Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to Nexans Half Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only. 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. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. 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.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in this Nexans conference call. I'm Chris Guérin, CEO of Nexans. With me J-C Juillard, Deputy CEO and CFO, Jérôme Fournier, Corporate VP Innovation, and we have as well Ragnhild Katteland, EVP of Generation and Transmission Business, as well Élodie Robbe-Mouillot, Nexans IR. I will turn over now to Élodie that will go over 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 URD, along with the audio replay of today's call that will be posted on our website, Nexans.com. I now turn over to Chris, who will go over the first half 2022 highlights.
Thank you, Élodie. As you can see, Nexans keep raising the voltage, if I may say. H1 was our strongest ever semester for Nexans in for the last 20 years. We, as you have seen already, Q1 was already ahead of our expectation. Q2 continued to be extremely positive, following that trend. Our transformation is as well running full speed for many units in the electrification business as well as industry. What is important for us is that the third energy revolution has started with the acceleration in the development of renewable energies, the urgent renewal of electrical grid, and the electrification of the daily usages. This secular trend towards decarbonization and digitalization will benefit us as a pure player of electrification.
I know that you will have a lot of question in regards to 2023 on the risk of recession. What is important for us is in order not to be dependent on growth only on economic cyclical cycle, sorry. Our transformation platform enable us to deliver sustainable result combined with favorable or conjunctural effects, like you will see, but more importantly, structural and outstanding financial output. This first semester result leads us to a 2022 guidance upgrade that J-C will comment later on. Among the highlight that you can see on page five of the first half are, of course, the closing of Centelsa acquisition. I remind you the EUR 300 million revenue.
We have been as well announced as a preferred bidder on the Jumbo project EuroAsia that when it will be awarded will secure a very high level of activity for the years to come. Another important pillar is, of course, sustainability and our responsibility towards the planet. We are very proud to announce our carbon neutrality commitment have been validated by SBTi. Some highlight as well, we have launched our 10th employee shareholding plan, which more than 4,500 subscription among our employees across 25 countries. It's a big uplift versus all the others. That bring as well the confirmation that not only investors are confident on Nexans future, but of course our employees. Let me remind as well some key events before I forget.
Nexans will hold a Climate Day event on 21st September in New York with key American leaders and experts regarding world decarbonization. Nexans will be as well in the course of that same week, platinum sponsor of the New York Climate Week. On the 22nd of investor, we are organizing an investor event in our unit in Charleston, South Carolina. Let's move to page six. You can see that in this slide, EBITDA reached a record EUR 308 million. Electrification businesses contributed 97% of this EBITDA performance year-on-year with a comparable breakdown between structural and conjunctural effect and as well the addition of the Centelsa result.
If I can say little remark, when you start to do in six months in margin what you did in one year almost in 2018, it's already of course a good sign of progression. Let me outline that again that our EBITDA margin grew by 200 basis points thanks to the deployment of SHIFT, Amplify in usages business, our new capacity in Generation and Transmission, provided by our Charleston plant and as well Aurora vessel. Normalized free cash flow, if you remember, is our new KPI. We decided to neutralize the effect of strategic CapEx. As you can see, our level of cash flow is very healthy. We will enter of course in more details with J-C.
ROCE, return on capital employed continues to improve thanks to the improvement of our EBITDA and as well very tight working capital management. You can see once again a record in terms of return on capital employed. We reached 17.4%. If we move on page seven, we have to be fully transparent as well that there is, of course, the structural effect that we are working on for the last three years that are raising the level of performance of Nexans. There is as well some conjunctural effect. We wanted to split the result.
I would say that if we take the H1 2021 result at EUR 222 million, you need to add EUR 43 million that come from structural initiative, and I will come on then. We benefited as well in some areas, specifically in usage in North America, mainly, a good uplift, the conjunctural effect of EUR 42 million. The main topic will be to transform this conjunctural effect into structural. Let me come on the structural, of course, Amplify. We are committed to amplifying the customer's experience and bring more innovation, and this is why Jérôme is with us today. What is important is we have more and more digitalization inside our offer.
We are very proud to announce that we have now connected more than 35,000 objects on our product for our business. Of course, this number will keep increasing, and it will bring today and in the future recurring revenue thanks to a subscription model mode. SHIFT Prime, this is the add-on of SHIFT Performance. For those of you that are not yet familiar with the program, it's a methodology designed by us to convert innovation marketing services into free cash flow. No blah. It's not only doing very fancy things that have no results. Everything is processed in order to monetize everything we offer to turn it into free cash flow.
We have benchmarked ourselves with other capital goods companies that are much ahead of us on this topic, and we've learned a lot from them. We have built through SHIFT Prime this recipe to scale innovation and to move to this imperfect commodity business into a premium market, mainly usages. This is where SHIFT Prime is running fully. Net cost improvement from fixed costs on industrial performance. We will continue to streamline our cost base and improve our industrial performance to cope with salary and energy inflation. Now, if we turn to page eight, I will not comment so much because Ragnhild is there. She will answer all your questions.
Of course, we run our program called SHIFT Project modeling to make sure that we are converting businesses that are healthy in terms of margin yield, healthy in terms of contractual term exposure that will not jeopardize Nexans future. As well, those projects that fit perfectly between our technological production and installation capabilities. On these three pillars, we have determined a list of platinum projects to be awarded and this is what we are following. Of course, EuroAsia is part of it. We will comment about it. We are being announced as preferred buyer for the entire project. That's great news to be contracted in the coming weeks.
BorWin6 offshore wind farm, it's off the coast of Germany, EUR 360 million revenue. We have converted the installation of the Revolution Wind project for Ørsted in U.S. We had in the past only production supply. Now we have production and installation. I propose that to turn over to Jérôme to explain as well the third pillar of our announcement in terms of electrification initiatives. I remind you that we have made the opening of our Charleston U.S. plant last year. The unique subsea plant right now in U.S. for offshore wind farm. We have had the christening of our Aurora vessel, and now we have as well made a major opening that Jérôme will comment. Thank you, Jérôme.
Yes, indeed. A few weeks ago, we were pleased, very pleased to inaugurate our new international innovation center. It is called AmpaCity, based in Lyon, in France. It does represent a EUR 20 million investment for a 6,000 sq m, 20 laboratories dedicated, 100% dedicated to decarbonize electricity. Like our techno center for high voltage solution in Norway, this is an important pillar for our innovation portfolio. With 100 permanent people, it will be an open structure to welcome our customers and our partners. I'd like to remind you that the group, the global group R&D expenditure is in the order of EUR 80 million. We have 1,800 patents, and the global R&D innovation community is made up of around 800 people. In AmpaCity, we will innovate to address tomorrow's challenge.
Challenge number one is to increase the power. We are very proud of this key achievement this year, the qualification of the 525 kV cable at 3,000 m water depth. This is a world first. The second challenge is the sustainability and to reduce CO2 emission. SF6 is well known to provide excellent electrical insulation, but it is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, equivalent of 20,000x the effect of CO2. We have been successful this year in the replacement of this gas by g3 gas in partnerships with General Electric. This is a world first. The third challenge is a more reliable power, and superconductivity is a key technology. I will come back later on superconductivity. But digital solution, as mentioned by Chris, also does help. They help to increase the efficiency and reliability of installation.
We are reaching 3,000 connected projects that include geolocalization and inventory management, like our solution, ULTRACKER. Obviously we also will work on easier installation. It's not rocket science, but it's very, very useful for the installation like MOBIWAY solution or Instack. Now let's focus in the next slide on superconductivity cable. That is a breakthrough technology. The main performance is a huge quantity of power, 3 GW, which is three reactor in a 20-centimeter diameter space-saving cable. So it does allow -90% of civil works and -70% of energy loss. We have a mature and successful track record on developing and installing this technology in power system. It started 20 years ago with R&D. Then we set up the first worldwide installation in New York, LIPA. That was 2003.
In 2014, it was the first superconductive cable in real grid in Germany, Essen. We improved the performance thanks to the best past projects, reaching those 3 GW. Last year, we've been very pleased to install one superconductive cable in Chicago, ComEd, connecting two substations in real life. This year, we are very proud of this worldwide superconductive cable in Paris Montparnasse train station. Once again, this innovation makes the electrical grid more reliable, connecting train station to different substations. We believe that this technology will play a key role in the modernization and the power supply of very dense and urbanized areas like big cities, railway station or ports.
Thank you, Jérôme. Let's move now to business overview, page 12. So you can see that the organic growth of the group is 5.1%. Without excluding metallurgy is about 13%. I think well, the most noticeable information is that our electrification business is up 16.2%. The majority of this organic growth is made of value more than volume. I will come on that. That's why you see a very strong uplift in the EBITDA ratio. We move from 8.8%- 12.1%. Let me comment already, start right now the page 13 on generation and transmission. So generation and transmission from our SLS high voltage, you can see an upswing in terms of sales of about 24%.
Of course, the margin, as you can see, are +51%. We are continuing to be on the ratio of 18% EBITDA on sales. Once again, I don't say this is by luck, this is by big work of the team, and we will continue to be in the range in the coming years between 17% up to 24% of EBITDA. First of all, the upswings come from the new capacity that we launch plant in US, new vessel, the additional sales of our plant in Charleston, J-C will comment.
The second impact, which is important in terms of margin generation, is the quality of our backlog, both in terms of mix, much more interconnection projects subsea than land, with a great margin on the limited contracts with order. That's the reason that we are extremely confident in the margin trend in 2023 and 2024 for these sectors, and that will not suffer from any recession because the backlog is very impressive. We have almost 2.5 years of visibility. This backlog does not include EuroAsia project, but when it will be awarded, we'll reach four years of visibility with an extremely good mix of, in terms of profitability and margin yield. We are extremely confident now.
It's just a matter of execution for the generation and transmission business from now on up to 2024, even if there is a recession. Page 14. Distribution, former territories business. This is mainly medium voltage cable. Growth year of 14% is explained by the urgent renewal of the grid on our successful conversion of framework agreement with large DSO, like Enedis and TenneT. We have a very high demand and certainly lacking capacity to cope with all the demand. In that sector, 70% of this organic growth come from value only and 30% from volume. We really want not to play volume, but to improve the margin generation of these sectors.
You see already that with a 14% growth in sales, we have been able to generate an upswing of EBITDA of close to 70%, 9% EBITDA versus 6%. It's this EBITDA improvement illustrate the benefit of offering of bundled cable solution between cables and accessories, and as well the successful launch of ULTRACKER that Jérôme mentioned, part of the connected objects. A word on page 15 on the usage. Of course, this is the sector that can suffer from a recession, if any, next year. That's the reason that our strategy is profit first before volume. We are extremely focused on giving our capacity, our free capacity to the best part of the portfolio, means in terms of customer and product profile.
What is important is that you see that we have an increase of sales of 14%, upswing in EBITDA of 75%, moving from 7%- 11%. What is important is we did a major work on complexity reduction in many units. That generates structural performance. We have as well some positive contractual effect that we need to transform or to convert into structural next year. We are working in second semester. For us, we have a pretty clear visibility on the second semester, so this is why you have the guidance increase. We are working with all unit to equip them in terms of recession, to keep their level of financial performance. Voilà, what we can say on page 16 is on the industry.
We are still very strong demand in automation. I believe that we will see some slowdown starting Q4, depending on economic trend. Transport is recovering. What we have to say is that rolling stock is still very weak in China because of the economic situation in China, and as well because rolling stock is not back on track. Aerospace is improving, but remains below pre-pandemic era level. We believe that those two sectors, aerospace and rolling stock, should improve significantly in 2023. We need to give a tribute to our team in automotive harnesses, because I was not as confident as you can believe in the first quarter with invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
They have made an outstanding performance both in terms of financial performance, management business, the way they manage the crisis with their team in Ukraine. Our unit is running fully. They have an improvement of mix because 54% of their sales improvement is coming from electromobility, so Shift to electric vehicle. Our customer recognizes highly all our effort in terms of crisis management. This is why we will announce new awards to come for automotive harnesses in the coming months. Very impressive crisis management from our team. Telecom is, I would say, okay. It's not as shining as electrification. Land cable has pretty good momentum all over Asia and Europe.
European activities in telecom infrastructures is a sound business with great momentum in U.K., offsetting a pretty soft start in France, which is starting to be equipped in terms of fiber optic. On special telecoms subsidies is where we have a reduced amount of backlog, because we are consuming this extraordinary backlog that we had a year ago. We try to normalize now the load because we run at more than 100% of our capacity in the last month. Now it's just a matter of normalization, but the business is still very healthy and very promising for the year to come. Now, J-C, I'll let you comment the financials.
Thank you, Chris. I will start with page 18. This is profit and loss statement. You, as Chris, explained, I mean, we've had a fantastic first half of the year. You can see on the main figures, organic growth, I will not repeat what was said, but strong organic growth, even stronger if you remove metallurgy that you know is our strategy to decrease. And have a positive mix effect on our margin.
The organic growth of electrification is extremely strong. EBIT at EUR 308 million, margin on EBITDA at 9.1%, 200 basis point increase versus same period of last year, mainly through the true impact of the transformation, as well as, I would say, a very good momentum in our businesses, mainly usages, but also the addition of new capacity in the high voltage. Operating margin following the same trend of increases.
What I would comment is we had an impact below EBITDA, a positive impact due to core exposure, because the copper price in the first half, average price continued to increase about EUR 600 per ton in the first half of the year 2022, which generated for us a positive EUR 25 million impact. The start of the decrease of the copper price started really at the end of the semester in June, so did not impact really the semester. I would say one of in our P&L also, and in our cash flow is divestment, the sale of one land we had in Germany, in Hanover, where basically we dismantled a plant a few years ago, part of our restructuring.
We still had the land that we had to clean up, and we sold that land. There is again on the P&L, and also proceeds in our cash flow of about EUR 55 million on the period. I will conclude on the P&L saying that our income tax remains quite flat versus last year, despite the increase of our earnings or profit before tax. This is mainly due to the fact that some of the profit are now generated in countries where we have deferred losses, and therefore we did not pay taxes on those profit, and therefore basically show that a similar tax income level versus last year. All of that contributed to a record high net income level of almost EUR 200 million, EUR 199 million.
Significantly higher than last year, first semester, and even higher than last year full year. If you look at the waterfall on the page 18, you see that the contribution, of course, of the electrification businesses in the increase in EBITDA is extremely significant. I mean, represent, I would say all of the increase in EBITDA for the period, EUR 18 million. I will now move to the next slide on page 19. You remember in our equity story, we explained how we will grow value and how we will expand EBITDA over the three years of our new strategic plan. We explained each of the levels of that growth, and we committed that every six months when we present our result, we will show progress on each of those levels. This is what you see on this page 19.
You see that basically the contribution of all of our transformation is EUR 48 million, basically. This EUR 48 million can be broken down between Amplify, EUR 17 million. SHIFT Prime, everything which is again driven through innovation, launch of innovation. A strong saving in generation and transmission, high voltage, with a good mix and a stronger, I would say, project saving, EUR 23 million, incremental EBITDA from that. Of course, the scope effect, which is mainly Centelsa acquisition that we closed April 1st. Globally speaking, inflation for the semester was higher than before expected, about EUR 60 million, EUR 63 million impact on inflation on the semester. EUR 40 million of that is pass-through, you know, through the mechanism we have, in mainly with raw material.
Most of the inflation that was not pass-through was on salaries, but we were able to basically mitigate most of that through industrial savings. You see that the net impact is the EUR 7 million that you see on the beginning of the bridge here. Quite limited impact, I would say, globally speaking, from inflation in our financials. I will conclude on that bridge, importantly to say what Chris explained, we have a conjunctural impact of EUR 42 million, which is, you know, a situation where we had market that we are extremely booming in the first half of the year. Definitely booming at level never seen before.
We want to be remaining quite precautious and cautious and make sure that we isolate that I would say from our transformation initiative, and we call that conjunctural impact to obviously monitor if this impact will continue in the future. A very strong performance and all of the levers of our transformation has been easily contributing to the increase in value of our company. If I move now to the next slide on page 20, and we look at our cash flow generation, we had a slight increase of our net debt. We moved from 0.2 net debt on EBITDA leverage at the end of December last year to 0.4.
This is mainly due, and you see that on the bridge here on this slide. It's mainly due to the M&A, and the acquisition, obviously, of our Centelsa Colombia asset, EUR 259 million. If you put that aside, which is obviously a one time effect, and you look at the other pluses and minuses, I would say that our net debt would have remained stable over the period, thanks to the strong contribution of our cash from operations, that we are generating is significant enough, I would say, to pay for the high level of CapEx, EUR 126 million. I remind you that we continue to have strategic CapEx, which are quite high.
EUR 82 million out of the EUR 126 million CapEx for the period are linked to a strategic initiative as part of our equity story. Also we, the dividend and I would say share buyback or transaction operations, we did EUR 96 million. Those two high elements were, I would say, offset by a good cash from operation. Globally, you can say that if you put them on the other side, leverage remains flat and remains anyway quite low for the group, so a very low leverage situation from balance sheet. If I move now to the slide on the next page, just a quick word on our operating working capital.
You know that we are focusing a lot of diligence from company management on making sure that we monitor very tightly working capital. We had a slight increase in working capital and a slight negative change, I would say, in working capital from December 31st to end of June. This is two impacts to that, I would say. First of all, it remains quite low because we are at 6%, and we always said, I always said in the past that 4% of the past semesters were quite, I would say abnormally low in terms of ratio of working capital themselves. 6% is what I think is a normalized level for our company.
We are not targeting to have this ratio getting worsening in the future, but remains probably around 6%. The slight increase you see from the 4% to the 6% of the past semester is mainly due to two things, the copper price increase I mentioned earlier, that impacted a little bit working capital. The second thing, we had a little bit of delays in the receiving of the down payment on high voltage that will come in the second half based on the contract that Chris explained, where we are preferred bidder, and one was awarded, but BorWin6 only in July, so it's not part of the June financials. Despite that, I mean, working capital remains very much under control and continues to be the key focus of the company management.
I move to balance sheet on the next slide very quickly. Not much to say on the balance sheet. Remains quite healthy balance sheet. You have the growth of the different lines of the balance sheet is also impacted by Centelsa acquisition, obviously, that contributes to grow the balance sheet figures. Working capital, I explained. Net financial debt, I explained as well. Reserves are decreasing a little bit due to pensions reduction due to increase of discount rates. That's about it. I would say equity is increasing thanks to the very strong net income performance of the semester. On our two key ratios for covenant obviously are slightly increasing due to the net debt increase, but remains quite way below the threshold of the covenant.
We have a lot of headroom, I would say, on those covenants to continue the strategy of the group. I will conclude on the financial presentation with the last slide on page 23. With the liquidity, we continue to have a very healthy liquidity for the group of the group. We have almost EUR 1.1 billion of cash on the balance sheet at the end of June, which is, I would say, an improvement versus December, last December. If I add to that the untapped revolving credit facility, total liquidity of the company is at EUR 1.7 billion. You have the maturity for different debt levels, mainly bond levels. Nothing to declare for 2022.
The first one to be refinanced will be 2023 with a EUR 325 million bond, maturity August 2022. Very strong liquidity level, very strong balance sheet, I would say for Nexans. I will conclude with the outlook on page 25. Based on the very strong performance of our results in H1, we have decided to raise our guidance on our two KPIs on which we guided in February. First one, EBITDA. We increase EBITDA from EUR 500 million- EUR 540 million to a new range of EUR 560 million-EUR 590 million.
This includes obviously, Centelsa in the second half of the year, I would say, two quarters of Centelsa in second half of the year. We also upgrade our normalized free cash flow generation from EUR 150 million- EUR 200 million to a new range of EUR 200 million-EUR 250 million. No need for me to say that we are extremely confident in our ability to achieve those targets.
Thank you.
I will conclude my financial presentation.
Thank you, J.C. That concludes the presentation. Now we can open for your questions.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from the line of Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. You're now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. First, I wanted to start just a very quick clarification to make sure we understood something right in the beginning. I think you, when you were talking about the generation and transmission business and you were mentioning the continuation of good margins. Did we hear you correctly on saying 17%-24% margin? I mean, if you can comment on whether that was, we heard the right thing or the wrong thing, and anyways, what is the long-term margin potential that you see in that, in that business? Then number two, wanted to check on the change in guidance.
Just to also clarify the change in guidance in free cash flow now that copper prices have been declining, how much of a tailwind for working capital of that increase in free cash flow, how much is just the potential tailwind in the second half from copper or maybe less bad situation on copper than you foreseen earlier in the year? Then just, yeah, just for an update on the portfolio actions, and like where do you stand on telecoms, industrial harnesses, et cetera, if we could give a bit more color there. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Daniela. Good morning. I will take the question number one and the question number three. Question number one, no, it's exactly what I said. We have modeled all our backlog up to free cash flow generation. I told you it's very, very healthy, so it's the lower range of our EBITDA is 17%, and the higher range is 24%, on Generation and Transmission. You know, it's just to reconfirm because some of your colleagues believe that our 18% was reached by luck and by a good mix last year, and no, this is not what we say.
The structural margin on the sectors is very different between interconnection project subsea, offshore wind farm, on interconnection land. The mix of our backlog is mainly subsea, so that trigger higher margin. On the way we modelize and we select duly each project in terms of margin yield, contractor to-contractor term exposure and our capability to execute it properly because that's why this is part of the margin give us the confidence to be in that range between 17%- 24% up to 2024. Regarding the second question regarding copper.
Copper.
Yes, definitely on copper, if prices of copper continue to decrease as they started at the end of the previous semester, end of May, June, there will be a positive impact on our cash flow by reduction of our working capital. What we've seen, part of the degradation of the working capital in the first half, part of that is due to increase of copper, basically about EUR 25 million-EUR 30 million is due to copper. If this basically increase of the first semester reverse itself in the second semester, we'll regain the basically this impact of EUR 30 million. I would say that, basically we... we can count on depending on the level of reduction between, I would say, EUR 20 million-EUR 30 million of cash flow improvement if copper prices continue to decline in the second half.
Regarding the third question, Daniela, on divestment. We are making some progress on divestments, certainly we should announce something before the end of the year. Auto Harnesses was very well advanced, but we put everything on hold because of the invasion in Ukraine. Given the outstanding performance of the business, I'm sure that the partner we discussed with are back on the table. We need to see what will be the evolution of course in Ukraine in the coming months before to start back our discussion.
Regarding acquisition, I will say that we are a bit holding the topic for the moment because if recession is confirmed, that can give us better opportunities in 2023. What is important, Daniela, is that whatever the parameter of Nexans by 2024, Nexans is confirming its ability to reach his financial ratio, as mentioned in the Capital Markets Day, even at constant parameter.
Thank you. Can I squeeze in a very quick one, actually?
Yes.
On the situation around like chemicals and PVC, obviously you use a lot of PVC. I guess you don't have like massive operations in Germany and you're not on the German corridors or anything, but a lot of like chemicals, I guess, in Europe come from Germany. So how do you mitigating for those potential risks with the gas situation around chemicals in Europe?
We are not exposed on German supply. We had a lot of supply chain issue last year. Now it's very smooth. We have diversify our suppliers not to be, I would say, constrained by a monopolistic situation. It's a big work that we have done over the last two years. We don't see any specific issue on the supply chain side in second semester.
Thank you.
Thank you, Daniela. Next question.
Our next question comes from Miguel Borrega from BNP Paribas. You're now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Just have two questions, one on slide seven for the additional EBITDA contribution from structural initiatives. I just want to make sure I got that slide right. You've got the EUR 150 million total EBITDA contribution, and there's still EUR 110 million-EUR 120 million to be delivered in 2023-2024. Those percentages apply to 2022, right? The rest to be delivered within the next two years.
That's right. Good morning, Miguel. With the exception of SHIFT Performance, you can see a TBA. Here is our buffer in case of recession. We have still a EUR 2 billion revenue in the usages on the distribution market that have been through our SHIFT Performance program. This EUR 2 billion revenue remains today roughly at 5% EBITDA, so very below average. We are working on them right now to bring them back to a higher number, closer to our average. That will be a big buffer that we are activating in case of recession in 2023 to keep bringing a significant financial performance in 2023.
On the 17%-24% margin that you mentioned. Obviously, there's the issue of cost inflation, and typically these contracts don't have any escalation clauses. Can you just comment on your confidence to insulate yourself from cost inflation in the high voltage market?
Yeah, it's a good question. Let me pass on to Ragnhild.
Hi, and thanks for that question. What we're doing at our tender stage when we are reviewing the contracts, we are of course reviewing all the terms and conditions, including also potential risk for cost increases, et cetera. We are making sure to put in measures so that we are able to index those cost increases in case of that happening. We are very sure of the figures that Chris mentioned. The 17%-24% in the next years to come for the portfolio that we now see in our backlog and that we are now targeting through the SHIFT modeling and through the SHIFT execution.
It's under control.
That's great. Thank you. Just on M&A, what are you seeing now? Do you see scope for opportunistic M&A or given the recession risks, you prefer to stay put for the moment? Thank you.
Well, we are advancing discussion with some players, but we had the board yesterday. It's not the right time to take over any company at the peak of revenue, peak of margin, peak of multiples, so we have to remain prudent. What is important is the message that we keep bringing to the Board of Directors. Even if we have to delay acquisition by a few months because of recession, that will not jeopardize our financial target for 2024. We will do it at constant parameter. That's the main message. We don't want to make acquisition at any cost just because we want to make acquisition.
We are making some great progress for the moment, but we remain vigilant.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you, Miguel. Next question.
Our next question is from Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. You're now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody, and thanks for your time. I have a few questions as well, and I'll ask one at a time. The first one I have is on your margin rebound in usage, and maybe if you can provide some more color on what is really driving it. Is there any shortages of copper or something that might be, or maybe if you can also provide a split of revenue growth between volume and then price. Maybe how do you see sustainability of these high margins given, I think, double-digit margin and Usage is something that we have not seen for the whole segment in the past. Maybe if you can also comment on sustainability of these high margins. That's question number one.
Yeah. It's an important question, Akash, on usages because we know that in case of economic downturn, this is certainly the sector to be impacted. Generation and transmission will not be impacted. Distribution is so late in the renewal of the electrical grid that I don't see that being impacted in 2023. Of course, all the focus is on usages. First of all, first answer, 100% of organic growth is made of value. First time ever in Nexans. Whereas in the past, 100% were made of volume. That's an important message. The second message is, how is it divided or spread this value between structural and the controllable? It's more or less what you have on page seven.
It's 50% structural. Means it's our new offering, supported by digitalization. That for us, here, it's just at the beginning of its penetration. We have launched, you've seen in the last quarter, and it's just the result of our innovation launch in the last quarter with MOBIWAY, ULTRACKER, VIGISHIELD . This is, those innovation are not for free. So on the other very well reception from the customer, because it's a really distinctive offer, and we know that everything we do digitized, we are alone. So we have a very strong appetite on from our customers to keep deploying those offer on that structural recurring revenue. Even in recession, it will be there, and we are continuing our penetration ratio of this offer.
The other part is control and more focus in North America, I would say, more than Europe. A conjunctural effect due to hyperinflation in U.S. that all sectors and all our competitors benefit from in the last months. It's still very strong in Q3. We will see what happens in Q4. I will say that the usages performance conjunctural effect is really, really focused on North America, not in Europe. Europe is very structural effect. Our team is incentivized on the structural effect, not the conjunctural effect.
Thank you. My second one is on high voltage, where you are 90% sold out on capacity through 2024, and the demand is still accelerating. The question I have is, are you already having dialogue with customers to further raise capacity as the process to decarbonize is gaining momentum in Europe in light of Russia-Ukraine? You also said in your remarks that there is one of the major headwinds for renewable deployment or accelerating renewable deployment. Are you having a dialogue-
Sorry, Akash. Can you repeat? We had a cut of the line. Can you repeat your question? I'm sorry about it.
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, no problems. Question is on high voltage, where you are 90% sold out on capacity through 2024, and you said demand is still rising here. Are you having dialogue already with your customers to further raise capacity, given now we are seeing in light of Russia-Ukraine momentum to decarbonize in Europe is gaining, and grid is like one of the major headwind. Any comment on capacity that when you might come out with next leg of capacity increase given the accelerated decarbonization in Europe?
Thanks for that question. As you know, we are already investing in Halden with the two additional extrusion lines. We are adding capacity from 2024, actually doubling our capacity for XLPE cables from Halden. We're as well adding some of the smaller adjustments in Charleston and also adding capacity in Charleston. As such, we are answering to the market of this need more needed capacity.
What is important is we had some questions from investor Akash Gupta to say, "Why don't you keep doubling your capacity every year?" I say we have to be careful because, first of all, we have a EUR 25 billion pipeline in front of us. Thanks to our modeling, we know that not all projects are equal in terms of margin yield, technological fit or contractual term exposure. So we have to be careful. It's not all good. I will say that 1/3 of this EUR 25 billion is for us considered as platinum projects, so top-notch projects. You have another 1/3 that we don't want to touch because of their risk exposure. So that's the first element. We know that the demand is accelerating.
We know that the demand is secular because it's the third electric revolution. What we have to take care of is not the demand, it's the offer and the scarcity of raw material. What we aim to do is to make sure that we manage our capacity in front of a raw material access.
Thank you. My final one is on superconducting cable that you touched upon earlier in the presentation. Can you give us a bit more detail on how big the market opportunity here, and how does the margin look like in this part of the business compared to the group average or your 10%-12% target for electrification in 2024? Thank you.
I think, Jérôme can answer this question because Jérôme is now entering in competition with Ragnhild in terms of new market development.
Yeah. I start with the margin because the superconductive technology project are very similar to a high voltage submarine project. I mean, there is a lot of engineering. Your installation is like unique project. We are targeting the same level of margin as high voltage submarine and the same way to manage those projects. In terms of markets, we believe. I mean, we'll start like if we consider two big cities with a project of EUR 10 billion, that's the next few years is EUR 200 million as a BU, but we guess that total market will be in between EUR 3 billion-EUR 5 billion, and we expect after 2030 to reach EUR 1 billion per year.
This is due to the fact that verticalization of the building, you need more and more power per square foot, and you can maybe re-emphasize the advantage of superconductivity versus HVDC cables in a very dense urban environment, Jérôme.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, today when we come to superconductivity, there is no other solution. There is no way that you can have civil works downtown in New York, Paris or Singapore, Hong Kong. So the only way to bring a lot of power with the tiny places or civil work is a superconductive cable. That's gonna be the case with a train station with big areas and cities. We really believe, and it's dramatically increasing with the global warming, but there's gonna be a lot of local blackouts in cities and maybe some big blackouts. That will accelerate the modernization of the grid in mega cities.
Thank you, Jérôme. Akash?
Thank you.
Okay for you?
Okay.
Next question.
Our next question comes from Sean McLoughlin from HSBC. You're now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. First, just to understand a little bit better this EUR 42 million of conjunctural and one-off. First of all, does this include the gain on the EUR 25 million gain on the German plant? Second, is this mostly usage in North America from what I've understood, or is this broader? Could you maybe just dig into a little bit where, you know, which markets were booming and you don't expect to be booming anymore in the second half? Thank you.
Yeah. I take the question, Sean. No, the sale of our land in Germany is definitely not in the EBITDA build, so it's not part of the EUR 42 million. Really what we call conjunctural is when we have analyzed basically the performance of our transformation, the past volume over the years, the demand and the supply and so on, and we see like extraordinary situation where volume and prices have been going through the roof since now a few months, we call that conjunctural.
Because by definition, when you look back on history over a long period of time, this never happened before, and we believe that it will one day or the other, whether it's in one month, two months, six months, who knows, but likely go away. It's usage is unique, it's made of pricing and volume. A lot, combination of both. It's fueled by inflation for sure, and it's really related to North America. That's what I can tell you about this piece here.
Understood. Just thinking about then kind of margin progressions in the second half for usages. I mean, if I were to split, you know, to take out the EUR 42 million, I mean, should I be looking at, or I mean presumably much lower organic growth and kind of margin compression in the second half?
It's a very valid question. What we've assumed in the new guidance, in the new range of EBITDA, is that basically most of this conjunctural one-time effect, we call one-time effect, will vanish, go away. Basically to answer your question, yes, in that usage part, if this is the case, organic growth will be lower than what it was in H1 . Now what I can tell you is we are already in July, and we start to have visibility on Q3, and Q3 seems to be still very strong. It's extremely difficult obviously to predict what will be the end of Q3, what will be Q4. We took one assumption in the range. We might be a little bit conservative. We'll see in the coming weeks.
To answer your question, yes, if there is a recession or if there is a strong downturn in usage and building activity, it can have a very quick impact in our financial result. Organic growth and margin will obviously reduce because of this conjunctural. One that will not repeat itself. Right again, what we see in Q3 right now, being at the end of July, is it looks still very strong.
We are working hard to equip all our units to SHIFT this conjunctural into structural in next year to come. Specifically next year.
Understood. Thank you. I just wanted also to understand, go back to the 17%-24% margin range. Does this also include land high voltage that you have in backlog, or is this just a subsea range?
Oh, no. It's all the business. Everything, all together included.
Which is-
Yes.
Remarkable considering that your land business was loss-making when you became CEO. I'm wondering how much, again, is this fundamental improvement of industry conditions and how much has this been kind of Nexans internal driven?
I would say that we have significant. There are two answers. First sequence, we have turned heavily negative of land high voltage into positive in the last years. You know, that was the first sequence of cost structure, the closure of Hanover, the improvement of the operational performance. As well, the margin split over the sectors between interconnection subsea offshore, wind farm and land is a very high spread.
I would say that 85%-90% of our backlog is made of subsea project. The land portion really reduced significantly between 2018 and 2025, and even today, so the dilutive impact is much lesser than it was before.
Thank you.
Voilà. Next question.
Our next question comes from George Featherstone from Bank of America. Now, please go ahead.
Hi. Morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question.
Hey, George.
I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the margins for the electrification businesses in aggregate. Clearly you've made some very strong improvements. Just wanted to see what the potential progression or how we should think about the pace of margin improvement progression from here. Perhaps if you could maybe discuss this, the margin at aggregate level in the backlog compared to current levels.
Good question. Well, at least for, I will let J-C comment, but at least for generation and transmission, we have answered. I will give you, I think, we cannot do better to say that the margin between now and 2024 will be between 17%-24%. We keep improving on distribution, so formerly utilities, but by keep bringing more complexity reduction, simplification our portfolio on more bundling innovations. J-C, can you give some perspective regarding the result overall of the electrification?
Yes. Globally, what we see in electrification, it's we are today at, we are seeing 2022 where the EBITDA margin on electrification will be around 12%, so very attractive for the group, when the average is the average of Nexans we see it at about 9%. Very attractive and much more attractive than the rest of the non-electrification businesses. What we see is basically we are gaining every year about 0.5 point of margin, additional margin on electrification total every year. By 2024, we will this electrification our electrification business will be about close to 13.5% EBITDA.
There are two reasons for that. The one that we discussed about generation and transmission, mainly the mix of the project with a very significant interconnector project coming to the backlog with higher margin than the average. I'm talking about EuroAsia, for instance, Crete-Attica today, and there are others in the pipeline. That's one thing. The additional capacity which brings that the generation and transmission business moves basically from a business that was a business of less than EUR 1 billion of sales, about EUR 900 million of sales to a business by 2025, that would be EUR 1.4 billion of sales. Very, I would say bigger business thanks to a full Charleston Aurora plus the additional CapEx.
Overall, this business running at 24%, like we said, with a bigger size improve the total margin of electrification as well. We continue the transformation of our SHIFT program, SHIFT Prime and so on, with usages gaining 1 point or 0.5 point to 1 point every year. Really, the momentum on the two electrification business is very strong, driving the electrification business profitability significantly up over the next couple of years.
Why we are confident on those numbers, George, is because a part of the EUR 2 billion revenue that I mentioned that are still at 5% EBITDA, a big part is still in the electrification field in usages. We are running SHIFT now in those units as well, in some others. On that will bring a continuous improvement of our EBITDA over the year.
Okay. Thank you very much. Maybe one more just turning to usages. You've mentioned already on the call that this would perhaps be the area of the business that would be most sensitive to any short-term downtrends. So far, it doesn't sound like in Q3 you see anything like that. I just wondered in the guidance now, do you expect that you would start to perhaps consume your backlog in usages as you get towards the end of the year rather than be adding to it?
The order intake is very solid right now versus the backlog. Our backlog is not reducing. We know you don't have a long visibility on the usages, but we have called all our customers, our platinum customers. They consider that Q3 is there in their backlog. We don't see any downturn in that regard. We, on that part of the guidance, we remain vigilant on what could happen economically in terms of economic trend in Q4. That's all. I would say that if everything stay like that, the guidance, we are more on the upper part of the guidance than on the lower part of the guidance.
Our backlog for usages, for instance, is almost EUR 260 million. It's significantly up versus June last year and even just December. Like he said, it can change quickly because it's short term, but at least we end of the semester with a very strong backlog, higher than the past closing.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, George. Next question.
Our next question is from Massimiliano Severi from Credit Suisse. You're now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Hi, I just had a couple of questions, quite quick ones. The first one would be on the capacity that you have in the high voltage space. Clearly, EuroAsia is an MI project. I was wondering right now, what is the split between MI and XLPE and what will be the split once you complete your capacity expansion plans? If maybe you could comment whether you see any margin difference between XLPE and the MI projects, generally speaking.
No, we don't give the split between our capacity between MI and XLPE. Everything I can tell you is that all the investment we are doing right now is to expand our XLPE capacity. There is no main difference between the two technologies in terms of margin. The difference comes by the nature of the project. By the nature of the project, is it an interconnection subsea offshore wind farm or interconnection land? Right now with today's capacity, when awards will be confirmed in coming weeks from EuroAsia, we will be fully loaded, but we still have room because we have the expansion of Halden running right now to be ready for 2024.
We still need to sign contracts on the negotiation right now to fill this additional capacity in XLPE.
Thank you. In terms of the capacity that you have in your vessels, if you keep winning the installation projects for Ørsted in the U.S., would the current two vessels that you have be enough to meet the demand? Or would you perhaps need a third vessel on top of Aurora and Skagerrak?
That's a good question. I need a good answer. That's why we have decided they want to keep a Skagerrak and because we knew given the very huge momentum on this sector and that we will need two vessels. Ragnhild, please.
For the vessel part, it's slightly easier than for the manufacturing when it comes to capacity. For the vessel part, what we are doing is that if we do need additional vessels, we will do subcontracting, as we have done in the past, and that will also be done in the future to take the kind of the hits, if I may use that word, if we have more need than two vessels. For us, it's really just to optimize the use of these two vessels plus adding third party vessels when needed.
Yes, thank you very much. Maybe if I could squeeze in a very final one. For H2 in the high voltage division, clearly H2 2021 was a great quarter. Would you expect to be somewhere close to that level of margins or perhaps due to phasing, we could see margins slightly down year-over-year in H2 and then improving over the next years in the 17%-24% range that you mentioned?
No, margin will be similar. There's not much difference between H1 and H2 in terms of margins this year.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question.
Our next question is from Luigi De Bellis from Equita. You're now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Morning, Luigi.
Yes. Hi, good morning. I have two questions, sorry. The first one is on the High Voltage. Can you elaborate on the main projects in execution in 2023 for the High Voltage and the additional savings expected for the division for 2023 compared to 2022 in light of your backlog? If you may, can you give us more color about the timetable of delivery of EuroAsia and Tyrrhenian Link, quantify the impact that you expect in 2023 in particular? Always on the High Voltage related to the EuroAsia, can you help us to understand how much is the complexity of the projects, considering the 525 kV MI technology that you have to use, if I understood correctly? Thank you.
Well, I think I will let Ragnhild answer, but regarding the financial statement of 2023, I don't want to give any number right now because this is not the purpose of the call. I think there is legitimate question regarding complexity of EuroAsia and as well, what are the main project into execution in the from second semester on, 2023, Ragnhild.
To start with the mass impregnated MI correctly, yes, the Tyrrhenian Link is coming into play. We have Attica-Crete ongoing as we speak, so that will, of course, continue to be a good contributor for H2. We are following with the Tyrrhenian Link and as well EuroAsia. EuroAsia will last until 2027, assuming with the preferred supplier for both the lots. This will really fill our capacity. For EuroAsia and Tyrrhenian and also Attica-Crete, we are using the MI technology. It's a well-proven technology that we have used since the seventies for all interconnected projects. There is no added fee when it comes to the cable itself. It's a proven technology.
The new thing with EuroAsia is of course the water depth, 3,000 m water depth. Here we have already proven that we are managing this with this type of cable and the technology that we have on vessels. It's a long length interconnectors, 525 kV, that's also something that we have proven with the North Sea Link project that we installed and completed on time two years ago. For EuroAsia, yes, it is a complex project. It's a very, very large project. With the technologies that we're using, which is a proven technology, with all the proven technology also on the installation, we're using our new state-of-the-art Aurora, which is also made for laying in very deep waters.
We are 100% certain that EuroAsia is a very, very good fit project for us, as well as Tyrrhenian Link. The other question was related to the backlog, what type of projects we have. I mentioned now MI. We are of course completing this year the Seagreen project. As you probably know, we have already also the Moray West project in our pipeline that we will work on. Attica-Crete, we have mentioned. We have mentioned also earlier that we are working on, like, Empire Wind, like the Revolution Wind, like South Fork Wind. We have quite a strong backlog. Not quite strong, a very strong backlog, full backlog with ongoing projects in execution today, and that will continue through next year.
Thank you. If I may, on the full year 2022 guidance, two quick questions. The first one is on considering the strategic CapEx, how much is the net debt expected by the end of 2022? The second one, always on the guidance, can you elaborate on the implied EBITDA for telecom industry division in the second half so compared to the first half for your indication of margins for this division for the second half compared to first half? Thank you.
Industry, I will take the last part of the question. Industry, I would say there's still a big question mark on China, because we had a very high deficit of demand in industry in China for rolling stock. We know that some sectors are pumping up in China, like the automotive, but not yet the rolling stock. Either we remain stable, either we see an uplift. Definitely on automotive harnesses, with the big hit that we have in January and February, specifically February and March, right, in Ukraine, a very strong demand in automotive harnesses in second semester is foreseen. Regarding telecom, there was a slow start in some country like in France, and that should improve in second semester.
I would say that industry and telecom dynamics should improve in second semester.
Regarding the net debt.
Yeah, net debt. Basically on the strategic CapEx, we have about, I would say a balance, first semester versus second semester, how we spent out of the EUR 126 million of CapEx on H1 , we spent EUR 82 million for the strategic CapEx expansion in Halden. The figure for the second half would be about the same, EUR 80 million. The bulk of the expanding of the CapEx will be in 2022. However, with a significant down payment we are aiming to receive with the contract we mentioned, you know, for the awards in the second semester, our backlog in high voltages should be growing quite significantly if you add those two projects that are not in the backlog in June.
Down payment coming through, our net debt will significantly reduce versus what it is at the end of H1. I'm more targeting a net debt close to EUR 200 million versus EUR 340 million I presented to you for H1. That's the way I see a net debt evolution in the next semester.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Very clear.
Thank you. Perfect. The next question, please.
Our next question is from Jean-François Granjon from ODDO. You're now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning.
Hello. Bonjour, Jean-François Granjon.
Yes, good morning. You have already answered lots of my questions, but nevertheless, two quick questions, please. The first one, to be clear, the guidance. The new guidance includes the contribution of Centelsa. If that's right, it was not the case for the previous guidance. The previous guidance does not integrate Centelsa. Do you confirm that for the new guidance, this includes the contribution of Centelsa for second half? And my second question concerns the high voltage Generation and Transmission division. Could you give us the mix between production and installation for the first half, and what do you expect for the full year and for next year?
Thank you. I will take the first question. The first question, you're right, completely right.
The first guidance did not, because we specifically said at the time that we will not include M&A into our guidance in M&A and divestment. When I announced the guidance at the beginning of February, we didn't have any, I mean, we were in progress of closing the Centelsa, but it was not closed, so it was not included. We closed the acquisition April 1st. Now it's an asset of Nexans, full asset of Nexans. It's included in our new guidance. I confirmed. Just to give you some financial information, contribution of Centelsa in the first half is EUR 7 million. The second half should be around EUR 15 million.
I would say a total contribution about EUR 20 million for the full year, the new guidance of the range of EBITDA. For cash flow, you should think about the same proxy.
For the split, if I understood your question correctly, for the split installation manufacturing, we don't really do that split as such. What we are doing is to ensuring that we are fulfilling all our capacities, both manufacturing and installation. Please remember that our approach is full turnkey project. That means also including engineering, manufacturing, installation, protection, after works, et cetera. All our margin is coming from the turnkey project, whether or not it's manufacturing, engineering or if it's
Yeah, this is the trend that we see, Jean-François , in the sub sectors is all project turning more and more turnkey because of their risk and complexity, and that's mean that the entry barriers for competition is raising. That's good for us. For big project of interconnection, now you see only two main players, because you need as well a very solid balance sheet. It's only Nexans and our Italian colleagues mainly. Good for us.
Okay, perfect.
Thank you. Next. Thank you, Jean-François. Next question.
The next question is from Eric Lemarié from CIC. You're now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking my question. I've just got two actually. First one, to check a number. Could you show us the value and volume impact on sales in generation and transmission? I think you gave us the figure for distribution business, but not for G&T, unless I missed it. I got a second and naive question actually. You explained to us that you can reach your financial mid-term guidance without any further acquisitions and disposals at constant perimeter, as you said. I was wondering, is it really necessary to implement this asset rotation policy? Is this really necessary to become a pure player in electrification? Because after all, you are already both performing very well anyway today with the current perimeter.
Thank you, Eric. Regarding your first question, we don't split this logic of value or volume for the generation and transmission business because it's a project-driven business. Our interest for us is to make them turnkey. That's the most important, and to execute it rightly. Regarding your question on why becoming pure player, it's because it's not only a financial strategy. It's not only a financial strategy. We believe that if we remain a generalist covering 34 subsectors, diluting our capital allocation to 34 subsectors and 70 factories, asking Jérôme's team, eight engineers, to work on 34 subsectors, you are diluting your effort, you are diluting your impact.
We believe the world of tomorrow is much more complex, facing now big risks on the higher level of crises that are, I will say, getting increasingly together, either climatic or economic or geopolitical or sanitary or whatever. That means that the winners of tomorrow are the pure players, the ones that will allocate all their resources, management bandwidth, R&D effort in one single direction to create distinctive offer.
If you want Nexans to be strong even in down times, if we want Nexans to be a great leader in the electrification playing field, we have to be focused, and we have to quote a very well-known guru in the U.S., "We have to get the profit from the core business." Focus on your core business and reallocate all your effort on that direction. This is what we are doing. The advantage that we are doing that in the electrification playing field is that we are entering the third electrical revolution that will implies massive investment. This is why that we need to put all our effort in one direction. We don't say that automotive is a bad business. We don't say that telecom is a bad business. You cannot be everywhere.
If you are everywhere, at the end, you are nowhere, and you will see your market share sector by sectors reducing every year. Because in each sectors, you have pure player. Give you an example to make it short. In telecom, we are small players, and we are facing company that we are not talking about during our coursework, Corning. This company is a pure player entirely focused in telecom. The chance for Corning to win in the future versus Nexans is much higher because they put all their, I will say means in the same direction. This is what we are doing in the electrification playing field. The generalist model is over from what we see in terms of market trends.
Okay. Thank you.
It's not a naive question. It's a strategic question. Yes.
Thank you. Can I follow up one?
Sure.
Yes. On distribution and usages, you mentioned you had very strong growth in North America for both divisions, so 77% in North America in distribution and I think 57% in North American usages. Could you tell us if it's mainly due to conjuctual reasons. But could you give us maybe an idea of the value effect in North America for this two division? And maybe share with us the level of revenues you're generating in North America in distribution and usages.
We don't go in much detail than what you have.
Okay.
Sorry for that.
Okay. That's fine.
Like, we have our own model, you have yours, so I think you have enough details to compute your model. Thank you, Eric.
Thank you.
Next, last and last questions, because we have to run into roadshow. I'm sorry about that. Next question.
Our final question comes from the line of Rajesh Singla from Societe Generale. You are now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi.
Rajesh.
Good morning, everyone.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Just one question, maybe a bit technical in nature. On the one hand, we are seeing very strong demand for high voltage cable going forward, and it might accelerate even further. On the other hand, we have a little bit of this macroeconomic issues which we might be facing for the low voltage or medium voltage cable. My question is, how flexible are our manufacturing facilities, specifically the medium voltage cable? Can we convert them to feed the demand which we are seeing in the high voltage segment? Basically make the manufacturing facility more flexible to basically feed whatever demand is strong at that particular point of time.
Is it easy, or is it technically difficult?
No, it's not. The answer is negative. You know, I know that cable looks, I would say the same cable for each business. Now, it's the level of complexity from high voltage to low voltage is nothing to compare. If you want to enter in the high voltage field, you need minimum two years of qualification on pretty massive investment. This is what you see in Charleston, for example. I think I cannot comment more, Rajesh. I invite you to come in Charleston unit in September 2022 to understand the complexity of manufacturing high voltage cable.
Sure. Thank you. Even last question would be on, if I heard you correctly, you said your targets are on track. The 2024 targets are on track, and you will be able to meet them despite any weak demand challenges which might come on our way during the next say six to 12 months.
Yeah. It depends, of course, how deep will be a recession if it comes, because, you know, it's like COVID now. I cannot-
Mm-hmm.
I cannot predict the world economy in 2023. If there is a downturn, a slight downturn, we are very confident in achieving our result. For what I say, I think this is the major information, because we had a lot of discussion with the board and with our investors. No one wants to see us making acquisitions just for the sake to make acquisitions. We don't want to make a dilutive acquisition just because we commit to make acquisitions.
What is important is that we are unleashing the full potential of the group to making sure that we will not disappoint the market, and we will be at the rendezvous of our 2024 target, whatever is the portfolio at this time. I think it's important for all your model as well. I know that you're working on the 10 years basis, but there is since beginning 2019, a big swing in terms of management teams. A completely new spirit. Very innovative methodology in terms of company transformation. We are making a very bold strategic move.
The Nexans that we are talking about now and in the future does not compare at all with what you've seen between 2009 and 2018. Believe me, I was in the company. Here it's a completely new phase that you have in front of you. Voilà. Do you have another question, Rajesh?
No, that's pretty much for my side. Thank you. Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you. Thanks a lot. We have very high level of audience this morning, so thanks a lot to be connected. Looking forward to meet you all physically. If we can, for the one that will enjoy some great summer break, enjoy your break. Thank you very much.
Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.