Good evening all, and welcome to this presentation of the half-year results of Eiffage. As you have seen in the opening, the project of the substation OSS Jasmund for the wind farm, Windanker, and the Baltic Sea, implemented by consortium HSM Offshore Energy, Smulders, and Iv. The know-how of HSM and Smulders is very complementary, and we have grabbed the opportunity to reacquire HSM Offshore Energy while we had already four projects in common and that the teams know each other well. This acquisition strengthens our presence as a constructor on the market of substations, very dynamic in Europe. Let's move to the highlights of the first half-year. It went very well, according to our expectations, and confirms our outlook for 2025. As expected, organic growth goes on to contribute to the growth of the group, plus the external growth.
As announced, the construction division, in spite of a downturn at the first quarter, is back to growth as of the end of June. This half-year signs again a very strong growth in Europe outside of France to a rate of 17.4%, 17.4%. Commercial activity remains important in all our business lines. Recovery plans in some countries in Europe, especially in Germany, will absolutely support and amplify the development of our activities. The strong multi-annual visibility acquired last year remains present, as illustrated by our order book, always at its highest, and which has been strengthened again. Construction side, the half-year was marked by an intake of orders very diversified in size in all of our countries of operation. Good example of an emblematic contract, the design-build project of Frontex headquarters in Poland. square meters building that will welcome 2,000 employees.
The project will bear on the expertise of Dufour, Polish subsidiary of Goyer, who is working there for over 35 years in this country. The teams of Eiffage Aménagement were entrusted the implementation of the eco-district of Pont des Gains in Breuiller, Île-de-France, an ancient disused site of five hectares that will leave the place to a new borough with 450 housing units, landscaped areas, shops, and economic activities. Eiffage Construction was entrusted the groupment in contract the design-building of the Institute of Biology and Pathology of Bordeaux on the hospital of Pessac. The new institute with a surface of over square meters will have labs, offices, and storage areas. Neumera, global specialist in drug delivery devices, devoted to Eiffage Construction, the implementation of its new production site, square meters in Seine-Maritime. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning will be carried out by Eiffage Energy System.
Eiffage Route was entrusted in groupment the contract of design and construction of the new urban circuit of F1 in Madrid, in Spain. The market comprehensive realization of temporary infrastructures, as well as the refurbishing of the streets after each edition and creation of new roadways. Eiffage Génie Civil won the market of securing the 22 against the rockfalls by the construction of 300 m of rockfall tunnels on several parts of the existing tunnel of Gurnel in Haute-Savoie. Eiffage Energy System won the contract of modernization of the Dollhenne Tunnel on A43, linking Lyon to Chambéry. Projects comprehend the replacement of switchboards for low voltage, cables, and ventilation system, and implementation of predictive maintenance capacities. Works will be made at night, off-peak hours, for a minimal impact on traffic.
In Spain, Eiffage Energy System won the contract of construction of 250 MW Cabra powerhouses and 50 MW Oliva for an amount of EUR 134 million. The turnkey project integrates the provision of main equipment, infrastructures of linking to high voltage, as well as the services of exploitation and maintenance. Our Spanish teams also won the maintenance of installation of climatization in airports of Málaga, Granada, Almería, Sevilla, Jerez, as to guarantee the efficiency of the systems. This project foresees also the maintenance of various infrastructures, including high voltage, low voltage, and auxiliary systems. Eiffage Energy System also strengthens its position as a leader in the health system in Spain with the contract of maintenance of 130 centers of health of Mutua Universal. This contract encompasses also audits on all the centers in order to increase the energy efficiency of the establishments. X-ray systems maintenance has also been extended.
As announced last week, Eiffage Energy System won several major contracts in Germany since the beginning of the year, consolidating its position of first-rank player in the area of energy services. First half-year, the order intake in the country is at EUR 950 million. Among the many contracts of the first half-year, ECOS won the market for the construction of high voltage lines, replacement of cables on 31 km between Philipsburg and Karlsruhe. Globally speaking, on all of the businesses of the works of the group, the order book as of June 25 is growing by 4%, confirming its good visibility on medium and long term. Let's get to the activity. The revenues of the group is growth again at + 8.4%, enjoying organic growth and also the support of external growth in 2024, contributing to the strengthening of the European meshing, especially in Germany.
In France, Eiffage Immobilier delivered the project grouping a four-star hotel, housing units, shops, parking, and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. The works were devoted to Eiffage Construction, a project within the project of revitalization of the city. In Belgium, Eiffage Construction delivered in the center of Brussels, the new headquarters of the Belgian television, a building of square meters for 18 studios, matching the technical acoustic energy challenges of the media, which is in full transformation. Still in Belgium, we laid the foundation stone of the new headquarters of defense, 4,000 employees, and it will be almost neutral in carbon. The ceremony was in the presence of the Minister of Defense, here on screen, for the kicking off of the works. The site opposing the headquarters of NATO will be operational in 2028.
In Switzerland, Eiffage Construction delivered the Tivoli Garden project, square meters of floor area, 445 housing units, five buildings, two towers of 19 floors, parking spaces, offices, and commercial premises. On the road, the new factory LEA, inaugurated in July in Peru, is making plant-based asphalt mixes to increase the decarbonization of the road industry. Production of binders and emulsions patented by the group was made in small quantities and now will be moving to the industrial scale. Since 2016, Eiffage Route leads several experimentations on roads and motorways everywhere in France and has developed a whole range of plant-based asphalt mixes. Another illustration of the evolution of the businesses of the road, a full-size demonstration inspired by the concept EcoAssis. On the portion of the road to Saint-Nazaire, our teams implemented a 100% road which is permeable.
In the case of heavy rain, the rain is stored in a reservoir before infiltrating the water table. This realization is a new generation of urban infrastructure, combining technical performance, sustainability, and adaptation to climate change. Civil engineering, our teams inaugurated a primary settling unit in Saint-Avé, the largest in Europe, enabling to process wastewater for 6 million inhabitants. In Montpellier, we made a cycle gallery 400 m long with secure lanes to improve the urban mobility. This project, regulated by the Mont Blanc laws, will be totally transformed to soft mobilities, participating to the creation of a new regulation. In the framework of the renewal market of truck equipment, our teams are being intervened on the LGV Atlantique and LGV Southeast Europeans. Works are made special at night as to preserve the traffic of TGVs in the day. Some equipment may be 220 m long.
On the project of EPR2 of Penly, the earthworks that have been launched, the Bean of the Year, now reached 1.2 cubic meters. the first third of the seawall at sea, works started on March 25, are almost finalized. Over 2,200 grooved cubic concrete blocks, 20 tons each, are made now. 14,000 blocks will be prefabricated on site to implement the double shell that will recover the seawall to protect it from the swell. The two first phases of interconnection of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, meeting the south part of the new train stations, are now finished. Our client now can switch tracks and transfer the traffic on this platform so that we can restart, resume the work of construction of the northern part in September 2026. This phasing enables to maintain an ongoing service during works.
In Germany, the rail teams implemented works of renovation of the tracks on 11 km of the tracks between Müncheberg and Rheinfall, an essential line to link the local population to the capital city, Berlin. In Norway, the motorway project E18 reached 80% of progress. Access is already made, tunnels are born. As you see, the deck of the cable-stayed bridge is being fabricated, manufactured right now. The second of the three pontoons of the future wind park in Golfe du Lion is assembled by Eiffage Métal in Fos-sur-Mer, 16 km offshore. This will produce the consumption of a city of 50,000 inhabitants. The cathedral bridge has been commissioned the beginning of last week as the new step of the Charles de Gaulle Express. This bridge, manufactured in Eiffage Métal in Lauterbourg, is replacing a 100-year-old bridge.
Goyer finalized the facades on the refurbishing of the former headquarters of ORTF in Paris. Teams finalized over 10,000 square meters of facade and aluminum blocks in the framework of the enlargement of the campus Thales Helios at Vélizy, manufactured by Eiffage Construction. Our teams in Belgium are transforming the Antwerp-Bruges port into a smart space, implementing 100 IoT sensors and a new software structure to optimize the communication of the connected devices. Besides an efficient functioning operation of the port, sensors enable energy monitoring, enabling also the management of waste and enabling fire detection. In Spain, we started the installation of a new storage system with recycled batteries in the solar farm of Almendralejo. In this framework, new batteries and used batteries coming from electric cars are used in parallel.
The challenge is to analyze the performance and the behavior of the recycled batteries compared to new batteries, contributing to the promotion and development of circular economy. Eiffage Construction, in association with Goyer, metamorphosed the Open Tower at La Défense, built in 2002. It has been totally restructured and raised. The project was a requalification of this building, IGH, with a lateral extension on 26 levels and a heightening on three stories. In Marseille, the new jail of Baumettes has also been delivered following four years of works by Eiffage Construction, Eiffage Génie Civil, and Eiffage Energy System. The market was about the demolition of the jail for a man, as well as the design, construction, and development of a new jail on the same place. The data center of the American group CloudHQ in Lys has been inaugurated on June 25.
With this future extension, it will become the largest data center in Europe. Construction and equipment of this building have been made by Eiffage Energy System and Eiffage Génie Civil in two and a half years. The waste heat produced by this data center will be made available by Grand Paris Sud, who will develop a heating network to fuel 7,000 housing units in three months. Eiffage Construction finalized the transformation of the former headquarters of the newspaper Courrier Picard in Amiens, transforming it into 48 housing units of high standing. Ambitious projects meeting the iconic facades of Art Deco of this building. This operation was made by Eiffage Energy System, in charge of the electricity for this project.
Eiffage Génie Civil, Eiffage Métal, and Eiffage Energy System contributed to the Barracuda program with the implementation of welcoming infrastructure and all the electrical infrastructure for the conversion of energy for the power of the submarines. On screen, the inauguration of July 4 by the Minister of the Army on the naval base of Toulon, which will be for the maintenance of Barracuda-type nuclear attack submarines. It was an occasion to commemorate the commissioning of the submarine Tourville. In the UK, on HS2, the teams of Eiffage Génie Civil have finalized the installation of the 16 prefabricated beams of the Godding Tunnel of 94 m. It was a challenge since those 20 m beams and 38 tons were brought from Ireland and needed the use of a 600-ton crane. Beyond this organic growth, we have continued our external development.
During the first half-year, 2025, we acquired six companies, all active in energy services. As alluded to in the opening of my speech, we have finalized the acquisition of HSM Offshore Energy in the Netherlands, a provider of integrated solutions of engineering, construction, and installation, especially in the electrical systems, mechanical systems for the wind farms, offshore wind farms. This company is specialized in the specific structures for emerging markets as the capture and storage of carbon and the production of hydrogen. In the area of Rotterdam, this company generates a revenue of EUR 300 million and employs 140 people. By the acquisition of HSM, we have also the jacket and substation of the wind farm East Anglia 2 in the North Sea for EUR 260 million by Smulders.
On the same field, Smulders have been retained in 2024 for the manufacturing of 64 pieces of transition for an amount of EUR 150 million. The five other acquisitions contribute to strengthen our meshing in Europe in the energy services. In Germany, after the major acquisitions of Salvia and Ecos, we carry on our acquisition with the companies IFT and Essacom, representing EUR 35 million of revenues and 100 employees. We just concluded three acquisitions in Spain, enabling Eiffage Energy System to strengthen its territorial coverage and its expertise. Society CVS specialized in the refrigeration solution, as well as in detection and fire protection, EUR 60 million and 300 employees. M3i and ImmoTechnia so as to have a national coverage on the centralized management of buildings, EUR 15 million of sales and 100 employees. Major implementation of Eiffage Energy System in Europe, Spain had over 5,000 employees in 2024 for sales of EUR 1.1 billion.
As said in the annual results, the dynamic of the various markets in the different businesses and the external growth enabling the speeding up of the European mission is modifying in time the relative weight of the various businesses of the group, with the branch Energy System representing now 38% of the global activity. Beside the major trends in February 26, the Europeanization of the business of the group, 17% of growth in Europe outside of France. By organic growth, parts of market share, and external growth, the group has now 42% of its activity outside of France as compared to 31% four years ago. On the concession side, preparation works of motorway A412 are carrying on to finalize the regulations to get the aforementioned regulation.
The winning by tender of the new headquarters of the port, Marseille-Fos, is illustrating again the capacity of the group to mobilize all of its business lines to secure new assets. Eiffage Concession signed on July 24, 2025, the partnership contract for the financing, the design, construction, and maintenance of this new headquarters. Projects have also a real estate ambitious operation valuing the Jasmund plant. Those two operations represent EUR 120 million of works that will mobilize all of the businesses of the group. Upon delivering in 2030, the project will integrate buildings of offices, a museum, auditorium, shops, and restaurants on square meters. novae is continuing its strong operational traction and its capacity to deploy its project of construction, renovation, and real estate management. 1,000 housing units and building renovations have already been delivered end of July 2025. More than 100 projects are underway in all of France.
Concession-wise, motorways, traffics are robust on the vast majority of our concession, especially APRR, with a progression of 2.2%. To be noticed, the ramping up, always dynamic on Aliae, with a growth of traffic of 11.7%. Our motorway networks are welcoming more and more electric cars. We have a very dense network of charging stations, high power, of 100% of our areas. To meet the demand, the number of charging stations increased by 50% between July 2024 and July 2024. The unavailability rate, which was very weak, has been at the same time divided by two. To participate in the development of sustainable mobilities, we support also the collectivities in the development of multimodal areas by co-financing areas of carpooling. We inaugurated last April the area of Chevigné Saint-Sauveur near Dijon in the presence of the Cabinet Minister François Ripsamen.
It's already today over 6,000 parking spaces on 78 parkings of carpooling on our network. Summer period is always a source of very great activity on our networks, especially on our areas, where our teams are mobilizing from the patrol people to the manager to welcome as best as can be for our clients to make for them to take a break, which is something paramount for the safety of everybody. Over 100 Red Vests mobilized employees in our concessions to support our customers. After the highlights of our businesses, let's not forget the challenges which are of concern to everybody, our capacity to attract, promote, and gain loyalty, more and more talents to support the development of the group. Over the four past years, our workforce moved from 73,500 to 84,400 employees, a 15% increase.
Also, our capacity to roll out the carbon strategy, climate strategy of the group, bearing on three pillars: reduction of our greenhouse gas effects, preservation of resources via promotion of circular economy, and concrete actions in favor of preservation of biodiversity. The CDP Climate ranked us end of 2024 to A- recognition of our commitments and of our efforts. To push this in our value chain and the ecosystem of the building, the group had the initiative of Blue On, the first marketplace, putting on the same level technical data, financial data, and carbon data of a product so that each and every buyer can be able in real time to integrate the carbon data in their acquisition. This marketplace has already over 40,000 references.
We just released the sixth edition of our climate report, an ID card of our commitment for ecological transition, illustrating our determination to inscribe the environmental strategy at the core of the businesses of the group. After this 360 of our highlights, let's get back to the major figures of the half-year. Sales growth of 7.5% compared to the same period of 2024. Differences are dynamic given the businesses, but all of our business lines are back to growth. As expected, organic growth is sustained and the external growth in the branch energy system is significant. In the concessions, the motorway traffic is robust. Operational performance was solid with an operating profit increase in works and in concessions and a net result which is increasing, impacted by the exceptional contribution to corporate tax in France. A significant decrease of debt by EUR 700 million in spite of external growth.
The order book again up to EUR 29.5 billion, a 4% increase over a year. Those elements confirm our perspective for 2025, an increase of activity and of current operating profit in the concessions and in works, especially supported by new improvement of the profitability of Eiffage Energy System. Eiffage Energy System will have an activity close to EUR 8 billion and an operating profit margin reaching 6%. Net part group result will be an increase as to tax constant and after an exceptional contribution to the corporate income tax in France. Our businesses remain well oriented. Our visibility is strong. All this delivers confidence to maintain the strategic direction we set in spite of the geopolitical turbulences or the political instability amplified again in the past couple of days. Thank you for your attention. I invite Christian Cassayre to give you a detailed explanation of our financial elements.
[Foreign language] . Good evening, everyone. Let's go into the details of these figures. Revenue was up significantly at 7.5%, including 4.3% organic growth. These growth rates are similar to those of last year. The geographic mix is unchanged. There was limited growth in France, but strong momentum in Europe outside France. You can see on the chart that we're looking at 15%- 20% annual growth over the past five years because of targeted acquisitions and strong organic momentum, 6%- 10% per year. On our European subsidiary on this half-year, we have a 70.4% growth in Europe outside France, including 6.7% organic. In the works business, organic growth stood at 4.5%. This is because we are well positioned on very promising markets such as transportation infrastructure, nuclear energy, electricity transmission, renewable energy, wind power, and solar plants.
There are strong positions in Spain and Germany and in line with our investment policies, as Benoit de Ruffray just said. Now, 42% of works businesses are outside France compared to 30% in 2021. Profit from ordinary activities was slightly up, $9 million. This is limited in spite of the good performance. This is because we have a much higher expense for the employee shareholding plan, an additional $60 million compared to 2024, including $51 million on the holding company and $9 million in the concessions. This is because the share price went up significantly during the period where employees could subscribe to the employee shareholding plan. This is completed, and all that amount was recognized on H1. Other than that, we have a 20 basis point growth in the works business.
Profit from ordinary activities was up $34 million, up 16.4%, where revenue was up 8.4%, and a slight decline in concessions. That is because of the shareholding plan recognition under IFRS 2. In the construction business, revenue was stable over the half-year. The first quarter was significantly down, but the second quarter was up, + 4.4%. New buildings, both residential and service property, commercial property remain deteriorated, compensated by renovation, especially energy and renovation, public amenities, and the gearing up of the NOVAE contract. Property development was down more than 24%. In this context, you can see that our profit margin was pretty resilient at 2.4% because of a very selective policy in picking new businesses, but also being very careful to keep our SG&A under control in a very agile mode. That means that our margins remain up in the building industry, not just in France, also in Belgium.
Fine performance over time, and that good performance of the profit margins in the works business is quintessential because property only generates EUR 11 million in profits for ordinary activities compared to EUR 24 million in 2024 for the half-year. Still, that's a 5% profit margin in the property business. Finally, our order book was pretty good, upwards of EUR 5 billion. That doesn't include the two new deals that you have on the slide that were very recently added. We published a reference guide on water and marine environments, and we just published this. We have specific applications. All our businesses are implementing this. That shows our ability to address the water shortages. Here, you have the Combe project in Antibes, Juan-les-Pins.
Eiffage Aménagement, the Asparte V Partnership Urban Development Project, is implementing water management, integrated management, water management principles to limit soil sealing, having expansion zones for natural floods, and recovering and storing rainwater and grey water in the infrastructure business. We have a sustained growth in France in spite of a lower volume in metal. Eiffage Génie Civil was up 11.3% because of big operations, the métro in Toulouse, the Lyon-Turin tunnel, motorway tunnel, and preparation work in Penly. Of course, the gearing up of the 15 Est métro line. Eiffage Route in France had a growth of 2.5% in revenue compared to +0 .7% in 2024. Internationally, Eiffage Génie Civil grew 8.9% with big infrastructure projects, the high-speed lines HS2, the motorway in Norway, and our German subsidiaries going up more than 6%.
Still, internationally, for Eiffage Métal, significant growth in revenue, up 25% on wind projects, but also because of its German subsidiary, SEH. We don't mention it much, but it works on metal bridges and heavy structures, industrial structures renovation. HSM Offshore Energy has been integrated into our account since June 1. The growth in metal, which is stronger than the rest of that business line, means this business is less seasonal, and that has improved the profit margin, which stands at -0.2%. As usual, we remind you that this is not representative of the performance for the year as a whole. EcoAssis, Benoit de Ruffray mentioned that again. This is about district cooling and reducing the environmental impact of public facilities. In the picture, you have an operation in Belleville-en-Beaujolais, where buffer storage of about 500 cubic meters was built under the road.
This is a reservoir for vegetation that was planted along the road. You also have water coming from the local drain pipes. Revenue from Eiffage Energy System remained pretty dynamic, even though there was a slight decline in organic growth to 3.2%. In France, revenue was up 3.2%, so 2.7% in organic terms. It is outside France that we generated growth on well-designed, well-targeted European markets, Spain and Germany in particular, with the acquisitions of IFT this year and CVS at the end of 2024. These two big markets are the main markets of that business line outside France. We have a critical mass, upwards of EUR 1 billion in revenue in both countries, and we will be building on these positions. Operating profit margin keeps going up in France in spite of lower growth than around the world.
Our order book has been growing as well to EUR 8.7 billion, especially in the two countries I mentioned, up EUR 700 million over one year and five since the beginning of the year. Eiffage Energy System has a new offer of diagnosis and detection of leaks in faucets without stopping operations. It uses high-frequency ultrasound mechanisms that can sense acoustic waves from the equipment. In concessions, we find all our assets consolidated, not including Getlink. On the left-hand side, you have the end of the concession year and the holding rate. We have about EUR 400 million in revenue in businesses, not including APRR and IR. These are young concessions, so they are still a long way to go, and they are gearing up. You can see A79 is a case in point where traffic was up 11.7%. At one point, you have lower revenue for NOVAE.
That may seem surprising, but this is part of the plan. This is because of vacancies during work projects. Of course, work projects have been growing, and so there are more vacancies. On APRR, traffic remained robust at +2.2%, including 2.6% on light vehicles. The comparison basis was favorable. There's a slight decline in the EBITDA margin. That's simply because of the additional charge under IFRS 2, the shareholding plan I told you about. That was a decline of 50 basis points for the half-year, but that will be less over the year because the entire expense was recognized for this first half-year. You may remember that the lower performance in 2024 was because of the tax on motorways, and that amounted to EUR 61 million for this half-year.
We refinanced at the beginning of the year for a five-year period with a possible extension of banking credit lines of FRA and APRR. We also issued a bond in May of EUR 500 million, the rate being 2.875%. Regarding our other assets outside the APRR network, we have the EBITDA margins about 80% on motorways in France, with the exception of Aliae. That margin is diluted by the service areas that we have there. On the right-hand side, we have the contributions of concessions and PPPs to the current operating profit for ordinary activities, as well as goodwill amortization. In 2029 and 2022, over 35 km along motorways, we built multifunction water basins worth EUR 50 million. This is to manage surplus water when there are heavy rains. They also depollute water on a daily basis and prevent accidental pollution.
They're compulsory on new motorways, but we decided to have them also on older sections of the APRR and Aliae motorways with catching up work. A few words about Getlink that was consolidated on the equity basis since April 2023. On the right-hand side, you have the key figures at 100%. Getlink's contribution to net profit in H1 is EUR 31 million. You have three parts in that. Our quota of EUR 130 million stood at EUR 23 million. A leftover or residual quota for 2024, EUR 15 million. Of course, we have goodwill amortization, a charge of EUR 7 million. That gave you the details of revenue and current operating profit. On the other items, you have other expenses and other income and expenses, non-current, EUR 24 million compared to EUR 18 million last year. This is a net charge, but it was EUR 28 million two years ago. There's some volatility there.
The net financial debt, net cost of financial debt, is under control, down EUR 5 million, but the new bonds for APRR have been issued at higher rates than the previous ones, but the net debt is coming down. The key item in the whole story is the additional tax burden, up 50% to EUR 333 million. That's because of the special corporate income tax, additional tax for big companies in France. This is, of course, overrepresented in the half-year because most of this is recognized upwards of 70% in the first half, EUR 135 million. Its effect on the net profit group share is EUR 83 million, having taken into account the quotas from minority interest, including APRR. The net profit group share stands at EUR 308 million. It would be up had the tax basis been unchanged. If you look at the net debt bridge, you have all the figures there.
EBITDA was up EUR 90 million, including the EUR 60 million additional charge I mentioned. Dividends from companies on equity basis, EUR 72 million, mostly Getlink, of course. The seasonal variation WCR is higher this year, EUR 892 million. For five years running, we actually had a surplus of EUR 8.8 billion in cash, especially coming from works. After taxes and interest, we have operational cash flow standing at EUR 451 million in green, down therefore EUR 100 million. In red, you have CapEx higher in works. In concessions, you're talking about development CapEx for new assets, and these have been growing. You have NOVAE, you have Yacht Harbours, you have the A412, rather than renewal CapEx. All in all, we're talking about EUR 542 million in CapEx. The free cash flow is slightly negative, EUR 91 million. You have the double effect of growth CapEx for concessions and higher seasonal variations of WCR.
You have to keep in mind that cash flow generation is structurally low in H1. Sometimes it's negative because of the seasonality of most of our construction and works businesses. External growth stood at EUR 23 million, and these are the acquisitions of HSM Offshore Energy and IFT. You might think this is not much, but that's because it includes as a trade-off of CapEx. You have cash coming from these companies to the tune of EUR 180 million. It's mostly negative WCR. They're cash-generating WCR from these companies. The EUR 23 million is EUR 205 million for the acquisition per se and EUR 182 million of cash generated by these companies. In blue, you have dividends. You have treasury shares. You have dividends paid by APRR to its minority shareholders. The dividends that we, Eiffage, have been paid to our shareholders, EUR 452 million.
You end up with a debt of EUR 9.9 billion, down EUR 700 million over one year. This was made possible even though we had significant capital expenditure. You may remember that in H2-2024, we acquired Essacom, and then we had acquisitions this year. On the right-hand side, you have the debt, EUR 9.9 billion. We have some debt is down EUR 700 million. You have a decline in EUR 170 million in non-recourse debt. That's in black. The cash available to the holding company and in the works businesses, EUR 578 million. This is net cash. The gross cash managed at the holding company is EUR 2.5 billion. At the low point in cash flows in the year, we have sufficient cash to continue to develop our activities. On the order book, a few words, it's already mentioned by Benoit. The order book is up again.
You have to keep in mind that even without major new orders, we've been renewing our order book in our legacy business with, of course, differences from one business to the other. You can see this on the right-hand side that reflects variations on the market. Right then, that's an overview of the position. Thank you for your attention. [Foreign language]
Good evening. Thank you for the presentation. I have four questions. First, can you give us your feeling about the real estate market in France given the recent turbulence in politics? Can we imagine that this will bear on the confidence of the households? I'd like to have your point of view on that. Second question about the variation of the WCR. What can we expect on the whole year? On the German point of view you also mentioned, can you tell us the quantity? I mean, what could it mean for Eiffage? What can you hope as a contribution for the activity of Eiffage in Germany? One last one. On the motorways, SANEF and ESCOTA had a discussion with the authorities on the investments to be made in order to make the motorways to be in good shape at the end of the concession.
What did you hear about those discussions? Underlying question. Is there a risk of surprise investment on the motorways? Thank you. How about real estate, Olivier?
Good evening. Not insight regarding the recent decision in the past few days. We are on a market which is extremely impaired. The market of the tertiary is altered. The residential market is really, really impaired. First half-year, this impairment was increased by the disappearance of the individual investors because the French system, PINEL, disappeared and took on the direction of what you mentioned. It will not be better in months to come. The weakness of the delivery of building or construction permits, we suffer a lot from that, and weighing on our offer. Indeed, no improvement to be foreseen in the months to come. Hence, we have to remain slightly optimistic.
We're working for the medium and long range with our activity of redeployment, aggregating our expertise as a builder and a real estate to work with the local collectivity in the various neighborhoods and in this period of scarcity of areas. We can focus on the medium range. That will enable us to come up with operations when things will improve.
[Foreign language]
Basically, we have the decrease already. We are very low. I don't think we can go even lower because the real market today is the accession to ownership. Basically, it's people who are in necessity to and who are paying to provide because we have no construction permit. What is happening is never good for trust. Trust is really the engine for decision in terms of real estate. Christian, can you deal with BFR? WCR? Yeah, difficult. EUR 160 million on works. This is where we have to be really attentive to WCR. Look at our balance sheet. We have an increase of current provision. We are in a decrease of... and this decrease is explained. We'll have a WCR that will vary. Slight increase. This is what should be taken into account with this difficulty to foresee the payment of our public customers by the end of the year.
It's difficult to give you more precisions. I think we can anticipate a slight decrease. These variations of WCR on six months are erratic. The BFR of the WCR for the group in terms of days has decreased over a rolling year in June. Let me remind you of the figures of 2024. We had a cash exit of EUR 700 million and income EUR 700 million, meaning that we cashed EUR 1.4 billion in the second half-year, 2024, minus the EUR 800 million that were shelled out in this semester. We have a reduction of our WCR in the number of days compared to last year if we have the support of the companies that we acquired with the decrease of five days. We have a good global performance. One part is done over the major contracts that we are repaying on the go.
Part of the equation depends on our possibility to secure new projects and that will secure less than what we secured in the past years. It is prudent to anticipate a slight release of cash by the end of the year. It's long and difficult, but we can rediscuss that later. Thank you, Christian. Regarding the German plan, we have a lot of businesses which are exposed. Since in the metallic construction, we are exposed on many railroad renovations, the major stations that were bombed during World War II, rebuilt, not a lot of maintenance. Today, there's a lot of work to be performed. It's an activity that will take a lot of time. A certain amount of bridges, which are limited for the traffic in Germany, there are a tremendous amount of them. If you want to have a resumption of the economy, you have to rebuild the bridges.
It's been some years that we're between 10% and 20% of growth. At the end of that, we have men and women to all do that. The capacity for me, in the short run, it's a lot of visibility. I would say that the first good news of the German plan is the attractiveness of our businesses when there's a certain amount of restructuring in Germany. Our businesses are back to retaining people and attracting people. We're on the way to increase our workforce. It's the metal work, it's the civil engineering, it's the railroad, and the energy system district. We have also the additional challenge of the mutation of the energy in Germany. The production of renewable energy, which is in the north of Germany, you have to bring them back on the industrial sites.
We talked about the annual results of the major contract, which is a corridor of civil engineering. Once the civil engineering will be done, you have also to lay the cables. This is typically the activity of energy system work. Do not expect a tremendous step up immediately. There's the capacity to prepare this project in terms of engineering. All this requires growth in the workforce. What we expect, what we hope will have the models, PPPs that will be an accelerator of the implementation of those projects. Medium-long range, it's excessively positive. Short range is going to take time to have a real effect in our activities. It remains excellent news for all of our businesses which are exposed. Last question was regarding the return of the motorways to the state. Thank you for your question.
I want to tell you that the government is maintaining the highways, the motorways. They are well maintained. We are also meeting the indexes of performance as in the contracts. Regarding the end of concession, we are delayed because the termination of our contracts is in 2035, 2036. We're not in the same level with the Cabinet ministries. Our friends of SANEF and ESCOTAR told us that the discussion with the ministry went rather normal and we anticipated also because we were sharing as of now with the ministry of the Cabinet ministry in very constructive terms. It's biding well for the future. Other question?
Yeah, to extend the question of Éric Lemarié on Firmagen, the German plan regarding the construction and defense. We have not to expect a fallback on 2026, 2027. This is what you mean to say? On civil engineering in France, we didn't talk a lot about that. What is the magnitude of the growth this year to be expected, knowing that the FNTP, after the good performance of 2024, had forecasted for 2025 and 2026, it's slowed down? To confirm, are things improving?
On the German part, I think it's going to be before 2027. You have to be cautious because some elements in this plan that have already been launched, we acquired more certainty in their implementation because there are finance. Those projects will be materialized earlier because the studies started. Things which were not foreseen and which are in this recovery plan will take longer.
It's going to take more time to ramp up. Regarding the French side, we have to separate things, really. You have the road businesses. Classically, we always heard about the electoral cycles. Municipal elections in 2026 are good news, end of 2025 and beginning of 2026. The good news in the beginning is always bad news for the next period. What's important for you, you see it. We're in growth now, but it's not hyper-significant. There is a basic evolution compared to the former electoral cycle. The decision in terms of road maintenance is much more taken in the collectivity of municipalities and not for the elections. We have slightly more activity, but the amplitude we experienced two or three elections ago, which were tremendous before us, globally disappeared, has been totally mitigated. This is the road side.
Where we have more problems to understand is the department, the French department, which is lost somewhere. There is no activity. The municipal part is working correctly. On the other investments, which are more supported by the government, the major investments that we have experienced in the defense, on the major grid to Paris, on the nuclear, that will carry on. We have orders that will carry on, will be supported by those projects. Whatever happens nationally, we already have a tremendous activity to be implemented. We have a visibility on that for the years to come in France. Other question? Are there further questions? Yes.
[Foreign language]
Sorry. So many things are going on on Getlink side. Any expectations on Getlink? Will you be buying more shares, getting a greater stake in Getlink? All right, you're talking about the Eurostar's competitor and the purchasing of shares. If there are more competitors, you could expect that the various players will see their share prices go up. It's a good time to buy their share, no? Or not? Look, regarding Getlink and possible newcomers, you'd have to ask Getlink about that. From a more general standpoint, and I've said this before, what you have to realize is that the rail network, the French rail network, or Franco-British rail network, this is a highly dense network. It will be pretty difficult to add tracks and routes. I mean, you can't do that overnight. There are all sorts of issues, building or rather operating railway stations, maintenance, and such like.
Getlink has done a lot to address a number of technical challenges, but that takes a lot of time. Right now in France, you have a train that might leave Marseille late because somewhere else in the country, another train has run into delays. You have a complicated sort of Tetris-type network, and one delay somewhere causes delays all over the country. There are also issues of maintenance under investment that we all know about. That means that developments are very slow in the rail business. Eventually, you could expect more traffic in the Channel Tunnel. That may well be the case, but it will take a lot of time. It will take a long time. We still have the long view for this asset. We're delighted we invested there. Right now, the concession won't start until 1986. We have plenty of time.
Ludovic, on organic growth targets and acquisition targets. By the way, you have to know before you make an acquisition, you have to make sure you can take it on board. There were five acquisitions since the beginning of the year. This is a sustained pace of M&A. Our strategy very much remains the same as last year. In other words, we are building up our presence in those countries.
Where we do have a presence, either to cover the geographic area or to acquire new areas of expertise. In France, there's already a pretty tight network and the only acquisitions would be for new areas of expertise. We work on an opportunistic approach for possible acquisitions. As you said, in Germany, we're consolidating the acquisitions made last year and the years before. We see that the order book paid off. Even though these companies were bought up, they were still taking orders at the same pace, so there's no disruption there. Other than acquisitions, you have to know that we've been working hard in Germany. Our legacy companies there did not have the critical mass or the type of management needed to drive growth and to position Eiffage on the German map. We had to make more significant acquisitions. We're taking them on board, as it were.
There are four big markets: heavy industry, infrastructure, commercial services, and local authorities. We have a full coverage of the German market, but of course, that means it has to be integrated into our operations. Now that we have these platforms, it makes sense to have bolt-ons with geographic or expertise acquisitions on much smaller companies, acquired on a smaller basis, so easier to take on board. Most of the time, these have been identified by our own people working in one area or in one field of expertise. These acquisitions are much less risky. That's what's going on now. In big countries such as Spain and Germany or the Netherlands, Belgium, France, of course, but also in Switzerland, we have now resident platforms that enable us to have bolt-ons, whereas before that, we didn't have this ability in Germany.
Regarding guidance on profit margins, there's no change really compared to the annual numbers, the annual profit on the construction business. I think, I hope you can appreciate the performance of our construction teams because they were able to compensate the loss of profit, profit losses from property development. This was offset by developing the building industry. If over the year we can keep an equal profit margin, that would be pretty good. Even if it's down, it won't be more than, say, 10 basis points. On the infrastructure department, where we have roads, civil engineering, and metal, there we hope to see some improvement in profitability. I told you the same back in February. Camille, would have been disappointed if we didn't ask you about traffic, road traffic. Yes, thank you. You asked about road traffic.
The summer is not over yet because you have people coming back from their summer vacations. So far, things went well from an operation viewpoint. In terms of traffic, we're looking at a 1% growth compared to the summer of 2024. There's strong momentum on Aliae, and that means that people love to go to the mountains for their summer vacations. You can learn from that. Maybe you can make your own summer plans based on that. Right. Further questions from the floor? If not, we'll have questions online.
Thank you. If you want to put a question on the phone, press star, A. We have a question from Elodie Rall from JPMorgan . [Foreign language] It's, please go ahead.
Good evening, and sorry I couldn't make it in person, and thank you for taking my question.
First question is about the energy business that you mentioned. Margins are up 30 basis points in Q, in H1, and you're looking at 6% for the year. That would be an additional 20 basis points for the year, but it would mean that the profit margin growth would slow down in H2 or is this being conservative? Do you think it can do better or do you have real reason to believe that margins will slow down in H2? That was question number one. Question number two is about the effects on this special corporate income tax, this, you had, citing that you postponed to H2. The total impact of that tax is what will it be for the year as a whole? I mean, we're talking about EUR 205 million, I believe, for the year as a whole, based on the profits from 2024.
Can you give us the full impact, the tax impact for the year as a whole? Do you have any expectations about what to expect for 2026? What's your take on recent developments in the French government? Would that make a, will that make any difference to Eiffage's business? A question about dividends. If taxes keep going up, you increase your payout to 45%, do you think you could do still more to offset the tax effect?
Ludovic, it's all yours.
You have noticed that for the past few years, we've been working on improving profitability. We've been doing this steadily. Of course, that doesn't prevent us from looking for growth, and the growth has remained steady as well in H1. Current profit from ordinary activities has been going up as well as revenue. Am I confident that we will make the 6% margin? Yes. And EUR 8 billion in revenue. Again, I'm confident that we will reach that number.
You should add to that what Ludovic was saying earlier on, we have to be very selective when we take new deals, new contracts. The 30 basis point improvement in the margins in H1, you find this in France and elsewhere, but in France, the volumes didn't grow as much as internationally. It's not exactly an offset, but it does mean that we're working on making our teams more efficient. Of course, we'll do our utmost. A 6% margin is something we not only propose to achieve, but we want to improve as well. On the tax impact, Christian. I can't give you the net profits for the year as a whole. I mean, that will determine the tax level.
You may remember that the EUR 135 million, because it was recognized in H1, that we expect to be roughly 70% for the year as a whole. We're looking at about EUR 70 million, EUR 200 million for the year as a whole. We can't give you the exact number, but the effect for the year, the full effect, not including minority interest, the tax effect would be about EUR 200 million. Regarding the dividend, we did pay attention and our investors wanted to have a clear policy. Of course, we stated, defined a policy last year. We're not going to change halfway through. We're sticking to that policy. Will this special tax this year, of course, you can expect that this will have an effect on dividends. Nonetheless, the business is looking good for the year as a whole.
The board is well aware of the fact that we'll have to have a clear position at the end of the year to see just how we can pay out a dividend. Now, things are pretty unstable right now. Of course, we'll have to wait and see what comes out in terms of budget, in terms of possible changes in the corporate income tax in France. One thing is for sure, that dividends policy, when we introduced it, that was well appreciated by our investors. Of course, investors want to have visibility on dividends, and so we're working on that. I can assure you that this will be part of the discussions we'll have at the board when the issue of dividends comes up next year. Other further questions?
Yes. The next question comes from a call in English. Ami Galla from Citigroup . Please go ahead.
Two questions from me. Thank you. The first one was on the outlook for offshore wind farms business, especially in light of the comments that we've heard from the U.S. government. What are your thoughts on this, on its outlook in Europe? In terms of your conversations with your customers, are you seeing any signs of delay or hesitancy or funding constraints that they are facing for this business? My second question was on the CapEx. Can you remind us the level of CapEx that we should be targeting also on the back of the acquisitions that you've made and the auditable growth that we are seeing? Thank you.
If I'm right, your first question is concerning the change of policy in the U.S. on offshore energy. Is it right?
Yes, on the wind farm business.
On the wind farm. First of all, as far as Eiffage is concerned, you have to understand that we've carried out only a very limited number of projects in the U.S. We've always been fabricating directly from Europe, and we were shipping our pieces towards some U.S. wind farm. One of the projects used to be stopped and at the end of the day has been resumed and has been finalized. It's fully given. We have not any more projects. We have no exposure in terms of our order book towards any U.S. projects. Our full activity is based on European projects. We are obviously cautious because some of our clients in Europe are the same as the ones being exposed to the U.S. There are some further issues on the strengths of these clients because they are facing some challenges on the U.S. part.
As far as today is concerned, we have not any exposure being expected from what's going on in the U.S. on our offshore activities. CapEx.
The question is about CapEx and especially acquisitions. You were only concerned about external growth for CapEx. We don't think in terms of annual CapEx for acquisitions. I mean, that would be a risky exercise. The cash available is significant, and it enables us to seize external growth opportunities, but we don't have an annual budget for acquisitions in terms of CapEx. You have a question about CapEx in general for works. For instance, here we're looking at about EUR 700 million for the year as a whole, and we're looking at about EUR 700 million as well in concessions for renewal and growth CapEx, including EUR 300 million on APRR motor work. I think you're concerned more about acquisitions, CapEx on acquisitions, right?
Yeah, it was more in terms of incrementally, do we have to budget in more because you've got a stronger order book as well as you've acquired large businesses?
Once again, I mean, we adjust CapEx based on the opportunities as they show up. We don't budget ahead of time based on the cash available. No, I don't think we can be more specific than that. Right. On that part of CapEx related to concessions, I believe we give you our outlook, maybe. Yes, we have EUR 300 million in renewal CapEx for APRR and EUR 400 million on the other concessions, a significant portion, about EUR 300 million on the Nové contract. That's been gearing up. The remainder we're looking at yacht harbors and assets that are being operated, and then we're just looking at renewal CapEx.
Question?
The next question.
Next question from [Graham Hans] from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Just two from me, please. First on construction, like for like in Q2, you obviously ticked up quite meaningfully. Is there anything you can help us with in terms of what we should expect for the second half of the year there? Just in terms of growth and how we should think about the phasing of some of your larger projects. Second question, just coming back to the uncertainty around future tax burden in France. Is there anything that you've done, sort of analysis or something that you can speak to to help us understand the scope of impacts that we could see if corporate tax rates were to go back to a more normalized level from current levels? Thanks.
We have on the taxes. On taxes, we do not have more visibility than you have. The aspect linked to the political instability currently in France, the overtax is temporary. In the world of today, it is temporary. The corporate income tax is at the level it was inscribed in the law in France, i.e., 25%. The only issue we can add, the topic we can add, is that the exceptional contribution to tax, you know, there is a piece of constitution of equality before tax. Given the very important character of this is implemented, making that a certain amount of people do not imagine this being implementable in several years. The change in position and an evolution on the rate itself implemented in France, this is part and parcel of things that a government may decide in a financing law. Your first question was about the construction side.
On the volume, what we already said during the annual results last February is that we intended to get back to growth in volume on construction as of 2025. We have seen it since we had a first quarter which was negative. At the second quarter, the growth was enough to offset the decrease. We are again on a growth 3.6% on the first half year, and we expect the second half year that will be still growing. More growth on construction also, which is an excellent piece of news given the very weak market of real estate, generally speaking, due to two things. First is the ramping up of renovation projects in construction. The second element is the non-typical character of Eiffage by this contract of Nové, which is construction and renewal, giving us a surplus of sales as compared to last year.
It's the combination of both enabling us to have a growth in sales. You have a first indication in the presentation, which is the part of the order book, which is growth. We will do it during the second half of the year.
[Foreign language]
Next question. No more questions for the time being.
[Foreign language] Are there any other questions in the room?
Any other questions in the room? No more questions. Thank you very much for your attention, all of you, and talk to you soon.