Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to Nexans nine months 2024 financial information conference call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Please note your lines will be on listen-only mode for the duration of the call. 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 question. I would now like to turn the call over to your host for today's conference call, Mr. Christopher Guérin, Nexans CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in Nexans conference call. I'm Christopher Guérin, CEO of Nexans. With me, Jean-Christophe Juillard, Deputy CEO and CFO, and Élodie Robbe-Mouillot, VP Investor Relations. Let me turn over to Élodie who will go over the conference rules.
Thank you, Chris. I would like to remind participants that statements made during the conference call, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers and listeners are strongly encouraged to refer to the disclaimers, which are an integral part of our URD, along with the audio replay of today's call that will be posted on our website, nexans.com. I'll now turn you over to Chris, who will go over the nine months' highlights.
Thank you, Élodie. If we go straight to page three, as you can see on the nine months' revenue level, we are at + 4% with a weak Q3 that I will comment, obviously. Acceleration in Electrification close to + 8% on framework agreement and backlog visibility still very high in Generation and Transmission with some new works to come in coming weeks. Maybe a word, because I'm sure that will be the main questions on the revenue on sales and revenue on Distribution and Usages. I like the fact that we have been certainly a bit too aggressive in the months of August in terms of reduction of our inventories, which caused delays in deliveries in September, which by the time of October have been now caught up.
We had severe delays in those both sectors in the two last weeks of September that have been caught up in October. The month of October, beyond the catch-up of September delays, is higher than budget with a robust trend for October, November, and December. There is just, I will say, phasing of issues that we had on Distribution and Usages, but nothing alarming in regards to our organic growth for the year. We remain prudent on some markets that will come out, e.g. like residential market in Europe, because we've seen that our customers suffer from some, I would say, order intake decline. But overall, 2024 will be a great year. Maybe a highlight on some CapEx. We continue to reinforce our capacity because we have overall a high demand, both, of course, in high voltage, but as well in medium voltage.
I'm very proud to announce, because it's more than two years' work with our partner, Properzi, the launch of recycling, I will say, new capabilities in Lens, in fact, which is a CapEx of EUR 80 million that I will comment. If we go in page four, that's specifically in regards to that, I would say, new investments. We are very concerned by the risk of copper scarcity, but more, I would say, willing to bring green copper offer to our customer. We know that the demand for secondary recycled copper will be extremely high in coming years, and that can as well generate a price premium. So our new recycling capabilities will allow us to recycle an equivalent of 80,000 tons. So that means that's an equivalent of a small copper mine. A small copper mine is about 80,000-100,000 tons per year.
So a very important investment in regard to circular economy. For page five, we are building a new tower for onshore cables for 525 kV to support the TenneT frame agreement, but as well some older frame agreement coming up in high voltage. So that's an investment of EUR 90 million that will be in Charleroi, plus Erembodegem for the accessories, but as well Calais for increasing our, I would say, testing capabilities. And keep expanding on low carbon, medium voltage cable because of the grid renewal in Europe, a EUR 15 million investment in Bourg-en-Bresse that will be, I would say, commissioned in incoming year. So keep pace in increasing our capacity. Let me now turn over to JC for the revenue, I will say, highlights.
Thank you. Thank you, Chris. So moving to page six, 4% organic growth, nine months 2024 versus nine months 2023. If we exclude the Metallurgy, as I explain every quarter, our strategy to decrease our external sales on the Metallurgy business, if we exclude that strategic intention, then the organic growth nine months is almost 7% at 6.9%. Quarter-on-quarter, Q3 2024 versus Q3 2023, it's a - 0.5% organic growth. However, when you split that negative, slightly negative organic growth, in fact, you have a positive + 8% in Electrification and a - 8% in non-Electrification, mainly due to two sectors in non-Electrification, Automation, which continues to be slow to recover, and Automotive Harnesses, which is also a double-digit sales decrease, obviously reflecting what you see in the market right now for automotive. And then, of course, 19% decrease Q3 year on year on the other business.
So in fact, the Electrification businesses, again, are growing 8% quarter-on-quarter. If you look at the nine months year on year, Electrification 4% for the group, 12% for Electrification, - 4% for non-Electrification, again, driven mainly by automation and automotive business, and 14% for the other segment, which is, again, Metallurgy. So globally speaking, what is important for us is that Electrification businesses, whether it's on a quarter-to-quarter basis, + 8% on a nine-month-to-nine-month basis, are growing 12%. Now, if I move to the next page, page seven, and we look at Generation and Transmission, first to notice a strong growth of almost 20%, 19% of the backlog, adjusted backlog, that reached a record level of EUR 6.2 billion from September 2024 to September 2023, mainly driven by the inclusion of Great Sea Interconnection in the adjusted backlog.
In terms of sales, a 36% growth quarter-on-quarter and a 54% growth nine months to nine months, explained again by the additional lines of production to execute the backlog to new lines of production that started operation in the months of January of this year. Moving to page number eight, and we look at distribution. So in fact, of distribution, we have, I would say, two different aspects. The first one, on the quarter-to-quarter basis, it has been flat with a mix between the regions. We start to see a very nice rebound in APAC, where we've been growing 9% quarter-on-quarter. However, we have seen continue to see deteriorating North America, -7%. Europe is +1%, flat, and the Middle East and Africa is growing double digits, very strong momentum in Middle East and Africa, +11%.
When you look at the nine months, the sales are growing organically by 2%, mainly driven by accessories +5%, where territories are +1%, growth rather stable. If I move now to page nine, and we look at Usages on the Usages part, so we had a growth in sales due to, obviously, the acquisition of La Triveneta Cavi and Calais contributing in the third quarter of 2024. When you look organically, you have a -1% organic growth, mainly driven by the residential sector, which is declining, mainly in Europe, whereas the commercial industrial sectors are catching up, are growing single digit in the region. Also to notice that in Usages, North America is strongly growing +30%. Quarter-on-quarter, we had a very low Q3 of 2023.
And on the nine-month basis, it's a flat organic growth, mainly driven by a negative Europe and partially offset by a quite strong North America, + 7%. Also, South America is improving on a nine-month basis, growing 3%. And again, globally, what we see is a decline in residential offset by an increase in the commercial and industrial market of usages. Now, I will turn to page 10, and we confirm the guideline on Adjusted EBITDA that we raised in July at the end of our first semester, EUR 700 million-EUR 800 million Adjusted EBITDA for the year 2024. We also, in July, raised the normalized free cash flow guidance by EUR 75 million to reach 275 to 375. We also confirm basically the two guidance for the full-year 2024, which will be, again, record level of profitability for Nexans.
And I will conclude again to remind you on page 11 that we have two upcoming events, significant events for Nexans, November 13 in London for Capital Markets Day and then U.S. Investor Day in New York on November 20. Thank you very much. Now, I will turn back to operator for Q&A.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. We will take our first questions from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I have three questions, if that is possible. But the first one, I just wanted to ask you a bit more about, can you clarify on the Great Sea Interconnector? How much was the contribution that you had already in Q3? If there's anything from what you did in Q3 that you couldn't book and you will book in Q4, and just help us thinking through the booking of Great Sea Interconnector from here. That's the first one, and then I'll ask the others one at a time.
Yeah, thank you, Daniela, for the question. So on Great Sea Interconnection, as you know, and I'm sure Chris will explain a little bit the momentum of the discussion here, but just to speak about the figures and the booking. So we still not have received the final notice to proceed. That should be coming in the next days. So Chris will talk about that. What we've received, though, is another down payment in the third quarter. In fact, it came early October. We received another close to EUR 30 million. So we have continued to make progress on the contract, recognizing sales, recognizing margin. However, at a slightly lower pace than what we expected, because again, we are waiting.
We know that we don't want to expose the company, and we are making progress according to the cash we receive and not faster than the cash we receive to not expose the company in case unlikely, but still possible, case the contract is postponed or canceled, so we've received more cash again in October. We've continued to make progress in the third quarter. We've recognized about EUR 30 million sales in the third quarter. Obviously, as soon as we get the final notice to proceed, which again should come quickly, there will be a catch-up on the project with much faster booking and acceleration for the fourth quarter of the year, so right now, I would say we're progressing, but I would say at a medium to slow pace until we get the final notice to proceed.
Sorry, on that, what was the original normal? What would have been the EUR 30 million if you had had the notice to proceed? And so, how big is the catch-up?
Yeah, it would have probably been about twice the number.
Okay. Got it.
Maybe I like to running on the contractual, I would say, evolution. You know that all the stakeholders have signed recently all the agreement required for the project between IPTO and Cyprus government and the European Commission. All the revenue framework process has been agreed on. The main milestone coming up is the phase two of the survey of the seabed that should be planned, which is planned already in incoming weeks. That's the critical milestone to make sure that as it will be under near the international water, and we need to make sure that there is no issue doing this survey. And in that, if no issue, notice to proceed will be signed just after this survey seabed. I would say mid-November, that institution.
Thank you.
Just to finish up on the numbers, Daniela, we were expecting in July, we were expecting the final notice to proceed by the end of August. So in fact, there's only for the quarter three, there's only one month difference, the fact that it's postponed now to November for the quarter. So that's why the catch-up would have been slightly higher. If we had the notice to proceed in August, we would have had a full blast of one month in September of revenue recognition. So it would have been higher, but not like that significant higher because it's only.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. And my second question is regarding your comments on the medium voltage and I think also on the usages you mentioned on both the stocking. How shall we think about this in terms of the trends going forward, and is it impacting pricing in those areas where we have had very strong pricing dynamics in the last sort of year and a half?
Yeah, I think it's a fundamental question when I see the reaction of the share price, Daniela. The destocking is more on our side. We have been a bit too aggressive on the level of inventories because the signals that we received from the market, specifically on Usages world, were a bit negative in some areas like in Europe for September. And we have been ourselves too aggressive in the destocking effect. So that encountered delays of supply on our side for our customer that we have been able to catch up. So October and November are very, very strong months. Beyond the catch-up, we are at budget. We remain very vigilant. I think there is no issue on the medium voltage side because it's a secure trend. So there may be phasing delays because lack of labor resources to install the cable, but demand remains very high.
We have just renewed, and we are not able to communicate, but very strong pricing agreement for the next two years with one of the key players with a very high level of volume for next year. On low voltage, I would say there is a mixed effect as we can see from our, I would say, customers and partners on looking at Rexel and Saint-Gobain commands. Construction in Europe is pretty weak, so specifically in residential, but technical buildings and critical buildings are very, very strong. So I would say that we may have a de-stocking effect from the market at the end of December, but nothing alarming in terms of revenue recognition at this stage.
Not impacting pricing?
Yes, pricing remains stable, and this is why we are confident in regards to the financial guidance.
Thank you. And my final one is just more longer term. You have, over the past couple of months, made a lot of communications regarding this intent to use more recycled copper. I guess ultimately, the clients pay for the metal, so they assume they will pay for the extra costs related to ramping that up. Or how is that likely to impact your margins and your financials going forward? Have you put more investment into that? And I assume that ends up with a slightly higher final product for the client.
Yeah, it's a great question. Let me answer in two steps. The first step is that we will purchase some scraps. So we will purchase secondary copper that have a low value at LME versus primary copper. So you have a cost advantage there. And secondly, we know that there is. We have interviewed more than 150 customers recently in regards to access to secondary copper. We know that there is a premium for, I will say, green product made of recycled copper plus recycled polymer. This is what we would be able to offer starting 2026, a complete 100% low carbon offer because we will be able to, I would say, manufacture, I would say, rod wire 100% recycled by Nexans. So that's something that will be unique in terms of offer.
But of course, I would elaborate a bit more during the Capital Markets Day because I think this vertical integration will be a strong distinctive advantage for the future.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Daniela.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, and thanks for your time. I got two as well, and I'll ask one at a time. My first one is on Usages and Distribution. So you talked about some de-stocking on your side, which impacted your ability to deliver and caused some weakness. Can you comment about the underlying market and a bit of underperformance there? Was the underlying market still growing in these two segments, or was there some issues on the market as well? And then I'll ask my follow-up later.
Yeah, I would say that on distribution, demand remains very, very strong. On Akash, if we would have seen something different in terms of trend, we would not have announced this new CapEx. Our lines are still very saturated. There are some upticks depending on some contract because we received some big contract on solar farms on renewable farms, and as it's project-based, we can shift from one week to another week, and that's exactly what happened in September. We have some revenue recognition that we're supposed to be at the end of September that shift to the first week of October, so no concerns on distributions. We have as well a negative effect because we had consolidated two units into one in Finland, so we have to stop production in Finland to make this, I would say, transfer of production, so that affects our Q3 as well in distributions.
But now it's done. So they're running a full blast. In Usages, I will say, I will not bring more, I will say, granular comments than the one from our customers. There was a downward trend in residential market up to 8%-10% in Europe. It's same in U.S. When I say U.S., for us, it's North America, of course, obviously with a focus on Canada. But in Canada, it has been offset by industrial market in Q3, clearly. Where in Europe, we're still facing some low volume on headwinds. And I would say that Europe will remain at that level up to, I would say, the end of first quarter of 2025.
Thank you. And my second question is on G&T. I think in your opening remarks, you talked about some framework agreements that could be announced or that could be coming forward in the coming weeks. Maybe one question broadly on the demand-supply situation. How do you see the demand-supply situation given we also have a national grid in the market with a large framework that we heard from other market players? And when it comes to your Capital Markets Day, how shall we think about potential for further capacity expansion on the subsea part? Is that something that you are considering, or you are still not interested or not keen to invest more on the subsea side? Thank you.
I guess good try on the question for the Capital Markets Day. You know that I will not answer that, and you have to be patient on the wait that we meet all together on the 13th of November. So I will not answer on capacity expansion. I will talk about it on the 13th of November. Regarding prime agreement, you know that we are in discussion with RTE that has been announced in October. We are at least in exclusive negotiation for Centre Manche One and Two on only one project. And if everything goes well, we expect agreement in roughly December with follow-up in January.
Thank you, Christopher. Maybe a question on the demand-supply situation. How do you see the demand-supply situation now versus, let's say, at the start of the year in high voltage, given we have some projects that might be getting pushed out while other projects that are being added to the pipeline? So how do you see the high voltage demand-supply situation in general?
In general, very strong, specifically in Europe. Very, very strong, specifically in Europe. And so no concern, no change of dynamic. We still have some, I would say, free capacity to offer compared to some of our competitors for some specific years. So it's pretty strong. We remain, of course, extremely vigilant in North America in regards to the elections. But so far, I would say no change of dynamic.
Thank you.
I think that would be the case up to 2030. We may have a change of dynamic post 2030, Akash, to be honest, but demand remains very, very strong.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Miguel Borrega from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got three. I'll go one at a time. Chris, you sometimes talk about the hypercycle in medium voltage. Can you help us understand that in the context of your nine-month result? So your organic sales growth was 2% and flat in Q3. Maybe give us a sense of pricing and volumes here, especially in Europe and North America, and help us understand these new framework agreements that you often talk about. In what elements are they different relative to what you've seen a few years ago?
Thank you. So yeah, cycle on medium voltage has, of course, in very positive territory. I had the question very often from investors, which is to say, why your growth ratio is not higher? I would say you need to take it as a sensitivity table, which is crossing organic growth versus EBITDA generation. We can grow up to 5%-6% without any issues, but it could be dilutive for the margin. So we know that between, I would say, 2%-3%, it's still very accretive in terms of EBITDA percentage. And we can be, of course, it requires to be extremely selective, not only by customers, but more specifically by SKUs. If you want to capture more growth, it will be negative in terms of EBITDA generation in terms of percentage-wise. So this is, I think, this selectivity approach that we have since the beginning.
In terms of prime agreement, what is the dynamic? It's related to all the investment announced by the DSO in the last years. You can see that they are all up + 25%. And all nations are waking up at the same time. So that's creating a pretty high level of saturation of the equipment. But the difficulties on their side is that financing is there, demand is there. Their potential bottleneck will be access to labor resources because you need labor resources to install the cables on the ground in Europe. And that's the risk of, I would say, potential scarcity on their side.
Thank you. And then in G&T, help us understand the evolution of your backlog sequentially. So there must have been something out of the backlog in Q3 execution-wise. And maybe also talk about new orders. Are you being restrictive in some way? How full are you? And then with regards to the Great interconnector, should we expect another EUR 25 million EBITDA in the second half of the year? Thank you.
No, in Q3 in backlog, we recognize revenue, and we basically booked a project called Orkney in the quarter. That's the movement of the third quarter on the backlog of G&T. And the second part of the question was?
So if you can talk about orders, if you've been restrictive, how full are you? And then the impact on EBITDA from EuroAsia in the second half.
So the impact on EBITDA, as I explained in the past, and we are on the trend of basically gradually improving our EBITDA. I said that second half would be likely at the level of the first half in terms of EBITDA margin for the business of G&T because we need to continue to fully execute the project with lower margin that will gradually improve next year and the year after next to reach a much higher level when we fully execute the contract of the large contract of TenneT and Crete interconnector two years down the road chart. Higher margin project. So that's basically no changes versus what I explained last quarter.
Okay. And then if I may, one last question, maybe big picture. Can you give us your views if indeed we see copper shortages? What kind of impact would that have in your business? And maybe if you can break it down by business segment, if you can. Thank you very much.
Yeah. In case of so what do we see in terms of copper shortages today? Not much at our level because we have privileged access. And I would say the big names of the sector cannot see any copper shortage because of their size and the volume they represent for the supply chain or for the mining producers. We've seen that in the last acquisition made recently that the medium-sized players are difficult of access. And we are pretty active in M&A, and that's always something that comes out. Access to copper for medium-sized companies starts to be a potential issue. The big shortage could come if China and the U.S. are shifting to high demand in terms of energy transition at the same time, which is not yet the case in China and not fully the case in the U.S.
So far, the main impact in terms of business would be in the one consuming most of the copper would be Usages business, building wires, low voltage. Medium voltage is mainly aluminum.
Okay.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Alasdair Leslie from Bernstein. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Thank you. A couple of questions, please. So just firstly, on the divestments, you said last time you were ready to kind of test the water in coming months. So can you maybe update us on kind of level of interest, potential timing, etc.? And then maybe specifically for Automotive Harnesses, I appreciate you say it's obviously been relatively resilient, but there's a more challenging backdrop there in autos. Does that basically take a sale there off the table for now? And the second question is really on the selectivity strategy. It's clearly paying off in Usages and Distribution, but I was just wondering, do you think G&T might be maybe better served by a kind of broader and more diversified backlog? You can maybe avoid the oversized exposure to single-project risks, the kind of volatility on sales and returns.
Just be interested in your thoughts about the future evolution of the G&T backlog. Thank you.
In regard to if I get the question right, in regard to the divestments, we will announce some, I would say, evolution in coming weeks. But automotive market is clearly down, but I think I don't need to elaborate that. We have launched the process of the divestment of the Industry and Solutions businesses. It's now official. It will come out, but I don't want to comment much that far because we'll make some announcements in coming weeks. Regarding selectivity strategy, G&T didn't get the question. Sorry for that.
Oh, yeah. Just, I wonder. I mean, you've obviously had a very selective sort of success or selectivity strategy, which is paying off for the low voltage and medium voltage businesses, but it just sort of seems there's obviously on Generation and Transmission. I was just wondering just whether there's kind of limits to that strategy there for Generation and Transmission having a very narrow backlog. It does seem to kind of leave you very vulnerable to single-project risks. We can see that sort of volatility sort of play out in terms of kind of expectations around sort of the particularly on the margins.
I was just wondering whether you think that perhaps it might make more sense to go for a more diversified kind of sort of broader backlog, and particularly, I guess, in terms of when we think about capacity additions and the mention there around sort of reviewing the potential for future capacity additions, whether that might come into play when you look at the size of the backlog in Generation and Transmission. Thank you.
Yeah. I would say that that's as well. Part of the answer is coming from the investment that we just announced in Charleroi. Charleroi, it's a EUR 90 million investment to support, of course, all the land part of the subsea cable, but as well the high demand in frame agreements for land high voltage, which now we see a very strong improvement in terms of price dynamic. And in regards to the evolution of backlog, we will there is a lot of tenders activity right now on negotiation. So you will see the evolution of the backlog coming up in the coming months. We remain overall very cautious in terms of allocating our capacity and resources because it's not only about volume. It's not only about margin. It's linked to risk and parent guarantees.
We want to make sure not to bet on specific projects that can jeopardize the evolution of the group on the long term.
That's great. Thank you. I wonder if I could just squeeze in a sort of quick follow-up, and it's more short term. Just on the, I suppose, helping sort of calibrate G&T expectations, growth expectations for 2024. If you do get that notice to proceed on GSI and you get a catch-up in 2024, I think you said previously G&T could grow at 60% with GSI. I imagine it's maybe a little bit lower now, just given some of the delays there. But maybe if you could help us kind of sort of update the expectations there, that'd be great. Thank you.
Yeah. Exactly. You're right on. I mean, we were expecting we said closer to 60% at the beginning of the year because we're expecting the notice to proceed much earlier. I mean, now it's been postponed to early November, and we're expecting it first in the first half. So definitely, it has had an impact. Despite the fact we've progressed, as I explained on the project, because we continue to receive some cash, but a much lower level than the normal expected progress on the project if we had the full down payment and the full notice to proceed. Explaining why basically the G&T organic growth is today not as high as expected at the beginning of the year.
So I mean, again, there will be definitely difference, but we should still be in a good territory for the year if we get the final notice to proceed at the beginning of November as we expect.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
Sure.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Lucas Ferhani from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I just wanted to come back on the comments on distribution. Would you be able to give us the number roughly you're seeing in October in terms of the organic growth, just to see that come back and maybe compare that to what you saw in September? And also in that division, is there any revenue impact from the manufacturing consolidation in Finland? And could you give us the number there on that impact?
Yes. I think that no, I will not give you the revenue impact on Finland because I don't want to be as granular for that. But it has been important. It's interesting to recap. It was planned, but it was associated with different, I would say, factors like the too aggressive destocking effect that we had on our side. And regarding distribution, overall, we are for, I would say, Q4, we are close to between 8%-10%, + 8%-10%. So we won't give you the October growth rate, but we have Q3 slightly negative -10% explained by the reasons Chris mentioned earlier, and we'll be catching up.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Eric Lemarié from CIC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I got two questions, actually. The first one regarding the Great Sea Interconnector project. Do you see any risk of further headwinds regarding this project, especially political-driven headwinds? And what about the geopolitical risk mentioned by some observers, mentioning notably Turkey? Is it a risk to consider for this project? And the second question regarding the U.S., you mentioned the U.S. election. What could be, in your view, the impact of an election of Donald Trump on your business? Do you see any risk? Or maybe, on the contrary, do you see perhaps new opportunities with the Trump administration? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. In regards to Great Sea Interconnector, there was a change on the meeting between Emmanuel Macron, the Greek Prime Minister, and the President of Turkey—oh, sorry, not of—yes, Turkey, Erdoğan was there, but as well Cyprus President in the recent months. The potential headwinds remaining in that project because this project has been full of headwinds for the last two years, it remains at the time of incoming weeks for the seabed survey. As we are in international waters, Turkey declared that it's not international water. This is their waters. So we may encounter some geopolitical risk at the time of the survey. But if the survey goes well without any tension, I will say from our stakeholders' views, that's the only major milestone or risk milestone that we may encounter. After it should flow very well. So I cannot say more than that.
In regard to the U.S. election, I would think if President Trump is winning, there will be a dual effect. There will be the negative and there will be the positive. The negative is that we know his posture in regards to renewable energy, which is, I will say, more negative than the others, but let me remind as well that I will say it's more a state decision of investments at government level, but the positive as well is the local content, is that we are the only one right now to be able to come with a made-in-America offer, so our subsea cable for offshore wind farms are designed by Americans, manufactured by Americans in U.S. territory, so this local content, of course, would be in favor for Nexans, so I will say it's a dual effect, one positive catalyst and one negative catalyst.
Let me remind that we spent $150 million upgrading our Charleston unit in 2019 in the time of Trump presidency, and that was a risk, but that was been pretty accurate for the last years, so I'm not negative, I would say.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Sean McLoughlin from HSBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. A few from me as well. So firstly, just staying in the U.S., I mean, what is your view currently on high-voltage opportunities outside of offshore wind that you effectively could deploy the Charleston facility for? Secondly, I'm wondering, we've seen French press commentary that you were approached and turned down the bid. Just any comment on the dynamics would be helpful. And thirdly, on auto harnesses, just to check, is that 100% auto car exposure, or is there an off-highway or heavy-duty exposure that diversifies your overall end market mix? Thank you.
Yeah. So what is the opportunity for high-voltage outside the offshore wind farm in the U.S.? Of course, we can manufacture a long high-voltage product because that was what the, I would say, initial design of the unit before 2019. But the demand in Europe is so strong that, of course, maybe in terms of carbon footprint, it's not the best. But if we have a hole in Charleston due to a decline of demand of offshore wind farm for a certain period, we prefer to leverage the capacity for offshore wind farm business in Europe to cope with the demand.
Regarding auto harnesses, JC?
Yeah. For auto harnesses, yeah, it's linked to the automotive market, obviously, because we're providing the hard cable harnesses for key German manufacturers, the luxury brands. However, we are in a niche market. First of all, we only do the engine harnesses. We don't do harnesses for the body of the car. So it's a little bit more complex and added value than the rest of the body harnesses of the car. And again, we have very selective premium customers. But to answer your question, yes, it's exposed to the automotive market, for sure.
Regarding the questions that are in line with the article on the Bloomberg flow of yesterday, regarding those rumors of a takeover of CD&R and Nexans, well, first, I will say classical answer, we do not comment market rumors. In the course of our business life, company Nexans has been regularly in contact with partners and investors. It's normal life. The market capitalization of Nexans in 2018 was about EUR 800 million. Six years later, we had EUR 6 billion. The only thing that I can tell you is that with what we will present, and this is what we've discussed in depth with our board of directors on the 13th of November, I think EUR 6 billion is not our limit. We believe that we have you will see a very ambitious goal for the company in incoming years. Still a lot of to-do in terms of value creation.
You will see that. And the only thing I can add up is that we don't have today any ongoing discussion with CD&R.
Thank you.
No more questions?
We will take our next questions from Jean-François Granjon from Oddo BHF. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. You have also answered the rest of my questions. Nevertheless, two other questions. The first one, I just want to come back on the backlog at EUR 6.2 billion versus EUR 6.7 billion previously. So could you explain this a little bit decreased by the more selectivity for new agreements? And the second question concerns the guidance. So you have improved the guidance at the end of July. Currently, and due to the Greece interconnector contract, are you more comfortable with the high-end range of the guidance or not? Thank you.
Yes. Jean-François, I will answer the first question. We didn't book anything Q3, so we recognize sales and basically there's a combination of probably different elements, but sales backlog conversion is the largest one. Again, we will likely book orders to grow the backlog furthermore in the coming months. So nothing really specific to say about the backlog evolution between H1 and Q3. For the guidance, I mean, again, depending on GSI, of course, because we still do not have the final notice to proceed. So I want to remain cautious, but assuming we have the final notice to proceed and continue to make progress on the project revenue recognition, cash receipt, revenue recognition within our plan for the next three months, there's definitely an objective to be a part of the guidance, yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Xin Wang from Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one I'd like to ask on distribution. So on the pace of frame agreement renewal, last quarter, we said there is 40% to be renewed. Would it be possible to get an update on this, please?
Everything that was supposed to be renewed this year has been renewed, so there is no more negotiation ongoing in regards to distribution, and it has been renewed with great volume perspective and with stable pricing.
Great. Thank you very much. My second question on GSI, on the arrangements for cable production and transportation, my understanding is that you're making these cables in your Japanese factory. Are you using Aurora or a simple vessel to ship it over to Europe on a regular basis? Or are you currently storing all the cables produced in Japan? Would you consider rescheduling your production capacity to produce them in Norway instead, for example, given the long-haul shipping costs and the environmental impact?
Yeah. Yeah. I think given the size of the GSI project, that would be dual production. The first links are currently being produced in Japan because this workshop is specifically dedicated to mass-impregnated technology and was, I will say, awaiting this project to come. But the major links of the contract that will be starting in production can continue, but start in Halden in 2025, 2026, of course, will be done in Norway. So we need both plants to combine to be able to deliver this project on time. And we will use our Aurora vessel or Skagerrak to manage the transfer.
Great. That's really good color, thanks. So my next question is on U.S. projects. So in Orsted's interim reporting back in August, they made an impairment to Revolution Wind and delayed commissioning date from 2025 to 2026. They also flagged the risk of Sunrise Wind commissioning slipping from end of 2026 to first half of 2027. Would you be able to talk about the impact on cable installation schedule, please?
Yeah. I think in Revolution, we don't have any specific impact on Sunrise. We are not in charge of the installation. So today, we're running the production of Sunrise. And of course, we discuss on what do we do with the cable that will be ready for installation with the customer. But those delays in terms of production wise does not affect our schedule.
Great. Thank you very much. My last question, if I'm allowed. So we saw some news on French ruling. So Rexel, Schneider, Legrand, Sonepar were fined by the French Competition Authority on special price agreement mechanism. I think cables could be a big part of this. Do we expect any impacts or any fine to Nexans, please?
I cannot comment on this issue in regards to our partners and customers, and we are not concerned about what happened on this topic.
Thanks.
Thank you. I think that's the end of the question session. So thanks a lot for your attention. And see you on the 13th of November in London for the Capital Markets Day. Thank you.
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