Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to Nexans' first quarter 2023 financial information conference call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. For the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions, and 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 the star zero, and you'll be connected to an operator. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Christopher Guérin, Nexans' CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in Nexans' conference call. I'm Chris Guerin, CEO of Nexans. With me, Jean-Christophe Juillard, Deputy CEO and CFO, Vincent Dessale, COO, Nino Cusimano, General Counsel, and as well Elodie Robbe-Mouillot, VP Investor Relations. I'm turning now to Elodie 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 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 report of today's call that will be posted on our website, nexans.com. I now turn you over to Chris, who will go over the first quarter highlights.
Thank you, Elodie. Let's turn now on page three, straight on the quarterly main highlights, four of them. The first one is a promising start. Value, you know, we are really focused on the value growth, a growth that is mainly made of value, a structural positive mix effect on the very tight price management, as well improvement of our price power, supported by our new solutions. And as well, in parallel, we continue to scale down the metallurgy business as planned, and of course mentioned during our Capital Markets Day of 2021. Therefore the organic growth for the quarters is about 6.5% if you exclude the other activities versus the Q1 2022.
Very well on track on that, on plan regarding innovation on services acceleration. We have more than a 100% growth in connected objects. We have already on Q1 now more than 60,000 connected objects. As you know, it's as well linked to a new revenue business model with monthly fees with our customers, so very proud about this development. Potential is still enormous. Amplification of our fire safety technology. I will dedicated a specific slide on a video on it during that call, and that's supported by many investments. One of them is the EUR 14 million investment we have announced in our plant in France for the upcoming three years in the last months. Point number three, new milestone in asset rotation, aligned with our plan.
As we already mentioned, we are in exclusive negotiation with Syntagma Capital for the disposal of telecom system. We receive a few days ago the antitrust approval for the acquisition of Reka Cables in Finland. The closing of Reka Cables is imminent, will be done in coming days. Point number four, strengthen and credit profile. As you know, we have a steady improvement of S&P rating, BB+ rating outlook upgraded from stable to positive. We have to say as well that we're very proud about it that we have been extremely successful for the first Sustainability-Linked Bond issuance, and that has been significantly oversubscribed. We are talking about a EUR 400 million Sustainability-Linked Bond. Let me turn to GC on page four for the organic growth explanation.
Thank you, Chris. If you, if we move on page four, you see that, as Chris said, the organic growth of Nexans Q1 2023 versus same quarter 2022 is 2.2%. Notice to say here that obviously we have an impact coming from our other activity. I remind you that part of this other activity is our strategy to reduce our metallurgy business, which is a strategic critical asset for Nexans, but also a dilutive asset in terms of EBITDA margin. Our strategy is to focus on our own demand and reduce the sales of that, we have been successfully pursuing that strategy now for the past two years. This is also of course reducing and impacting the organic growth. Reported sales of EUR 1.674.
You see that we have a scope impact of EUR 60 million, which is the acquisition of the Centelsa business that we did in the second quarter of last year. Also a negative impact on Forex, mainly coming from the NOK versus the euro, which has been, I would say, deteriorating. Since we have significant revenues in NOK currency, there is, I would say, a sales impact not reported in the organic growth. Important to say also that if you exclude the metallurgy business, again, part of our strategy, and make basically our organic growth comparable to our competitors, organic growth excluding metallurgy sat at 6.5%, which is obviously quite a significant number.
You'll see also that within the organic growth, we have the difference, significant difference between electrification and non-electrification. I will detail that in the coming slide. If we move now to page six, and we start on page six with, five, sorry. My mistake. Page 5 with the electrification businesses, zooming between generation, transmission, distribution, and usages. First is generation and transmission, minus 10.7%. Here it is important to explain a little bit further this I would say, two-digit organic growth decrease, which is coming from the decision of Nexans to exit the umbilical business. Umbilical business is an oil and gas business, manufacturing and providing cables for mainly oil and offshore platforms.
We have taken the strategic decision for simplicity and to decomplexify and debottleneck our plant to exit that segment of business. This is explaining basically all of the negative organic growth. In fact, without that umbilical variance between Q1 2022 and Q1 2023, the organic growth of the division generation and transmission would have been positive of 8.5%, mainly thanks to the ramp up, continuous ramp up of our Charleston plant in South Carolina. Just to give you a little bit figures, umbilical business in Q1 2022, the sales were EUR 47 million, where in Q1 2023, the sales for that segment of business were EUR 4 million. Again, that reduction is part of our strategy to exit that business, which is also dilutive in terms of margin.
Distribution, if I move to the next, I would say electrification business is distribution. Very nice, significant, I would say, org-positive organic growth in this distribution, mainly driven by the start of the grid renewal that we see in most parts of the world right now. We've seen a significant increase in demand from utilities in all of the region where we are present for distribution, whether it's North or South America, Europe and even Asia. I would say this business is finally taking off, and through the frame agreement, we see that utilities are requesting more and more volume through the frame agreement in distribution, which is obviously a good sign.
Finally, usages continues to grow 1.5%. I know that all of you are very focused on usages because of the commodity view of you have on this business. We continue to believe that this is a fantastic, I would say, market for Nexans because of our premiumization, the fact that we are not seeking volume, but value, that we are growing the business through pricing and through innovation and services. We continue to see that growth. You see 1.5% versus quarter of last year. That was already a very strong quarter. There will be, obviously, Europe remains quite strong.
We see a little bit of decrease in North America, but at level that continues to be extremely high and prices remain very strong. If I move now to the next slide on page six, and we look at the non-electrification business. Basically, non-electrification business is made of the industry solution business, which is including the harnesses, automotive harnesses business, which is the biggest part of that industry solution segment. We see a very strong growth, as you can see on the slide, +22% organic growth quarter on last year versus this year. Auto harnesses, the trend that we started to see in 2022 despite the war in Ukraine continue in the first half of 2023, meaning that demand is extremely strong.
We have been, I would say, benefiting from the fact that some of our competitors have been in a difficult situation. Whether because of their presence in Ukraine or whether due to market condition, we have gained market share at good margin level, and this business is growing significantly. Also to be noticed in that segment, strong growth in the mobility. Mobility is mainly aerospace, shipbuilding and rolling stock. We see a growth in that segment that continues, and no sign of, I would say, pressure on backlog at that stage, and we are quite confident that we'll see later for the remaining part of the semester.
Other activities, again, is made of two parts, the metallurgy part that I explained, which is explaining the bulk of the decrease in organic growth, part of our strategy to reduce our metallurgy business. The telecom business that we will be divesting within the second quarter, which is now moved, I would say, for the most part into the other activity business. A small portion of that has been also transferred to the generation and transmission business, which is the one, the fiber part that is included part of the high voltage cables. If I move now to page number seven, I turn on to Chris.
Thank you. That's just some highlight on generation and transmission situations in terms of CapEx and backlog. We were, three weeks ago, we were in Halden with GC to have a complete review of the CapEx. Everything is on track. The two new lines are very well in progress that were set. We'll be ready to start beginning of 2024. The extension as well in Charleston, we were there last week, is running very well.
Once again, we believe that organic growth through expansion of an existing plant is certainly the least expensive model because this expansion will bring us another EUR 340 million revenue when it will run at full pace with limited extra fixed cost. Regarding the backlog, healthy backlog. We know that we don't have the biggest backlog of the sectors. We are not running to be the biggest. What is important for us is to be a very healthy backlog on the line in terms of our three pillars that have been shown on page five, means margin yield, technological fit, and with limited contractual terms exposure. Let me repeat as well, because I'm sure you will have questions, that we don't want to be the first to book.
We like to be more at the best level of selection of contract. Some awards to come, we are very confident about it in coming weeks. Here, you see the on the right side of the slide, the main project in backlog. When we were in Charleston last week, we have seen the full and positive start of the Revolution project and as well the loading of the Seagreen project for Ørsted. Everything is running according to plan in regards to this project in Charleston.
If I turn now to page eight, I think it's important that the financial community get the message regarding the fact that we don't see Usages business as a commodity business anymore. Even of course the visibility is more limited than others. Let me give you again the big numbers, the big picture on this page eight. We see the building cable market that we call Usages, with a global demand growing of more than 3.6% per year. The market was about EUR 50 billion in 2019. We see that in 2030 at EUR 81 billion. There is many drivers, but if I may highlight the underlying trends, we see five of them.
The electricity consumption will grow by 20% by 2030. The new build and the renovation acceleration. Just keep in mind that 40, 53% of the building have been built before 1970. That required a very in-depth renovation. New safety regulation with mainly in Europe and partly in South America, but gaining into traction. Let me elaborate a bit more further on. Of course, the electrical network re-reliability and the fact that you need more and more power output for residential and infrastructure businesses.
As well, the new elements that are underlying this usage market, which is the electrical vehicle charging station that you need in the car park, the solar panel, the heat pumps, and all these new usages that drive more electricity within the building, therefore more demand for cable. Let me highlight now the safety regulation. I will not comment the video that will come after next this slide. Safety cables, which is a shift from PVC to HFFR cable is keep growing with organic growth of 13% per year. We see the market roughly in 2021 about EUR 3 billion to shift to EUR 9 billion of potential revenue for just fire safety technology.
For the last four years, we have accelerated the shift in terms of production towards fire safety versus PVC cable. The second momentum is that we have much more protection on three barriers for fire safety cable. We have just for Nexans more than 150 patents. Of course, this protection is yielding margin upwards. It give us a significant premium versus traditional PVC commodity business. We are able to add up a new service-based revenue model with, as I mentioned in my introduction, with connected object link with the fire safety, I will say, promotion on amplification.
After we as well, as we want to become top leaders in the electrification field, we prioritize through the new builds with high safety standards. Means we reallocate more our production capacity for the verticals that require the most, this fire safety element, like data centers, school and hospital, and as well, big building renovation. That's the trend that we are following. This is why we keep reinforcing our premium on our margin yield in that sectors. You will see, I think you will be very at ease when the financial will come up later on this year, that this is obviously a good move.
Let me express this, technology shift through a video that we have just made for this occasion, and let me launch the video. Video.
Fire safety starts with cables. Today, one fire breaks out every two minutes in Europe. At the same time, the demand for energy is constantly increasing. The expected rise in electricity consumption is more than 20% by 2030, and with it, an increased risk of electrical fires. Cables present in large quantities in the structure of building installations can be a decisive asset for the safety of property and people.
The reliability of electrical network is a top priority of our innovation roadmap and is mandatory for the energy transition. What does it mean for a building market? To deploy innovative solution as a protection against electrical fire and to replace PVC commodity cables.
Technologies to prevent fire risks exist and can increase the reliability and protection of buildings. Prevent the start of a fire, reduce toxic smoke, slow down the spread of flames.
Nexans has a long experience, a deep technology expertise, a huge capacity of innovation in the field of electrical fire protection.
These technologies are developed at the Nexans AmpaCity Innovation Center in Lyon. 100 researchers, 150 patents, 1,000 test simulations. Nexans Fire Safety technological solution reduces the growth of a fire by five to 10 times compared to current solutions. Visibility is improved by a factor of 10 compared to traditional PVC products. Low fire hazard cables reduce the appearance of smoke and acidic gases for safer evacuation. Fire-resistant cables maintain the integrity of electrical systems for more than two hours at temperatures of plus 1,000 degrees Celsius.
Protection against electrical fires is an absolute necessity to save lives, to save homes, to save money. It does represent billions of EUR of economic losses. The next five years, we'll see a real technological shift from the old PVC commodity cable to the halogen-free, smoke-free, non-spreading technology. This will bring a much better reliability of electrical network in buildings.
We already have the solutions and technological advantages. We are committed to making buildings, hospitals, schools safer. This is how we electrify the future.
Voilà, for the video on the fire safety. We're happy to take all, any kind of question related to that technology. Let's now shift to page nine. We wanted to highlight a bit the visibility that we have for the first half. Difficult to predict for all the year except certainly for G&T. Let me elaborate for Q2, our visibility for Q2. Well, I think nothing to elaborate much on Generation and Transmission. Now we are, we are fully booked on with the exception of Asia in our plant in Japan. Certainly part of your question. Regarding distribution, our businesses on our equipment are fully saturated. We have already the order for Q2, so no negative trend there.
In Usage, I think you all have followed that the residential is weakening in some parts of the world, mainly U.S., slightly Europe. The main most of it is offset by industrial infrastructure, positive trend. We have a slight slowdown in Q2 in terms of market environment, but a pretty good visibility in terms of financial output for the semester. We are very positive in that regard, specifically on the fact that the pricing remain very high. As well, we keep developing our solution on our technology shift to fire safety that contribute positively to this margin output. Regarding automotive harnesses, a very strong trend.
The shift to electrical hybrid cars on electrical vehicle is very, very sustainable on the long term. We are fully booked. You have seen as well that one of our competitors have major difficulties so that gives us opportunity to grow even more. Regarding the other industrial, GC already mentioned the very strong positive start of the industry business. The backlog is very, very solid. We have more than just the first semester as a visibility. So far for the first semester, pretty good. That give more visibility for the guidance that I will turn now to GC.
Thank you, Chris. For in terms of guidance, we are at that stage, end of the first quarter of 2023 confirming the guidance on EBITDA and on normalized free cash flow, EUR 570-600 for EBITDA, EUR 150-250 million for the normalized free cash flow. As you've seen from Chris' presentation, we start to have a very good visibility on the second quarter and, I would say a good level of comfort on the first semester of the year. Obviously, like we are continue to be in quite uncertain environment. We have obviously a situation with opportunities, tailwinds and headwinds, also some areas a little bit more shaky, I would say.
On the tailwind side, I mean, definitely the transition is moving forward. As you see the growth I described on the distribution with utilities is a very strong signal about the renewal of the grid, and that will continue. Definitely the market are quite dynamic. The transformation model, you will see we don't report here, earnings, but you will see in the first semester release that we have a solid improvement in the margin that continues through our transformation platform. The other growth, which is also a backlog growing significantly, I would say, in the generation and transmission business that will basically continue to grow hopefully in the coming weeks with new orders.
On the, I would say, more risk level, geopolitical and economic environment, I mean, that is true for us like it is for most companies. We've seen, as I said, a slight decrease in the extremely booming market that was North America usages in 2022. A little bit, slight decrease of volume at the end of the 1st quarter. We probably see also this decrease continue 2nd quarter. Just to be reassuring, the level we continue to see on that business in terms of volume is much, much higher than it was before 2022. Continue to be very strong and prices have not moved downwards. Despite, I would say, softening in the demand in the residential market, pricing remain extremely strong.
With our transformation platform, we believe that we will continue to improve margin. Last but not least, generation and transmission. We see some pressures on the margin of our contract due to various situation, mainly some inflation costs that are not fully passed through on the project that we got into the backlog before the inflation prices increased. That is impacting a little bit the margin of the business. We have also some hump up cost in Charleston. It's a new plant. It's performing, but there's been some hump up cost and impacting some of the contract. Obviously, as you know, we are still waiting for the confirmation of some significant awards that would also, depending on the timing, could have an impact.
Globally, this is a picture in terms of the guidance confirmed on both KPIs as well with the, I would say, strong visibility we have for the first semester. Thank you, GC. We can open the line for the question.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question from the queue, please press star two. Again, please press star one to ask a question. We will take the first question from Miguel Borrega from BNP Paribas Exane.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I would like to start with usages. You say that you see a normalization in North America. Sales were down 19% here, but you still talk about favorable pricing. Can you break it down, volumes and pricing? How much is pricing down sequentially from Q4, for example? Where could we see margins go in this business? I know you also have some internal measures to offset the cyclical tailwinds. If we were to exclude your internal measures, where would you say that margins would go? Maybe back to where they were before, around 6%, or do you see margin not going back to normalized levels? Thank you.
A very detailed question, Miguel, we will not comment because it's too much detail to give externally on our side. What I can tell you is that we've seen the residential market reducing, offset by the industrial demand on commercial demand. There is still a significant demand there. In terms of pricing, I will say you know that we were the only one to say that there is a massive conjunctural effect due to a pricing effect on the residential market. We have not seen yet any declines of those price. We still have the same carryover than 2022.
So why we are very confident, at least for the first semester, Miguel, to comfort a bit your risk view, is that we benefited right now to both our first structural effect output, but thanks to our three innovation that we have launched in North America, specifically the CANADEX product, plus all the services around it, on top the carryover of the conjunctural effect. We have right now a pretty, very, very significant profit level right now in North America.
I'm just a little bit confused because I think JC talked about the slight decrease in volumes and continuing into Q2. Is that for the whole of usages or North America specifically? Sales are down 19%. If you assume pricing is still positive or slightly down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, sorry, Miguel, I was maybe not clear enough. The 90 decrease that we see in usages is mainly, in fact, we have a little bit in South America, slight decrease, but the bulk part of the decrease is coming from North America. I remind you that the level of North America last year when you compare to the first quarter of 2022, the increase was almost double of 100% growth in that segment, in that region versus the normalized level of the past. Even if you get a 19% decrease quarter-on-quarter on usages North America, it remains at very high level. The prices have not changed. Remain at the same level than they were in 2022.
It's slightly less in volume, still very strong, but the same level of prices. The mix is very positive, continues to be very positive.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Akash Gupta from J.P. Morgan.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody. I have two questions, please. The first one is on North America, and I'm wondering, both for distribution and usages, if you can help us provide some breakdown at country level and also, if possible, at more regional level that whether you are more exposed to East Coast, West Coast or South, Southeast or Midwest, for example. The second question I have is on timing of closing of telecom systems divestments, where previously you said you expect this by end of H1, but today I don't see any timelines. Maybe if you can update when you expect this divestment to be closed. Thank you.
The exposition on getting your first question, Akash, the exposition is one-third residential, two-third infrastructure and commercial on Canada mainly. It's not East, West Coast. It's, we are 80% Canadian market focused, not U.S. focused. Regarding the telecom disposal, yeah, we confirm H1 as the timeline of the closing.
Thank you.
Thank you, Akash. Next question.
The next question comes from George Featherstone from Bank of America.
Hi, morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. I'd just like to start please on G&T. I wonder if you could first give an update on how things are progressing with EuroAsia. When would we expect that sort of move from preferred supplier agreement into more firm backlog? I think you mentioned, and just call it at the end, that your high voltage margin, the backlog was a bit under pressure from inflation pressures. I just wanted to sort of understand that comment a little bit. Is this sort of a significant impact you're seeing or can you help frame it for us? That'd be super helpful. Thanks.
Thank you, George. Maybe Vincent, you can elaborate regarding where we stand on the EuroAsia.
Yeah. Well, EuroAsia, as you have mentioned, we have indeed this preferred supplier agreement. It's a quite complex and large project involving different countries. The project is secure technically on our side because it's a quite a specific one with very depth installation. The project is also currently under closing indeed with financing, which is a mix, as you know, of EU and the different actors of the region. Today we are close to the end. To be honest, we are not the one leading the show in the construction, we expect indeed the closure of the deal in Q2.
We are not in control to be crystal clear of the process.
Regarding the margin, shown on GNT.
Yes.
Your comment is?
The situation is, try to describe in my conclusion slide on the headwinds within the business is that, we've seen some of the contracts that entered the backlog before the inflation surged, meaning 2018, 2019, 2020. Which are under execution as we speak, have not a full pass-through of all the cost components. Obviously, raw material are completely pass-through, but you have some items-
Like civil works, for example.
Civil works, some situation on wages, energy that not necessarily are completely pass-through or indexed, I would say, through the life of the contract. Since we've seen this significant inflation over the past 24 months, there are some impact. We are obviously in discussion with our customers, but since it is a discussion, it's not part of the contract. There are some impact on the margins. On those projects we are basically performing or manufacturing as we speak. That's, I would say, one of the impact, and that's what I tried to describe on here. The second one that we see in terms of generation and transmission margin is the, I would say, the ramp up of Charleston.
You know that, and I'm sure Vincent can elaborate more on better on this than me. Basically Charleston has been now since last year ramping up. It's a new plant. We have successfully produced now two major contract. Since it's a new plant, there are obviously some, I would say, more testing, more situation of, you set up the machine, you go through the first batch production of the project, there are a little bit of inefficiency, which is normal, I would say, for any new operating facilities. We see that also on some of the projects that have been manufactured in Charleston. We believe it's a one-off. We believe that we are making progress and the plant will stabilize shortly.
I would say I have to say that there will be some light impact. The last I would say situation that is also putting pressure on the G&T margin is the timing of some of the big awards. You talked, we talked about EuroAsia. We were scheduling, we were planning on having EuroAsia in the backlog at the end of the first semester, 2023. Right now, this thing has been moving. It's a moving target to us. We hope that it will come soon, but I have to report that if this is further delayed, there could be some impact on the margin. That's basically what I wanted to describe in terms of pressure on the margin on the business.
One is timing, the other one are more, one-off situation, that will be clean in the coming months.
Maybe to precise on Charleston ramp up, to make it very simple, is that we have sized the organization of the plant in order to secure the ramp up. Indeed, we are consequently having a kind of structure and orientation which is bigger than the one that we need for the current volume. Of course, we anticipate the full run of the plant, which will be by the end of this year, beginning of next year, in order to be prepared. Somehow you have compared to a plant like Halden, which is 45 years of experience, the efficiency is by definition lower. That's basically the element, as was mentioned by GC.
We see month after month, the good progression of the productivity and efficiency, which is, I would say a normal ramp up for a plant which is the unique one in a new territory. Of course, the ramp up of Halden next year will be completely different because we will be an existing environment with just an add-on of activity.
Well, George, any other questions?
Couple of things. I can just follow up a few points on this before we move to the next question. Obviously that was just, that was a really in-depth answer, so thank you for that. Firstly, can you just let us know the portion of your backlog that you think is exposed in terms of those inflationary pressures? It sounds like there was a point in which you started to include more indexation in contracts, and maybe that's also in the backlog. If you can just sort of break out the mix there. Also in terms of the margin for GNT this year, I think you've previously said that it would be similar to last year. Is that including these comments and these effects that you've mentioned with Charleston ramp and the inflation pressure too?
Is this something incremental to that prior comment?
Okay, we'll take the first question regarding the backlog. Regarding the inflation cost is very related to contract that have been signed before the end of 2019. We have revised, as you know, we have been pretty vocal on it, in 2020, all our contract conditions on as well to protect the margin. I would say that the part which is still exposed to massive inflation effect is now very limited. I would say less than 10%.
Regarding the margin effect.
The margin effect, yes. This is, I would say, on top of what we said, last year. The margin expected for, I mean, for the first semester will be lower than the margin of last semester.
Okay. For the full year too?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you very much for confirming that. Just, my sort of second question and last one, just on usages, coming back to a couple of points, could you remind us the split you have in North America resi versus non-resi? And then also in that, what I would probably call quite a significant decline, of nearly 19% year-over-year, is there any distributed destocking in that, or is it just underlying activity slowing?
Well, as we already answered to Akash, we have one third to residential, two third on non-residential. We are more Canadian market focused than U.S. focused. There is no destocking effect specific for the Q1. Our units are fully loaded right now.
Okay. You used to give a backlog for that business, but I noticed you've stopped providing that data. Could you give us a, an update on where that is year-over-year and sequentially?
Yeah, we don't. I think compared to our competition, we were, we've seen that we were giving a lot of datas that we sometimes not play in our favor. You have the tracking of our visibility on the Q2, so you, that we elaborate on page nine. That's the only information you will get. The only thing I can tell you is that we have a good visibility for the first semester.
Okay. Thanks a lot, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ciao.
The next question comes from Nancy Nee from Goldman Sachs.
Hi. Good morning. I just wanted to, again, sort of focusing on G&T. I think in the last quarter, you know, we've seen a few sort of large awards from TenneT and also kind of Biscay Bay going to some of your peers. I'm just wondering, were you not interested in these awards, or was it that they weren't deemed sort of platinum for you to go after? In that case, sort of which are the platinum projects that we should be tracking? Sort of you could, if you could help shed some light on that. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Regarding the, you know, there was two significant award that RTE was supposed to distribute. We get the first one, Celtic, in a standalone supplier agreement. That's the one we targeted, and they have decided to split the Bay of Biscay into lots to Christian and NTT. I would say that I think everybody have received the part of the cake. Regarding TenneT, I'm not able to elaborate because we're in tendering stance period right now. The frame agreement that TenneT is putting on the sector is massive, the biggest ever. We are part of the race.
There is some great element in that frame agreement that we pursue. We will see if we are able to be part of this frame as well. More to come. Thank you.
Okay. Understood. Thank you.
The next question comes from Jean-François Granjon from ODDO BHF.
Yes. Thank you. Good morning. You have also answered to my question, but nevertheless, I would come back on the G&T business to see how well I understand. You expect a lower margin for the first half compared with the second half last year. Do you expect also a lower margin for the full year? For G&T, what would be the mix between offshore wind business and interconnection expected for this, for this year? Due to this new point, I think, due to this more cautious appreciation for the G&T, do you are more comfortable with the low-end range of the guidance for the full year? My second question concerns the integration of Reka Cables. As you mentioned, the EBITDA levels are lower compared with the group.
What do you expect in term of improvement for the Reka Cables in the coming quarters for the company? Thank you.
Let me take the last part. We are not able to comment Reka for the moment because the closing is imminent in few days, but I cannot elaborate more. Maybe, Vincent, regarding the mix, even if we never disclose the mix, the G&T business.
No, it's true that we don't disclose the mix, but I would say if you take out the umbilical, as we say, because we are exiting, the mix between interconnectors and the offshore wind farm would be quite stable this year with the assumption of course, EuroAsia starting as already mentioned by J.C. before. Yeah, you will see the same pattern that the one we had in 2022, which is more project on the wind offshore, revenue from project on the backlog on the wind offshore than on the interconnection. Obviously, if we had, the sooner we enter into the backlog of EuroAsia-
The more it will, I would say, increase the interconnection part. That's what I said, versus a year before 2022 where we had a strong, I would say, execution on interconnection contract, namely with Crete project. We have lesser of that, and we are more executing contracts like Revolution and, like we had in 2022, Seagreen in 2022 and so on, which are more, win of course. The mix, I would say, remains in 2023, similar as 2022.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Eric Lemarié from CIC.
Yes. Hi, good morning. I got three questions, if I may. The first one on the sales of the shares from Invexans. Have you been surprised by this sale? Did you have any conversations with Invexans before this sale? Do you have any indications that they could sell more share in the future? Second question regarding the umbilical business. Could you remind us when does the decision to exit that business was taken? Because I missed that. The last question, still on residential market. Could you tell us what is your global exposure to the residential market? Within the residential market, I suspect you're probably more exposed to the renovation than to the new residential market.
Can you tell us that? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. We missed the.
There was
regarding the guidance.
There was a last question from Jean-François regarding the guidance I forgot to answer, and, before I answered, we answer to your question. In terms of guidance, right now, it's a little bit early to narrow and comment more on the guidance. This is why we confirm the guidance. We will likely come back with, I would say, a more precise view of the guidance during our half year presentation. What I can tell you today is that we are confident that we are well positioned in that guidance, the way we see the year as of today, which, when I say that, it's a midpoint or above midpoint of the guidance.
Hello. Let's go to your first question regarding Invexans, and this is certainly why, Nino Cusimano, our General Counsel, has been invited. Nino.
Yes.
Will you-
Yes, I'm here. Sure. Thank you very much for your question. I think the direct answer is, of course, no, we were not. They were selling. There is a healthy segregation between what our shareholders do with their assets and the company. You know, for the future, our shareholders in that sense have themselves declared that they will remain a reference shareholder, so we have no reason to believe that the situation will change in future.
Yeah. We were not aware anyway. Regarding umbilical, the umbilical is produced in Halden plant. So there is the decision has been taken two years ago with the expansion to decomplexify the Halden to leave more room for the offshore on interconnection lines on. Because this umbilical project, which is roughly a EUR 20 million-EUR 50 million revenue per project, is creating more complexity than it brings margin. So that's the reason that we have launched a restructuring two years ago. And we are now at the end of the tail of production for this umbilical to start 2024 with a double size of Halden fully loaded with interconnection subsea on the offshore wind farm.
Regarding residential market, we don't give all the details regarding the split between residential and on infrastructure. The only, I think that, you maybe need to reset the model is be careful. Take into account the five drivers that I mentioned on the page nine, which is a higher demand of electricity, bigger size of sections demand, a new safety regulation that shifts to technological shift, as well a new pattern of growth with electrical charging station. It cannot be seen as just a residential only trend on the commercial and infrastructure demand. There is five main underlying trends that will change the model of this market in the coming years. Please take that into account.
This is why we have highlighted them today in the slide.
Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you. We still have a question?
Yeah. We'll now take a follow-up question from Miguel Borrega from BNP Paribas Exane.
Yes. Thank you. Just to follow up on the delay of EuroAsia, if that impacts in any way the free cash flow guidance. Does it matter if you're awarded the project in Q2 or Q3 or Q4? I know it must be meaningful if you're awarded in 2024, by quarters, does it change anything to your free cash flow guidance? Thank you.
Definitely, I mean, when we get, when we get this, when we get into the backlog, this massive order, there is about 10% down payment associated to the contract. When you talk about 1 billion plus contract value, The day we get the contract, an impact on the cash quarter and the semester quarter, definitely. Right now, the way we've seen that, it's into my guidance for the cash for the year. We have also other big projects that we are basically bidding on.
We have not put all the down payment in the guidance. We assume to get one big down payment through one of the big contract on which we are bidding to part of that guidance of the cash flow, meaning a down payment in excess of EUR 100 million. Definitely, the timing on when we enter the contract will have obviously consequential impact on the quarter of the cash flow, on the quarter or on the semester. Sure.
Yeah. Stay tuned on Q2. I'm sure we'll have positive news on those, on that. Too early to say for the moment.
Thank you. I think this is the end of the call. We have no more questions. Thanks for your attention. I'm looking forward for our next financial comments for H1. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.