Good afternoon, welcome to today's webcast. My name is Stefan. I'm the Managing Director and CFO, Chief Financial Officer of MPC Energy Solutions. I'm happy here today to share our preliminary operating results for financial year 2025. Before we begin, I'd like everyone to know that I will be making some forward-looking statements.
Such statements are naturally uncertain and subject to change and risk. I kindly refer that you read the respective disclaimers, which we have included in this presentation, but also in other presentation materials and reports. Should you, at any time, have any questions during this presentation, you can use the QA function, which you will find embedded in the platform that we use. I will, as always, address questions after I have concluded my prepared remarks.
As always, this presentation, the video feed, the audio feed, and the transcript, including the Q&A, will be made available on our website afterwards. If you like what you see and or hear, you can watch it and listen to it over and over again. Today, I will very briefly address two main subjects.
One, of course, the review of the 2025 operating results, the preliminary ones, and our key metrics that we're tracking. I'm sure everybody is interested in that, also a brief update on the Project Merlin, meaning the progress on closing or working towards closing the transaction that we announced in November of last year. Please bear in mind that the numbers I will be sharing here are preliminary and still unaudited.
The audited results will be published in late April. It's always possible that certain numbers change, though historically, any changes have been quite immaterial. With that, let's take a look at our key metrics, the preliminary results for 2025. As many of you know, there have been quite a few divestments, that our company has done in 2024 and especially 2025.
That makes a direct comparison between the core metrics year-over-year, a bit more difficult, or I would say, less helpful, which is why we have also shared here, and I will be focusing on that, the like for like numbers. Why?
Some projects have maybe contributed in 2024, but not in 2025, or not entirely, we just want to make sure that we take a look at the proper core portfolio. We have included for this like for like comparison, two projects. One is Neol CHP. It was a power plant that we sold in late 2024, we have also entirely removed our previous joint venture, Planeta Rica.
What you're looking at is basically the projects in El Salvador, Mexico and Colombia. Starting with the energy output as the 4 first key metric, we did actually experience quite poor weather conditions or irradiation conditions throughout the year. It was quite challenging, especially El Salvador, at many months, had solar irradiation levels that were significantly below what we expected or planned for.
Nonetheless, we were able to mostly compensate for that. We had a great technical performance and availability across the entire portfolio. We had fewer grid site shutdowns, which is also very important. We were, especially in El Salvador, hampered by that during 2024 a little bit, and we are commonly not compensated for such shutdowns, for example, if maintenance work is being done on the power grid side.
Despite the poor weather conditions, the good technical availability and the fewer grid site shutdown led to the fact that we actually were able to increase our energy output by 3% to 97 GWh , actually 97.4 GWh . If it weren't for the poor weather conditions, we would have easily surpassed the 100 GWh mark. This is, I think, quite a remarkable result.
We did very well, and I'm especially helpful to the team that made this possible. On the revenue side, like for like, also an increase of 3% to $10.6 million. Some of our power purchase agreements that we have are tied to spot market tariffs, and we have a certain spot market tariff exposure. The good thing was that over the year 2025, compared to previous years, it was certainly less volatile. As we expanded our energy output, correspondingly, we were also able to increase our revenues. A 3%, up to $10.6 million.
Most importantly, though, I think this is really the key takeaway for the year 2025, is that we've always been cautious and very much focused on making sure that our plans, our portfolio, step by step, get to a profit level that we need them to be, and that we believe is common for such renewable energy projects as the solar PV plants that we operate. 75 % for the portfolio was always the target, and I'm happy to report that for 2025, we accomplished that. On a like for like basis, the margin was 76%, up from 67% last year. As we make sure that energy output, you know, is in line with expectations, we increase our revenues, we now finally also see a significant uptick in the profitability of these plants.
On a like for like basis, we had a 17% increase of the operating profit to $8 million. Really quite a significant improvement, the improvement that we needed, and this for us, is really the key. It's good if you grow, and we manage to grow, but it's much more important that costs are under control. Costs are as low as they possibly can be without, you know, risking health and safety and other matters. That's why, I'm very proud to report that we dramatically increased our profitability. If we leave the project level behind and we look at the group as itself, especially overhead costs, many of you know that in the middle of 2023, late 2023, we started implementing a quite substantial cost-cutting measures.
We already had a substantial reduction between 2023 and 2024. Now we were able to lower these costs further by over 11%, or roughly 11%, to $3.2 million in 2025. If I'm being quite frank, I was targeting even an even better result. The transactions that we did and certain costs related to that, especially legal advisory fees and such, were simply a little bit higher than expected in Q4, or they added to the cost structure, and that's why ultimately we ended up with 11%. Looking ahead to 2026, our budget on the overhead side for 2026 is actually $2.3 million. Another significant decrease compared to what we already achieved in 2025.
We have a much smaller setup now, we have a smaller team, so that overall, we are looking at spending roughly $200,000 a month, compared to, you know, more than $400,000, that we had two years ago. So I think our dedication to, a lean structure, making sure that spending is under control, is very much paying off, and for 2026, we really, expect another drop, in overhead costs overall. And very positively, also, of course, the free cash position, which we have been reporting for a while now, it ended up at the higher end of the range that we projected for the year. $9 million in free cash, were available at the end of December 2025.
With the lower overhead that we have planned for 2026, with the basically non-existent commitments for project investments going forward, we have a lot of flexibility, and this will, of course, help us in our target to ultimately maximize cash from these sales, also start distributing significant amounts to our shareholders later this year.
To conclude the preliminary result review, of course, a brief look at the other metrics. Total assets year-over-year changed very little. We still have a solid equity ratio, very much in line with what you see in the industry. We only have project-related debt. We have no corporate debt or anything like that.
The consolidated cash positions of all companies in the consolidated figures was nearly $14 million, and of that, as I mentioned, $9 million were free and available as per our definition. That concludes the preliminary results. As I said before, Q&A, feel free to add your questions in the feed. While you do that, I will provide a brief update on Project Merlin.
What is Project Merlin? Project Merlin is an agreement that we have signed in November last year, and we, of course, published the information to the market, that we will sell our projects in El Salvador and Guatemala. Two core projects in our portfolio, combining for 87.4 megawatt peak total capacity. This is really a majority of our portfolio that we have agreed to sell.
Ever since we signed the agreement, we have been step-by-step working towards making sure that we meet all of the different conditions that we need to meet before closing is achieved, and we can exchange ownership in the projects for the purchase price that we have agreed. Our shareholders, many of you, I assume, have unanimously approved the transaction already in mid-December.
That was one of the conditions that we needed to fulfill, and we have done that. There's other stuff we have to walk through. Most importantly, of course, we need to put the plant in Guatemala in operation. We have now received the second of the third permit that we require. It's still an incredibly slow process. It's a process where we at least see the end now. We know what is expected of us.
Sometimes it felt like new regulations and demands were being implemented. We had to install additional equipment, we had to change drawings, we had to put together a lot of information. There was a new, let's say, element introduced when authority said, "We need a certain report in a certain form," but there's only a handful of people in Guatemala who can prepare these reports.
We've been working with everybody very diligently towards making that work, and we are making progress. As I said last time, the timing for this progress is so difficult to estimate because, as I said, it sometimes feels new demands or new requests are being introduced as we are already working towards the finishing line. Nonetheless, we have some visibility on this. We do believe that we can accomplish this permitting process or complete this permitting process over the next, let's say, six weeks, and we can do the testing and commissioning, which will take another two.
We should be able to put the plant into operation in Q2, and therefore, also close the transaction in the second quarter of 2026, certainly a little bit more towards the end of the second quarter, 2026, as the other conditions that we have to meet are well underway, and we've already ticked a lot of boxes of what we have to do. Something that also has not changed is we still intend, or we will distribute the proceeds and maybe an amount beyond that to our shareholders.
If possible, the annual general meeting that we've scheduled for the middle of May will be used to make sure that we propose and put to vote all the resolutions that we require to make that happen. After that, in the Netherlands, because we want to make sure it is tax efficient, once these resolutions have been passed by the shareholders, there's a certain waiting period of two months, after the two months, we can start with the distributions.
As we projected before, it should be somewhere in the middle of the year, July, and by then, we should have closed the transaction, gotten the money, having all the resolutions in place to start distributing cash to shareholders. As I said before, it remains very much a priority for us this year, to downsize the portfolio and to maximize its distributions and actually start distributions to shareholders. Wonderful. This concludes my prepared remarks entirely.
I now have a few minutes left to address questions you might have. Should you have them, please, use the Q&A function, and I will then go through them step by step. All right, I have a first question here: Can you say more about the planned sale in 2026, and what do you think about dividends going forward, timing and amount? I think I already briefly addressed that in my prepared remarks. The planned sale is, first and foremost, the transaction we already announced, the agreement that we've already signed.
We want to make sure we close that transaction in the second quarter of 2026. We have our free cash, we have the sales proceeds available. In the middle of May, we will put the resolutions to vote. I will assume now that the shareholders will support these resolutions that are required to then turn around and make capital distributions.
It will not be a dividend. We will take money out of the share capital and just return capital to the shareholders. That is the current plan, and that is what we believe to be the most tax-efficient option. As I said, with the waiting period that Dutch law requires, we should be able to start doing that in July, unless anything dramatically changes on the timeline to close the transaction.
Next question I see here is: What will happen to the rest of the portfolio after Project Merlin is completed? What remains is basically, a development project in El Salvador, an operating project in Mexico, and another operating project in Colombia. These combined, looking at their revenues, looking at their profitability, and the free cash that they generate, will not be large enough to operate MPC Energy Solutions as a purely profitable company.
We will make sure that we find options for these projects that also lean towards divesting them. Both Mexico and Colombia are different markets, challenging markets, so it will take time to make that happen, because even though timing is in our favor, the faster we can manage this, the better it is, because we will have to spend less on overhead in the meantime.
It's difficult to estimate how long it will take to get a good price for it, because we don't want to sell them at any price. That is not what it is. We know what these projects are worth, and we want to make sure we get, also for our shareholders, a fair valuation in return. We're working on it, and of course, we're trying to move this forward quickly.
This is also, as much as we've said in the general meeting that we conducted in December, in the documents, this plan was mentioned. This should not be surprising and nothing new. Again, downsizing the portfolio, maximizing distributions, that is what's on the agenda for us this year. Next question: After the Guatemala sale, only two projects are left.
What group EBITDA and group cash flow would you expect after holding cost for the portfolio on an annual basis? Would cash holdings and book value continue to decline or even increase? Los Santos and Los Girasoles combined would be able to generate around $5 million in revenues at what I believe is a solid 65% EBITDA margin.
Let's say that's around $3.2 million to three point million in EBITDA. We have our overhead costs, we will generate, or we would generate more than $1 million in group EBITDA at that time. Of course, Mexico still has project financing in place, the overall free cash flow for the group would likely be relatively neutral at the time.
As I said, that is not a model which would work on a sustainable basis, which is why we have to find a solution. With regards to the cash holding and the book value, look, the cash holdings are there, and they will, of course, diminish slowly, the longer it takes for us to divest these projects.
Time is in our favor, as I said, we need to find the right balance here. Of course, once this large part of the portfolio is gone, then maybe the next portfolio is gone, costs will also come down. With $2.3 million that we are projecting for 2026, we are already at a fairly low level. Don't forget that we still are a listed company. We need to undergo audits.
We have a lot of tax work, advisory work to pay for, and there's just a certain level of expenses that will not go away as long as we're publicly listed, regardless of how many projects we have in the portfolio. I hope that answers that question. Question here is: Can we expect a full wind down of the company in 2027 and 2028?
Well, that's a long way out, and that's really not what we have, let's say, considered at this time. What we're looking at is, let's close Project Merlin. Let's make sure that overhead spending is minimal to the extent possible. We will certainly sell our development project in El Salvador that I mentioned earlier, because we don't want to spend money on development, but we believe there is some upside.
We will find a buyer who is able to share that upside with us. For the rest of the portfolio, Mexico and Colombia, we will try to find solution, but the timing is difficult to estimate. When all that is said and done, or before that, we will certainly sit down with the remaining members of the board. We will have an honest discussion.
I wouldn't say that you can expect a full wind down or anything else. That is still far out. For now, we're focused very much on the year 2026, just to deliver the proceeds from the sale and actually start distributing. Because we've been in this position before where we wanted to and we were unable. Let's tick that box first, get that milestone done before we think about anything else.
This is a follow-up question to my question on the group cash flow. "Why is liquidity diminishing if the two projects are generating a small profit after holding costs?" We need to look at this from a cash perspective. Just because the projects are profitable, doesn't mean that they will regularly be able to distribute cash to us.
They have other obligations to meet, first and foremost, bank debt and debt service related to that, especially in Mexico. Colombia doesn't have any debt. When you say we have to spend $2.3 million on holding level, it's not guaranteed that we get $2.3 million out every year out of these projects readily, because there's also other criteria to be met.
When you have a bank debt, you have certain covenants that you need to meet. What I'm saying is, we will, for the most part, tap into the free cash reserves, and of course, we will try to get money out of these companies, especially when they're profitable, but there is a timing gap between this.
When you said liquidity, I assumed that you were talking about the free cash, and this is why I say timing is of the essence. Especially in the beginning, we will into the free cash reserves, and this will, of course, increase if we decide to add part of the free cash to the distribution to shareholders. I hope that makes that clearer. All right, I'll give it a few more seconds. I don't see anything else right now. Good.
Well, you guys know if there are any more questions, we do have an email address, ir@mpc-energysolutions.com. Any questions that I did not answer today or that might come after, please feel free to address them there, and we will make sure to respond and also publish them if this concerns something that we have not publicly shared yet. Thank you all for your attention. This concludes today's webcast. I talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.