Good afternoon, everyone. I will do this in English as usual, even if I by now have spent many years at Vestas, my Danish is still not good enough. You have to excuse me for that. It's really nice to be back in Aarhus and nice to see familiar faces. I would like to extend a really warm welcome to the Vestas Annual General Meeting for 2025. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Anders Runevad, and I'm the Chair of the Board of Directors. The board and I are delighted to welcome you here today to share our reflections on 2025. It's been a year with a lot of volatility in the macro economy, but also a year where Vestas has delivered well.
Before I get into that and our vision for the years to come, please let me invite Louise from Gorrissen Federspiel, and she will lay out the formalities for today so we can ensure that everything runs according to schedule. Louise is taking over from Claus, if you wonder, and please give her a warm welcome. Louise, over to you.
Thank you for appointing me. My first job is to ensure that the AGM is legally convened. It has to be convened within 3-5 weeks before the date through the website, NASDAQ Copenhagen, and through information to our shareholders that have asked for it. The convening notice was sent out on the 6th of March, so that complies with the rules. It also contains all the information that is required under the Articles of Association and Danish legislation. All information has also been available on the website since the convening notice was sent out. You can see the agenda on the slide behind me. It contains the normal subjects for an AGM and 3 proposals from the board under item 8.
The three proposals deal with a reduction in the share capital, a change in the title of the region where the AGM is to be held, and authorization to the board to acquire treasury shares. For adoption, we need two-thirds of the votes and the represented share capital. All other items on the agenda can be adopted with a simple majority. This includes also item four, which is an advisory vote on the remuneration report. Before we jump into the agenda, I can tell you that about 63% of the share capital represented, 286 have asked for admissions card, and 190 have turned up 5 minutes before we started, and I see quite a few have joined us since then. We have received many proxies and postal votes, so we know that all proposals will be adopted. Of course, we can still have a good debate here today.
That brings us to the agenda proper. As we typically do at Vestas, we deal with the first two items as under one. The Chairman of the Board will start with the presentation of the report, and then CEO Henrik Andersen will go through the rest of the things, including the annual report. You can ask questions and make comments before we adopt the first two items. The report will be partially in English, partially in Danish, so if you need interpretation, we have interpretation between Danish and English today. I now give the floor to the Chairman of the Board, Anders Runevad.
Thank you, Louise. We will now turn to the board's perspective, and let me start with a brief look at the environment that we are operating in. As outlined in our annual report, we continue to navigate in a volatile global business environment, shaped by inflation trends, geopolitical shifts in global trades, and of course, conflict zones. Looking at the global business environment, raw material and transport costs stabilized during 2025, which support a greater predictability. This is of course now challenged by the conflict in the Middle East, even if we this morning then got some good news. I think it's of course extremely hard to have any kind of forecast on what will happen in that environment. If you look at the markets, the main drivers remain energy affordability and security. These are now the center of every investment decisions.
Grid investments are picking up, but permitting and market design challenges still persist. Execution remains strong, but regional disruptions still pose risks to the supply chain. While some uncertainties remain, the fundamental drivers for wind energy, affordable, secure, and sustainable power continue to strengthen. This was the case in 2025 and will be for the years ahead. To highlight some of the challenges that we see from a regional point of view, let me then zoom in on Europe. Back one slide, I think. Europe's competitiveness is under pressure, and the drivers are structural. First, Europe continues to struggle with high energy prices, and the trend is clear. Markets with higher shares of wind power see lower electricity prices. Europe's wind share is already at 18%, about double the global average, and it plays a critical role in stabilizing pricing.
This is shown in the illustration of energy prices in selected EU markets, and it helps dismantle a very recurring myth. Wind is not the expensive option. On the contrary, it is increasingly one of the strongest levers to reduce energy cost and restore competitiveness. Energy cost is not the only barrier. Excessive bureaucracy, slow permitting, and a fragmented regulatory framework slows down deployment of wind investments overall and industrial scaling. At the same time, Europe lacks a clear and coherent industrial policy that matches the ambition and pace of that of other regions. This puts European industry, including the wind sector, at a competitive disadvantage. The challenges is twofold: high structural cost and the policy environment does not yet match the strategic ambition for Europe. Wind energy is central to the solution.
It lowers the electricity prices, strengthens the energy security, and provides a foundation for a more competitive industry. If Europe wants to remain competitive, accelerating wind build-out and a supportive policy framework are at the core. Vestas is positioned at the intersection of global mega trends. I believe that we talked about this the last time we met, and it was further highlighted during 2025, when forces shaping the energy system have only grown stronger. Geopolitical uncertainties remain high. Energy markets are still very volatile, and many regions are facing an energy crisis. These developments have reinforced something very fundamental. The value of wind energy is increasing, not because of long-term climate targets alone, but because wind directly addresses the core pressures societies are facing today. First, affordability. Energy prices in Europe and several other regions remain a structural challenge.
Wind is one of the few technologies that lowers the long-term price of electricity, making industries more competitive and easing pressure for consumers. Second, security. The past few years have shown how exposed global energy supply chains are. Every market is now looking for solutions that reduce their dependency on imported fuel. Third, sustainability. While climate actions remain important, they are no longer the primary driver. But they still matter, and wind is essential for any credible decarbonization path. Wind energy sits at the intersection of these mega trends, affordability, security, and sustainability. That positions Vestas strongly for the future. Our task is to make sure that we capture this opportunity by delivering competitive technology, efficient supply chain, and continue to advocate for a policy framework that allows wind to scale.
If we look at the market forecast, the fundamentals behind wind energy translate directly into strong growth expectation for our core markets. As we can see here, the installations outside China was around 48 GW in 2025, with both onshore and offshore contributing. For 2026 and onwards, a significant step up is expected. Forecasts points to annual installation reaching more than 70 GW by 2030, driven by the need to meet a rising energy demand and strengthen energy independence. Importantly, this growth is not driven by climate policy alone. It's again driven by affordability, security needs, in both advanced and emerging economies. Onshore continues to scale as the most cost-efficient technology, while offshore becomes a strategic pillar for countries seeking long-term energy resilience, especially in Europe and in selected markets in Asia-Pacific. The main message is clear.
The market is growing, demand is robust, and the underlying mega trends that we discussed are translating into concrete volumes. To meet society's needs, this growth is not enough. Current forecast will not cover rising electricity demand or replace fossil fuel-based generation at the required pace. This gap between what is needed and what is currently forecasted is a clear opportunity for Vestas and an important reminder of the critical role wind energy will play in the coming decade. Let me then go a little bit deeper into the company for 2025. Vestas today is more than 35,000 people designing, manufacturing, installing, developing, servicing wind and hybrid projects around the world. We have more than 56,000 turbines under service, and that translate to 161 GW, the largest fleet in the world. Last year, we passed the milestone of having installed 200 GW, more than any other company.
Personally, I actually don't feel it was that long ago we celebrated 100 GW. The turbines we produce in 2025 are expected to displace 463 million tons CO2 during their lifetime. That may not tell you much, and neither does it really tell me much, but if you translate that, it's actually the yearly electricity consumption of 88 million U.S. households. Going into highlights. There are several highlights for 2025. Let me mention some, and I'm sure that Henrik will come back to a lot more highlights in his presentation. Vestas achieved all-time high revenue during the year. The profitability was in the upper end of the outlook, and the positive earnings trajectory continued during the year. 2025 ended with a record high order backlog with a strong momentum in both onshore and offshore.
The first year of the service recovery plan was completed, and good progress was made on the ramp-up challenges in U.S. and Europe. I'm also happy that we could return value to shareholders with a dividend of 0.74 DKK per share and a share buyback program of EUR 150 million. Of course, I'm very satisfied with the development of our share price that increased 77% during last year. Those of you who has been at the annual meeting before will remember our long-term ambitions. The financial targets remain unchanged. We have revised our ESG targets due to the change in baseline that happened when we acquired the offshore business. For revenue, the ambition remains to grow faster than the market and to be the market leader in revenue. For profitability is to generate best-in-class earnings with an EBIT of at least 10%.
We strive to have a 20% return on investment over the cycle and a positive free cash flow. On ESG, the target is to reduce our own emissions with 50% and for Scope 3 with 45%. This reduction should be measured from a baseline in 2022 to 2030. Our strong balance sheet has led us to update our strategy for the capital structure. If we look at the allocation priorities, we will continue to reinvest in the business to deliver our strategy. We will make value-creating acquisitions if and when we see an opportunity. We maintain a solid investment grade profile with a net interest-bearing debt to EBITDA between - 1x and + 1x. You can see the historic development here to the right. Last but not least, we will return at least 40% of net profit through a combination of dividend and share buyback.
Let me move on a bit to the board activities and remuneration for 2025. Throughout the year, there was a high participation rate in all meetings, indicating that all members allocated sufficient time to carry out their responsibilities to Vestas. Over the past year, we've had a particular focus on topics such as geopolitical risks and opportunities, our products and technology development and competitiveness, supply chain disruptions, and follow up on launched improvement projects. We, the Board, perform an evaluation of our work and compensation every year. Our goal with this is to continue our ongoing development of the Board's efficiency and working procedure. The evaluation process is also a tool to determine the competencies needed for the Board. With that in mind, I'm really happy to introduce Anders Boyer- Søgaard, that the board of directors proposed to join the board.
Anders is here today, standing up here, and I'm confident that Anders will bring a lot of valuable knowledge and experience to the board. Anders, most welcome. Looking at the remuneration, the board received a total remuneration of EUR 1,554,245. This was in accordance with the remuneration level approved by the annual general meeting in 2025, as well as within the remuneration policy. Members of the board received a fixed basic annual fee, which was a 3% increase from 2024's level. With that was my last slide. Again, thank you so much for taking the time. Really good to see you here again. Maybe I come back, but otherwise, I see you next year. With that, over to you, Henrik. Thank you, Anders.
Well, thank you, and that's the last thing I'll say in English today. Good afternoon, and once again, welcome to Aarhus. It's nice to see so many of you here. For us, the AGM is one of the highlights of the year because we find it really nice to meet and to chat a bit also after the AGM, to hear about what's going on with you and with us. Therefore, I'm also very happy to say that the members of the board and the executive board will stay here throughout the AGM, so you can have a chat with them as well if you feel the need. Some people might think that my dialect is a bit too rural for Denmark, but then you can of course use a headset and get it in English. I just want to come back to the share price.
Last year we talked a lot about food inflation. You could actually get a meal here costing about DKK 90, both for husband and wife. To this year, it's about DKK 180. Well, I better get to the numbers that actually influence Vestas. If we look at our numbers, the most important thing in 2025 is what we've achieved. We have the highest order backlog ever in the combination of onshore and offshore wind. We have a backlog of EUR 33 billion, which is of course thanks to teamwork across many countries and regions, because we cover all 24 time zones. We have also spent a lot of time in investments and how we produce our products. We have our own control of our production.
It takes up a lot of our time, and we are not quite where we want to be yet, but we are sure that the investment is the right one, both in the American part of our setup, but not least in the European part of our production setup. I've been careful in the past quarters that when we unfortunately have to say goodbye to some employees, it's not a sign of crisis, but because we have a lower lost working time. In Denmark, you certainly always get new media coverage if you fire people or lay off people. When you employ 500 new employees, then you don't get media coverage. Now, the third one here is wind. Wind is the fastest energy source and one of the lowest costs, when it comes to energy sources.
It's not many places in the world you meet facts like this. Many places you meet the exact opposite. We have to emphasize it very clearly, because independence in energy is actually the reason why we haven't learned our lesson in Europe yet. We have had an energy crisis in 2022, where we imported about 55% of our energy. Now, four years later, we have the same numbers, 55% of our energy coming from the outside, and we're still 430 million people. We need to deal with that, and you'll hear us say that again and again. There are two challenges that we take with us into 2026. The geopolitical uncertainty, well, we can't really take responsibility for that, but we have become very good at navigating through that.
I think we're now considered as being a global company, you have to live with geopolitical uncertainty, also with the legislative changes in some of our markets. Of course, we have an opinion about it, but we have to deal with it. Last but not least, we continue our recovery plan in service. We are only about halfway there, and we are learning something every day in service, and we teach service something every day. I think we are happy to be halfway there, but we still want to get there 100%. These are the numbers, and it's no coincidence that our baseline is 2022, because I think we all agree that wasn't the best AGM we've had. Our revenue has gone up from EUR 14.5 billion to EUR 18.8 billion. Even if this were Danish kroner, this would be very large, but we are talking about euros.
The others, the EBIT margin in 2022, it was -8%, and 5.7% last year, an increase of 13.5%. I'm sure Kristian Gaarde from ATP may have a comment, but we're still on a positive trajectory here. We have just over EUR 1 billion in cash flow, and that's also very good because that means we can continue to invest and pay dividends to shareholders or do share buybacks. Anders, you explained clearly how we will do that. We consider that every day. We continue our high investment level, and where we're investing now is still primarily in our production plants and in transport tools to transport our large turbines, both onshore and offshore. We expect that to continue at this level, about EUR 1 billion, and you'll also see that when we cover outlook at the end of the report.
Then there are the two last parts, because if you look at 2022, we had EUR 19 billion in turbines, and now it's EUR 33.2 billion. In services, it's EUR 38.7 billion now. That's very positive. It means we have more than EUR 500 billion in backlog, and that's pretty good to put it like we do in Jutland. We have also been very disciplined commercially to ensure that we make money in what we have in our backlog. What we've talked a lot about since 2021, 2022 is our turbines. Turbines have developed. If you look at the graphs here, you can see that the price levels are stable at a higher level. We are happy about that because we are making money now developing and selling turbine solutions globally. Secondly, you can see the backlog of development.
We have to say that we have almost tripled the backlog since 2018. We were very good at making money back in 2018, but during COVID it dropped. Now we're back at 5.4% in revenue. We are not happy yet. In the EBIT margin of 5.4%, we also cover the investments in our production plants where we scale up our facilities. We're investing in two places for the future, both in our investment level of over EUR 1 billion, and we invest a lot in our EBIT margin because it would actually have been higher if we hadn't continued to invest in our turbine business and capacity. A few comments about service. We have 161 GW under service, and under that we also have the turbines of other producers because if there's something we've learned, it wasn't our best idea.
The turbines from other producers that we service are not as good as our own turbines, and therefore it's difficult for us to be efficient. Yes, that still annoys us a bit. Customers would like us to keep these service contracts, but we need to find a different model. There's probably a reason why other producers have handed over their turbine service contracts to us. Our contracts have an average duration of 11 years, but we have a backlog of EUR 38.7 billion, and we operate in 72 countries. That is really a global service business, and there are a lot of customers who use us because they see the added value in working with us. Last but not least, we couldn't do this without our 16,000-plus employees in the service business. In our incentive program, there was no incentive because of service.
I know that they know that, but it also just shows that we need to get service back on track. We're very happy with how things are developing. We love this business, and we're going to invest in it and spend a lot of time on it. It hurts to see that it's not quite in top form yet. It will be some quarters from now. What are we doing in the recovery plan or turnaround? You can call it whatever you like. The fact is we have two main points. The one on the left here is operational excellence, that we know what our cost is, even in the site farthest away. We've learned that the hard way by counting hours and spare parts and other things, and we didn't do that as well as we should previously.
We are working on that every day. We're improving every day, but we're not quite there yet. The other part is that when we started this journey, we should probably have listened more to ourselves about what we thought customers thought of us. For our customers, we are actually much more valuable than we thought we were. Pricing and commercial conditions is something where we actually can get better terms. When we did our commercial reset in turbines, we should probably have started service as well, but you cannot go back in time. It's not wrong to say that now we focus there, and what you saw in the previous slide about turbines, that's the sort of thing we should look into when we talk service a year or two from now.
I always look at Kristian when I say this, because I think he feels as certain that we'll fix this as I am. We also need to talk about quality and our money set aside for guarantees. We cannot get to a point where the lost production factor will be zero. Because even if we get close to zero, then we would always have some money set aside for warranties. It was 3.2% in 2025, and we have actually halved it over the past four years. Halving the warranty cost is not a goal in itself, but we want to get to a lower level. We don't have a target for this, because it would be wrong to set a percentage target here. Just like the lost production factor, where turbines aren't working, we also want to get it down towards at least 2%.
It's around 3% today. As you see, they're going down again, but this is a sticky one for us. We have also said to Kristian in service that he has to help us cut back on the need for spare parts, et cetera. You can see that the dark blue columns are higher than the gray ones, which means that provisions consumed are higher than warranty costs. We think that that can bring down the Lost Production Factor. I hope this wasn't too technical, otherwise I'll try to do better later. We have sustainability. There's no doubt that sustainability means something that affects everything we do. I know that there are several media who don't want to spend too much time on this, but they need to spend time to see everything we do.
We are avoiding CO2 equivalents to the tune of 463 million tons a year in 2025, which is amazing because it's a product that will be CO2 neutral between month 6 or 7, depending on the turbine. This is world-class, and then it'll be CO2 negative in the rest of its life of 29 years. I've just seen a turbine that was still running after 39 years. You should have bought a new one after 30 years, but it was still working after 39. It's amazing that we have such a good product, and we need to continue to invest that because it becomes CO2 neutral so quickly. Now, Scope 1 and 2 is what we use. When you look at the parking lot where most of you arrived, we have more than 100 charging points for e-vehicles here. A few years ago, we had 6.
Most of the Vestas cars you see today are e-vehicles. They are certainly cheap at the moment with all the wind we've had over Easter, and it's certainly cheaper than diesel today. Now, Scope 3 is our problem here a bit. Scope 1 and 2, that's 1%. Scope 3 is 99%. When it comes to dealing with CO2, it's in our supply chain, and that's transport and steel. When we were here in 2021, the world thought hydrogen, green steel, we could produce steel without any of their own hydrogen, et cetera. The world isn't there today. Now to get steel without too much CO2 is through recycling of steel. Then you have to be intelligent enough to say that our Scope 3 attack is different because we don't have the same as we used to.
It would have been a wrong strategy if we hadn't been in offshore wind. Offshore wind takes up more CO2 because we have to sail equipment offshore, et cetera. The CO2 footprint of offshore is bigger, but we also have bigger wind farms and bigger production numbers. It makes a lot of sense to be offshore. I'm sorry people don't have time to read that in an annual report. I had hoped they would because there are so many good things to see. We are very close to getting our e-vehicles, and most of them are changing, but there are still management cars that are not e-vehicles because in parts of the world, you can't find a charging point. We're certainly doing everything we can under Scope 1 and 2. Now I'll go to the area that becomes more forward-looking.
This is also why I have a disclaimer here, because this is forward-looking. I move quickly on to this one.
You do-
I would also like to touch upon what you talked about, Anders, about the kind of environment that we're working in. This is no random picture. This is from January this year, when a number of energy ministers of Europe and the vice chancellor of Germany met for the so-called Offshore Summit, where they agreed to build 100 GW of offshore wind. I've been quoted for saying that I didn't believe in it, but what I'm seeing now is that now it's actually being done, and you have set a target of 100 GW, which is more realistic than the 460 GW that they talked about the last time around.
Still, I'm seeing more talk than actual action, and that is what really worries me. Because nothing that they talked about in Esbjerg wasn't what they also talked about in Ostend when they met there. I think this is really a cause for concern. That leads me to the market environment. Anders, you touched upon bureaucracy, red tape, things just work too slowly. There are also areas where things are going very quickly. Just south of the border, just 24 months ago, they decided to allocate land and to make sure we had energy and electricity generation up and running in Germany. They are now installing 10 GW of onshore every year. Katharina Reiche, which also visited Houston at a conference recently and increased it by 12 GW a year for the next 3 years.
This is half of all the installation in Europe each year. It can be done. It only requires one thing, and that is decisiveness and political leadership. Perhaps someone could take a bus trip just south of the border to see how things are done. I should get to this slide, which you've probably been expecting. I'm sure you know this story about the frog sitting in the pot while the water is starting to boil ever so slowly, and it doesn't really wake up to find out that it's boiling and to jump out. We have to point out things that are not going the right way. The idea that we should have a secure and competitive energy supply, well, it's just going too slowly.
We're in a country where companies want to install production capacity, but they cannot get an answer as to whether they can get sufficient electricity for their workplaces and for their production sites. That's just not good enough. We have to do something about that. When we have a self-generating energy grid where you need a three-month standstill in order to figure out what to do with electricity generation, that is just not good enough. Not least when we're in an energy crisis. When it comes to red tape, I think it's the first time that I have seen that a company our size has used the phrasing bureaucratic mess in our annual report.
I wasn't sure that I would leave it in after our letter to stakeholders, but we did, and I'm glad we did, because Denmark and Finland were the only countries who fully implemented the CSRD directive. The 25 other member countries said, "Ah, that's a bit too bureaucratic." Here we are. If you read the annual report, you will see that the first 56 pages are about the world, the strategy, the energy prices, and how we have executed. The next 72 pages of the annual report are solely to comply with the CSRD, and we have Deloitte here on the second row, and they need to do a lot of work. We almost suspect that they had something to do with all of these rules and requirements.
When we have EUR 21 billion in revenue, it doesn't make any sense that we have to live up to all of these piles of rules. Now we have the Omnibus package, so now all the small and medium-sized companies that trade with us, then they could be exempt, they thought. That's just not true, because when we have 72 pages of CSRD requirements, then that's because we have chosen the simple model. It could have been a lot worse. Then, of course, we have to roll it out to our suppliers in order to comply. It has not been helped yet. I really took a hit recently because when you meddle in tax politics in Denmark, at least my daughters would say that I shouldn't have done that. Let me put it this way.
We haven't seen anything else in recent years than rules being introduced that are against all of the globally headquartered companies that we have in Denmark. All the companies we've had in Denmark are moving out due to all of these rules and regulations. I just try to point out that these rules just don't make sense when it comes to a company like ours. We need to be able to attract Danish and international top talents. It's no use that they can only be here for seven years, and then they have to flee the country. Because if our executive management will stand up, we have six people standing there. I can see Javier just had to wait for the translation before standing up. Javier is Spanish, Felix is German, and Anne Pearce is Australian. The three others are Danes.
Three foreigners pay 32%, and the Danes pay 61%. You can sit down before it gets awkward. That's okay. My problem is that next year, Javier will have been here for 25 years, and he's been under this exemption scheme for 7 years. We have to decide whether we have to lose Javier next year or if we can find a solution, perhaps with the Danish government. Otherwise, we will find a place where we can find a solution with Javier. Here we have to really think very thoroughly about this, because we can't just read in the newspaper that, well, now it's been 7 years, so of course he'll leave, because now he will have to pay Danish taxes. That's crazy, because we have a technology cycle of 5-10 years.
Our project cycle is 4-6 years, and we can only have our top talents halfway through a project before they have to consider where to go next. Let me just take the final point before moving on. It is quite bizarre that on the 1st of January 2023, you've made up a rule under which you can't deduct salaries that are above DKK 8 million. In a global company with global responsibility, come on. We shouldn't be happy about the 22% as shareholders. That's all I'm saying. I know some people noticed my salary, and I can tell you that my basic fee is not DKK 32 million. I'm happy to pay my taxes out of my bonus scheme.
I think we should talk to each other in a respectful tone, and I think we should make Denmark bigger and better when it comes to our international talent. We purchase to the tune of DKK 20 billion with our suppliers each year. We really need to do something about this. Let's now move on to something more positive. Our global strategic priorities. We have seven points here, and we will stick to these, and we have efficiency as one of them. Here we are going to talk about simplification. We need to cut the red tape, and I will get back to that in my next slide. The next thing here is what happens towards 2030.
Once we have reached our goals when it comes to service and offshore and onshore, then we are going to look at the top of this mountain, the very summit. No, Kristian Gaarde from ATP, I'm not going to give you any answers yet on this. We are talking about model reset, and this is a simplification. We need to be simpler in Vestas. Complexity just creeps in in all big companies. With regards to our prime minister, that is also the case in smaller countries like ours. We have four focus areas here when it comes to this subject. First of all, we need to listen to our customers. How do we take care of their needs? Then we need to simplify. Why are we still carrying out so many paper-based processes in this day and age?
We are asking ourselves these questions, and we are trying to do something about it. We are trying to rightsize Vestas. It sounds brutal, and it might be, but it means that by the end of the year, we will be fewer white-collar workers than when we begun the year. That is a natural consequence of simplifying. That is how we think. That is how we go to work every day, and that is how we develop the culture of Vestas and strengthen the culture in Vestas. I'm not going to talk much more about that right now. You will hear more about it quarter by quarter, and sometimes you will hear that we have downsized.
Just like we sometimes say goodbye to people in our production, of course, it's a negative development for the individual, and I completely recognize that, but it is in the interest of our shareholders, and these two interests are not always aligned. The journey towards the 10% is good also to include. Now we are in the middle of our outlook towards 2026. We have said 7%. I can see someone in the third row nodding in agreement, and that means that we are just 3% behind our ambition of 10%. That means that we only have 300 basis points left until we reach the holy grail of 10%. These are the areas that are going to contribute mainly to this ambition.
We need to align our investments in offshore, and quality is also what Felix in manufacturing uses when he works with quality and waste and everything that is going on in our value chain. Then we have service. Kristian, no, we're not happy yet with the contribution from service, so we need to get up from 16.5%, and then we still need to optimize things. We have come a long way, and we are very happy with the performance we've seen in onshore, and there's no doubt I can see some of you are looking at me, looking like a question mark, but it would have been higher if we weren't investing in offshore, but we wouldn't have been as robust looking towards 2030 if we hadn't.
A good thing can't be said too often, as we say in Jutland, and that goes for the share price, and the chair has already mentioned this, but I also wanted to include it in my report, of course. Another thing that's very important for me, as you know, is what we call EPS, earnings per share. What you can see here is that earnings per share, of course, has to do with earnings and the number of shares, but here it also has to do with the size of the company. Perhaps that's a reference to our chairman. As you might know, we have a friendly competition going, but you can see Anders' EPS number back from 2014, and then he reached 0.9. You still hold the record.
Looking at the middle of our outlook here in the gray, I would say that we are going to reach 1.1. Of course, I can't wait to be able to present that number at next year's AGM, and I'm sure that will mean a higher share price and more earnings per share. This is something we can control, and we are very happy about that, because we cannot control the share price. We can adjust with share buyback programs, but that will mean that we have fewer shares and get a better earnings per share. It also has the advantage that when earnings increase, this number also increases. This is the graph I'm going to be traveling with in the coming months. This leads me to my last slide, which is the outlook for 2026. Most of you will have seen this already.
Our outlook for revenue is EUR 20 billion-EUR 22 billion. EBIT margin. Service is expected to generate between 15.5%-17.5%, and total investments approximately EUR 1.2 billion. Now we're already through the first quarter, and the results will be published on the 6th of May, and we're looking forward to that. Thank you to all those of you who reach out via LinkedIn or elsewhere and send us some words of praise or encouragement, and I'm sure that we will talk more together over a glass of wine this evening. Thank you very much to all of you for participating today.
Thank you very much, Henrik and Anders. You've now heard the report from the board of directors for 2025 and the annual report. There are already three people who have asked for the floor. If anybody else wants the floor, please come up here and present yourself to Daniel up here so you can get on the speakers list. I will first give the floor to Kristian Gaarde from ATP.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much for the floor. My name is Kristian Gaarde and I represent the pension fund, ATP. Thank you for the report and the annual report. 2025 was a strong year for Vestas, with record high profitability and also revenue. In service, there's still potential for improvement, as we heard, and in offshore, it's still being constructed at the moment, so to speak.
We have also seen smaller share buyback programs in 2025 and 2026, and that sends a signal in the right direction. As investors, we have also received a profit of about 90% since 2025, and of course, we appreciate that very much. You're quite right, Henrik, I have to ask about that EBIT margin. At last year's AGM, ATP said that we questioned whether Vestas could ever reach the 10%. Even though we're not there yet, we have to admit that Vestas has certainly taken a big step in the right direction, and that gives us increasing optimism that this target can be achieved. Based on your guidance for 2026, where you look at the mid-level of 7%, there's still about 30 percentage points lacking before we are 10%, and hopefully that can become a reality in the next couple of years.
Now, I have to be careful to not just do a back of the envelope calculation here, Henrik, but I'll try. You had 4 areas that would contribute to this improvement. I've divided into 3 because I haven't included onshore, because it seems to be going really well already. The three I've categorized is operating model reset we heard about, firstly, improvement of service, and ramp-up in offshore. If you assume that the first two, operating model reset and service, could contribute with a total of 1 percentage point to the margin, then it would require about 2 percentage points from the offshore ramp-up. The question is whether this is more or less correct, or a correct way of looking at things. My follow-up question is, where you would see the greatest risks in these three areas?
Things that could keep you from achieving the target of 10% EBIT. I won't ask about your 2030 ambitions, but I think it was a very tall mountain to climb there, but it's very promising. Just in closing, I have a more general comment, which probably echoes what we heard from both the chairman of the board and the CEO. Because geopolitical tensions have made it clear that energy security in Europe is a central political subject, and wind energy plays a vital role here. At the same time, the sector also promotes European employment. You also see that in what you've said about a possible new nacelle factory in Scotland. From where we sit, it looks like the green transition is accelerating in Europe. For instance, changes in framework conditions in certain areas.
In some places, it already works well, as we see in your strong backlog in offshore. In total, we believe that Vestas is very strongly placed, both in the green transition and in contributing to energy security. That should also support continued growth in revenue and progress towards the margin target. I did actually have one final question, related to how you look at the prospects for the European market. I think you already mentioned it a bit, both of you, but if you have anything to add, I would of course be interested to hear about that. I think we are seeing signals that things are improving, so it would be interesting. Even though we're not quite there yet, are we seeing any signs that we could see growth in Vestas business in the next few years? That's what I had to say.
Thank you to everyone at Vestas for your hard work in 2025, and all the best in the coming year.
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Well, it was made clear to me that the CEO should answer this. To start from the last question, the green transition is highly prioritized, probably on a critical background, because we need to find something quickly, because we are probably in a worse situation now than in 2022. There's that sort of alarmist side of things. I think we should forget about our alarm. We should not forget now, because now we have a ceasefire in the Middle East. We have to remember that we still need to ensure energy security from quarter to quarter to quarter the next 10 years, and that needs to be part of the work in every parliament in Europe, that we prioritize energy security as highly as defense.
Again, I have to tease the Danish government, because when Denmark removes an energy tax from 1st of January, then we build south of the Danish border, so that new cheap energy can be constructed. When we look at our energy prices, we need to look at the right thing, what it costs to produce, and if it then contributes to the tax in the country, then it's not the pure energy price. We have to get used to that in Europe, because in Europe, we are covered with strange tax systems, and in some countries, energy is more expensive than the alternative we could import. In many cases, it's only a third of the production price that could be made. Talking about what it costs to get new energy or renewable energy, it's quite remarkable.
If you can produce energy for about EUR 0.10, I think most people would say thank you. Yes, thank you to the green transition. We want that, and of course, it's important for our business case, and it will grow, Kristian. Let's remember that we also need to see whether there are also other aspects of energy we need to look into, also from a political side. Of course, I like it when you and Claus turn up and you sit with this envelope and you said, "Let's look at the back of the envelope, our calculations here." I have to be careful because, of course, if you start adding numbers together, you saw my four areas of priority, about 10%. You're right, I still need three percentage points if we reach 7% this year.
It's difficult to split up the cold water and the warm water, because we won't hit an exact percentage point. I can promise you, if you look at the four areas, they will give more than the 300 basis points, because we of course also know that things won't happen as we maybe thought. Of course, we don't quite like splitting percentages up in the operating model reset, because we don't think we can put this into earnings or employees. We believe we will have a streamlining and that our customers will like Vestas more. I dare not put percentage points on any of it. I'm sure Claus Wiinblad from ATP didn't come today because he got the 7% earlier than expected. I hope he'll come back next year also along with you, and then we can talk further about this.
We share your positive feedback, and also thank you for your feedback to the employees, because that's very important to us. We also appreciate your good input every quarter. We very much welcome that we are one of the shares that could give ATP a bit of a boost this year.
Thank you very much. The next speaker is Mikael Bak from the Danish Shareholders' Association. Go ahead.
Thank you for the floor. It's good to be here, back in Jutland. I'm from Western Jutland myself, as I told Henrik. I represent the Danish Shareholders' Association, representing 17,000 private investors. Many of our members are here today. I'm not going to ask you to stand up like the executive management, but thank you very much for taking shareholder democracy seriously. I had a note called the Jutland-style shareholders' democracy, where you can really tease each other a little bit. I will try not to deviate too much from my script, which I hand in the day before, so he will reply, "I know you're going to ask about this." Yes, of course you know, because I send in my contribution beforehand. Let's get to it.
My first question has to do with what Kristian Gaarde from ATP said about the EBIT margin and the 10%. That's your long-term ambition, and I wouldn't focus so much about the substance, but the timeframe, is it in 2028, 2029, 2030? When do you expect to reach this target? Another question is about your guidance, and of course, that could be difficult for you to say right now, but it's more if you could venture a guess. On the same day as you published these very strong results for 2025, the share price dropped markedly, and that's quite frustrating, of course, to the shareholders. Therefore, on behalf of the shareholders, I would like to ask whether management would consider a more specific and perhaps multi-annual guidance in order to reduce uncertainty in the market, and so that investors could have a clearer view of the road ahead.
That is a common interest of ours. I know it's difficult, but could you try to elaborate on that? My last question, before I go freestyle here, is that today, the U.S. is Vestas' biggest market. As most people would have noticed, they have now a president that is not a fan of wind energy. Therefore, my question is what the worst-case scenario would be for the U.S., and what your plans are in order to deal with that. For instance, if tax incentives for wind energy are removed, or do you have any contractual protections in place, or what are you going to do about it, and what is at risk here for the share price? Just finally, I promise to tease you a bit. You mentioned the elephant in the room.
If some of my members were to hear about these tax comments that you made in the media recently, and I had dinner with a friend of mine, Kim, recently, and he owned Vestas shares. He had bought them for his daughters. Kim had read that Henrik Andersen had said in the media that he was against these new taxation rules. It's funny that the football hero from 1992 had something to do with the taxation. Then I could tell him, "Well, it's not the Henrik Andersen the footballer, it's Henrik Andersen, the CEO of Vestas." From the Danish Shareholders' Association, we believe that investment in shares should be for everyone. I hope that Vestas can be for everyone. In that manner, I hope we can bring different resources into play.
I also notice that you are on a first-name basis with each other, and I can say that Helle is sitting here in one of the first rows, so perhaps she can contribute to making Vestas for everyone and investment in shares for everyone. With that, I wish you all the best for the year ahead.
Thank you, Mikael. Thank you very much, Mikael. I guess that's also a question for the CEO to answer. When are we going to reach the 10%? Of course, I can't tell you that, because that would get me in trouble. I know my tie is perhaps not very elegantly tied, but.
I would be strung up in a noose if I were to say anything about where we have an EBIT margin in 18 months from now. There's no upside in trying to do that, and I think it will not contribute to ensuring the interests of your members. In the past few months, we have seen a development. As a shareholder, because I'm a shareholder myself, I will not venture any guess on what the share price is tomorrow. I will just venture a guess that you will be happy what we're doing in three or five years from now, because that is something we can promise you. If the quarterly report didn't match what I said today, then you would be angry with me the next time we meet. There's not really any point in that.
Our task at hand is to run this business to the best of our ability to make sure that we continue to deliver. Therefore, my answer to your question about multi-annual guidance is the same. We are adhering quite strictly to the rules of guidance, and we are saying this again and again, because in Denmark, we try to control big companies, and we think we can control big companies by making very tight rules. We are trying to run this business to the best of our ability every year, every day. Things are in movement all the time. I tried to say this in a diplomatic way, but repeating something enough doesn't make it any more true. People are saying all sorts of false things about wind, and that doesn't make it true, because wind energy is a strong energy source.
All other sorts of energy, fossil fuels, have increased remarkably during the past many years. You've seen that in the U.S., and the U.S. is going to need a lot more of energy. Many of us have moved production back to the U.S. in the past 5 to 10 years. The underlying energy consumption is increasing in the U.S. At the same time, we have these data centers now. We all have a mobile phone in our pocket, and we all ask ChatGPT about things now and then. That means, Mikael, that today, in some way, places you have reached a level where the demand for electricity is so high that it's higher than what you can produce on your own without tax incentives in the U.S., because there's no alternative.
We have shown you what the costs would be if we were to choose nuclear energy, for instance. It would take 20 times as long, and the cost would be much, much higher than when it comes to wind energy. You have seen the high costs in the U.S. because they're not choosing wind energy as it is. You can see the consequences of the administration they have in the U.S. I'm glad we don't have a guy like that running Vestas. Perhaps property taxes and then perhaps my meddling in the taxation debate wasn't a good idea, but I hadn't even paid the top tax bracket for 90 days before there was a new rule being introduced, which honestly is discriminating against Danish top talents who choose to take up an executive post.
I mentioned it on the 1st of January 2023, when that rule came into force. Even though I've said it before, people didn't pay any attention. Of course, I did taste the whip after meddling in that debate. I can assure you that. I really took the heat for it. Hopefully, being a shareholder shouldn't be politically motivated because that is not in the interest of a value-creating Vestas.
Thank you very much. The next speaker is Søren Svendsen , and after Søren, we have two more speakers on the list. Søren , go ahead.
Thank you. My name is Søren Svendsen . I've been a shareholder of Vestas since it was listed on the stock exchange almost 30 years ago. Thank you to hear the reports and the annual report. You are both very positive and optimistic, and that's always good to hear. When we talk property tax and share tax, then we have to remember that the property tax has probably been dropped, but there's still talk about a share tax being reduced to 35%, but that's then for all. I would like to get it down to 30%, but let's see if we can work on that. It's a capital gains tax on shares. We have an annual report that looks very well for the future and certainly in much better shape than a year ago. The clearest indicator on that is the share price.
It was exactly DKK 88 a year ago, and now it's actually just over the double today. This is a share price which is quite reflective of the actual situation, and it shows that you are now on top of costs. A bottom line that shows EUR 5.8 billion. That's the best result in 5 years by far. Both the result and revenue have increased in the past 4 years. Vestas is a growth company. The backlog has never been higher than it is now, and that's also very positive for all us shareholders. When you follow the market and what's written in the media like Børsen, Jyllands-Posten and other Danish newspapers, they have previously been a bit hard on Vestas, but when you read their articles now, they are more optimistic. Last year, I said that trust is a key word for Vestas.
That of course applies to all companies, but particularly to Vestas because there have been quite a few cases of broken trust in the past 30 years. I was very happy some years ago, Anders Runevad, when you said, "I don't promise a lot, but I do keep what I do promise." We weren't used to that from other chairman. I think trust in Vestas is returning. As I said initially, I've owned shares in Vestas since the listing because I like the concept of green energy. I have added to my portfolio, so now I have 160,000 Vestas shares. It's by far the largest one share in my portfolio. I therefore look very clearly and often at Vestas. I remember Ditlev Engel's Triple 15 strategy. Do you remember that one? Of course, it came to nothing.
Also the gearbox problems years ago, problems we haven't heard about in the past 4 or 5 years, fortunately. I also remember there were 3 Swedes who came and saved Vestas or certainly helped Vestas, and one of them was you, Anders, and I hope you will stay quite a while yet. Last year, I finished by saying that Vestas was one of the major shares that fell the most in share price. Last year it was halved. I said we have quite a lot we still wish for. Luckily we got what we wished for in 2025 and 2026 because Vestas has more than doubled its share price. In 2025, Vestas was the share that increased the most, by about 78%. Thank you very much for that result, Henrik Andersen, Anders Runevad, and everybody else at Vestas. Thank you for the floor.
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Well, Anders didn't want to come up here to receive the praise himself, but, I was part of the Swedish school here in Denmark, so I'm quite sure that this combination will work quite well. Thank you very much, Søren. It means a lot to me coming from you. I know of course, you had to mention how many shares you own so that you really have a lot on the line, and that you count on us meeting on good terms again next year. I just wanted to make sure that is recorded in the minutes here today.
Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Jan Laudal Pedersen, and after Jan it will be Flemming Bak Thomsen. Go ahead.
Thank you very much for that report. It's been quite interesting to hear, and I know that you really like headwind, so I will really try to put a hair in the soup and see if you are aware of the frog in your hot soup. In 2025, we have seen a very volatile electricity price where the value of electricity in the most expensive hours of the day are 60%-70% higher than the average. Does Vestas recognize that there is a significant added earning if you could move the production to those hours of the day? And do you have a concrete strategy for how to take part in that value creation, for instance, through the use of batteries or partnerships? And if not, why not? Thank you.
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It's very nice to be able to stand up here and say, "Yes, fortunately we do," and we believe in that development as well.
To me, it's incomprehensible that when we see what we've done out here, which we have been allowed to do, where we have two container solutions with batteries holding power for 55 recharges of vehicles so that we can charge when the price is low. Alternatively, I would put it this way, every time you have a space, and I think when you leave here, you will see how aesthetically pleasing it is and how well it fits into this area. The second part of it is that if you want to do this in real life, you need to find the opportunity for a new environmental assessment, and that will take 5-7 years to carry out. In that time span, we will have seen yet another energy crisis.
Anyone with a solar park or a wind farm should be allowed to put up batteries so that they can absorb power into those batteries when the production circumstances are optimal. That is concerning that you can't do that and that the processes are so slow. I'm not sure that we should start building production facilities for these batteries just yet, because you can't get much closer to a raw material than that. The idea of being able to predict when the energy price is low and stuff like that is really something we want to pursue.
Thank you very much. The last speaker on our list is Flemming Bak Thomsen. Go ahead.
The bad result in 2022 was owing to raw material prices and competition in components, et cetera. Is that something you experience now in 2026 again? Or what are your thoughts about this? How resilient are you? Have you done something to sort of hedge your bets compared to 2022?
Yes, we have done something, because if we hadn't learned from 2022, we wouldn't deserve to be here today. One of the things we learned in 2022 was that we had offers to our customers that couldn't be changed for up to or over a year, which was really something that weighed us down. We were in bad shape when we got to 2022.
We have a close partner in A.P. Moller - Maersk , for them it helps when the transport of a container goes from $3,000-$30,000, and we need a lot of hours to achieve the same thing. Today we make better contracts also with a company like Maersk. We are in a much better situation in controlling the price of our products and services. Javier is sitting here, and I'm sure he still has a bit of a delay in the interpretation. It's difficult to avoid, but we don't have offers now that are valid for 6-12 months. Now it's 30-45 days and they have to say yes or no. We can say, "Well, the price has changed," even though what they're buying is maybe 18 or 24 months into the future. We are in a better shape. We are handling things better.
Of course, there are still plenty of challenges. Now it's April, and I wouldn't show this outlook now if we weren't in better shape or weren't better prepared, because we are.
Thank you very much. We have no more speakers on the list. That leads me to the formal adoption of item number 1 and 2. Under item 1, it is the proposal of the board that the AGM take note of the report of the board of directors. Are there any other comments? Otherwise, I will conclude that the report on the company's activities has been taken note of by the AGM. Under item 2, the proposal is that the AGM adopt the annual report. We have an auditor's report on page 190 in the annual report. I will not read it out loud, but just conclude that it is an unqualified auditor's report. I can also inform you that the sustainability reporting that has been mentioned a few times also has been qualified with a statement from the company auditor. Any comments?
Otherwise, I will conclude that the annual report has been adopted. That leads us to Agenda item 3, and under item 3, the proposal is to pay out a dividend of 0.74 DKK per share, which is corresponding to EUR 100 million in dividends. Here I can inform you that you cannot propose a higher dividend, only a lower one, and that does not seem to be the case that anyone wishes to do so. I can conclude that that has been adopted.
Item 4 is the presentation of an advisory vote on the remuneration report, which has been prepared according to the Danish legislation. In this report, you can see the remuneration for the Board of Directors and the Executive Management for 2025. The report has been available on the website since the time of the notice. Any comments or questions in this respect? Otherwise, I will conclude that the remuneration report is adopted. Under item five, the Board of Directors propose that the remuneration for 2026 is increased by 8%. That means that the basic fee is DKK 526,590 per board members, with three times the basic remuneration for the Chair and twice the basic remuneration for the Deputy Chair.
In addition, the board proposes an 8% increase in the committee fee so that the chair fee will receive DKK 309,759, that's for the committee fee, and the committee chair fee will be DKK 557,566. That is also adopted, and that leads me to item 6, which is the election of members to the board. They are elected for one year at a time, and the board proposes re-election of all of the current members, which you can see here. Anders Runevad, Bruno Bensasson, Claudio Facchin, Eva Berneke, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Henriette Thygesen, Karl-Henrik Sundström, and Lena Marie Olving. Furthermore, the board proposes that Anders Boyer- Søgaard be elected as a new member of the board. A full description of all of the candidates and their managerial posts has been available on the website since the day of the notice as Annex One to the convening notice.
Are there any comments or questions? Otherwise, the proposal has been adopted. There are no comments, and therefore all of the current members of the board of directors have been re-elected, and Anders Boyer- Søgaard has been elected as a new member. Congratulations. Under item 7, we have the appointment of auditor. The board of directors proposes reappointment of Deloitte Statsautoriseret Revisionspartnerselskab, both when it comes to the statutory financial audit and the sustainability reporting. This is proposed by the audit committee, and the audit committee has not been influenced by third parties to restrict the AGM's choice of auditors. Are there any other candidates? Otherwise, Deloitte will be re-elected. Deloitte Statsautoriseret Revisionspartnerselskab has been reappointed. Congratulations. That brings us to item 8. The board of directors proposes three proposals. 8.1 is a reduction of the company's share capital down to DKK 199,112,292 by canceling treasury shares.
These treasury shares have been acquired in 2025 in the share buyback program to a total of just over DKK 8.6 billion. If this is adopted, the cancellation will be announced to the Danish Business Authority. Then we will adjust the Articles of Association with the information on the slide now. Are there any comments, or this will be adopted? The proposal is adopted. That brings us to item 8.2. First Of January next year, the Capital Region of Denmark will become merged with another region, and therefore, this will be reflected in the Articles of Association, Article 4.2, so that AGMs can be held in Region Midtjylland like now or in East Denmark. Are there any comments for this proposal? Otherwise, it's also adopted. Yes, it's adopted. Item 8.3. The Board proposes that the board of directors be granted authorization to acquire treasury shares.
This is common practice, and that this will be an aggregate of 10% of the company's share capital at the time of authorization, so that treasury shares at no time can exceed 10%. The purchase price has to not deviate more than 10% from the price quoted on NASDAQ Copenhagen at the time. Are there any comments to this? The authorization has been approved. Item 9 is to authorize me, as chair of the AGM, to make adjustments required by the Danish Business Authority and inform the authority about what has been decided. Are there any comments or does anybody else want to take on that job? That doesn't seem to be the case. I have received this authorization. Thank you for that. That brings us to the last item on the agenda, which is any other business.
We can't make any decisions here, but you can make a final comment or ask a final question. There doesn't seem to be anyone who wants the floor, so I'll give the floor to the Chairman of the Board.
For me, a very big thank you again. I really appreciate the dialogue, and I really appreciate your kind words. As I said, I think it's important that we keep this physical and of course also possibility to vote by mail. I appreciate your comments, your interactions, and a big thank you for taking your time. Now I think it's time for food. Thank you for coming.