Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Nordex Full Year Figures 2024 Conference Call. I am Valentina, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing Star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press Star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Anja Siehler. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Valentina, and also a very warm welcome from the Nordex team in Hamburg. Thank you for joining the Q4 2024 Nordex Conference Call. As always, we ask you to take notice of our safe harbor statements. With me are our CEO, José Luis Blanco, and our CFO, Ilya Hartmann, who will lead you through the presentation. Afterwards, we will open the floor for your questions. And now I would like to hand over to our CEO, José Luis. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the introduction, Anja. On behalf of the Management Board, I would like to welcome you here as well from Hamburg. As you know, I have assumed the role of Chief Sales Officer since Patxi decided to take on a new role within the organization. First, let me start looking back where we stand on our path towards profitable growth. Three years ago, we communicated our plan to becoming a profitable company. Today, I can proudly say that we have made solid progress since that moment.
We have been able to weather volatile times of 2021 and 2022 with supply chain disruptions, high inflation, and on top of a cyber incident with the support of all of our stakeholders, including you all, and we have delivered a massive improvement.
Over this period, our revenue grew by 14%, EBITDA margins recovered and stabilized, and we are now generating a robust cash flow. This gives us a solid platform for the future, and we hope to keep delivering further improvements in 2025 and 2026. Moving to the next slide, let me talk about our progress in 2024. In a nutshell, we met all our financial and operational targets, fully achieving our guidance. In detail, first, we had a record order intake in 2024, resulting in a record high order book of EUR 12.8 billion, and with strong momentum in both the service and the project business.
Second, our service business continues to grow stronger with higher revenues and improved EBIT margins. Third, we have consistently improved both our absolute EBITDA and EBITDA margin throughout the year, ending with an exit EBITDA margin of 4.89%.
Finally, in 2024, we achieved a robust free cash flow of EUR 271 million and a net cash position of EUR 848 million. Based on our financial performance in 2024, we are reiterating our medium-term EBITDA margin target of 8%. Moving on, operationally, I'm pleased to announce that Nordex remains the third largest onshore player worldwide in terms of order intake, excluding China, and this achievement reflects the solid and consistent performance of our sales and project teams over the years.
In EMEA, we remain number one for the first time in a row in Americas. We have been able to improve our market share, mainly driven by the Canadian orders, and we hope to improve our position further. Overall, these positions in Nordex are very well for the future. Let me come to the operational details on the next slide.
2024 was a year of a record order intake, with a very strong order intake of 3.3GW in Q4, overall order intake to a total of 8.3GW, a growth of 12% year on year. This corresponds to EUR 7.5 billion in value and comes from across 24 countries. Strongest individual markets were Germany, Türkiye, Canada, Spain, South Africa, among many others. Pricing continued to remain stable. ASP stands at EUR 0.9 million per megawatt year to date, up from EUR 0.85 one year earlier.
Without guiding for 2025, we remain very confident on order momentum and expect our order intake to be better in 2025 compared to 2024. Moving on, on the back of a strong order intake in both segments, our total order book continued to grow with a total of EUR 12.8 billion.
Thereof, the turbine order book increased by 13% to EUR 7.8 billion in 2024 compared to EUR 6.9 billion in 2023. Out of this order book, the majority of orders will be installed in Europe, followed by North America, the rest of the world, and Latin America. On the service side, our order book increased by 37% year on year, reaching almost EUR 5 billion by the end of December. This growth primarily reflects the expansion of our turbine business over the past two years across multiple regions, which is now contributing to the service order book.
Additionally, portfolio effects and higher pricing have also played a significant role. So let's move to the service business on the next slide. The key message here is that we are on track, and margins keep improving as previously anticipated. Service revenue grew by 15%, reaching EUR 777 million in 2024.
As previously communicated, EBIT margins have started to improve and are on track to return to our normal margin levels of around 18% to 19% in the next 12 to 18 months. We expect our revenue to increase further at a healthy pace, driven by an expanding service order book with longer tenors and increased installation activities. Regarding other service KPIs, the average lease availability was stable at 97%, and the average tenor of the service contract increased to around 12 years.
Our strength in service is also underpinned by being ranked as number one for the fourth consecutive year in the service satisfaction survey of the German Wind Energy Association. Let's move to the next slide to talk about installations and production figures.
Installations of 6.5GW in 2024 are in line with expectations, down by around 8% compared to the previous year level, and this is mainly driven by customers' schedules. This reduction is primarily due to, as I mentioned, project schedules and minor customer-side delays. Important, we did not experience any significant delays or liquidated damages beyond our normal operations.
We installed a total of 1,227 wind turbines, with the majority of installation occurring in Europe, followed by Latin America. On the production side, turbine assembly decreased by 5%, totaling 1,312 turbines assembled. Late production increased by 17%, with a split of 28% in-house production, 72% outsourced. Now I would like to hand over to Ilya to discuss with you financials.
Thank you, José Luis. And as always, I will guide us through our latest financial figures, starting with the income statement. 2024 was a strong year for Nordex, achieving EUR 7.3 billion in sales compared to EUR 6.5 billion in the previous year. This is an increase of over 12%.
The sustained momentum, especially in the last quarter, was primarily driven by better-priced orders, growth in our service revenues, and increased activity levels in our factories, as mentioned by José Luis. Gross margin reached 21% in full year 2024, up from 15.2% in the previous year. We continue to deliver strong gross margins, with Q4 reaching 23% compared to 18.6% in the Q4 of the year before. As a result, we achieved an absolute EBITDA of EUR 296 million in the reporting year compared to break-even last year.
This represents a significant margin improvement from around 0% last year to plus 4.1% in 2024, which is slightly above the upper end of our guidance range, as we had already indicated in our last call back in November. Looking on a quarterly basis, absolute EBITDA was EUR 107 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 4.9% in the last quarter of the past year. Given the strong margin performance we've seen, we've also been able to generate for the first time in years a net profit, in that case, EUR 9 million for 2024. With that, let's move us to the balance sheet. So the overall structure remains strong and has improved compared to the previous year-end.
We ended the year with a very solid cash position of over EUR 1.1 billion, and additionally, we have that cash facility of EUR 80 million, so the total liquidity levels stood at around EUR 1.2 billion at the end of the year. Beyond that, there's not much to add about the balance sheet. Working capital is in line with our guidance expectations, which I will talk about on the next slide, and the equity ratio is at a comparable level to the previous year. So as said, moving on to the working capital, ratio stood at minus 9.1%, in absolute numbers at minus EUR 663 million at the end of the year, and so we did meet our guided number of below minus 9%.
The improvement in the working capital development in the last quarter was predominantly driven by high production activity levels and the strong, very strong order intake momentum in the final weeks of the year. That brings me exactly to that part of the presentation, which is the cash flow, and here to mention that the cash flow from operating activities before net working capital stood at EUR 512 million at the end of the reporting year, demonstrating a strong year-on-year improvement in that category.
With marginal changes only in the working capital, cash flow from operating activities amounted to EUR 430 million at the end of the year, and of course, clearly above the previous year's level. Cash flow from investing activities were around minus EUR 159 million at the end of the year, slightly higher than in the previous year, but lower than our initial planning.
I will address this development in a few moments when we look at our investment slide. So as a result, we achieved a strong positive free cash flow of EUR 271 million for 2024, and this very much reflects what we already communicated with our Q3 numbers in November last year. Let me highlight again that in contrast to last year, our free cash flow was driven by changes in working capital.
In 2024, free cash flow did reflect the strength of the operational business. And as just indicated, we move on to the investment slide. CapEx spendings were around EUR 42 million in the last quarter, bringing our total CapEx spendings for the full year to EUR 153 million. That was a lower level than we had initially planned.
It's mainly because of a combination of stricter monitoring and cash controls on our spending and a combination of typical project cycles where some spending was carried forward into the new reporting year. However, the focus of our investments in 2024 largely remained the same. Main priorities were the investments into blade and the self-production facilities and tooling for installations and transports, including some of it in the reactivating of our Iowa plant in the US and the development of our US-tailored turbine type. From the financials, I'm going for the financial chapter.
I'm going to the last slide now, which is the capital structure. As already indicated in our last call, we saw another step up in our net cash level towards the year-end, now totaling EUR 848 million, and the equity ratio stood at 17.7%, and on a very comparable level as it was at the end of 2023.
That brings me to one more slide for me, and that is the sustainability development in Nordex. So as we can see here on the slide, last year we continued to progress in implementing our sustainability strategy, and let me highlight a few key points there. After submitting science-based targets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we have now received the Science-Based Targets Initiative approval for our short and long-term targets. We successfully achieved our goal of continuously reducing the frequency of lost-time injury, reaching an LTIF ratio of 1.45 for full year 2024.
This marks a significant reduction of over 50% from the 2021 baseline. We've now joined the UN Global Compact, underscoring our commitment to aligning our operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.
And so in line with our ESG rating roadmap, we are performing well in key ratings for Nordex customers, investors, and other stakeholders. On our sustainability strategy activities, our ongoing and will initiate further actions throughout this year and beyond. Finally, let me also add that we have published our first CSRD sustainability statement integrated in this year's report to further promote transparency around ESG topics. And with this, I'll hand it back to José Luis.
Thank you very much, Ilya, for guiding us through the financials. Let me now cover our performance against the guidance for the year. As mentioned before, we met all of our guidance parameters with stable performance through the quarters. Revenue was at the midpoint of the guidance range, as we had indicated before. EBITDA margin of 4.1% was slightly above the top end of the range, and both working capital and CapEx are in line with our guidance. Moving on, let me now set the tone for 2025 and beyond. First, I would like to take the opportunity to share our views on the key demand drivers for our industry.
We believe electricity demand across Europe and Americas will continue to grow for several years on the back of a growing wave of decarbonization, the surging of electricity demand from data centers, from electrification of the economy, transportation, and so on. In this scenario, onshore wind will play a crucial role because it remains one of the cheapest options in many regions. It can be built more quickly than any other on some other alternatives. It is flexible and scalable and strengthens energy independence.
Finally, according to the latest IEA report, electricity consumption is expected to increase by 4% annually between 2025 and 2027, and renewables, including wind power, will account for about 95% of this additional growth. This highlights the critical role of wind energy will continue to play in the energy mix for the years to come.
Moving on, let's now have a detailed look at the wind demand forecasts in the regions where we operate. Industry forecasts predict markets to grow in the short to medium term despite some noise and uncertainties in some countries. As you can see in the chart, Nordex has built a leading position in Europe, and we hope to benefit from this as the European markets continue to grow on the back of Germany, France, the UK, Türkiye, Eastern Europe, Nordics, and Spain.
In the Americas, we continue to expect decent volume on the back of our position in Canada. We expect some traction as well in the US as well as in Latin American markets. In addition, we also continue to remain optimistic about markets like Australia that we want to further develop.
Based on our robust order intake, our pole position in Europe, expected order intake, we believe that we can continue to capitalize on market opportunities, which gives me a good intro to the next slide, which is the guidance for 2025. We expect 2025 to be another year in which we will show continuous improvements. Based on our order book, our project timelines, the expected order intake, we expect sales to range between EUR 7.4 to 7.7 billion.
EBITDA margin is projected to see another substantial step up, as previously anticipated, reaching between 5% and 7%. We expect working capital to remain around this year's level, staying at -9%. Capex spending is anticipated to be slightly higher than 2024, around EUR 200 million.
And while we do not provide a specific free cash flow guidance, we are confident that we will achieve another free cash flow positive year when considering some provision outflows in 2025. And with this, let me come to my last slide before we open for Q&A. At the beginning of my presentation, I mentioned that we are fully on track to our path to an 8% EBITDA margin target. Let me explain the key factors that give us this confidence.
First, legacy orders were fully completed in 2024, and hence, we do not expect any further drag on our operational margin in 2025 anymore. Second, we are improving our execution in an environment that is less affected by external shocks. Third, we continue to improve our service EBIT margins. And finally, in an operating leverage business, additional volumes are crucial to further increase margins.
Let me also note here that we see enough visibility in our broader pipeline today, even without a big boost from the US market. This gives us sufficient confidence to reach our midterm margin target. While the US market offers an extra layer of security, it is not a must-have to deliver our 8% EBITDA margin target. And with this, I hand over to Anja to open for Q&A.
Thank you, gentlemen, for leading us through the presentation. I would now like to ask the operator, Valentina, to open the Q&A session.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from John Kim from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for the opportunity. Three quick questions, if I may. If we go back and think about the cautious optimism and perhaps growth in the order intake outside of your core market of Germany, what sort of countries or what regions should we be focused on for that? I'll do them one at a time.
Yep. I see. Well, Germany is obvious. We haven't seen yet the booming of the German demand driven by big volume of permits, big volume of auctions, and big volume of expected auctions. So this is obvious that will grow for sure this year, next year as well, and eventually even 2027. We never had such a good visibility as the one we have now for the German market. But on top of that, we expect growth in all European markets where we operate, where we managed to position the company as one of the leaders with 40% market share.
And we see growth in Baltics. We see growth in Türkiye. We expect as well, despite the low electricity prices, volume coming from Nordics. We expect growth in Spain maybe this year or next year. The Mediterranean will be stable. UK and Ireland is slightly delayed, but it's expected the market to grow in 2026 and 2027, so this is talking about Europe. Outside Europe, Canada. We are optimistic about Canada, and we really want to develop Australia, as well as, you know, our ambition to develop the US with our traditional market share that we used to have. That, as I mentioned, as a safety net to deliver our targets.
Okay, very helpful. On service orders, you had some extraordinary growth in Q2, Q3, Q4 year-on-year. I'm just wondering how repeatable that is. So what sort of growth rates or shape of order intake could we expect from service this year?
I think, well, this year with the visibility we have as of today, we expect another good year, potentially better year in order intake with all the disclaimers because, you know, we don't guide for order intake, but we are optimistic. It will be a slow ramp-up of the year after the final run in Q4 and slowly picking up to repeat another good year, eventually a better year.
Great, helpful. Last question. Clean Industrial Deal announced yesterday. What do you see as the most salient points for your business?
I was very happy to see that the Clean Industrial Deal addresses the topic and addresses the topic in a quite, I would say, reasonable and fact-based way. I think it's obvious that Europe cannot rely on energy sources that we don't have. So we cannot rely our future on importing gas that, first, is expensive. Second, is volatile. This was clearly stated that the future for Europe is homemade energy production, which means renewables.
On top of that, I was very happy to see that there is a real and clear push for electrification with financial instruments supporting industries to electrify faster. I was happy to see as well initiatives to foster power purchase agreement market development, and as always, very happy to see that policy wants to address one of the key topics or two of the key topics, which is permitting and grid.
Permitting in Germany is a clear success case of what fast implementation of European policy can do to the country and to the economy and to our industry. So all in all, very positive initiatives that support our business, our industry, creating more demand, investing in grids, facilitating permitting, and fostering more installation of renewables, especially onshore wind to supply this electrification priority for the continent. So very happy, and I think that sustains our long-term visibility that being market leader in this geography will support our mid-term growth story and profitability improvement story.
Great. Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Sebastian Growe from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sebastian, yeah. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be also quickly on demand. Considering, I think, that Germany alone should add about a gigawatt in order intake incrementally in the year 2025, would it be fair to see orders up to around 9GW plus in 2025? And how would that impact ASPs? And the last question around Germany would be for me, if I was right to assume that a good order entry level in Germany in the year 2025 would take visibility in this very market way into 2027 when it comes to execution for the related deliveries. If we could start there.
Yep. No, thank you very much for the question, Sebastian. I think, can we see 9GW? I mean, you know, we don't guide order intake. Last year, we did 8.3. With the visibility we have today, we think we can improve this year, and that's as far as I can go with the visibility I have today. Regarding ASPs, so far we see stability in the market. I mean, of course, many things might change over the year, but so far, so good. Regarding Germany, you nailed it. I think Germany needs to move from 3.5GW commissioning.
That year we were market leaders with one third of the market. It needs to move from 3.5GW to 10GW because the country is producing 14GW in permits. It's going to auction 10GW to 12GW this year. It's expected the same or similar numbers for 2026.
So this pipeline that first is going to triple the activity in the German market should give visibility for the company and for the market in Germany at least three years. I mean, because the order intake of this year will be delivered mainly 2026, 2027. The order intake of next year is going to be delivered part in 2026, 2027, and even 2028. So this should give sufficient long-term visibility and growth for our industry and for our company within the industry being one of the leaders or the leader. It's a nice position to be.
Yep. I couldn't agree more. Thanks for that, Karla. Then quickly to the bridge for 2024, 2025, and I would love to start on the EBITDA side. So on my math, the phase-out of legacy projects should add around 1 percentage point probably to the margin. There's probably another 1 percentage point tailwind likely from a normalization and improvement. So in other words, the midpoint of your 5% to 7% EBITDA margin range for this year is already covered by these two drivers.
So my question then is, provided that there are no delays, the upper half should rather be the base case scenario giving a better mix in projects and services. You have some tailwind from volume coming in. Am I missing anything here with that very rich discussion?
I think, no, generally, provided that there is a stable execution and we don't expect disruptions in supply chain, I think there is still some expected order intake with contribution in the year to generate revenue and margin. We don't expect any issue. We expect order intake to keep coming. But that's the biggest uncertainty we have, which is more on the revenue and the margin associated with the revenue. What can be other than that? Ilya, maybe.
No, I think that's the perfect explanation. I would probably be a bit more specific, Sebastian, on the two building blocks. While the first one, absence of legacy projects to those 100 basis points, yes. The decrease in provisions is probably a bit less in magnitude, but then yes, you have increase in service profitability again. So the building blocks are okay, but I think what Lisa is saying also, the year is still very young, and trade reliability has been very good over the past two, three years. But in the current environment and with the new US administration, you have also to be a bit cautious so early in the term.
No, appreciate that. That makes sense. And lastly, then very, very briefly, if I may, just on free cash flow and then a cash position, you indicated apparently that you would expect another positive free cash flow year in 2025. And you also think, or at least I think I heard it, you said or made a quick comment around provision-related cash outflow. So is it possible to give us a bit of a quantified idea around this related outflow? And well, I would have never thought I would ask the question at some point in time, probably. But nonetheless, it might be that you're approaching EUR 1 billion in net cash somewhere this year. So what are you going to do with that net cash?
So let me take that free cash flow question. I think José Luis will also give a first take on the net cash that Sebastian just assumes already for the end of the year, and we do this together. Yes, so on the free cash flow, we said it in the call. I think José Luis mentioned it in his speech that we again believe that you will render a decent, a significant positive free cash flow. We're not guiding for that number. I haven't been doing this in the past, but I think that statement we can do with confidence. And of course, very valid question, how much is that being influenced by the outflow in provisions? So remember, we've been saying this. I think I said it in the November call.
The CapEx and the rectifications when it comes to those legacy issues we have, think of them more distributed over a period of this year and the next two. So a total of three-year outflows. Probably the first year will be a bit more than the second year, and the second year a bit more than the third year, but it's going to be a distributed outflow and is accounted for when we make this positive Free Cash Flow statement.
On net cash at the year-end, that could be by the math you just did for us, could be the case. Let's see what we do. I mean, also, and there I let the CEO speak, but of course, there's the moment that the company also thinks not only about the capital allocation, but returning value to shareholders.
For this year, we say, despite all the good numbers, let's not forget that the net profit is there, but it is also "just EUR 9 million." So it is a question that we will address once that net cash that you described to us, which I believe could be the case, has really happened.
Nothing to compliment.
The next question comes from Sean McLoughlin from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Could I just follow up on Sebastian's question? Just looking at your annual report, I mean, first of all, there's a lot of cash flow before net working capital in the second half of the year. I see there's EUR 361 million of an increase in other liabilities, which are included, and that's a big increase from the previous year. It's about 200-plus million higher. Could you just walk us through what that is? Is this also a recurring element? Could we see some unwind in 2025, just thinking about some of the moving parts of that free cash flow? Thank you.
But Sean, again, I mean, the increase we gave you, and I'm not sure we're talking the same year, but the increase in those parts is in line with what we said back in November. And again, the outflows regarding to those will follow the pattern that I just described, if that is what you're getting at.
Okay. That is clear. Then I just wanted to ask as well on the US, thinking about the Iowa plants, which I guess in the context of a weaker US market, how should we think about, yeah, kind of fixed cost coverage?
Thank you for the question. As we mentioned, I mean, we were late in resuming our activities in the US with the right products, with the right factory, and so on. As a consequence, our exposure to the US is very limited. Nonetheless, we are fully committed with the market. And despite maybe temporary uncertainties on the market, our talks with customers are positive. Most of the customers are committed to the market.
They expect the market to keep being one of the biggest markets worldwide, and we want to be part of that. So we plan to continue with our Iowa plants. If the market delays, yes, we will have some temporary underutilization, totally manageable in our numbers. We haven't decided to go to the US for a shorter cycle.
We decided to go there because we think the country is going to require a massive amount of new electricity connected, and wind and solar renewables play a big role in terms of competitiveness and in terms of time to energy, and we want to be part of that. Timing of that, we need to see. We need to see if the volume is going to pick up for us this year or next year, but we are totally committed, and we haven't changed our plans.
On the safe side, I mean, the temporary slowdown in the US opened other opportunities for us in Canada, in other markets, so we are convinced we can deliver our guidance regardless of any scenario of the US, and we think we can deliver our mid-term profitability even in a worst-case scenario of the US. So US is a strategic move long-term for the company. If the volume picks up, it's a fantastic safety net. If the volume doesn't pick up shortly, we keep calm and we keep growing.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question comes from Qing Wang from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, there. Thank you for taking my question. So my first question is on the orders. So 24 orders varied from 8.3GW. But we know that Canada contributed one gigawatt, and Turkey contributed more than one gigawatt. These are exceptionally high levels compared with your past average installations, which are four megawatts and 340 megawatts in the past nine years. Do you expect this strong momentum to sustain?
We do so. Yes, we expect this not to be one-off, but sustainable market volumes in those two specific geographies. Yes.
Great. And then maybe my second question goes to the US facility. Can you maybe update us on the, sorry, there's some echoing, on the headcount being added? How much does this additional OpEx dilute your margin in 2024? And will there be incremental hiring that could impact 25 margin?
I would say in 2024, very little. I don't know the number, but it was very minimum in EUR million. Single-digit EUR million, definitely. In 2025, could be very low double-digit or low double-digit, but is provided for in the guidance. So in the guidance that we communicate today to you, that is included there.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you. Maybe the last one on free cash flow. So if I were to work out expectations based on your guidance, if I take midpoint, you're getting to EUR 450 million EBITDA minus EUR 200 million CapEx minus probably EUR 100 million interest, EUR 50 million tax. If I assume neutral net working capital development and half of the exceptional outflow from provisions being settled in the year, then I end up with no free cash flow. What's the upside to the numbers I've given just now?
I take that question. I think the building blocks you mentioned were very valid. I wasn't sure I got your full tax number, but if you plug in EUR 20 million there, and I think you have that building block, and I think you mentioned 1.5. Maybe you're thinking on provisions, we're overestimating those outflows. So that order of magnitude, when you see the other building blocks you just mentioned, that outflow in the year will be only relative to that.
So taking that into account of the things we see, that is probably a pretty different picture, and we see the cash flow significantly higher. But of course, we have the privilege of seeing the planned outflows on those provisions we wouldn't like to discuss in a public call. Very valid question, but I repeat myself. We believe in a very decent positive cash flow this year.
Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning and good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. I have three questions. Firstly, just on the capital allocation and the comments that were said earlier, what is an acceptable level of gearing? What's sort of a conservative approach to balance sheet here? So just trying to understand what the key triggers are to thinking about how cash may be utilized in the business.
And then secondly, if we look at this year, improving order intake potentially, margins on the improve, it feels like it makes me wonder why we have a medium-term target for 8%. Why can't we be more detailed in the timing arriving that now? And what needs to happen to give you the confidence to start to look that way?
And then lastly, if you could just give us some assumptions that drive the bottom end and the top end in terms of maybe even qualitative, but just to give us a sense of what are the key variables that drive the bottom end and the top end of your EBITDA guidance? Thank you.
Thank you, Ajay. So let me take the order intake and the 8% margin. I would say the order intake was very strong, but didn't translate in shorter growth because part of this order intake has a longer lead time, especially in Germany. This will translate more into activity in 2026. And growth is one of the key pillars for profitability improvement. So I think we are talking about a temporary timing topic. But of course, the farther you go on time, the more risk you have about the order intake.
So I think we have good visibility for growth and, as a consequence, for profitability improvement associated with that growth. But to be more specific at this time, we prefer to stay conservative and deliver, and time will tell when. So we are not discussing here the if.
We are discussing here the when, if this is 2026 or late 2026 or early 2027. Regarding the third question, the building blocks, as I mentioned, the biggest building block is volume, revenue. And revenue is driven by order intake and expected order intake. So if the order intake gets delayed, the revenue will suffer, and profitability will be slightly impacted. If things are as per the plan, we have potential to move more stocks towards the upper end if we have an earlier order intake with translating to more activity than expected. This is the key lever provided that execution stays stable.
And regarding capital allocation, Ilya, you can comment, but too early. I mean, we just entered profit zone after many years of losses. I mean, the equity ratio is something that doesn't concern us because it's 18%. It's stable, and we have massive liquidity in the balance sheet. But too early to think about that, Ilya.
Yeah. Still, that question is very valuable. I think José Luis mentioned it also when he walks us through the upper end of the guidance. So capital allocation, as we see it, is basically, again, first deploy to execution, second, balance sheet strength. And again, we have mentioned in the past those 20% range. It's not black or white because it depends whether your balance sheet is prolonged, like is the case right now. Then, of course, always in the product. So in R&D and improving the product, improving the platform. And from there, we would start with opportunistic opportunities like in the new established Nordics capital entity.
But of course, the return of value to shareholders is something we will clearly discuss and come back with once we see that, as José Luis said, that this is a company of sustainable net profits, and we clearly see that trajectory now. So that question very soon will be a real one. This year, again, we barely entered that zone.
The next question comes from Tore Fangmann from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. A lot has been asked, so only one more from my side. Looking at the strong growth that you have in orders, could you just explain a bit more about the capacity and the capacity needs within Europe and for the overall European market? Are you happy with the capacity where you are at right now, or would you need going forward to increase capacity for production to be able to really deliver the revenues on the orders you have? Thank you.
Thank you. I think with the current capacity we have, we can deliver the orders, the volume, the 8GW we can deliver with the capacity we have. So within the EUR 200 million CapEx that we are planning approximately for this year, there are investments in capacity. More than capacity creation is adapting to the new models, adapting to the new market configuration. But capacity is something that doesn't concern us short-term, nor do we expect substantial outflows to build more capacity, although we will keep investing in supply chain. But it's within the guidance that we provided to you.
Okay. Thank you. Understood.
The next question comes from Christian Bruns from Montega AG. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello. Good afternoon. One question is on the CapEx. If I get you right, you mentioned that the CapEx will go mostly in capacity and supply chain and not primarily in innovation or R&D. Is that right? And maybe another question on the interest expense. Do you see room for improvement of this number below the EBITDA level? The split of CapEx will not be so different than the 2023 and than the 2024. Part is going to be in engineering, in research and development. Part is going to be in molds.
Part is going to be in transportation and installation tools. So it's very much CapEx associated to the recurring business of the company. So blade molds, transportation tooling, and the US factory, and the hybrid tower for the German market. Regarding interest.
Good question. Yes. We're always looking at opportunities to improve those, especially as the commercials of the company get better. So yes, we do think there is room for improvement. On the other side of the growing business, probably we will need more of those instruments like the bonds. So in relative terms, I think financial costs, interest costs will get better. In absolute terms, with that growing business and growing requirements, probably rather on the same level.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Constantin Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi there, Ilya. José Luis, can you hear me?
Yes. Loud and clear, Constantin.
I'm sorry. Great. Sorry. I was disconnected, so I ended up being all the way to the last. Look, I think most of the questions were asked. I didn't hear a few, but that's fine. Can I just drill in on a couple of them? One, just on the balance sheet again, very quickly, Ilya. Ilya, in terms of the size of the business today, right? Obviously, you guys have grown a huge amount over the last three years, and you clearly need to have a bit more cash on the balance sheet.
But is there a specific level of a cushion of cash on balance sheet that the business requires today for you to really feel comfortable in? And is there a particular number attached to that? And the second question is just really a homework question on CapEx.
Looking at the Delta 4000 and any CapEx considerations that we should take into account medium term, is 200 going to be a level that is going to be sustainable over the next two to three years, or should we expect higher levels at some point medium term? Thanks.
I will do the CapEx and then you take over the cash level in the balance sheet. So we see growth. Not much shorter because the volume in Germany is not kicking in shorter. But definitely, we see medium-term growth. Despite the medium-term growth, we expect this growth to come with existing products and very much to a bigger extent existing supply chain.
So with the visibility we have as of today, I think that level of CapEx is a good number for 2026 and 2027. So I don't expect a huge jump in CapEx in the next two to three years, despite our ambition to grow with the market in Europe and especially in Germany.
And to the first question on the cash levels, and I fully understand the repeated questions on those. And my answer here would be, Sebastian, sorry, Konstantin, in that context is, where's the comfortable level? So I'd say, without being too specific, I think the company in that regard, we feel, to use your term, to be in that comfort zone. But the question is not only about a level, it's about a sustainable period.
And we have been coming out, as all of you are probably aware, years of a huge volatility that has subsided. And I think the question is, again, not so much the level. I think those are good, and those are, repeating the words, comfort zone. But it needs to show during a sustainable period on those levels. And then I think that is the moment in time when we will have the full answers on the underlying questions there.
That makes perfect sense. Then maybe just the last one to throw in there. I think what surprised me the most, besides obviously the massive cash flow print, was that José Luis, you expect another growth year for order intake, which in an environment today where sentiment is rather negative was actually quite surprising.
So if we think about the margin development into 2026, I mean, you printed 8.3. Even if you do 8.5 or slightly higher, we're starting to talk about the levels that are supposed to be supportive for the 8% EBITDA margin target. If we look at 2026, and we assume that there is no massive issue around geopolitics or execution, and you're able to deliver installations north of 7.5GW to 8GW for the year, is there anything that could potentially hold you back from not achieving the 8% next year?
You name it. I agree with what you said. But the assumptions need to materialize. I think we need to land this expected growing order intake on time. But if the assumptions that you name it materializes, then it's possible. The outcome of that is possible, yes.
Okay. Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from William Mackie from Kepler Cheuvreux . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. I'm going to try and sweep up a few questions, if I might, some for modeling. But just thinking first of all about the pricing in the orders you've been accepting and the improvement in gross margin that you've achieved throughout the year, up now just above 20%. When you look into 2025, given how you're seeing the costs move and the pricing develop from the backlog, how should we be thinking about gross margin evolution? Are we coming close to the business coming close to the levels that you would expect, or do you see much scope for that gross margin to expand through this year?
Good question. I think we have less back orders in execution in 2025, but we have lower volume than the capacity that we have. So the activity in the first half, as in the previous year, is lower than the nominal capacity, which carry a little bit under utilization that we need because we expect the company to grow in the future. So we should be able to see a slightly improvement in the gross margin in line with the improvement in EBITDA.
Thank you. Over the past year, the second question relates to, I imagine it's almost characterized as cleaning up a number of outstanding arbitrations and disputes with customers, but we've seen these warranties and provisions that you'd booked through the year. Is that all behind us now with respect to warranty or provision use in 2025? Should it be a relatively clean year with respect to what you're accruing, or are there still outstanding negotiations that may impact 2025?
The majority of the issues have been settled, and we have provided for in the numbers that we present to you and that Ilya commented in the provision side and the expected outflow of the provision in the next three years. Big majority.
Is it all done?
No. We still have very few cases, very few cases outstanding that we cannot go further in explanation, but we are discussing. Commercially, we're basically there.
But commercially, we are there.
The second question is, have we reached that peak? And the answer is yes. Will the trend be downwards now? Yes. How quickly, how steep, we'll see. But those are, I think, is a clear yes on both.
That's great. Thank you. And maybe the last, well, there's two, but the penultimate relates to service. When we think about your service business development from here and the strategy that you're executing, I guess, first of all, is this basically on your own turbines, or are you seeking service business on third-party turbines?
100% in our own turbines.
Perfect. And with regard to the availability at 97%, is that where you would expect it to be, or do you think these teams, as the efficiency improves, can drive that number up even further?
We have room to improve medium term, yes. We think if we keep focusing in existing platform, which we think is the case. So the platform is becoming mature, more reliable, infancy mistakes solved and behind us. So we see room to improve. But the improvements in the service business are always medium to long-term and small improvements quarter on quarter.
Thank you. And last thing, maybe it's just modeling. When we think about the non-allocated or consolidation costs running into 2025, given that the business maybe grows a little and you've expanded some of the operational footprint geographically, how should we think about that element within the P&L?
Our strategy is to contain a G&A on revenue. So yes, we need to invest in more people, more locations, more. Let's see if we can moderate the increase and grow with the business, not more than the business.
At most.?
At most.
Super. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Anja Siehler for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much. As usual, I would like to give the word back to José Luis to close with his final remarks.
So thank you very much to all of you for your time and your questions. And finally, as always, let me outline our key takeaways for this quarter. I think first, demand drivers for onshore wind remain intact in the mid to long term. We achieve all 2024 commitments with steadily increasing EBITDA margins quarter on quarter. We secure a substantial order intake pipeline for Nordex with stability in selling price, supply chain, and cost base.
We generate substantial free cash flow, and we continue to deliver that consistently. And on 2025, this year, we should see another step up in margins, giving us confidence in achieving our mid-term margin targets. So thank you very much. Wish you a wonderful rest of the day.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.