Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. My name is Alexandros Benos. I am the CFO of Cenergy Holdings, and I welcome you to today's live webcast on our company's 2025 first semester financial results. Our agenda today is to present first group financial figures, give you a short overview per segment, and then talk a little bit more about what is coming up for the end of the year and for 2026. So the main point of our results is really the following: we had a very strong first semester, both at the top line and at the bottom line. Both facts have led us to update our 2025 fiscal year guidance on adjusted EBITDA, as I will make clear in the following notes. First of all, our revenue has exceeded the EUR 1 billion mark on a semester basis.
I remind you, it was only 2021 when we hovered around EUR 1 billion for yearly sales. Now we have come really a long way since then, and we've gone over the EUR 1 billion mark for the first semester, a 26% increase year-on-year, so related to H1 2024. At the same time, that increase in sales is coupled with an operational profitability which is above EUR 170 million, 43% higher than the first semester of 2024, with both segments exhibiting superior performance.
The steel pipes achieve an exceptional margin over 18% due to their favorable product mix, while cables have incorporated the additional capacity on the submarine cables that was developed at the end of last year in the Corinth plant of Fulgor and can now reap the fruits of that additional capacity. There was a ramp-up that took a little bit more time than the first quarter.
Now all new lines are fully operational. That's why Q2 is really much stronger than Q1. Margins for both segments have increased more than 200 basis points compared to those in the first semester of 2024, while the backlog is still very strong at EUR 3.33 billion, which gives us a clear visibility of over three years for cables and a period around 18 months for steel pipes. All of those, of course, lead us to update our 2025 financial year guidance on adjusted EBITDA to EUR 310 million-EUR 340 million, which is EUR 10 million up for both ends of the interval. The return on capital employed is also very strong at 29%, and it is expected to stay there for the year end. Now, the figures per product line show clearly our strategy, which is focusing on value-adding and therefore high-margin areas.
If you look at the details of that slide, the split between Hellenic Cables, so the cable segment, and the steel pipe segment is a 70/30 split, both in terms of sales and in terms of profits. But it is also clear that what we name projects in both segments have received or have produced (it depends on the way you look at them) the lion's share of profitability. So Hellenic Cables projects at EUR 409 million of sales, 63% higher than the corresponding semester of 2024, are representing 55% of the revenue of cables, but around 80%-82% of the profitability of cables. At the same time, steel pipes projects, which is really the lion's share again of the Corinth Pipeworks sales, represent EUR 260 million, so 93% of the revenue and more than 95% of the profitability.
So it is clear that the projects is where both segments are focusing on, and that is what they want to keep on developing for the years to come. Our sales remain geographically dispersed, although we can see that there is a kind of slow shift towards Europe, at least more than what was true one or two years earlier. Now, some of it is due to specific projects that were executed in 2023. For example, in 2023, the large share of Greece was due to the execution of the interconnection projects in the Cyclades and in the Ionian Sea, Kyllini- Zakynthos, whereas in 2024, the large share of the rest of the world was really due to two projects by steel pipes, one by Chevron in the coast of Israel and another one by Total in Australia.
That shift is not a shift that has been made away from Greece or away from the rest of the world, but it is true that our interest is centering around Europe, more for the cable segment, since the cables are really playing very strongly the card of Europe's energy transition and its focus on renewables, while we develop, of course, our factory in the U.S. to serve the American market. On the other hand, Corinth Pipeworks remains a truly global player, so it doesn't have, well, I wouldn't say a lot, but it doesn't have a significant amount of sales in Greece, apart from simpler and smaller DESFA projects. It's really aiming at a global presence. The growth in top line, of course, is very good, as I presented before.
We have a 26% increase year-on-year, with Q2 being better than Q1 due to the increased capacity in the Greek factories of Hellenic Cables. In the value-added areas, which are what we call projects, this means that the delta of turnover translates by a multiplier of more than 1.6 x to an increase in profitability. So the 26% increase in revenue becomes a 43% increase in profitability, and we reach a number of EUR 171 million for the semester.
The weighted average margin of this is at 16.7%, as I said, more than 200 basis points higher than last year for both segments. And the backlog is also above EUR 3.3 billion , rather stable, mostly in the Hellenic Cables segment. And we have, of course, the potential for further increase by the end of 2025. The stability of the backlog in Hellenic Cables is not something that is alarming for us.
Much the contrary, we have earned some good awards, like the Dunkirk Offshore Wind Farm by RTE and the very recently announced interconnection between the Mainland and Corfu in Greece. It's just due to the fact that during the first quarter, Hellenic Cables executed a much larger amount in euros of its existing backlog than the awards it won in the first semester. On the contrary, CPW actually had the opposite effect. It executed less than the new awards it got. That's why its backlog is now up to around EUR 560 million. We are also present, as I told you, in the U.S. This cables project is a project of 230 kV subsea export cables for the U.S. It's a part of our backlog, but of course, it will link very favorably to our local factory when that will become operational in around one and a half years.
What is more interesting is the non-quantitative features of that backlog, and that's what I would like to mention to you right now. First of all, the cables backlog is more balanced between offshore and onshore projects than it was in December 2024. With all the questions that have been raised lately on global offshore wind farms and so on, I believe that this is a much more prudent approach for our segment, and on the other hand, as I said before, Corinth Pipeworks, the steel pipe segment, is now a global Tier 1 top supplier of large diameter welded steel pipes. Why is that important? Because natural gas remains indeed the largest part of its order book, but it has a very strong presence in the new energy transition projects, meaning the carbon capture projects and less the hydrogen-related projects.
I just mentioned the Liverpool Bay CCS project in the U.K., the BP CCS project also in the U.K., the Adriatica lots that we got by Snam in Italy, which require 100% hydrogen-ready pipes, though hydrogen is still considered a long-term eventuality in the market. But it shows that CPW may have a large part of its current backlog in the natural gas market, but it has a strong presence as well in the new energy transition areas like CCS and hydrogen. Of course, the high profitability will trickle down from EBITDA to profit before tax and to profit after tax. So profit before tax and profit after tax are up by 70% compared to the corresponding semester of 2024. We are very happy that we have achieved that for all our shareholders and stakeholders, and we believe we will keep on doing that for the year end as well.
If we look at the gaps, the bridge between what was true last year, EUR 73 million PBT, and this year, EUR 123 million , it is clear that this increase in profitability came from operational profit in both segments: EUR 43 million in cables, EUR 10 million in CPW, and another impact, a smaller one, the lower finance expenses, which led to the EUR 124 million number. Now, these net finance expenses are lower by EUR 2.4 million . We had lower interest expenses for our debt-bearing instruments by more than EUR 6.5 million due to lower spreads and lower reference rates, and also a positive impact from interest received on the amount that we raised last year from the share capital increase.
That was counterbalanced in a significant part by accounting losses on our FX positions, due just to the fact that for hedging purposes, we had a part of that amount raised in the share capital increase turned into dollars at rates, which at the time we converted it were much higher for the dollar than they are right now. So we have to write this accounting loss on FX as a finance expense. Turning to the returns, as noted in our CEO's message, Cenergy keeps on delivering returns, both to our shareholders, older and newer, those that joined us after October 2024, and also all the other stakeholders. The earnings per share are up by 50% to EUR 0.45 per share. The share price has reached levels more than EUR 11, which is 25% higher than the share capital increase price.
As I mentioned before, the adjusted return on capital employed has gone over 29% and is expected to stay there until year end. Profitability also fuels some capital expenditures and is fueled by these capital expenditures. I must admit that these capital expenditures are at a lower pace than last year, but they are still important to keep the business growing. Our net debt has increased to EUR 343 million in June, mainly due to the rise in working capital of EUR 157 million to levels which are clearly closer to what we would call stable ones. I remind you that the -EUR 6 million of working capital for December 2024 was really an extraordinary amount. It was due to specific down payments that were received in the last month of the year.
As I have also mentioned again many times in the past, the normal working capital levels of the segments can be found around the 7% vicinity for Hellenic Cables and the 10% for Corinth Pipeworks. So that's where we really expect in a steady state our working capital needs to be. Our CapEx this semester was at EUR 119 million. It is broken down as follows. We have spent 40 million, 49 million, sorry, for the finishing up of the expansion of the Corinth plant. Another 40 million for the land cables factories, which are upgraded, and the upgrade of the Thiva plant is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. In Eleonas, which has been operational since last year, there is an ongoing ramp-up. Eleonas is really a full development from scratch, I would say, from the old Petzetakis factory that we acquired some time ago.
We are now building there a center of excellence for low voltage power cables. In the U.S., the expense in the first semester of 2025 was EUR 15 million, a little bit less than forecasted. It will clearly ramp up in the second semester. And let me be clear here, this lower expense in the first semester does not mean that there has been a slowdown of works. This was only due to some delays in our suppliers' invoicing. So there is no delay in the building and the development of our Maryland cables facility. Finally, another EUR 10.5 million were spent by the Corinth Pipeworks for upgrades of its port, improvements in coating, in cutting, and also in developing much greener energy for the production facility, as we will announce very shortly a major project that we did on the Thisvi plant.
All of this CapEx, of course, was financed partly by the new debt and partly by the profitability. So in a sense, the change of net debt that we have shown in our financial results is due to an increase of the working capital, as I told you, and the rest is a need for capital expenditures. Now, if I go to the overview per segment, it's clear that we have a very good performance by cables. They still run on that mega trend of electrification and greener energy that has really pushed their profitability to EUR 121 million for the first semester at margins which are extremely strong, 16.3 weighted average, which is really something between the 20 + margins that we get on projects, especially the submarine turnkey projects, and the single to low double-digit margins that we get on the commodity products.
The net debt, of course, is higher because most of the working capital needs and the increased CapEx was done on the cable segment. For the steel pipes, I should really congratulate the segment on achieving a very strong and exceptional 18.2% EBITDA margin on their sales of the first semester. This is really due to a quite favorable product mix, but also to the position of Corinth Pipeworks as a global top quality provider of steel pipe for different gas fuel networks. They do not have anything special to show either in net debt or in working capital. They are a much more mature segment right now. So that brings us to what we expect for next year, for the year that finishes and for next year.
Let me start with cables, and I believe this is one of the most important points that I would like to note in this afternoon. There has been a lot of discussion on the possible decrease, the possible crisis in offshore wind farms and the offshore wind market, and so on. This is really something that we do not observe in Europe. In Europe, offshore wind farms and renewables remain very strong. Hellenic Cables is positively engaged in a number of tenders in the U.K., in Scandinavia, and elsewhere, and in a number of frame agreements, and that is shown by their success and will be shown by their success in a market which continues at having quite significant amounts tendered. Just to give you an example, the total projects which will be tendered offshore by the end of the year and beginning of 2026 are over EUR 6 billion.
For onshore, this total is around EUR 3 billion . We're talking about big clients like RWE, Scottish Southern Power, Copenhagen Developers, Energinet, E.ON, 50Hertz, large European DSOs, transmission operators, DSOs, distribution operators, and also offshore wind developers, which are continuing to bring to the market projects important for the electrification of Europe, for the greener energy and greener electricity in Europe. That's why our backlog is expected to rise significantly until the year end. I mean, the cables backlog. We are around EUR 2.8 billion now. As announced last week, the Rubenitza project is only a small part of this extra amount that we expect. We are confident that until the end of the year, there will be more awards to Hellenic Cables. A second important point is the demand for power grid enhancements. Now, that is clearly related to the need for electrification.
The grid operators, what we call the DSOs, want to modernize and expand their networks. Research papers show that medium voltage demand globally could reach $66 billion by 2030. I repeat, this is a $66 billion demand for medium voltage cables. I stress the medium voltage because this is where most of the distribution cables are located. The research of specialized institutions shows also that electrification will lead to a CAGR, a constant annual growth rate of around 5%-8% a year, with the U.S. getting 25% of that and Europe getting around 30% of that. Imagine we're talking about $60 billion divided by 4, so the U.S. will get around $15 billion and Europe will get around $18 billion of that demand.
So that is extremely important for us because it gives us quite a satisfactory visibility for our U.S. factory, which will begin its operations in 2027. And we're confident that there will be a lot of demand in 2028, 2029, and 2030 to fill up the factory and bring some profits to the group. That point is also linked to, especially for the U.S., to a rise in electricity demand. The American Institute for Energy Autonomy has published a report that it's the first time in 2024 that the global demand of electricity in the U.S., so the demand for electricity in the whole country, has increased by 2%. All previous years, the demand for electricity was rather stable. And that demand for electricity is expected to run at higher paces until 2050.
They actually predict that computing needs will be what will need most of electricity by 2050, with ventilation and air conditioning, unfortunately, I would say, taking second place in the need for our electricity by that time. Finally, I would like to give you some update on our U.S. plant. As I said, the small delay in the CapEx spending is in no way related to delay of works. Works are going as expected. Foundations are ongoing. We have finished the soil removal, and we turn to what we call rigid inclusions and the formation of roads inside the area by the end of the year. In the meantime, the company, our company in the U.S., focuses on four areas concerning our future operation there. First of all, the qualifications that we need to get for our cables.
Qualifications, I mean the qualifications for cables to be accepted by the local utilities, the famous UL mark, product development specific for the American market, and so on. The second area is, of course, tendering. We try to be present, although we don't have a factory to be present already and to develop the intelligence that is needed not only for short-term bids, but also for long-term multi-year contracts. A third area of focus is, of course, organizing the teams there and building the teams of sales, of engineering, of finance, and so on that will be necessary. And finally, marketing. Let's not forget that area of business, meaning that the teams there have to be present, and they are present in all conferences, trade shows, road shows that concern the cables market at large in all of the American, in all of the United States.
As for steel pipes now, steel pipes, the first point that I would like to make is that natural gas is still the main energy source. All institutions and all institutes that do research, they do not expect natural gas to peak until after 2035. So it remains the main energy source of our Earth. This demand as a total energy demand is also growing. It's growing maybe not in where we had assumed or expected at first, for example, hydrogen being the clean gas and the clean production of energy. But in 2026 and 2027, most of the cleaner fuel market will be taken by carbon capture projects. There are a lot of opportunities for steel pipes in Asia Pacific Ocean, Indonesia, Malaysia, and so on, and also the demand for LSAW pipes, the longitudinally welded pipes, remains very favorable until the end of 2027.
About specific markets, I would say that for us, for Corinth Pipeworks, the U.S. offshore market is a good environment for our development since that is where high quality is absolutely necessary. When I say U.S. offshore market, we really mean Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America, depends on how you call it. The U.S. onshore market is not mainly not controlled, but mainly served by domestic producers. We have, of course, some opportunities there, but they are more limited due to the tariffs as well coming in. In Europe, the offshore market is also very strong. We are talking about good prospects at the CCS area, especially in Scandinavia, and in terms of oil and gas in the Mediterranean and the Caspian Sea. Whereas onshore, there is demand for onshore networks in Italy, in Germany, the U.K., both for gas and CCS. Of course, there's competition.
That competition and the globality of presence of CPW makes our visibility more limited. The competition mainly comes from the Indians that do invest a lot in increasing their capacity. Koreans and Chinese are strong, but they are strong in simpler products. I mean, more commoditized products, not the niche, high-quality, sophisticated pipelines that Corinth Pipeworks produces. Of course, politics are not that favorable for them right now, so they are not that present in the global markets or in the Western market, to be more precise, as in the past. All of the above led us to be a little bit more optimistic about the end of the year. That's why we upgrade our guidance for the fiscal year 2025 to a range for our adjusted EBITDA between EUR 310 million- EUR 340 million. I also remind you of our financial calendar until next year.
On the 19th of November, there will be a training update on our Q3 results. On the 20th of November, I will be happy to welcome you again and give you an update on that Q3. Then we do have the financial results of 2025. The press release will come out on March 4th, 2026, with the conference call following a day later. And the ordinary general meeting for Cenergy Holdings is expected on the 25th of May, 2026. So this concludes my short discussion on the 2025 H1 financial results. I now turn to the operator to organize a little better the Q&A session. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to inform you that you can submit your questions in two different ways. If you would like to ask a question verbally, please use the raise hand function, and we will enable your microphone. Alternatively, you may type your question into the Q&A box. You can find both options at the bottom of your screen. Thank you, and we look forward to your questions.
So I start with a couple of attendees that have asked that are asking questions live. I turn now the floor to Mr. Marios Bourazanis for his question.
Great. I hope you can hear me.
Yes, yes, Marios.
Yep. Great. Okay. First of all, good afternoon. Thank you for your time. Just a couple of questions from my side. Starting off with cables, could you clarify whether the margin improvement in H1 was primarily volume-driven given the greater contribution of high voltage? Or does this also reflect a higher quality backlog itself? And my second question is on receivables and the contract assets. I just wanted to ask, we noticed that these were somewhat elevated in H1. Could you share whether this was mainly timing-related and normalization is expected in H2, or should we expect these levels to remain for the full year?
Okay, great. Marios, thank you so much. The first answer is, yeah, it's volume-driven. It's just an impact of the weighting, calculating a weighted average. So we have more projects coming in. They have higher margins. That's why you do have a higher overall margin for cables. So that is expected, in a sense, to continue in the second semester and in the years to come. That's why we actually expanded and developed, first of all, the submarine plant, which is producing the most profitable product of our line. And then the Fulgor plant, which will be producing, which is producing the second most profitable, meaning land cables for projects. And then the Eleonas, which will be more of a commodity production facility.
As for the current assets, you're right. Current assets, I mean, as for the contract assets, you're right. Contract assets are higher than they were in the corresponding quarter last year. This is just a combination of the backlog of cables being rather stable, meaning that you do not get any advance payments on new awards or higher advance payments from new awards than last year. And at the same time, you execute more of the projects that were already in the backlog, and we have not invoiced them yet. That's why you have the increase in the contract assets. That will come back to a more balanced situation by the end of the year, or at least not that high increase that you observed in the first semester, for sure. There is a question by Mr. Stathis Kaparis. Stathis, you have the floor. We can't hear you.
Hello, can you hear me now?
Yes, yes, yes, we can hear you.
Hi, everyone. Congrats for the good quarter. I've got two questions, if I may. The first one is on the CapEx side. If you can give us a rough idea on the main moving parts for H2 and expectations for 2025, if I remember where we go for a normalization, we're expecting a normalization of CapEx 2026, sorry, and beyond. And then in terms of capital allocation, does it make any sense to optimize the gross debt situation, maybe pay a bit of gross debt to reduce further interest costs? Thank you.
Sure. So this question of CapEx is really, I think, an important one. It is also asked by other participants as well, namely Mr. Katsios. So I will give an answer for both parts. In H2 2025, we expect our non-U.S.-related capital expenditure to be much lower than it were in H1 and also to go towards numbers before the factory, the submarine and land cables factory developments. So if we leave out the U.S. expansion, and I leave it out because that U.S. expansion is covered by our share capital increase money, we expect the CapEx for the rest of the group to be much lower than the EUR 200 million, if I'm not mistaken, EUR 259 million that were shown by the end of 2024.
Okay? So we are expecting almost half of it to be the CapEx for the entire year compared to 2024. The U.S. expansion will need around EUR 70 million-EUR 80 million in 2025, and the larger part of what is left in 2026.
Out of these EUR 70 million-EUR 80 million, only EUR 15 million were spent in the first semester, which means that in the second semester, we have quite an important outflow, but this is definitely coming from the share capital increase, and I actually get this opportunity here to answer a question by Ms. Fani Tzioukalia, who asks about costs involved in line with the budget. Yes, they do. They evolve really broadly in line with the budget. Up to now, the money we're spending in the U.S. through, of course, capital injections to our U.S. subsidiary are fully used, fully paid by the share capital increase. We have to wait and see how 2026 invoicing will develop, and if necessary, we will seek some additional lines by the end of 2026. But this is not something that is currently under consideration for 2025 and half of 2026, for sure.
So it's not important. We're not outside our range for the budget used in the U.S. facility development. Stathis, I don't know if I answered the question completely. I believe yes. You had the, oh, for 2026, therefore, you will have the, right. So to wrap up, in 2026, you will have the rest for the US facility, around EUR 100 million, which I leave out. And the rest will come towards the levels of maintenance plus small improvements for the segments in Greece. So that will be it. Maintenance, you can think of it around EUR 50 million-EUR 70 million, EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million, EUR 65 million for both segments as maintenance each year. I will turn now to finish the questions. There was a question asked by the Q&A method by Mrs. Tzioukalia. She also asked if I could provide some color on the working capital outlook.
Fani, as I said, we believe that a working capital for steel pipes should be around 8%-10% of their sales. That's where it is right now. That's where it will be also at the end of the year. Anything lower than that is due to an extraordinary payment that we get a little bit earlier, or we don't get in time, and we'll get a little bit later around the 31st of December. This is not something that happens very often in the steel pipes, but it happens much more often in the cable segment, meaning that you have a higher volatility, if I can use this word, for the working capital estimate of cables than for steel pipes.
But the numbers we expect by the end of the year are the numbers I also mentioned in my short presentation: 6%-7% for the cables, 8%-10% of sales for the steel pipes. That's what we are expecting working capital to be by the end of the year. For Nestor Katsios, he's asking about margins on the second semester of 2025 and 2026. It's really a mix, Mr. Katsios. It's a mix. The mix was good in the first semester. In cables, we expect the same mix to continue for the second semester as well. And for steel pipes, although it all depends on production planning. Now, for 2026, I would say that the expectation is also that margins for steel pipes will remain at those levels, maybe not at 18%, but clearly in the 15%-16% range.
Cables has another driver behind it, and it is, as was correctly pointed out by Mr. Bourazanis in the beginning, it's a weighted average result. So it's a volume-driven result. As we get more and more a higher and higher proportion of the cables revenues coming for projects, the weighted average margin will be increasing slowly, but steadily. There is then a question by Mr. Tanu Sekhar on challenges in the U.S. offshore. You're right. Yeah, there are challenges. Actually, the U.S. offshore, I would say that it is now frozen for the time being. We are not exposed to the U.S. offshore at all, apart from the project that I showed you there and which will be, it's for delivery, much later. So it is for delivery in 2028 to 2028 and further on. And it's a very small part of our entire backlog.
So yeah, it is frozen. I believe that at some point that will change, of course. But it's a market that we are trying actually to get into the American market, not by the offshore wind or the offshore cables, but by the land cables. That's why our facility will be producing land cables for utilities and for distribution for connections. Then I have a couple of questions from Mr. Nikos Kyriakos of Alpha Finance. Do we see any headwinds or delays regarding the Silver Run Expansion Project, the one I showed you in our backlog, which was added to our backlog around June? No, Yanis, I do not see any headwinds or delays. We have just been awarded the project. As I said, it is for much later on. There is no information that this will be delayed or canceled or whatever.
As is, there are no delays for the start of the construction of the plant. Actually, we have already started construction of the plant. As I mentioned, we have the foundation work is ongoing. We are right now opening up roads inside this land plot. I remind you that was a land plot which was totally undeveloped. It only had a coastline that we are turning into a port and a couple of railroad lines going through the middle. So we have to open roads for the trucks to come in. We have to update the railroad line to use it for logistics and so on. So there are no delays. We're actually following our plan as before, and there are now, by the end of Q4, we will have also completed what we call rigid inclusions.
Rigid inclusions are the formation of rigid foundations for the heavy machinery that will come to sit on top of the concrete base. So you have to do some kind of work strengthening the subsoil to accept very large and heavy machines. The rhythm of these things are around 30-40 a day. So we are really, really on time. No delays on that. Then there is also a question by Mr. Mantzavras. First of all, he correctly points out that projects were 82% of cables' total EBITDA. That is correct. The rest of 18% was by-products. Does this imply some decline for cable projects? No. It just shows that products have also achieved quite an important number.
If I go back to my notes, we are talking about 55% of the revenue for cables is in projects, 82% of profits, and the 45% of revenue is in products and 20%, so 18% in profits. So there's no decline in cables projects. There is an increase in cables projects for Oona. And I think also my slide is clear on that. If I could go back to that, I don't want to bother you too much, but if we go back to that, I believe we will show something. It goes back. Let's see. There is 63% from last year and more than almost three times from 2023. So no, projects are important. They still remain important. That's why we have increased. Oh, he corrected his question. He meant products, the margin of products.
The margin of products is not as high as has been, you're right, at the end of 2024. Correct. But the products, whether you have a margin of 12% or 13%, this is extraordinary. It's the same thing as having an 18% in steel pipes. Products are considered to have an EBITDA margin of single digit, high single digits, 7%, 8%, 9% , 10%. So yeah, the margin of products has gone back to the standard long-term average, which is in the high single digit, not in the double digit that we had in 2024. That you're right. Absolutely. Let me see if I have anything else. There is, of course, as Ms. Kalamara is asking, this presentation will immediately be uploaded to our website. So you will have all the information that was shown here today on our website. Are there any other questions?
I think we have a couple of questions coming in. Mr. Let me see here. Thomas Gomini is asking me, what is the target in terms of order intake? Well, the more the better, they say. So I cannot really tell you what is the target. We do have the capacity to serve them. Of course, everybody knows in the projects business that their requests will be served after 2028, actually starting in 2029. But all the other three large cable producers are doing exactly the same. So we're talking about Prysmian and Nexans. They are fully booked until 2030, 2031. So I believe that clients know that, and that's why the tenders are, they concern deliveries after 2028, 2029. Okay. So it's not that, of course, we would like to have a lot of them.
What we are mostly expecting is to get our first award for high voltage DC cables. That's what we would like to get until the end of the year. Mr. Afanasakis asks the question, it seems H2 is usually a bigger half in terms of sales profits. Would you agree there is such seasonality? In general, yes, there is such a seasonality. So we expect H2 to be at least as good as H1. The seasonality, of course, is not something that is written in stone or is guaranteed. We believe that there is always some kind of better cash flow results in the last quarter because everyone is trying actually to close up their year ends that they have at the end of the year and close up any open orders and so on and so forth.
But I believe that the second quarter will be as good as H1, at least. So no, Mr. Mantzavras, the upgraded guidance does not imply a flat performance in H2. It's just a calculation. We are not going by the calculation. I'm just saying that we are not anymore between 300 and 330. We are 310-340. Now, it just may be a coincidence that 170 x 2 is 340, but that is just a coincidence. We are not working with multiplication tables. We are working with a business plan. As I also mentioned, there is no project on HVDC yet awarded. That does not mean that we are not hoping to get an HVDC. It means that we are qualified. We hope to get it, and we are very close to getting it.
If you follow the company, you will well know, I think, that we are not really throwing out parties for our awards. We are keeping a rather low profile, and we would like to work as hard as we can in order to get the success that we have enjoyed until now in the global market. So we are qualified for the 525 kV cables. We are aligned to our peers, but getting the first project is another story. So we are working. Our commercial teams are working hard for it. I'm sure that we will have good news by the end of this year. So since we are now close to our 4:00 P.M. Greek time, I would like to thank every one of you for your patience listening to all these technical details sometimes that I presented. I would like to thank you, therefore, for your patience.
Thank you for following with us the results of the first semester, and I give you our next rendezvous, our next meeting in a couple of months on the 20th of November for discussing the results of Q3. Thanks again, and have a nice afternoon.