018, Vestas has had a long-term expectation of an EBIT margin of more than 10%. Even though in 2024 we have seen progress, there's still a long way to go until we reach that level.
We are still quite a long way below 10% in EBIT margin.
You also expect 4-7%, and several KPIs are in the size of 7.5-8%. You are quite some way under the 10% EBIT margin. The uncertainty and the slowdown we have seen in the green transition and recent days' volatility does not make it easier to make any expectations. As the Chairman also showed us, the share price has been struggling for a while now, and that has been exacerbated during the past few days of turmoil. I must say that the share price really does not complement the long-term expectation of an EBIT margin of more than 10%. As I see it, it is crucial that Vestas reinstates the trust in their profitability, the trust that profitability can be improved in the company.
We would rather see some mid-term expectations that you could actually achieve instead of maintaining a long-term goal where you have to continue to explain why you still cannot deliver a margin of 10%. This communication effort could focus on what it would take for Vestas to deliver a margin of, let's say, 7.5% in the midterm. If during 2026 to 2027 you actually achieve this target, I'm sure that will strengthen confidence in the profitability of the company. Of course, I'm not suggesting that you lower ambitions in the long run. If you at some point in time do achieve 10%, I will really not be complaining about that at all.
Finally, a brief ESG-related comment in line with Henrik Andersen's report.
As many other companies, Vestas has prepared its first CSRD report this year, and now we can see that the EU is starting to throw the entire reporting regime into the air. We now have a great deal of uncertainty when it comes to future reporting requirements. From ATP, the message around CSRD reporting in general, no matter whether the current or the future regulation is going to be changed, what's important for us is that companies in their reporting focus on what is really important instead of just turning this into a broader compliance exercise. In short, less is more. Vestas is at the lower end of reporting quantity so far, and we would not complain if you limit the scope of your reporting to what is actually really important.
Thank you very much. There were a few concrete comments.
I think they were meant for Henrik Andersen.
First of all, Claus. First and foremost, Claus, thank you very much. It is quite rare that I meet the same sort of understanding in the Board of Directors if we are to lower expectations. Perhaps I should take a conversation with the Chairman about how we reach your goal of 7.5% and then 10%. Where I come from, I think we will have to achieve 7.5% before we achieve 10%. Your point is duly noted because perhaps we spend even more time explaining how we get from 5% to 10% at a year when we are at 4.5% instead of explaining how we got to where we actually are now. I think it's a good point. When it comes to CSRD, thank you for your comments as well.
I think we should burn all of the pages that we can in next year's report because you're quite right. We should only report on what is actually important. A lot of it is important, but nobody should tell me that we need to measure on 400 data points around our factories. Thank you very much.
The next speaker is Mr. Søren Svendsen from the Danish Shareholders’ Association. The floor is yours.
My name is Søren Svendsen, and I represent the Danish Shareholders’ Association. I would also like to start by thanking you for your report. Especially Henrik Andersen's report makes us not quite understand how the share price can be at DKK 88. I've covered 20 AGMs at Vestas. I have met Claus at least 20 times. He says we must have met 30 times.
Claus is actually the only one up here that I have met at every AGM. Everybody else is newer. Most times at AGMs, I have been positive and happy with management, but I'm not happy today. There were a few AGMs under Didlev Engel, where I was critical, mainly because the trust in the market had gone. When you have to adjust downwards several times, trust disappears. Why do I mention that? I do because Vestas is one of the companies where trust is still low. The market does not believe in Vestas. The market remembers. It remembers the many depreciations under Didlev Engel. When Vestas again has to adjust downwards, it costs trust. After a disappointing third quarter, Vestas dropped by 12%. They talked about unexpectedly high costs in service.
I have been a controller at Danfoss and Grundfos, and we have never been surprised by sudden costs of that magnitude. Never. It would indicate lack of financial control and planning. Of course, the market did not believe in this either as the share price dropped so much. The CFO left without any explanation. We do not know why. Vestas dropped by 11% or the share price dropped. In recent years, Vestas has dropped by 50% while Siemens and Nordics have increased 290% and 34%, respectively, even though they have performed worse than Vestas. These figures are about two or three weeks old, but still. I think the only explanation for this is trust, that there is greater trust in the two German companies.
No other companies—I am sure many of you here have shares in many other companies—and I am sure you will agree that no other company has as much uncertainty before each quarterly account. The investors are chronically worried about what will be in the quarterly accounts this time. The reason I am talking so much about trust is that Vestas, unlike all other large C25 companies in Denmark, have lost this trust. Mr. Runevad knew this when he joined. He said, "I will not promise as much, but I will keep what I promise." Mr. Claus Almer from ATP also talked about trust, but probably in a different way than I am doing now. We shareholders have much to hope for. Vestas is one of the shares that dropped the most in the share price in 2024. I think it was halved, the share price.
I think I speak for all shareholders today saying that we are not happy about that. Today the share price is DKK 88. This is not just Vestas' fault. It is also Mr. Trump's fault. Still, DKK 88. After my criticism, I hope there will be room for more optimism. The annual accounts were not that bad, and Henrik gave me a bit of optimism with his report. A result of DKK 3.8 billion, I think that was positive, especially if it is showing a positive tendency and better cost management. Again, it will be very interesting to see the next quarterly accounts. Last year, the share price halved. Let's hope that in 2025, the share price will double, and especially after what Henrik Andersen said. Thank you for the floor.
Thank you, Søren Svendsen, a bit of the sweet and the sour.
If Henrik Andersen and if anybody else wants the floor, please indicate now. I think I should probably have organized a few more gherkins for the entree this evening because they're sour. I do not think anyone here will say that we love the share price. What you say about trust, it reminds me about going to school when I was a child when my father would scold me. My father and I have had good talks about that later on in life, and I am sure you and I will also have good talks because I think it is fantastic that you worked in two very large companies that never faced any surprises. I am amazed. Maybe it was your fault because they have certainly been surprised afterwards, maybe after you retired.
That being said, I think we also have to be good enough to remember that when we compare to Siemens, they are a different share today. If you want to invest in gas turbines, in grists, and a wind business that for the next 24 months certainly will run at a loss, then of course you're free to invest in Siemens. They have had a better development in the share price, but the question is whether it's the right share. I'll leave that up to you, and we can probably talk about that at next year's AGM. I think we should do what we do best, and we do. Sometimes you have to accept the share price.
If we could predict every quarter what would happen, I would, of course, like that. I am happy that we have kept our promises for the year at least. We live in a world where things do not happen as we like them every time. Your comments about the CFO, I miss him a lot. I still meet him privately. When people want to leave, they should be allowed to leave because slavery is over, thank God. When people want to leave, we let them leave. I hope that is a response to you. I will see if we have some extra sour gherkins for dinner.
Mr. Søren Svendsen again.
Thank you for that answer.
I don't believe that Grundfos and Danfoss have been surprised when it came to costs at that scale after I retired because I've been following these two big industrial companies just like Vestas that are very capable indeed. That's one thing. Another thing is that you didn't answer my question as to why the CFO left. Everyone in the market asked that question, and the Vestas share fell 11% on that occasion. I think that is due to a lack of trust. It was due to these questions about what could happen. Not much did happen, but I'm really asking about this sort of trust that the market is also wanting to hear more about.
I completely agree, but let me put it this way. Sometimes you should let results speak for themselves. Look at the fourth quarter, even though our CFO left in December.
In spite of the fact that we live in a country where it's very interesting to take photos of our private homes, some things do belong to private life. Also, if you're a CFO in a big company. It's nice to see that criticisms as well as replies can be given with a smile. Does anyone else wish to take the floor? That is not the case. That means that the debate is over, and I will take you through the items on the agenda. Item one is the report on the company's activities. There is nothing to be adopted here, but the AGM takes note of the report. Item two is the presentation and adoption of the annual report. It has been thoroughly presented and debated, and therefore I will conclude that the annual report has now been adopted.
Item three is the resolution for the allocation of the result of the year, and we have heard the happy news that DKK 0.55 per share will be paid out as the dividend. The AGM can choose to lower that amount but not increase it, and I'm sure you will not like to lower it, so we can deem that to be adopted. The next item is presentation and advisory vote on the remuneration report. We've heard about the main highlights of this report. It's a detailed document available on the website. As the agenda states, it's an advisory vote. Are there any questions or comments? Otherwise, that is adopted. The next item is the remuneration of the board of directors.
The remuneration is a basic fee, and then there is twice that amount for the chair, and then there is a separate fee for being on the committees and being the chair of the committees. There is a proposal of an increase of 3% compared to 2024. If there are no objections, that is adopted as well. We have item six, election of members to the board. According to the articles of association, there should be 5-10 members elected by the AGM. Add to that the employee-elected members. Right now, we have six members of the board: Anders Runevad, Eva Berneke, Hilde Tønning Schmidt, Henriette Thuesen, Carl-Henrik Sundström, Lina Olving. They are proposed to be re-elected. As has been proposed today, the board of directors proposes that Bruno Bensasson and Claudio Fachin are elected as new members of the board.
I do not suppose that there are any other candidates. It would be difficult to have a successful candidature at this juncture, but it is possible to stand for election. Otherwise, I would like to congratulate the elected members. The next item on the agenda is the election of auditor. Currently, Deloitte is the company auditor. Deloitte is present here today on the second row. The board of directors proposes re-election in accordance with the audit committee's recommendation. I should also say that they have not been influenced by any third parties. They have not been subject to any restrictions. We rarely see any other proposals for company auditor. Therefore, I congratulate Deloitte with another year as company auditor. Two things should be done as a company auditor now. It is the statutory financial reporting as well as the sustainability reporting. Good luck with both.
That brings me to item eight, where we have a few standard proposals. The first one is item eight one. Here, we can authorize the board to increase the company's share capital. As a standard procedure, the board proposes that the board is authorized to increase the share capital by 10%. This is an extension valid until 1st of April 2030, with or without preemptive rights for the shareholders, however, at a maximum amount of 10% of the share capital. If there are no objections, I conclude that that is adopted. Item eight two is also a standard authorization to acquire treasury shares. As the chair took you through in his report, the company has acquired treasury shares in a share buyback program as part of the dividend payout.
Most companies have a standard authorization to acquire 10% so that your holding cannot exceed 10% of the company's share capital, and it should take place at a deviation of no less than 10% from the price quoted on NASDAQ. This is extended annually, so next year they will ask for an authorization again. If there are no objections, that is also adopted. The final item is the authorization to the Chairman of the AGM. Again, this is a standard procedure. I have to register the proposals adopted with the Danish business authorities, and I can also change a comma if need be. No objections? I say thank you for the authorization. That leads me to item ten. Any other business? You can make comments but not put forward any proposals. Are there any comments before I pass the floor back to the Chairman?
That is not the case. I will do as Søren Svendsen, who has been here 30 times. I would like to thank you all for treating me so well in recent years and also today. With that, I give the floor back to the Chairman of the Board.
Thank you so much. For me, just one more thing. Klaus told me yesterday at dinner that he has been supporting Vestas from the day we were first listed. During that time, he has seen three different Chairmen of the Board and five different CEOs. It is a long time, but as there is a saying that also good things come to an end, that is where we are today. This is actually Klaus's last board meeting or AGM for Vestas.
With that, you have been through the whole journey, supported us in tough times, as we heard also from previous speakers, so remember that, and also in good times, and always done this job tremendously good. We have a small little token of our appreciation for you, Klaus. A big hand for Klaus. Thank you. It is only for me to say thank you to all of you. Thank you for your interest. Thank you for taking your time to come here today. I really, and the whole board really appreciate you being here and appreciating your continued support. Thank you so much. Thank you.