Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to Nexans's first half 2024 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your questions. I will now like to turn the call over to your host for today's conference, Mr. Christopher Guérin, Nexans CEO. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our H1 2024 result presentation. Here is Christopher Guérin, CEO of Nexans. With me, Jean-Christophe Juillard, Deputy CEO and CFO, and Elodie Robbe-Mouillot , VP, Investor Relations. I will turn you over to now Elodie, for the conference call notes.
Thank you, Chris. Before we start, I would like to remind participants that this presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We invite you to visit our website, where you can find in-depth our URD, which includes a description of the group's risk factors. I'll turn you over to Chris, who will go over the first half highlights.
Thank you, Elodie. Let's go to page four. So as you can see, we are starting with a very, very strong financial performance at 11.6% EBITDA. So very pleased to report this strong financial performance for the first half year. Driven, of course, by, as you will see later, electrification business organic growth, and as well further enhanced by the successful integration of La Triveneta Cavi that started the first of June. A strategic move for us in the European footprint of product offering. We achieve as well a 6% organic growth in sales, a 16% increase in adjusted EBITDA, 32% for our net income. And as you can see, we're reaching a EUR 412 million EBITDA on a margin of 11.6.
We have as well generated a strong free cash flow of EUR 79 million and maintained a solid balance sheet with a leverage ratio of 0.7. Based on this result and our positive outlook for the second half of the year, we are upgrading our guidance. I will let JC explain the magnitude of this upgrade. Last, but not least, as you can see on this slide, we have still a very strong backlog. I'm sure you will have question on getting Great Sea Interconnector. Happy to answer what we can, and as well, a very strong engagement of our team. We keep progressing on the engagement rate, and we reach a 78%, which is a record of engagement rate for Nexans.
If we move to page, to slide number 5, you can see, and we are very proud about it, the evolution of the EBITDA, semester after semester. And you can see that, with a EUR 4.12 million, we have achieved in six months, for the one that remember, what we achieved for the full year of 2019. So in six months, we are doing what we were supposed, we were doing before in 12 months. So it's a very strong progression. Normalized free cash flow is about, 189 million EUR, and, with a very good cash conversion. And the return on capital employed, we reach a 22%, including the full electrification, including the goodwill of, La Triveneta. So without the goodwill, it's about 27%.
For the group return on capital employed, it's 20% and, without the group goodwill, it would have been 22%. If we move to page six. So as I mentioned, we completed early June the acquisition of La Triveneta Cavi, renowned leaders in the European cable industry. Strategic move. This strategic move is not just an acquisition, it's a significant leap that aligns perfectly with our ambition to become a pure player of electrification. It's our third acquisition, with reaching a revenue on total with Centelsa, REKA, La Triveneta, for EUR 1.4 billion. If we go to La Triveneta specifically, the acquisition value and enterprise value of EUR 500 million.
It's said to be immediately accretive to our earnings per share, and we delivered, this is the new information that we have not announced before, an equivalent of EUR 20 million synergies. This calculation has been based on the successful track record of the integration of Centelsa two years ago and REKA last year. And you know that we have exceeded our expectations, both in terms of overall value of synergy with Centelsa and REKA, and as well as speed of synergy implementation. So with the EUR 20 million that you see, we are pretty optimistic to achieve this number and to beat that numbers in the coming months. If we move to page seven.
In this first half of the year, we celebrated the grand opening of the new, newly expanded section of our high-voltage subsea cable plant in Halden with all customers, more than 50 customers join us, with as well partners and journalists. And it marked as well the fiftieth anniversary of Halden. So this project initiated in November 2021. This construction of this state-of-the-art facility incorporates some of the most sophisticated cable production technologies available today, with the capability to deliver subsea cable up to 525 kV for HVDC and 420 kV for HVAC. This expansion more than double our plants capacity for HVDC extruded cable. It's also introducing a monumental 153 meter tall second extrusion tower, allowing us to insert four cables simultaneously.
And this tower is not only a marvel for industrial engineering, but now stands as Norway's tallest building, its first skyscraper. Sorry, skyscraper. It's not New York, but almost. If we move to page eight, very strong bit as well for Amplify, which is linked to our strategic initiative, specifically the acceleration of our solar offers on all renewable offers. So it's a strong bit for us for the Amplify, as well for Shift Prime, which is, if you remember well, the premiumization of our offer, that's yielded substantial and structural result, and that helping this, of course, this great performance in terms of EBITDA, because everything we do on the Shift program is purely structural and not linked to any conjuncture effect.
This outstanding result underscore the relevance of our strategic levers, transformation playbook, and the commitment of our team to drive value creation and, of course, innovation. Let me hand over to JC for the description of the result, business by business.
Thank you, Chris. So I'm moving on page 10, and we'll start with the organic growth of Nexans for the first semester 2024. As you can see here, very, very strong organic growth for the semester compared to semester 2023. Semester 2023, 6.1%. As usual, if you exclude the metallurgy decrease, which is part of our strategy to focus on our needs and reduce external sales, then the organic growth is at 9%, excluding the other activities. You'll see the split between the businesses, the growth, the expansion of the top line is mainly coming from electrification. It's completely coming from electrification, I would say, where you see a 14.1% growth, as well as an increase also in margin.
I will explain in the next slides where which business are driving this electrification push. In terms of looking at the business non-electrification, we have a slight decrease after, if you recall, a strong 2023 organic growth, mainly coming from automation and mining, where shipbuilding is, and other businesses like shipbuilding, are performing extremely well. So it's, I would say, a mixed bag of strong trends, positive and other ones, slightly declining. Also, on the harnesses business, after two years of very strong organic growth, we're seeing today, I would say a plateau in terms of sales. For the group, the margin is expanding almost 1 point at 11.6%.
I remind you that the objective of the equity story 2021-2024 was 12%. So we are reaching the high part of the commitment we took three years ago at 11.6% on this first half. If I move now to the next slide, I will start with the generation and transmission. Last year in the first semester of 2023, we had a difficult semester in terms of margin on the business, where we reached, unfortunately, a very low point of 8% margin. We said that we will gradually recover on that margin.
We've done a second semester of 2023, where we moved from 8% to about 10%, and we said that gradually this will be improving with, I would say, still a plateau in 2024, and starting 2025, we will see two points additional to the margin every year. So we confirm that, as you can see, on the first semester of 2024, where the margin is 11%. We have a 64% organic growth on the business, mainly explained by the additional capacity in Halden, with the two new lines that, you know, are now in operations in the beginning of 2024, serving basically the big, the increased backlog, as you see, EUR 6.7 billion record backlog for Nexans, another growth of 30% versus June of 2023. Page 12.
If we look at distribution, this is the second part of the business, which is in electrification after G&T, that is now performing quite well. We have a decent organic growth at +2%, mainly driven by accessory, which has a very strong margin, driven by Europe also, where we see a strong increase in demand in Europe by utilities, at +9% organic growth in Europe. Overall, 2% organic growth and a very strong boost in the margin, as you can see, where the margin percentage increased by 2 points to 16%, and the total adjusted EBITDA from June 2023 increased by 20%.
So we are very happy and we continue to see this strong momentum in terms of margin and top line in the distribution business, and we believe that the visibility and the expectation for the coming years remains quite strong in distribution. Usages on the next slide, on page 13. A moderate Organic Growth +1%, with also, I would say, a different performance according to the geographical area. Europe, slightly down -4%. We see strong improvement in top line in Organic Growth in South America. We see a strong 15% growth in Middle East and Africa. North America is flat. Slightly decreasing -1%. You see also that the margin is remains stable, I would say.
We continue to see in the margin level what we started to see in 2023, which is a normalization in North America, both in terms of volume and a little bit in terms of pricing. And therefore, this is compensated by improvement in the region I said, I told you about, but again, we are continuing to see this normalization in North America, which is eating part of the additional performance and usages from the other geographical area. We believe we will talk about that, I am sure in your question, but we see a second semester and a Q3 on the second semester that should remain at good level with a normalization in North of, I mean, North America ending in June.
I will take you now on the next section, which is the key financials, and I will start on page 15 with our profit and loss. As Chris mentioned, an adjusted EBITDA up 16% versus first semester of 2023. Organic growth has plus 6.1%, as I explained previously. We have an operating income at EUR 291 million with flat reorganization cost. Income before tax, 247, an increase in financial result, net financial result, due to the cost of debt, which has been increasing versus first semester of last year. Income tax also increasing because of higher profit for the company. The net income reaching EUR 176 million versus 134 in the semester of last year.
You see on the graph that the contribution of EUR 47 million from the electrification businesses in the growth of the EBITDA to reach the 11.6% EBITDA margin for the semester. On page 16, we have a look at our net debt and our balance sheet, and you see that, I mean, of course, leverage slightly increased from 0.4x to 0.7x, mainly due to the bonds that we issued to finance the acquisition of La Triveneta Cavi, EUR 575 million, that we oversubscribed 2.5x. Stronger cash from operation. I would say, not a change in working capital, which is flat.
I mean, we've seen over the past year a significant improvement in our change in working capital. We were close to almost zero working capital on sales. At the last closing, we are at 2%, so a slight increase, but again, we believe that the normalized level of working capital on sale would be rather below 6%. So continue to have a very low working capital. CapEx continues to be high, I would say, versus the normalized CapEx of the company. Because of the strategic CapEx, we continue to invest in high voltage. We have, in the first semester, the completion of the new line of Halden, that started to generate revenues and margin, as I described before.
And we are in the middle of the building of our new vessel, Electra, and we spent EUR 84 million in the first semester on the CapEx for the building of the vessel. So out of the 191 million of total CapEx, 105 million are related to investment in JNT. The rest of the bridge for the net debt is mainly the dividend payments that we had for EUR 101 million in May. And I think that put our net debt at EUR 810 million for the semester, at the end of the semester, which is again a leverage of 0.1x, remains very strong balance sheet and low leverage, with a lot of room in our covenant.
If I move now to page 17, and we look at our cash, you see that we have a strong cash position in our balance sheet. Remains the same level of December 2023, at EUR 1.1 billion. Strong liquidity, EUR 1.9 billion. If we include the undrawn revolving credit facility for EUR 800 million, you see the maturity of our debt and our gross debt at EUR 1.9 billion, with two new bonds, 2029 and 2030. One to refinance bonds that came to maturity in April of 2024, and the EUR 350 million bond and the EUR 575 maturity 2029 to finance the acquisition of La Triveneta Cavi.
So that's concluding the financial statement presentation, as well as the business overview. I will now move to the outlook on page 20. So on the outlook, we want to capitalize basically on the strong performance on this first semester, the good visibility that we have on most our businesses for the second half of the year. And we are increasing the range of the guidance for adjusted EBITDA from EUR 670 million-EUR 730 million, which we announced in February, to a new range of EUR 750 million-EUR 800 million. That of course include the contribution of the seven months of La Triveneta Cavi, that will contribute for roughly EUR 40 million EBITDA.
So if you just take the midpoint of the previous guidance, which was 700 million, and the midpoint of the new guidance, 775, it, and you know that EUR 40 million of that is coming from La Triveneta. I would say at similar scope, the increase of the guidance is EUR 35 million from the strong performance of the business. In terms of normalized free cash flow, same thing, we included obviously the performance of La Triveneta, and we include, we increase the low part of the range and the high part of the range from EUR 200-300 million to EUR 275-375 million.
Both of those KPIs, whether adjusted EBITDA or normalized free cash flow, will be a complete record for Nexans in terms since the IPO in 2021. That being said, now I will turn to Chris for the conclusion.
Yeah, just a word of conclusion to remind everyone that we will have our Capital Market Day in London, November 13th. The following week, on November 20th, we will do U.S. Investor Day, as we have a pretty strong base in U.S., in New York City. Voilà! Let me now turn for the Q&A.
Sure. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We will take the first question from line, Akash Gupta from J.P. Morgan. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody, and thanks for your time. I have two to start with. The first one is on guidance and the implied second half, based on the new range. So when we look at the implied second half, it kind of implies significant slowdown in or noticeable slowdown in the second half versus first half. So maybe if you can elaborate on where this slowdown is coming from, and also what particularly you have assumed for GNT, where we are hearing some delays from, EuroAsia financial close. So that's the first one to start with.
Okay. Thank you, Akash. I'll take the question. So indeed, but you know, you know Nexans quite well, and, and typically always on second half, we have a seasonality effect, and typically on the second half, our EBITDA is always lesser than the first half. I mean, just take the month of July and August for, in Europe for, for vacation time, you lose two weeks. You take again, December, you lose a couple of weeks. So we on average, you're losing a month of activity versus the first half. So by, by structure, I mean, second half is...
I'm talking outside of GNT, which is obviously a long-term project, which is different, but at least for usages and even for distribution, distribution and industrial solution, there is a cycle between first, different cycle, different first half and second, and second half. So that's number one. Number two, to answer your question on GNT, so what we are seeing in GNT right now in, is that we will be at the same level of margin for the second half and the first half, roughly around 10%-11%.
The idea is to remain the improvement we will start in the next years, mainly in 2025, when we'll be completed with our legacy contract for the most part, the one that were impacted starting 2022 with inflation and the hump of cost in Halden and Charleston. So that's one thing. While we also took some cautious view regarding GridseA, you understand that, GridseA, and you know that GridseA is not, we still don't have the financial close on the project. We're expecting the financial close of GridseA happening by the month of August. So, we are confident that this project will start for good and will happen.
Unfortunately, right now, it's, we're still waiting for that financial close. So in the guidance, there's a little bit of cautious here to ensure that even if we don't get, GridseA, we can achieve the guidance without any issue. So really, this is factored also into the guidance of the year. So we're a little bit conservative when it comes to that. So that's explaining maybe, those couple of reasons explain why you see a second half slightly below the first half in terms of, EBITDA performance.
Thank you. My second one is on GNT. I think Chris mentioned that the new tower can take four cables inside. Does it mean that you have some flexibility to increase capacity if you need to? In that case, you don't need to build a new tower to add two more lines in Halden factory.
No, no, very, very limited. Very limited. I think right now, the extension we can do is mainly in Charleston. But today, Halden will be quite fully loaded in coming years. We still have some room in Charleston and in 2026 for further award that we are working on, but no, we'll be at our max, I would say.
Thank you.
Sure, Akash-
Thank you. We will-
Next questions.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line, Alexander Virgo from Bank of America. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Alex.
Yeah. Morning, gentlemen. Thanks very much for taking the question. I just wondered if you could give us a little bit more color on the, excuse me, on the ramp-up in margins in GT. Obviously, building a new or introducing a new factory and allowing for learning curve effects, et cetera, is one of the reasons why perhaps the operating leverage isn't as strong as one might expect. But I just wondered if you could give us a sense for how we should think about that margin moving from here. I appreciate your comment there that H2 margins 10%-11% or so is a starting point. But just thinking about how we model that over the next couple of years, that would be super helpful. Thank you.
... Yeah, so definitely, I mean, the answer, answer to your question, Alex, is similar to the one I gave to Akash, to the question of Akash before. I mean, we're still in 2024 completing or advancing on most of our revenue on the legacy contract, you know, the contract that we've seen strong margin decrease last year, mainly in the first semester of last year, and we have to execute and complete. So, this remains a bulk of the revenues in 2024, explaining why the margin is not improving that much, at least versus second half of 2023.
We will be again the revenue of next year, I mean, providing we have obviously GridseA Interconnector signed in August, this will be an important provider of revenue and margin next year, as well as a TenneT contract and a Celtic contract. And definitely we will move to executing new part of the backlog with higher margin, explaining why starting 2025, the margin will start to move up above 11% and then gradually again around 14%-15% in 2026, to be above 17% in 2027. So this is just obviously pending, we have no execution issue. This is basically the hump up and of the life of the project that explains the margin improvement semester after semester, year after year.
So that's basically the how we see it. Why 2023 was lower than 2024, we had some one-off in 2023. We don't have the one-off in 2024. We just have the execution of the low margin project, which explaining why we are slightly better than 2023 in terms of margin, and this will continue over the years, as I explained.
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Perhaps I could push you a little bit on GridseA. So what if we don't get it signed in August? I appreciate that it's no longer really in the guidance, which is very helpful. But I'm thinking about sensitivity for next year and, you know, how delayed can it be, if you like, before we need to start thinking about material impact on the business?
Yeah. So, we've been very careful on this project. We've recognized margin the first half of the year. We've recognized sales on margin, despite the financial close did not yet happen, but we have received cash. So basically what we've been doing is we have been recognizing margin up to cost and margin and revenue, up to the level of cash we've received from the customer. And this cash is non-refundable, so we're just taking no risk at all, at least up to now. The point, the changing point, it will be in August, when basically the financial close need to happen for us to receive more cash and to continue progress on the project.
So I would say for 2024, what has been recognized is guaranteed, both, as I explained in terms of margin and obviously in terms of cash, because it's non-refundable. The risk is on the second half, but it's not in the guidance. And for next year, I mean, the contribution of GridseA for next year is important, I have to say, but we have time also to find other ways to mitigate part of the shortage, if it happens that GridseA is not confirmed in August. We have many other projects that we can move into the production lines and basically mitigate part of the contribution of GridseA. So that's basically how we're working on the plan B, if unfortunately, this project does not materialize in August.
Yeah, I think, and actually, if I may add as well on this comment, is of course, we monitor very closely this project on this ongoing financing. Like any other project, we see signs of progression in line with terms and conditions of the contract. On that, we think. We are very confident that the authorities will come to a positive decision, and we are very committed to that project. I would say step by step, it's not in the guidance in the further guidance of the group for 2024. And I think we will have further comment on the next quarterly results, because here we will see if this discussion ended positively or not, and we'll give you more guidance for 2025 at that time.
Okay, that's helpful. Thanks very much, bye.
Sure.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line, Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to clarify sort of some of the prior comments and also link it with the backlog. So you said sort of the backlog is EUR 6.7 billion. I guess, one, you're including EUR 1.4 billion in there, that is EuroAsia. And how much is also in the EUR 6.7 billion that is frame agreements, not yet called off? So effectively, sort of how much is what is really firm, and of that, what is for delivery next year, that is not the EuroAsia?
So what we have in the, in the, firm, we, we do not have, like you say, EuroAsia, which is EUR 1.4 billion. We have some of the frames, the call, the call off of TenneT, which are, which are in the, adjusted backlog, but not on the firm, on the firm backlog. So-
We have, if I may, we have two quotes that are in the backlog on one project which is not yet in the backlog.
... Sorry, just to make sure I understood. So of the EUR 6.7, EUR 1.4 is EuroAsia, so EUR 5.3 is backlog, including frame agreements and frame that is not EuroAsia. Of that EUR 5.3, how much is firm versus frame agreement?
Let me check. It's about 4.7, 4.7 billion EUR, which is firm.
Yeah. And you say it extends, some of these extends up to 2030, so what's the utilization you have for next year if EuroAsia doesn't come through?
The EuroAsia project is produced in our unit in Japan. It's not in Halden. So it's really Halden is fully loaded for next year as well as Charleston, so the impact will be the negative impact of any delays on consolidation will concern our Japanese plant.
Okay.
Which was-
The most-
was most bold in the last two years because of lack of project in AM, yeah.
But when you mention you can bring some projects to try to fill that up, are there, what are the big tenders out there that are MI, that could come?
We will first put up some project in some buffer planning that we have in Halden and Charleston. It's very limited, it's a fillers more than a-
Mm.
I would say big hole. On after for MI, I will not comment the project that we are working on to compensate, for question of confidentiality.
Thank you. Just one final clarification also on the point that you mentioned earlier, that you received cash from EuroAsia. Did you receive it in the first half, in terms of inside your normalized free cash flow, how much is included from advances of EuroAsia?
Yes, we did receive the up to June about EUR 120 million.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line, Bastian Agote from Berenberg. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. On your backlog, what kind of margin should we assume at the top of your order book, given the strong pricing power that you have following the shortage of manufacturing capacity?
Sorry, you mean the margin on the backlog? The margin on the backlog-
Yeah, at the top of your backlog, what kind of margin do you have in terms of projects with high margin?
Well, you know, the way we segment it, we divide our backlog. Basically, we have all the project which are wind offshore project, which are roughly project typically in the backlog around between 12%-15% EBITDA margin. And then we have the interconnector project, which requires long lengths installation, deep sea long lengths installation, typically EuroAsia, Celtic, and Caribbean links we had in the past, and so on. Those project are higher margin, they are above 15%, and depending on the project, they can reach up to 40%. And the backlog is about, today, about the EUR 6.7 billion is about split 50/50 between the two.
That's basically how you can drive the margin of the backlog, if it makes sense.
Okay. I have another question on M&A. Yesterday, you appointed someone in your for your distribution usage division in North America. Should we assume that in terms of M&A, your next target will probably be in the US, or we shouldn't assume this trade across?
Yeah, we hire a great guy in Canada, coming from Southwire, Tim King. And so I think we have not changed our, I will say, investment thesis, Bastian. We have three of them. First, to acquire companies in a market where we already present, and when we know we can premiumize better our offer. That was the case of Santensel, REKA, and partly La Triveneta. The second is acquisition in bigger countries, where we have a lower presence. So of course, that could be US, but US is a much more consolidated, and now with two top player like Southwire and Prysmian, it's generating more than the 50%-60% market share there.
So of course, the small size player will have difficulties to compete on the long term with the two great companies. On the third is any kind of great investment or acquisition we may do in Asia Pac, with a double digit growth that can help the evolution of our business portfolio. So that's the three thesis that we are following. No, no change. No change.
Okay.
We're still very active, because you can see that the economy is not as flourishing as before, in general, and the stronger companies will win, and this is why we have great opportunity coming up in the coming months in acquisition.
Okay. Thank you very much.
We will take the next question from line, Alasdair Leslie from Bernstein. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Oh, yeah. Hi, good morning. So a few questions on distribution. Just, we obviously saw a great improvement in the margin, but just, just on the growth.
... And I kind of appreciate the selectivity focus, but the growth was still a little bit muted in H1. You kind of flagged 9% growth in Europe, but 2% overall. I just wondering if you could expand on the trends in the markets outside of Europe. I think you mentioned in the slides there, project delays in North America, South America, so do those come back in the second half? And just generally about sort of, I don't know to what extent, obviously just growth is limited by capacity constraints. I was just wondering if we have to wait for the kind of Morocco facility to come on stream to see a kind of real acceleration there, perhaps more in line with demand.
And then just finally, just on these new framework agreements in distribution, I just wondered how many of the older ones are still due to roll off. Is there still a sort of drag from some of these older contracts, or we've seen this kind of improvement in pricing, sort of fully come through now? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. I would say that there is... We are not yet at the full saturation of the capacity. But in the organic growth that you see in our result, what I can mention is that if we are willing to take, I would say, 2 points more incremental growth, it will be dilutive to the earnings. So this is what we balance every week and every month in terms of ordering takes. It's just the question growth for growth. If you are able to deliver this 16% EBITDA, which is a record in our history for distribution market, it means it's a very fine-tuned recipe to go to a good utilization of your process.
A good, a good, I would say, fulfillment of your process on the, as well, saturations, but as well, making sure that you don't bring too much complexity, and you select only the accretive product on accretive, I would say customers. Because, you know, I could generate easily 5%-6% growth in that, in that market, but in that case, my EBITDA will be closer to, 10%-12%. So that's a very, very fine balance that we need to work with. And, secondly, in terms of your question for your Frame Agreement, I would say that 50%-60% of them have been renewed. We still have 40% that has to be renewed.
If I may add, just to go into detail a little bit of how this margin is built up in H1 2024. I mean, it's been really stronger increase in Europe. I mean, in Europe, we've seen a +9% growth in terms of revenues, and the margin, the EBITDA margin from last year to this year moved from 8% to 12.6%. So we gained 4.6 points on margin on the business, which is the largest one as made up of the sales, that also grew by 9%. So I would say that the momentum that we're seeing today is quite exceptional, and also what we see where we get a lot of value is on the accessories business.
You know, like, not the cable itself, but basically all the accessories that connect the cable, for instance. We see a strong, nice improvement in terms, both in terms of volume on that business, with that, that has been growing 5, that grew 5% over the period versus last year. The margin on that business also improved by 2.4% to reach more than 20% EBITDA margin. So, I mean, we see both momentum, I would say, on the cabling itself, with a strong push from Europe, as I described, both in terms of volume and margin, but also on the accessories business for the same reasons.
That's fantastic detail. Could I just ask what sort of portion of the distribution business is accessories, just broadly?
Roughly 20%.
Yeah, I was gonna say it's about EUR 300 million-EUR 400 million. Yeah, 20%.
Lovely. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line, Eric Lamarre from CIC. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I, I've got three, actually. The first one, on the competitive environment, did you observe any change, in this competitive environment in Europe and North America? Any Chinese or other international player interested to do some business in your areas? A second question on the GridseA. Could you tell us maybe what was the contribution of the GridseA on H1 margin for GMT? And the last question on U.S. politics, if Trump becomes president of the U.S., do you see any specific risk on the renewable sectors, and notably the offshore wind sectors? Thank you.
I will take, Eric, I will take the GridseA question, and I will let Chris answer the other question. So the contribution of GridseA in the first half has been EUR 60 million of sales, EUR 25 million of EBITDA contribution, EUR 110 million of cash, EUR 120 million of cash received, and a net cash position of EUR 71 million.
Yeah, regarding the evolution of the shift. I'm talking generation transmission, Eric. Yes, of course, we see a lot of expansion on capacity creation in China, so far, very, very strong. We have more than seven players now in China doing a subsea cable for offshore wind farm. That can generate, on the long term, 2032, I would say, an oversupply if China is able to deliver in Europe, of course. But...
is, of course, I would say, it's not a threat in the short term for the European player, but it is clearly a threat in the long term, and the long term is starting in 2032, I believe. So I think there will be more than 8 new production line coming up in coming years in China on top of what have been built, so will be quite significant. And it's clearly China are building more capacity than what their domestic markets require in terms of cables. So we have, of course, to be extremely vigilant on the evolution of the Chinese player. You have seen as well that LS is coming up in Europe.
You've seen as well that Sumitomo is building a plant in Scotland, so well, because there have been attacks as well in their area by the Chinese players. So we have to make sure that Europe is not becoming the El Dorado of the Asian players. Regarding President Trump, in fact, I have many times the question. We need to acknowledge, it's difficult to answer, of course, but we need to acknowledge one thing, that when we decided to invest $160 million in Charleston to upgrade our capacity to turn it subsea for offshore wind farm connection, it was under President Trump, Donald Trump presidency.
What we've seen as well is that under President Trump's mandate, we've seen a positive acceleration of all the permits on everything with regards to administrative lease for offshore wind farm development. So there is the speech, but there is as well the reality that the states are the owners of the project, and are still willing to invest massively in the coming years anyway. So I don't see a slowdown with all the commitment that New York State took recently, New Jersey, Massachusetts, if Donald Trump is winning in coming months.
Thank you. Thank you. That's very clear.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We will take the next question from line, Lucas Ferhani from Jefferies. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. The first question on high voltage, just on the organic growth, you know, at the end of last year, when you set the guidance, you were targeting 40% organic growth for the full year, and now 64% in H1. You know, where do you think you'll end up in the full year versus what you had said? And just also on the margin progression in generation and transmission. So H2 will be similar to H1, so about 11%. And then I think you said earlier on the call, an additional two percentage points per annum in 2025 and 2026. Did I hear that right? Thank you.
Yeah. I will take, Lucas, the first question on G&T. Yeah, we are above. There's a little bit of mechanical impact of why we are 64% versus 40% that we announced last year for this year. It's the fact that we started to do progress on the AC interconnectors in 2023, but we didn't want to recognize margin at the time, and we started to recognize the margin, basically, when we got the cash down payment at the end of December. So there is a one-time effect to release, basically, all the costing curves on the balance sheet to the P&L, which is basically taking a one-time impact on the sales, which has been helping also growing the first semester by versus what we said.
The answer to the question regarding what will be the second half of the year and what will be the full year in G&T growth, I mean, again, it depends of basically the materialization or not of the GridseA Interconnector project in August, because there's a contribution of that project, which is quite significant in the second half. So depending if we think we will get it, and it will happen, then we should remain in a similar, I mean, 55%-65% organic growth for the year. If this project does not materialize, we'll have to stop on the sales recognition at the end of June, and it will be slightly lower, 50%.
Sorry, I'm on the margin point, if I can confirm that.
The second question you had was on the margin progression on distribution, was it right? Can you repeat your question? Yeah.
Yeah. Just on G&T, I think I heard you at the beginning of the call. I think you said an additional two percentage points per annum in 2025 and 2026, and H2 should be similar to H1-
Yes.
You should end up this year at 11%.
Yeah, between 10-11, I said. Yes.
So that means you-
Yes.
You should reach kind of about 15% by 2026. I think expectations were slightly higher. Is there a reason maybe behind that? Is there anything?
No, I mean, I don't know why you say that. I mean, maybe expectation were higher, but that's not what I said. I said, starting 2027, we will be at 17%. We will gradually increase the margin progressively. It's just a question of execution of the backlog that we have today. I mean, obviously, the big question remains GridseA Interconnector, and how this will play over the next two-
... years, this will be part of the picture or not, but assuming it is, which what we think is gonna happen, you will see 2%, 2.5% increase per annum, and then by 2017, we-- 2027, sorry, we should be at, I mean, we're aiming to be at 17%, margin.
Perfect. No, that's super clear. And if I can add one just on M&A and disposal. On the M&A side, is the focus more on LTC at the moment, or if there are opportunities out there, will you still kind of continue to potentially add something even as early as H2? I mean, the leverage is higher, but it's still on decent level. And on the other side, is there any update you can give on the disposals in industrial? Thank you.
Just one word on the leverage. So the leverage is higher. We have a little bit of room, like you said. We continue to pursue the objective of becoming investment grade, starting next year. So obviously that will put some cap at our leverage level, probably around 1.5 times net debt to EBITDA. So we, like you say, we have a little bit of room, and we have also, I mean, starting the second part of next year, we will be generating much more cash flow because of the completion of our strategic CapEx.
So between the gap in the leverage and we can still feel plus additional cash flow generation, we could be making, we will be making starting second half of next year, then definitely, we'll have room for M&A. And then we have obviously the potential proceeds from divestment that we are, which are ongoing.
Yeah, we have finalized the carve-out of the industry business and ready to test the water in the coming months for the divestment of industry business. And of course, keep moving on the divestment on the automotive harnesses. Regarding acquisition side, we have a team for integration working on and a team for acquisition, and our M&A guy is in front of us, so looking in his eyes, he looks to be very active on a lot of work right now. So not sure he will take some vacations during summers, huh? So yes, more to come. Cannot comment more.
Perfect. Sorry if I may add a last one just on the high voltage backlog. I think it's flat sequentially, it's still on high levels, but I'm just wondering if you heard anything from customers and on the pipeline that you have. It seems, and one of your competitor highlighted that there's a bit of a wait and see attitude from some of the customers that know that, you know, additional capacity is coming, that they give a lot of visibility already and maybe taking a bit more time to add to kind of the orders. Just wondering, you know, what are you seeing on the high voltage orders? Thank you.
Well, we have some project under negotiation or standstill period that I cannot comment right now, but you should see awards coming up before the end of the year. Are not small.
Material.
Material one. Very, very, very big one.
Perfect. Thanks. Thanks so much.
Yep.
We will take the next question from line, Jean-François Granjon from Oddo. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everybody. Just, I just want to come back on the GridseA Interconnector to appreciate the, the risk. Taking into account the current discussions with the, the, the government, do you see some, potential delay or cancellation of the project? I think there is some, some question regarding the, the financing and the, the, the participation to the European community, et cetera. So do you see, just a delay or, do you see, even a, a risk of, cancellation of the, of the, of the full project?
It's a question where you cannot get an answer, Jean-François. First, because we are not part of the stakeholder in the negotiation. What I can tell you, without disclosing confidential information, that there was a call with the European Commission and the Cyprus government. Market has been extremely positive in the last days. On the call, every stakeholder expressed their willingness to keep moving that project. I think the topic is more on the regulator in Cyprus, but I'm sure that before middle of August, they will find a solution between them. I cannot comment more, Jean-François.
Okay, thank you. Listen.
Sorry for that, Jean-François. We are not part of the negotiation.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. It appears no further question at this time. I'll hand it back over to your host. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you everyone. We have a pretty extensive connection of people, more than 300, thank you. So, as a conclusion, just a quick reminder, the Q3 result will be on the thirtieth of October, and of course, we are welcoming you in London on November 13, or for our US Investor Day in New York City on the 20th. We wish you a great summer break. Thank you very much. Thank you.
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