Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to Nexans' half-year 2025 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Please note, your lines will be on listen only 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. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Mr. Christopher Guérin, Nexans CEO, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Nexans' half-year 2025 results presentation. I'm joined today by Jean-Christophe Juillard, Deputy CEO and CFO, and Elyette Roux , Executive VP for Power Grid and Accessories. I will turn you over to Audrey Bourgeois, our Investor Relations, for the conference call 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 universal registration document, along with the audio replay of today's call that will be posted on our website, nexans.com. I now turn to you, Chris, who will go over the H1 2025 highlights.
Thank you, Audrey. We are very pleased to share with you what we believe is not just a strong set of results, but the clear manifestation of a company that knows where it's going and why. Our first half 2025 performance is not the product of a momentum; it reflects the structural strengths of a model that we shaped over the last years. Essential focus, selective recession proof. With very strong portfolio discipline, capital efficiency, and operational simplification, as you can see, we keep delivering consistent performance in inconsistent times. I will talk as well. We are now entering a new phase, amplified by artificial intelligence that I will mention later in the presentation. Let's go to page four. Let's be clear, it's not, as I said, a good set of results. It's about the transformation of the group, consistency on delivering.
It's about teams, Nexans teams, across 41 countries, executing with discipline on facing global headwinds. What we can say, of course, is a great organic growth of 4.9% for the group, but an exceptional electrification organic growth, nearly to 8% for electrification. The group adjusted EBITDA is at 11.7%. Jessie will detail a bit more this, but the electrification adjusted EBITDA reached 13.7%. Thanks to down payments, we had an exceptional cash conversion in the first semester with a 64% cash conversion ratio. A record return on capital employed, 21.6% for the group, 27.5% for electrification. I will come back in a bit more detail about our recent strategic acquisition, RCT, and the successful divestment of Lynxeo. Let's move to page five. I love that slide because you can see that steadily we keep outperforming semester after semester.
We reached EUR 441 million of EBITDA, EUR 450 million at constant scope, and an exceptional free cash flow at EUR 282 million had been reached for the first semester. As I mentioned, a return on capital employed at 22%, which marks a record for the group. Constant scope is about 24% on electrification that has been already mentioned. Let's go to page six. I think it's important to make a pause here because in the last four years and a half, we have been able to rotate an equivalent of EUR 2.8 billion of our activities. EUR 1.4 billion of acquisition in one hand and EUR 1.4 billion of divestment on the other hand. We are very, very close to becoming a pure player of electrification. Of course, some work is still ongoing for Auto Electric, but as well, we are very active on the M&A part.
It takes time because we want to make sure to target the right company profile for our long-term growth. Of course, we need to support Jean-Christophe to spend a bit of money because, as you will see, he's full of liquidity. Let's go to page seven. In seven, cable RCT is more than a transaction. It's for us a fast track into scalable growth in Southern Europe. EUR 133 million in annual revenue, and so on top of what we will do. What is very interesting and has been extra as well, a very attractive element for this acquisition, is that we have already an equivalent of 25% of potential increase thanks to production capacity that has been pre-funded by the former owner, so ready to be loaded. That's an exceptional element for us, specifically in Spain, because you've seen the news flow.
Spain is extremely dynamic and resists from any form of recession. It's important as well. You can see that in the photo with the compounders. We have a very strong expertise with RCT on fire safety cable, which is, of course, creating higher value and higher barrier to entry. This acquisition is a financial win for Nexans. Perfect strategic fit, plug and perform. It's important to mention that because, of course, it's an HR topic, but with the new employee ownership plan, we achieve a fantastic record of participation rate, 46%. The average of the SBF 120 companies is about 38%. We had a 46% participation rate. To be noticed that in the formal plan for our employee, we were at 33%. That shows the engagement and the trust in the leadership team, vision, strategy of Nexans towards all our employees, all across the globe.
I'm very proud now to announce that our employees hold almost 5% of Nexans' capital, which is more than twice what we see in average in the SBF 120. I know that this slide could be a bit abstract, complex to read, but believe me, demonstration will come live very, very soon, certainly for the full year publication. We are very advanced on artificial intelligence, like we did mention during our Capital Market Day. Our transformation program is not only a transformation program. It's become a very intelligent operating platform, amplified by AI and by generative AI. What we are doing with AI is first all about costing, automating multivariable costing simulation at plant level in real time to reflect raw material, labor, energy price fluctuation. For us, this results in a faster and more accurate cash flow generation and as well cost improvement, dynamic pricing.
You know, we are in the sectors, we are not the king of pricing management, I will say, compared to other sectors. Here it's about leveraging machine learning models to optimize price elasticity and detect margin leakage across thousands of SKUs and thousands of customers. Advanced segmentation using clustering algorithm to reclassify clients and products dynamically, not only a question of size or geography. Predictive demand planning, that's a big, big topic specifically on Grid and Connect World. It's applying AI to detect the weak signal in order books, in market patterns, in customer patterns to enable early anticipation of demand swings, ups and downs, and of course, resource allocation. I'm talking here capacity and inventory. With the integration of generative AI, we are going really a step further.
What you see in the slide, that it's just my personal conviction because I'm the developer of Shift for years, is that I will say a traditional manager uses only 5% of the data available in the system. Shift's model is using for the last years an equivalent of 20% of the data available in the system. Over that, it's beginning too complex to analyze, and the AI allows us to now run simulation across 90% of the data available in the system. We are not using AI to replace people. We are using AI to enhance performance and to turn all this data that are truly gold into cash. Now let me turn for all the micro views and business review, turn to JC for the business overview and as well Elyette that will comment on the Power Grid.
Thank you, Chris. I'm now on page 11. If we deep dive a little bit on the performance of the first semester versus last year, 2024, first semester of 2024, as Chris mentioned, you see a quite strong group organic growth at 4.9%. When you look at electrification, basically the improvement is much more significant, close to 8% organic growth. You see also that the margin is slightly improving in terms of percentage, but don't forget that at group level, we have, versus last year, the divestment of Americable, which was accretive, and we have the change in scope due to the addition of six months, five months of Latrivenet Acavi that is under a transformation, but it's still, I would say, below the average in terms of margin for the group.
If you keep the same perimeter, the margin is above 1.5% higher, so close to 13%, which is a very strong performance, I would say, in terms of margin. Other activities, a nice growth to report also, 8.4%, mainly driven by the fear on the tariff on copper and the fact that some of our customers accelerated orders in case tariff was implemented by the U.S. That, I would say, boosted the growth in the metallurgy business. Non-electrification reported a negative organic growth on the first semester of 2025, mainly again due to two main reasons. The first one is the automotive segment, which is in the automotive area still lagging behind, and the automation business, robotic business in the industry and solution group, which is also still not recovering from the low point of last year. Again, globally speaking, a very strong organic growth.
I will deep dive now into the businesses. If I move to page 12 and you look at power transmission, as we reported in the first half, a strong organic growth above 20% in transmission. We continue to enjoy a strong boost thanks to our high backlog, record-level backlog in transmission. 21.7% growth. You can see an adjusted backlog versus June of 2024, which is increasing by 16% to reach 7.8%. We are still contemplating a book-to-bill of one for the year of 2025, meaning that order of intake will basically be in line with revenue recognition. A backlog that should remain at the end of the year above EUR 8 billion. A strong H2 in terms of order intake. Very important because there is a lot of scrutiny here on the profitability of our transmission business.
We committed in 2024 that we will continue to ramp up the margin evolution on that business. I said multiple times that the improvement will be gradual semester by semester. When we clean up from the low margin project, mainly in the U.S., at the end of 2025, you will see a nice improvement in 2026 in the margin. At the midpoint of 2025, you still see that we're improving the margin by almost 1 point and EUR +20 million of EBITDA on the business. We are on track. We continue to improve the profitability of that business, which is critical for us to regain basically the level of 17%- 18% on which we were before 2023. If I move now to the next page, I will turn to Élodie, who will talk about Power Grid.
Yeah, thank you, JC. As we said in Q1, we have accelerated in the Power Grid growth with generating above 9% growth year- on year in Q2, which rose to H1 at 5.6% year- on- year growth. This is based on acceleration both in North America, South America, and the accessories business, as well as, as we announced, the acceleration in Europe. All the trends on the Power Grid are green for now in the question of grid modernization, extension, but also connections of renewables and data centers that is driving a structural trend for Power Grid business, as well as we have continued to accelerate in our smart solutions, including services, high-value products like accessories that I will present just in the next slide. This is enabling us to have a high-level adjusted EBITDA to 15.9% for this semester with an increase of 2.4%.
This level of EBITDA will remain high in the coming quarters. Just to remind you that we will continue to accelerate in Q3. Talking about acceleration and talking about the record high for Power Grid, we are now this semester, coming semester, going to launch a breakthrough innovation called EasyJoint, powered by AI. AI actually for our customers this time, and thanks to SkillsPower. What it is about? First thing is that we are addressing the global market with this innovation. We are launching this system and solution into more than 40 countries for zero. The main customers behind are, of course, the grid operators that need to modernize and extend the grid. Just to mention some countries, not the names of the customers, but the main countries targeted first for this innovation are Germany, Poland, and Morocco.
We will do that across the globe for one reason, is that you remember we talked about securing the grid all around the globe. This is thanks to increasing reliability of the grid. With one very simple thing in terms of result, very actually innovative in terms of making it happen, we are decreasing by five times the step to install connection into two cables together. Remember that during our CMD in November last year, I explained that 90% of the grid failures are linked to the connecting accessories. Also remember that the majority of all grid failures on the accessories are due to, you know, bad human installation. That's why we are combining this with AI. Our AI solution has been learning from our own experience in the field. As you know, we are owning training centers worldwide.
Thanks to this knowledge and expertise, we have been able to train the AI to basically recommend the right installation of those joints worldwide for any type of customers. We are combining it with certifying installation trainings to be able to deliver a license to operate to our grid network installers. This is for September live, and we count on you to follow up on this great shift in technology for the grid. Thank you and back to JC.
Thank you, Elyette. Let's move on now to the next section, the financials on page 17. I will not comment the organic growth because we just did, but adjusted EBITDA at 11.7%. You see the contribution on the graph on the right part of the page. You missed Power Connect. Sorry. I missed Power Connect. Sorry, Chris. Thank you very much. Sorry about that. Let's move back to page 15. Power Connect. On Power Connect, we see, I would say, a nil organic growth. It's more for us a phasing effect because we are expecting a very strong Q3. Overall, I would say we had a mixed performance across the region. Europe and APAC have been slightly down versus the first semester of last year, where North America, South America, and Middle East and Africa have been performing very well. For instance, North America + 9%.
For us, it's Canada when we talk about North America. The Middle East and Africa plus 10%, where Europe has been down about 3.5% in terms of organic growth. We have been able to maintain the margin despite the acquisition of LTC, which is, as I mentioned earlier, a little bit dilutive in terms of margin, but we remain at 13.7%. Just as I mentioned earlier, if you look at the same scope as 2024, the EBITDA margin in H1 2025, excluding LTC, is at 15.1%. We're moving from 13.6% in 2024 to 15.1%, including LTC. LTC, we are working to bring the synergies to transform the business like we've done for other businesses, and this is well on track. Soon, LTC will be back at the contribution levels and the average of the Connect business.
What is important to retain from that is that we see at the end of July already, almost halfway through the third quarter, a very strong organic growth in Q3 in Connect. Now let's move to page 17 on the financial section, and I will start with the profit and loss statement. I will not comment the organic growth. Adjusted EBITDA at EUR 441 million, 11.7%. A record level, as Chris mentioned earlier, for adjusted EBITDA of the group. It's above the 2019 full-year EBITDA and much higher than what we committed in the guidance in February. You see the contribution of the businesses to that increase in EBITDA. A big chunk is the recovery of Power Transmission, as I mentioned, but also contribution from Power Grid and Power Connect. One word maybe about the net income. Looking at the other operating item, you see EUR 232 million.
This is the capital gain that we've had on the divestment of Lynxeo and Americable in the first half of the year and a small impairment on non-electrification, bringing EUR 243 million of, I would say, exceptional one-off gain in the net income. The net income, therefore, reached EUR 374 million at the end of the first semester. Moving to the next slide, and we look at our net debt on the cash flow generation, you see that consequently of the disposal of the asset, we have today no leverage on the balance sheet. The net debt is close to zero. No net leverage on the balance sheet of Nexans from 0.85x net debt to EBITDA to zero. You see the strong contribution, obviously, of the adjusted EBITDA.
We also enjoyed a quite significant positive change in working capital, mainly coming from power transmission and the down payment we've received in the first half, like new contracts like Malta, Sicily, for instance, that will load the Charleston plant. That brings a cash flow from operation at EUR 478 million. Capital expenditure, CapEx, remains a little bit higher than, I would say, the typical maintenance CapEx, mainly due to the completion of our vessel, the last vessel of power transmission, Electra, that would come to operation in the first quarter of next year. We still have some significant CapEx linked to that. We have also started the investment into our Nexal Green recycling faility in France to increase our recycling output in the next four years as we committed in the last equity story.
EUR 613 million coming from the cash received from the divestment of Lynxeo and Americable, less basically the payment, the acquisition of the asset in Spain. Net is EUR 613 million. At the end of June, no debt on the balance sheet. If I move to page 19 now and we look at our liquidity, we have cash on the balance sheet in excess of EUR 2 billion versus EUR 1.2 billion at the end of December, again coming from the divestment. A very high liquidity level. If I add up to the cash on the balance sheet, the EUR 800 million revolving credit facility. EUR 2.8 billion, I would say, total liquidity, which gives us a lot of room for basically growing, replacing the divestment with new M&A in the future. Leverage ratio, as I mentioned earlier, zero.
We are extremely well positioned to seek an upgrade in our rating to investment grade, I would say probably by the end of the year, early next year, 2026, with the cash on the balance sheet, the debt level, and also the increased level of margin of the business, which is overperforming. If I move now to the last section and I will talk a minute about the upgrade, I move to page 21. Adjusted EBITDA guidance with a very strong result of the first half. We've decided to narrow the guidance that was EUR 80 million range. We narrow it to EUR 50 million. We also increase it on the upper part of the guidance to come EUR 810 million-EUR 860 million guidance, which is EUR 835 million at midpoint. We've increased the cash flow by EUR 50 million from the low point and the high point of the range.
If I move now to page 22, just to give you a little bit of flavor to understand the margin, the guidance movement, and the guidance evolution. Obviously, in the new guidance, EUR 860 million-EUR 810 million, we have excluded the divestment of Lynxeo, which is EUR 45 million. Lynxeo, as you know, the transaction is now closed. The asset is outside of Nexans' portfolio. That's reducing, basically impacting negatively the year by EUR 45 million. On the opposite of that, we have the acquisition of this little asset in Spain, which contributes EUR 4 million. After that, we foresee EUR 66 million roughly of improvement coming both from organic growth. Again, we foresee, as I mentioned earlier, very strong organic growth both in Grid and Connect in the third quarter, very strong double digit, as well as continuing to see a very strong organic growth in power transmission.
We will see, I would say, in the Q3 presentation, you will see some very strong organic growth performance in the business. We continue, of course, as Chris explained, to work on our transformation with Shift, and structural improvement will be significant in the second half. One of the key assets that will go through the transformation is Latrivenet Acavi, as I mentioned, which is still about 1.5 point dilutive versus the average of Connect. We are catching up on putting this business back on the track of the average of Connect and Nexans. Between structural and organic growth, basically, we will more than offset the divestment on Lynxeo, and we will more than offset and therefore be able to raise the guidance and increase the midpoint by EUR 25 million. That will conclude my presentation. I will now turn back to the operator for Q&A.
Before we go to Q&A, I think you've seen that we announced as well the fact that Jean-Christophe Juillard will leave the company in the coming months. My dear Jean-Christophe, it's not easy to capture in words everything you've brought to Nexans and to me personally and to the team over those seven years. You have been by far more than a CFO. You've been a Deputy CFO, but as well, a good friend, a very true companion on the journey. In every pivotal moment of our transformation, it has not been easy every day. You have combined precision, perspective, operational discipline, and strategic insight. I was just astonished by all the dynamism and this professionalism that you bring to Nexans. Together, we navigated into very high complexity. We made together bold choices. We built a business model that now stands as, I think, a benchmark of resilience, at least that's seen in a number.
Your loyalty, steadiness, and ability to embody high governance standards, while always sticking close to the realities of the business, have made you a deeply respected pillar for both, of course, inside the company and outside the company. A big thanks, Jean-Christophe, for your trust, your dedication, and for everything you achieved with me side by side on the team. I wish you, of course, the very best for your next chapter, Jean-Christophe, but I have no doubt it will be very exciting because given your profile, you are full of opportunities. Thank you, Jean-Christophe.
Thank you very much, Chris.
Now we are ready for Q&A.
Thank you.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. We will take our first questions from Akash Gupta from JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good morning and thanks for your time. I would also like to start with paying my tribute to Jean-Christophe. I think you have been quite remarkable in your performance at Nexans and the turnaround that we have seen over five years. You will be missed going forward.
Thank you.
The first question I have is on the guidance. When I look at H1 versus H2, you did EUR 441 million in the first half, and that includes EUR 45 million from Lynxeo that will be no longer part of Nexans in the second half. At the midpoint of the guidance, you're implying EUR 394 million in the second half. More or less, you are expecting a similar strong H2 on an underlying basis than H1. The question I have is that if you look at the normal years, we do see some seasonality where H2 is somewhat weaker than H1. Maybe if you can help us elaborate what is driving this strength, how much visibility do you have on this strength in the second half, and how much is the optimism both on your internal areas, structural areas of improvement, as well as, let's say, market demand? That's the first one. Thank you.
Thank you, Akash. I will take the answer. There's a couple of elements that make us quite comfortable about the raise of the guidance and our ability to have a strong H2. The first one is that when we did the first guidance in February, we had no visibility on GSI. I'm sure you will have a question later on GSI. Right now, we are covered on GSI through the past the summer and the beginning of September, which gives us already in the year 2025 a much stronger visibility. You know that GSI contribution in the year 2025 was from the beginning quite material, I would say. That's one of the big risks, which is not completely over yet.
Obviously, we still have some exposure, but it's largely mitigated from the cash we've received to date on the project, which is, again, EUR 250 million and significant payments received in the first half. That takes us through, again, the end of the summer, beginning of September for 2025. The second thing is that we are in July. As I mentioned, we foresee a very strong third quarter, both in Grid and Connect. When I say very strong, it's really above what we've reported and what we have seen so far in the past on the Q3 basis. Much, much higher, which gives us, obviously, some very strong confidence on our top line. We foresee, and when I say that, we see double-digit organic growth in both Grid and Connect. We foresee also a Q4, which is lower but still good.
Basically, we are optimistic on the top-line performance of Grid and Connect. We continue to see growth also maintaining at the level in transmission. Again, an organic growth component, which is usually, you know that we are always a little bit cautious when it comes to organic growth because we are not driving the business based on volume but value. Here, we foresee good signal for, again, for the second half. Last but not least, as I mentioned also, we will start reaping the transformation benefits from the Latrivenet Acavi, which is running still today roughly at 10% EBITDA margin when the average of Connect is at 15%. This is a EUR 700 million- EUR 800 million business. Here, we have significant room for improvement in terms of margin percentage. We will start to see some quite nice benefits from that in the second half of 2025. Then we'll continue the improvement.
Hopefully, we'll not be that strong yet in H2, but Power Transmission will at least maintain or slightly improve also its margin. Globally, I would say in electrification, the trend of the activity of the business is strong on the top line. We continue to do all the transformation work within the business, and the combination of both gives us basically this quite optimistic view about the second half and the full year.
Yeah. Akash, if I may add just an element on JC's comment, you know we discussed that with some investors and yourself a few months ago, but it's our baseline, the legacy baseline of Nexans for Grid and Connect. Without acquisition, it's structurally improving semester after semester thanks to the transformation program. The recent M&A are not yet at their level of EBITDA, but of course, we'll keep progressing. This is why we are, as mentioned, Jessie, we are confident in the profit generation in the coming semesters.
Yeah. We knew that when we acquired assets like LTC, we paid, we believe, a rather low multiple level for a Connect European business. Obviously, because we acquire an asset with lower margin and lower growth level, but with a transformation ability that takes a couple of years to bring you the synergy, we can bring it back to the average and benefit from the low multiple we paid and at the same time get it in two years to the level of the average and create a lot of value. This is the model, and this is what you will see in the coming quarters.
Thank you. My follow-up question is on recovery in Connect. I think you had a small decline in Q2, and you are expecting a strong Q3 with a strong start in July. If you can elaborate on what is driving this strength in Connect and maybe provide some color on geographies. I think you did in Q2 that you had decline in Europe and Asia and growth in Americas and the Middle East. A follow-up to that Connect is this growth driven by new product launches from you, which is helping you gain more market share, or is it simply the restocking cycle that your customers may have destocked and now they need to restock? I want to better understand what is driving strength in Connect. Thank you.
Yeah. I will start, and I will let obviously Chris, who knows the business by heart, elaborate on the product and the business itself. The low point definitely in terms of organic growth has been reached in Q2. We had in Europe, I'm talking Europe, sorry, Connect Europe, we've had almost close to -4% organic growth, which is basically, since this is a larger size, it represents about 40% of our Connect business worldwide. Therefore, it pushed back down basically the average of Connect and get to 0.2% you've seen in the first half. Europe is Europe and the key countries in Europe, we see a quite nice rebound in the third quarter and fourth quarter, which will help basically driving the overall performance when other areas that are strong, like North America, South America, and Middle East and Africa, will remain very strong at double digits.
Basically, that rebound of Europe and the maintaining of the other one will explain how we see this top line increase. Then there are other factors.
Yeah. Some element on the margin performance because we know that some areas are a bit in a downturn situation like in Europe. I think what is important is that Power Connect in H1 is not the financial result, is not the result of a destocking effect or short-term swings. It's really structural improvement that, of course, we implement for several years. The first is the innovation on the optimized product portfolio. We phase out low margin references, and we really now focus more and more on value-added solutions and premiumization through energy efficiencies, critical buildings, building connectivities. Second, we roll out more, almost everywhere, not yet there, but disciplined pricing strategy supported by Shift. Now AI will allow us, as I mentioned, to better, I will say, analyze the profit leakage in details to really capture a greater margin.
Of course, operational performance, industrial performance, a lot of improvements in manufacturing as well thanks to the Industry 4.0 deployment. Overall, it's margin gains that have been structural and sustainable. Of course, as mentioned, JC, revenue growth will reaccelerate progressively.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Daniela costa from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I have two as well. I will ask them one at a time. Maybe actually for Jean-Christophe, starting out with sort of the balance sheet, and there were a couple of mentions, obviously, M&A still in your agenda. Can you update us a little bit about how active is the pipeline at the moment? You've done some things already this year. Should we expect that cash redeployment to happen already this year? Is it more of a longer-run process? Should we assume the balance sheet will go or the new cash will go all into M&A, or is there also a possibility of considering increasing cash to shareholders? I'll start with this.
Yes. I take the question, Daniela. Thank you. We are active on M&A. We have multiple, I would say, targets that we are progressing on. We are quite comfortable that we should be signing something by the end of the year and maybe closing the beginning of next year. Part of the cash allocation will go to that M&A and definitely not to the level of the total cash available we have because we have a lot. The second part of your question is, would we consider basically special dividend payment or share buyback to return cash to shareholders? The answer to the question is yes, it's a possibility to be discussed and agreed by the board, but it always remains a possibility. For sure, this is what we said in our equity story and capital market equity story anyway. The main purpose and the main objective of our cash allocation will remain M&A. This is what we want to deploy our capital for.
Got it. Thank you. Just a more broader question. Chris, you said backlog to be above eight by the end of the year. Within this point, can you talk through a bit of the areas where you see more active tendering, any jurisdictions in particular? Also, on that point of visibility that you have for next year, how relevant was GSI into next year's makeup of numbers versus 2025? How sizable will the capacity that you will have to allocate and keep available for GSI be?
Yes. Today, I would say there is still a very strong dynamic in terms of tendering activity. I will say mainly in Europe for offshore wind farms. We expect to win some significant deals in the coming months that will push the backlog above EUR 8 billion. I will say no much concern. I will no main news flows in regarding tendering activities for power transmission. A BGC on GSI for the allocation for 2026.
For GSI, definitely for 2026 is a key element of our financial trajectory. It continues to ramp up from 2024, 2025, 2026, as we said. I will not give you exact numbers, but I can tell you that it's meaningful. You know that if it does not materialize in the coming weeks or before September, we are working with the authorities on the plan B, which is to switch the cable and the production to another project with IPTO that will basically replace the impact and the production of GSI. Between the plan A, which is getting where we want to go with GSI, and the plan B, which is in progress right now in KSAS, we are, I would say, quite confident about our ability to deliver 2026 one way or the other.
Got it. Very clear. Thank you so much. Good luck, JC.
Thank you very much, Daniela.
Thank you, Daniela.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Chris Leonard from UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, there. Could I please ask three questions, and I'll take them in turn, maybe starting on the greater internet contracts, which you just mentioned, Christophe? Could you maybe update us on how your discussions are going currently with the customer IPTO as to whether or not the work will continue on plan A, let's say, after August or early September? How confident are you currently that you might see that being extended and going ahead with plan A? I'll start there. Thanks.
Yeah. I would say that what I can tell you is that we maintain full operational focus on executing GSI as planned. There is no delay in terms of production, I would say. The project remains very active. Manufacturing is continuing in Alden and in Futsu in Japan. We acknowledge the geopolitical context, but IPTO has confirmed no change in scope or commitment. For the moment, our exposure is secured by the advanced payment on the strong margin. I cannot say much more. We have some plan B in case of, but the plan A is still on.
Okay. That's clear. The second question is on the grid and speaking in the release about margins still have further to go here. Is that in reference to the second half, or is that in reference to looking at outer years after 2025?
Yet, maybe?
Yeah. Like I said just earlier, we will continue to increase the level of EPDL. You've seen that there was a slight difference versus last year's performance, which was phasing and mix effect. Nothing structural behind. Like I said, I repeat, it will continue to increase in the coming semester and years.
Thank you. Last question just on M&A. Obviously, you know, you've just discussed it there, but you've got the firepower. You know clearly, leverage can be used if the right deal comes along. Maybe it'd be helpful if you could just talk through the hurdles and what you're looking at in terms of targets. You know financially, what you'd need to see to add these acquisitions in across grid and low-voltage connect. If you could give any sort of framework or rationale for what you're looking for for potential targets, that would be super helpful. Thanks.
Yeah, sure. I can do that. Typically, our investment M&A thesis remains the one we explained in detail in our Capital Market Day in November last year. Grid and Connect will be the focus. No M&A in transmission, of course, due to the high CapEx level and the fact that it's a saturated market, consolidated market. Grid and Connect, we like both. We're looking at geographies, whether we remain in geographies where we are already present and we just increase our market share by becoming number one, becoming number two. That's something we've done, for instance, with Reka in Finland. We're doing in Spain, in Europe. We are very present in Europe, and we are increasing basically our strength in Europe. The thesis would be to move to a new country. We're looking, for example, in countries like Southeast Asia, where we are not present. We are in China.
We are in Oceania, but we are not in Southeast Asia. Definitely, this could be a very interesting investment for us. In that case, we would seek a larger player because we want to make sure that we have sufficient footprint to be, I would say, a leader in the country. Other opportunities could be U.S., where we are not present in medium and low voltage. Typically, that's the second thesis, moving in a new geography, I would say, but with a sizable investment. The last thesis we have on M&A is moving basically slightly outside of pure cable manufacturing. We call it internally adjacent to core, adjacent to the core business. That's to basically offer more complete bundle services to the customer, not just through cable, but through packaging, through IoT, through services, connectors, accessories.
Basically enlarging, I would say, our offer by bringing something more than just a cable to the customer. That would be smaller size, probably smaller size in terms of revenue investment, probably slightly higher in terms of margin, and especially if you start to see digital in the acquisition, but would be a perfect fit for basically the solutions we want to bring to our customers.
Thank you. Maybe a follow-up on that, just thinking about the margin trajectory into 2026. If you do a big acquisition, obviously, you've spoken about Latrivenet Acavi in the Connect business being a sort of margin headwind before synergies come through. Would you expect a similar story to be there if there's a sizable acquisition that happens in the second half of this year, being a sort of headwind to some margin near term before synergies come through on those acquisitions for 2026 or 2027?
We don't foresee any similar short term, any similar big-size acquisition at lower margin level like the one we've done last year for Latrivenet Acavi. We have some targets in that area, but they are not the one we are focused on right now. The type of acquisition, we are looking at more mid-size. We are looking at a more mid-size today, between EUR 200 million and EUR 400 million. A bunch of them are more adjacent to the core product. We're not foreseeing the situation we've seen in 2024 with a big acquisition in Connect, low voltage, with lower margin, low multiple, and takes two years to bring the synergies. This is not what we are actually foreseeing at the moment. We should see no impact in 2025 for sure and 2026 margin in the plan.
Thanks so much. I'll leave it there. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will move to our next questions from Nabil Najeeb from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I've just got one, please. Can you comment on the impact of copper tariffs in the U.S. for you, particularly as it relates to your facility in Charleston, which I guess sources its copper from Canada?
Yeah. First of all, all the copper for all the, I would say, contracts have been already booked. There is an exemption if it's export cable. It means if the cable produced in the U.S. will be export, that will be what will happen in the coming years because the project that we will do manufacture in Charleston will be for the European market. You get the copper from Canada, and you will have the exemption of the tariff because it's export to Europe.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you, Nabil.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Lucas Ferhani from Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. I have a couple, maybe just to start on the acceleration of growth in Grid and Connect. I think you talked about in the past, you know, growth could be dilutive to margin, and you're not necessarily trying to push growth. Are you able now to combine kind of growth and margin? Does that growth come also at good margin levels?
Yes, of course. Let me refer on if you can have a look to our Capital Market Day. We say that the two first equity stories were about transformation, cleaning up our portfolio base, both customers and SKUs, is what we have been able to achieve between 2019 and 2024. Now, I would say that our portfolio of customers and SKUs is full of good cholesterol, good fat, and now it's good to grow with those customers. As we mentioned as well, you know, we have been challenged by the fact that some investors say, "Hey, you can grow up to 7% in average for growth for Grid and Connect." That's true. We consider that in average, 3% - 5% is the optimum point to ensure growth that will not be dilutive to EBITDA and cash. That's always this kind of sensitivity table that we are using, making sure that all points of growth are accurate to EBITDA or do not dilute the average. That's the logic.
You take the example of Latrivenet that we acquired last year. We think Connect will grow in Q3. Latrivenet will not grow because we need to transform Latrivenet before it grows. Whereas other assets that are now, I would say, profit drivers or innovation drivers, Northern Europe, even countries in Central Europe, are able to grow. That was not the case maybe a year or two years ago because they were not transformed. The growth, every point of growth will come with an additive, active level of margins. We'll combine both. You'll never see 10% or 12% growth, I would say, on a run rate basis for a full year, but we'll have good growth with good margin improvement.
Perfect. Super clear. The second one is on industry. Where do you see roughly the EBITDA for just the auto harness business next year? What's the latest there on the disposal?
Disposal is progressing. I said that already last time we had a call on the first quarter. We are progressing. This is something we're targeting to see happening by the end of the year or early next at the latest. We will comment on the progress, and we are able to do that. We can't really disclose too much at that stage, but this is progressing. In EBITDA, I mean, it's obviously, I will not give you a percentage because that's also something we don't disclose. Typically, you can understand this is in line with the average of the automotive business, which is very dilutive versus the average of Nexans, I would say. I would not comment specifically on the margin.
Perfect. Thank you. The last one is just on the other line. It's much stronger in the first half. It's usually kind of break even, sometimes slightly negative. I want to kind of get the impact of that benefit from U.S. tariff. Also, is there just a lower level of kind of internal costs with kind of the Lynxeo separation? On that point, on the U.S. tariff, what are you expecting in H2? Do you think this will come down? Obviously, there's still uncertainty, but should we see maybe a different shape where actually the H2, sorry, contribution from other is actually weaker than H1?
Yeah. I mean, I understand that this line is difficult to read because it's a mix of different things. You have the contribution of the metallurgy business and, as you rightly said, the non-allocation of some of the overhead costs. Overhead costs roughly are lower, globally speaking, in 2025 than in 2024 because, as you mentioned rightly, there were some reorganization costs and some separation costs and transformation costs that happened to prepare our asset for divestment in 2024 that do not repeat in 2025. That's one element. Also, the margin of the metallurgy business has been higher by a couple of points versus last year, mainly because, again, there was so much fear about tariff in North America that some of our customers poofed and were willing to pay higher pricing to make sure they had secured copper in the first quarter or at least in the first half.
The combination of that explains also why we have a good growth and a good number in other, and that's more than offsetting compared to last year, the corporate costs that are not in charge. For the second half, you should see basically similar level in other lines than what we see in the first half.
Great. Thank you very much. Well done on the past few years, JC, and good luck for your next adventure.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Miguel Borrega from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two. The first one, just wanted to understand the strength in the Power Grid margin. Some of your competitors are obviously flagging increased competition, specifically with renewable OEMs, more capacity out there, and margins should contract somewhat. Your first half was obviously very strong, but last year, you had a lot of seasonality, first half versus second half. How do you see margins going forward? I know you're confident about your margin performance, but can you talk about some of the risks of this margin normalizing down, or you just don't see that happening?
For now, we don't see a risk of going down on this margin. Like I said, the opportunity is for it to go up for one reason that has been mentioned by Chris and JC, which is that we have been working structurally on our portfolio backing what is behind the profitability of our grid. We will continue to come with volume at higher profitability thanks to solution services, including accessories. This is what is enabling the structural growth of EBITDA in the next semester and coming years.
Yeah. I will say, Miguel, I will add this, Chris, I will add that I think the remark is understandable from our competition. A rise of capacity can generate a structural margin contraction. I will say that it's not that I not disagree with them, but I will say that Nexans is positioned differently. First, we are not competing only on volume, volume, on commoditized product. We are competing on value-added system, on execution reliability. We have launched a bunch of innovations in the last four years, and that really helps us to uplift our margin. I will say three reasons that support margin stability: product and service mix evolution on EasyJoint presented by Ely is an element that will improve the margin, post-discipline associated with artificial intelligence-based pricing tool. It's progressing.
It's starting, but we see already the benefit on, of course, a very high level of selectivity of project screening on capacity allocation, making sure that we position our capacity on the high return customers and sectors.
Thank you. Kind of a similar question also on Connect. Can you maybe talk about where your margins are stronger versus where they are weaker? Maybe touch on how Europe compares to the rest of other regions and maybe give some color on specific segments. Can you give us your views on how you compare to your peers on profitability terms? Obviously, you don't have any U.S. exposure, which is typically higher. Interested in understanding the reasons behind the step change versus historical levels and then comparing to your peers, which I believe are obviously higher.
I will say the peers comparison, Miguel, I leave it to you. I leave it to you to make the analysis because you will certainly be more credible in the eye of an investor than myself. Please make this exercise by geography and you will have the answer. I will say, once again, it's not only a topic of volume across geographies. Of course, we understand that some geographies are already fully consolidated and can generate higher margin. That's the case of U.S. Today, in Europe, we have units for the last two years in Power Connect that are generating above 20% EBITDA margin thanks to the Shift transformation program, innovations on the capacity allocation, which is really perfectly managed through a price discipline. Before, where we were not in such detail on quality of transformation, the geography were making the result.
It's not the case anymore because we are shifting slowly but surely from Power Connect, from a commodity-based, I would say, market pattern to a premium pattern. It takes time, but you can see the result of this structural margin. As I mentioned, the Nexans baseline, the unit that we are there in 2019, have been tripled in terms of profitability over the years.
Maybe a quick follow-up. What's the likelihood of you entering the U.S. market in low and medium voltage?
I would say it's high. I mean, the intention is very high, but we don't want to enter in a market that will cost a fortune for us and that will be diluted for our return on capital employed. Once again, I think if I link the two questions together, Miguel, because I think you have a very important point. We are not making acquisitions to uplift the adjusted EBITDA ratio. Okay? Because adjusted EBITDA improvements come from our transformation program, not by doing M&A. We want to make sure that it's a good M&A for our portfolio and accurate for the long term.
Great. Thank you very much, JC. All the best and good luck in the future.
Thank you, Miguel. Thank you very much.
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 is Power Grid. Your grid margin declined on a like-for-like basis from 16.2% in the first half of 2024 to 15.9% in the first half of 2025, despite a better mix as you continued to move towards more accessories and service sales, as you said. Can you maybe elaborate on why?
Of course. We can comment some evolution at the comma level, but I will say that I will let Élodie comment. It's really a question that goes in a very tiny level, if you allow me, to comment from 16.2%- 59%, a business of EUR 2 billion. Yet, I prefer that you answer.
Yeah, to complement what you said, Chris, I explained that there were two effects. You mentioned the mix, but there is also the phasing effect with two strong one-offs that we had last year. Basically, that's just a phasing effect that is adding to the mix. Indeed, for 0.3%, I will not comment more on this. You need to just believe that we are confident on the fact that our EBITDA will continue to increase.
Yeah, we're going to stay in a range of 15%- 16.5%. That's a good range. Of course, keep pushing our accessories business, which is a very incremental material in terms of improvement of the margin for the falling stocks.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. My next question is on Connect. Mobiy has been the driver for some time now, as in the margin performance driver. Are you now at the position to provide what proportion is Mobiy sales and at what premium or any targets that you have so that we can model this?
Yeah, it's a good question. What I would say is that we have changed a bit our logic in terms of growth. We are launching growth patterns because it's not only Mobiy, it's as well associated with a fire safety product or premium product. Now our growth pattern has been redesigned in the first semester in a very professional way to make sure that we are combining attributes together, and we will deploy a repeatable model from one geography to another, not only launching one innovation. It's a combination of customers, a combination of services, a combination of packaging, and associated with products that will make a pattern altogether. We will elaborate a bit more, I think, in the next quarter with much details. It's a very strong work we did for Connect and as well for Greydot, by the way.
For example, Elyette is working in depth on data centers offer. We will come back to you in the next quarter with more detail.
Okay, thank you. On Shift AI as well, would you maybe give some color on the financial impact? I think the chart you're showing, the 20% by end of this year and the 90% is only the progress. It's not the financial impacts.
It is indeed. It is the progress. We are not yet... Maybe next year we will talk about the financial impact of AI, but today the topic is making the platform alive. You know, it's a data lake. It's making sure that the data are truly clean, that we can benchmark all units together because we mentioned that with you at the Capital Market Day, Shift was managed unit by unit. With the AI platform, now we will have, we will be able to do live benchmark from one unit to another in the world. It takes time, of course, I'm a true believer that data is really gold and can really generate a fantastic margin in the long run. It will have an international impact, but I think a bit more color in 2026, not in 2024.
Okay, thank you very much. I just want to follow up on your strategy to increase accessories sales as well. We've been talking to some of your customers. They don't really want more joints and accessories because that's where failure happens. That's also what you alluded to. 90% of failure happens at the joints and accessories. I wonder if you get any pushback in trying to push more accessory sales.
As we are communicating, there is no pushback at all from our customers. Actually, as if you remember, we presented in the CMD that our customers are facing big time some structural trends like climate impact. I could, for instance, since you are talking about our customers, mention one of our platinum customers in Italy that is facing because of the heat wave, unprecedented failures of connecting accessories. This is not only pushing for more accessories consumption, but also more cables consumption because the cables are, as you know, outdated for now many, many years. This is not at all what we see from our customers. I would say.
The main point of failure when you have a climate event is the accessory. This is the first element that the DSO needs to replace. It's not a question of whether they want to have more or not. They have no choice.
Okay, got it. Last one is the housekeeping. The asset impairment of EUR 43 million. Can you explain what this is related to? Is it a one-off?
It's basically the, I would say, the lower margin of the business in 2025 versus last year, which is following, again, the difficulty, as I mentioned in my presentation about the automotive sector and the fact that the entire sector today is struggling. Our margin has been decreasing. Therefore, that triggered an impairment test, and we had to take an impairment into our financials for each one. We believe it's the right number. We're not forcing anymore, but you know the future depends also how the automotive industry will behave in the coming quarters and semesters before we can decide. That's the situation. It's a consequence, I would say, of the market in general.
Okay, that's very clear. The last thing I want to confirm is I think you said LTC margin is below the margin for group. I think when you met or announced the acquisition, you said LTC margin is margin accretive immediately. Or did I remember wrong?
I think LTC was, I would say, slightly below the average of the group. Since then, that's now a year and a half. We closed in June of 2024, but we've been working and we announced it at the signing that was at least six months. That was the end of 2023. The Connect business in Nexans has really improved significantly. Today, LTC is below the average of Connect. We said that we are seeking EUR 20 million during synergy in the business. It'll take three years on average to get to that level. When we get there, we will be at the level of the group. It takes three years to get there. Right now, in the environment where we have moderate growth or slow growth, we are focusing on the transformation of the business.
You will see the improvement of the margin, as I said, starting to come in the second half that will contribute to the strong H2 in EBITDA we want to show and also continue next year. I think you should see LTC, which is below our average today, as a reservoir of improvement for the next year. All our transformation team shifts are on LTC right now and they will start as well RCT in Spain in parallel. Don't forget that six years ago, we were on average at 8% on the Connect margin. We are at 15% today.
That's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. It appears that's all the time we have for questions. I will hand back to you to Mr. Christopher Guérin for any additional or closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, everyone, for your great questions. Now we go on the roadshow to meet our investors. Good luck to GC, of course, but it will be there in the coming months. Thank you for your attention. Bye-bye.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.