Alstom SA ($ALO)

Welcome to the Alstom 2025-2026 Full Year Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to Martin Sion, CEO. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Alstom results for the fiscal year '26. It is fair to say that I joined the company at a critical time. The past year has demonstrated both our strengths and the areas where we must raise the level of performance. On the one hand, the order backlog is at a record high. We've got a soft base to build on. Progress has been made in the last few years on several aspects. On the other hand, the execution challenges we have faced on some rolling stock projects are highlighting areas of project execution that require improvement. This improvement will ensure that we convert our backlog into sustainable profit and cash generation. The shortfall in card production in the fourth quarter was not a one-off event. But instead, highlights a lack of consistency in project execution within the rolling stock product line that led to guidance being revised. After only 6 weeks in the role, it would be present curious for me to claim that I have the answers to improve operational performance and financial trajectory of such a large and complex business. Today, therefore, I will begin by highlighting key takeaways from the past fiscal year before sharing my assessment of the current context on outlining my priorities for the group. Bernard will then talk and walk you through the financial performance for the year, and I will conclude with the outlook of the '26, '27 fiscal year. So starting with some highlights for the year. Last fiscal year was a record IFR order intake with nearly EUR 28 billion for new orders. This reflects the commercial success of several new platforms including Avelia horizon for very high-speed trains and Coradia Max for double-deck regional train solutions. In addition, Alstom achieved a record level of orders in signaling, confirming its position as one of the leading players in digital rate solutions. Group sales grew organically by 7.2% in the last fiscal year. All product lines contributed to growth except for systems. Adjusted EBIT margin was below expectations and below last year's level. This was mainly driven by underperformance in rolling stock with a mix of projects in industrialization and homologation as well as some projects in late-stage execution. I will come back to this in more details in the following slides. Free cash flow reached EUR 336 million, in line with this guidance. So this slide illustrates the commercial success of our rolling stock platforms with a particular focus on Avelia horizon. The first order of Avelia Horizon was signed with SNCF 8 years ago. Since then, we have continued to secure additional orders based on the same platform with different customers. Each new order relies on a proven core design. This brings clear benefits to both Alstom and our clients. It limits development risk and costs makes better use of an established supplier base and shortens the time between order intake and entry into commercial service. This ability to reuse and scale platforms across customers and geographies is a clear strength for Alstom. It shows that we can industrial platforms, while still adapting them to specific customer needs. It also strengthens our credibility with customers who are looking for reliable solutions, predictable deliveries and faster time to market once homologation has been reached. Going forward, this platform-based approach will remain the foundation of how we build and manage the rolling stock backlog with discipline on the strong focus on execution and risk control. Moving to a selection of key operational milestones delivered during the fiscal year. In the U.S., NextGen Acela entered commercial service on the Northeast corridor for Amtrak, with trains built in the U.S. for the U.S. market. As of this month, there are over 10 trains running for commercial service. In India, Metros interservice in Bhopal and on daily line extensions incorporating Alstom CBTC signaling technology. In France, MF 19 enter service on Metro Line 10 in Paris, with further deployment planned across 8 lines through 2033. And in Australia, we delivered the country's first brownfield CBT installation with the opening of Melbourne Metro channel. Turning now to this section which explains on this slide, we explain how I look at the current situation of the group. Alstom is an industrial project business. In this type of business, execution, quality and financial performance depends first and foremost on the backlog, its size, its balance and its margin profile. From this perspective, clear progress has been made over the past few years. The backlog has increased by more than EUR 20 billion over 5 years. It is also better balanced across rolling stock, services, signaling and systems. At the same time, the gross margin embedded in the backlog has improved by around 200 basis points. Several factors explain this progress. First, rail market fundamentals are strong with around EUR 210 billion of identified opportunities globally over the next 3 years. This provides visibility but also requires discipline in how we select projects. Second, the combination of rolling stock and services strengthened visibility on life cycle economics. Over the past 2 years, around half of the rolling stock volumes secured also included maintenance contracts. Third, Alstom has built a strong position in digital rail solutions, supporting both stand-alone single line growth and integrated turnkey projects. Overall, this gives a solid base to build upon and gives me confidence that the business can be set back on course. In an industrial project business like Alstom, balance sheet strength and cost disciplines are essential. Progress has been made on this front over the last 3 years. So deleveraging plan launched in 2024 strengthened the balance sheet and fixed costs have declined as a percentage of sales. On the environmental side, scope 3 emissions linked to passenger transport products sold to customers has been reduced by around 20% over 3 years. reflecting both product evolution and customer demand for low carbon mobility. Some progress has also been achieved operationally. Manufacturing quality has improved and the transformation plan has been launched in Germany, where the industrial footprint is being adjusted to improve efficiency and competitiveness. The improvement do not solve all issues, but they show that actions taken in recent years are starting to deliver results and create a stronger foundation. This slide shows clearly that further progress is required on execution. Execution in the rolling stock business has not yet reached the level of consistency we expect. This has affected operational performance, reduced financial visibility and complicated forecasting, particularly in the fourth quarter. Car production was broadly stable over the first 9 months of the year, but fell short in Q4, resulting in full year production finishing nearly 100 cars below plan. Most of the Q4 shortfall relates to several major rolling stock platforms, where development and industrialization phase are happening at the same time and are taking longer than expected. As a result, homologation has been delayed and additional costs have been incurred. Resources remain engaged for longer, testing phases are extended and in some cases, retrofits are required. These factors are putting pressure on near-term margins and cash. They do not lead to deliveries being canceled, but rather delay them on the associated cash inflow. In parallel, the group is finalizing a limited number of contracts where additional challenges were identified during project reviews in the fourth quarter. So this slide highlights the margin impact of execution in consistency and industrial inefficiencies. In short, we should be operating at a gross margin level much closer to the 16% to 16.5% implied in -- this gap is not structural, and closing it is my #1 priority. Both before defining solution, it is clear to fully and it is critical, sorry, to fully understand root causes. First, planning execution is often impacted by unsufficient end-to-end coordination between teams, suppliers, customers and regulatory authorities leading to overlaps in development, industrialization, testing and homologation. Second, while our engineering capabilities are strong, we need to reach a level of quality and technology in order to have a maturity which come faster with a clear right first time approach. Finally, Development and manufacturing are often organized through highly optimized but complex setups. When project management is not strong enough and business processes are not fully aligned across the group. This can lead to blurred accountability and execution in efficiency. This issue can be fixed, and the team and I are fully focused on delivering tangible operational improvements. In the meantime, on this slide, you see that we are already launching a number of pragmatic short-term actions that can start making a difference quickly. First, we are reinforcing lean operating discipline with short-term management cycles, faster decision-making and earlier issue identification closer to the shop floor. Second, we are strengthening accountability across teams by clearly defining roles and decision wide. We are simplifying the way we work, so teams can focus on execution rather than coordination. Third, we are maintaining a lean cost base with resources prioritized towards critical projects and spending tightly linked to delivery needs. Finally, we are accelerating procurement actions through faster sourcing, increased standardization and better leverage of our order book in supplier negotiations. These actions contribute to core execution fundamentals. We will be implementing these actions with determination, and I will keep you regularly informed on how we are progressing. In the meantime, we are preparing for deeper operational changes. And by deeper changes, I mean aligning offering footprint and operation organization. This concludes my preliminary remarks. And I will now hand over to Bernard for the financial review.

Good morning, everyone. As shown on Slide 15, Alstom recorded EUR 27.6 billion of orders in the fiscal year. The book-to-bill ratio was at group level. As a result, the backlog reached EUR 144 billion compared with EUR 95 million at the end of March 2025. The increase was driven by strong order intake, partly offset by negative currency effects. All product lines contributed to growth of the backlog. In rolling stock, the book-to-bill was also 1.4. It's important to underline that this performance was in part supported by several options exercised during the year. Those options represent 37% of of the order intake of the rolling stock product line. This includes Abediareson high-speed trains, Arran commuter trains in Paris, New Jersey transit trains in the U.S. and Coradia Max regional trains in Germany. This reflects the strength of our platforms and the quality of the discussions we have with our clients rather than a purely opportunistic commercial decision to tender. And of course, orders booked as options have a different cash impact compared to new orders. signaling had a record year for order intake. We secured major contracts in Italy, Taiwan, Brazil and Singapore. In services, order intake accelerated in the second half of the year, driven in particular by operations and maintenance contracts in the U.S. and Canada, while the share of backlog from services decreased slightly to 38% at the end of March '26, we continue to ambition a share of above 40% and in the short term. Looking at regions, the Americas delivered their best year ever, including a large commuter train order in New York. Europe continues to stand as the largest region for Alstom, supported by strong momentum in France as well as flagship contracts in Portugal and in Poland. Turning to sales on Slide 16. Sales reached EUR 19.2 billion in the -- for the year, up 7.2% on an organic basis. All production lines with the exception of systems contributed to sales growth. Rolling Stock sales totaled EUR 10 billion, representing 9% organic growth. This reflects good momentum in France, particularly supported by the RER NG program. continued momentum in Asia Pacific with locomotives in India and project execution in Italy. Service sales reached EUR 4.7 billion with 7% organic growth, supported by strong performance in Italy, the U.K., Australia and airport people movers in the U.S. Sales in signaling came in at EUR 2.7 billion, with 8% organic growth, driven by robust execution in France, Italy and Germany. Reported growth was more modest, 2%, mainly due to the deconsolidation of the North American conventional signaling business. Finally, system sales totaled EUR 1.8 billion representing a 5% organic decline. Performance was impacted by the ramp down of the Mexico trend Myer contract, which was not fully offset by ramp-ups in the Philippines, Taiwan and Brazil. Looking at inorganic items, foreign exchange was a 2.8 point headwind driven by euro appreciation against most currencies, scope at a negative 0.6 point impact also. On a reported basis, sales, therefore, increased by 3.7% during the fiscal year. Let me now turn to the P&L on Slide 17. Gross margin was EUR 2.5 billion for the fiscal year, representing 13.3% of sales. This is a decrease of 80 basis points compared with the previous fiscal year. Excluding scope and currency, the gross margin percentage decreased by 60 basis points. On the one hand, we continue to make progress on industrial efficiency, contributing 50 basis points to gross margin, while total car production declined at group level, production increased in countries that previously had excess capacity. In particular, production in Germany almost doubled compared with the prior fiscal year. On the other hand, this improvement was more than offset by project execution challenges. These mainly relate to higher-than-expected cost at completion on several rolling stock projects. This resulted in a negative impact of 110 basis points on gross margin. Despite currency, scope and gross margin headwinds, adjusted EBIT was broadly unchanged at EUR 1.2 billion compared with the prior fiscal year. Turning to Slide and the analysis of adjusted EBIT margin development for the fiscal year. Scope and currency had a negative 30 basis point impact. Adjusted for these items, adjusted EBIT margin was stable compared to the prior year. For the reasons I just discussed, gross margin was a headwind on adjusted EBIT margin for 60 basis points R&D expenses accounted for 3% of sales in the year, 20 basis points higher than in the prior fiscal year with stronger spend in H2 compared to H1 as per plan. Headwinds from gross margin and R&D were offset by continued tight control cost on SG&A contributing to 40 bps improvement as well as the strong performance of joint ventures contributing 40 bps. I would stress that the later reflects strong performance for JVs overall, but also an exceptional contribution from one specific JV in China upon the successful completion of propulsion contracts. Together, adjusted EBIT margin was down 30 basis points to 6.1%. Looking at net profit on Slide 19. Non-operating expenses have reduced to EUR 155 million in the fiscal year. Nonoperating expenses mostly related to rightsizing initiatives of the footprint in Belgium in France also and the German transformation plan and some legal costs. As a reminder, Integration costs were nil in the fiscal year as Bombardier's integration program was included in the prior fiscal year. Net financial expenses decreased to EUR 165 million from EUR 214 million last year, thanks to lower interest charges and benefit from currency hedging compared to the prior year. Effective tax rate was 35%, stable compared to the prior year, reflecting some depreciation of deferred tax assets in a limited number of countries with a structural tax rate remaining around 27%. Finally, adjusted net profit increased by 12% to EUR 559 million for the year. Turning to free cash flow on Slide 20. Free cash flow came at EUR 336 million, in line with guidance. Let me highlight a few items. Adjusted EBITDA was EUR 1.5 billion, broadly unchanged compared to the level of the prior year. CapEx and cap dev together amounted to EUR 567 million up EUR 85 million compared to the prior year, representing 3% of sales, in line with the medium-term view. Financial and tax cash out together amounted to EUR 356 million, similar to the level recorded in the prior fiscal year. This resulted in funds from operations of million for the fiscal year, down compared to $553 million in the prior fiscal year. Finally, working cap was EUR 171 million headwind last year. Turning to trade working cap on Slide 21. Trade working capital stood at 29 days of sales at the end of March compared with 34% 1 year ago. The change in trade working capital resulted in an actual cash inflow for EUR 119 million over the year with a stronger contribution in the second half. Trade working cap has been more tightly managed in the context of greater contract working capital consumption. Payables and inventories days have converged standing at 82 days and 81 days, respectively. Let me now turn to contract working cap on Slide 22. Contract working cap moved from a favorable days of sales 1 year ago to 81 days at the end of March and now stands at negative EUR 4.3 billion, less favorable than last year, where it was negative EUR 4.5 billion. Over the year, contract working cap represented a cash outflow of close to EUR 300 million. Contract liabilities, net of contract assets decreased from a favorable 59 days 1 year ago to 55 days at the end of March. Solid down payments and the continued contribution from well financed contracts supported contract working cap. This was offset by a higher proportion of projects in ramp up compared with last year. During this phase, pre-series cars are being produced and key homologation milestones have not been reached. Rolling stock projects typically move from a contract liability position to a contract asset position, therefore, consuming working capital. Finally, provisions continued to decrease by EUR 177 million, as expected, reflecting the ongoing execution of the legacy backlog. Turning to Slide 23 on cash seasonality. In last fiscal year, seasonality was more pronounced than 2 years ago. But overall, it remained fairly consistent with a normal pattern of our business, where -- that we have already underlined over the last 2 years. As a reminder, the first half of the fiscal year has fewer working days than the second half, and therefore, lower production, fewer deliveries and lower cash inflows. As a result, in any given year, we typically see a cash imbalance between the 2 halls corresponding to an EUR 800 million to EUR 900 million drag on free cash flow -- this imbalance can then be mitigated or could be amplified by the timing of down payments as well as by trade working capital management. In fiscal year '26, '27, cash consumption was BRL 740 million in the first half, followed by cash generation of EUR 1.1 billion in the second half, the phasing of down payments ended up relatively even throughout the year. In the first half, -- so slightly better-than-expected cash consumption was driven by strong receivables collection and the lower buildup of contract assets. In second half, cash generation improved in line with the usual seasonal pattern, although cash collection for milestone achievements was lower than usual. This was partly offset by effective trade working capital management. Turning to fiscal year 2027. We expect seasonality to be more pronounced than last year for 3 reasons: first, trade working cap is expected to be a drag in H1 due to activity. Second, down payments are expected to be more rated towards the second half. And third, the phasing of milestone payments in rolling stock will also be even more H2 weighted than usual, partly reflecting the progress made on some contracts currently undergoing homologation and a number of commercial negotiations. As a result, we expect cash conception of around EUR 1.5 billion in H1, followed by strong cash recovery in H2 to generate positive free cash flow for the year. Slide 24 shows how net financial debt slightly decreased to EUR 404 million at the end of March compared to EUR 434 million 1 year ago. In addition to free cash flow, leases dividends to minorities, combined with the hybrid bond coupon amounted to around EUR 250 million total cash outflow during the fiscal year. The EUR 53 million of FX and others largely relate to the negative translation effect from the appreciation of the euro on cash balances held in non-euro dominated currencies. You will find in the appendix of this presentation, the updated bridge, computation from enterprise value to equity value, reflecting these evolutions. Now the cash generation trajectory update is, of course, not the 1 we anticipated when we issued the EUR 1.5 billion cumulative free cash flow generation over the 3 years through fiscal year 2027. Having delivered around EUR 500 million in fiscal year '24, '25, EUR 336 million in the last fiscal year, the free cash flow guidance of positive for fiscal year '26, '27 issued last month, mechanically implies a EUR 600 million to EUR 700 million shortfall compared to the plan. In simple terms, this can be explained by around EUR 100 million of currency headwinds, EUR 100 million of investments being put forward under EUR 450 million of lower-than-expected margin resulting from additional costs linked to specific rolling stock projects, some nearing completion. Last, turning to Slide 25 to investment-grade grading and [indiscernible]. We have opened discussions with the credit agency that issued a position paper on April 21 and with rating unchanged based on preliminary '25-'26 results and 267 updated outlook that we confirm today. Looking at liquidity Cash and cash equivalents stood at EUR 2.3 billion at the end of March, broadly unchanged compared with 1 year ago. In addition, the group has access to a EUR 2.5 billion revolving credit facility and a EUR 2.5 billion commercial paper program, both of which were undrawn at the end of March. Taken together, this provides the group with strong liquidity to support working capital needs. Turning to debt maturity. A EUR 700 million bond will mature in October this year, we plan to refinance this maturity cost and leverage ratio in line with our commitment to investment grade rating. This concludes my comments on the financial performance I will now hand it back to Martin for the outlook.

Thank you, Bernard. As discussed last month, when we released preliminary figures, we adjusted our objectives for fiscal year '26, '27, following the execution challenges we are facing. In the context of strong rail market, we guide for a book-to-bill ratio above 1 at group level, but below the level reached last year '26. We expect organic sales growth of around 5%, driven by improved execution in rolling stock and continued growth in services. . Adjusted EBIT margin is expected to recover to around 6.5%. This reflects a step-up in gross margin from the very low level seen in the second half of 256 which was impacted by a limited number of projects. These projects are now under tighter monitoring, particularly during the ramp-up phase. We also guide for positive free cash flow. EBITDA is expected to improve year-on-year, while capital expenditure will increase to support new platforms and services growth. We expect working capital headwinds, mainly in the first half. Improving project-related working capital is a clear priority, and I will engage directly with key customers. This is not the trajectory we set at the beginning of 2024. While issues became visible in the last quarter, the underlying gaps in operational excellence have existed for some time. Our current operational performance does not yet meet the standards expected from a world leader. The integration of 2 companies with different cultures and operating model has not fully translated yet into a robust and consistent delivery model. There is no quick fix in this industry. But I believe that proven ways of working that I have learned and applied during my career can be used here. Over the coming months, I will review our strategy and commercial approaches to ensure that offering operations and footprint are consistent to make sure we are maximizing opportunities in signaling and services. The outcome, together with our financial ambitions will be presented at the Capital Market Day in early 2027. What Alstom needs is not just another cost saving plan, we must address execution issues at the route successful implementation of the operational plan presented at the CMD is critical to bolting Alstom back on track for profitability improvement towards 8% to 10% and cash generation in line with best-in-class peers across our segments. This concludes our presentation. Thank you, and we can now open for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Akash Gupta from JPMorgan.

I got two. My first one is for Martin. In your press release, press release comments, you said that execution on some major rolling stock contracts continue to weigh on near-term margins and cash generation. I'm wondering if you can give us some indication of how many orders are we talking about here? And how does this compare to your overall EUR 104 billion backlog. We have heard about these projects before. And also if you can clarify, are they still the same versus what was talked before? Or has there been any addition to the list? The second one I have is for Bernard and that is the margin outside of rolling stock we give a lot of attention to rolling stock, but maybe if you can talk about if we take rolling stock out and look at the margin for other businesses, how does last year compared to year before. And then when we look at margin in current financial year '26, '27, what have you embedded in your guidance in -- which imply 40 basis points at a group level?

Okay. Maybe I'll take the first one. So we don't communicate which are the projects which are facing the difficulties but to give you some light on the situation. In the past, we have usually focus our attention on some difficult low-margin programs coming from the legacy Bombardier. And today, we have to recognize that we have also some difficulties on more recent programs especially some of them were in the late phase of their development. It is a part of the development where we are making the validation, the homologation, and in parallel, the production ramp-up. And we have been late in some engineering projects, which created late homologation and this light homologation triggered engineering changes which pushed us to order new parts to supplier and disrupted the production and leading also to retrofit is as is a kind of a topic we are facing. And this is also a kind of problem that we have because we have a lot of new product lines, a lot of new products in our different product lines. And this is a topic which will be sold when we will be in a serial mode. Because in serial mode, our products are good in terms of quality and in terms of cost. So it's really the end of development programs, which are facing the most difficulties. Bernard, maybe you can take the second part of the question.

Yes. Cash definitely running stock in the product line where we had those difficulties in '25, '26 and where we need to see some recovery in '26, '27, Well, that's our guidance. For the other rolling stock the other, sorry, product lines. signaling was doing very well, and we expect this performance in terms of percentage pretty stable next year. Service did also pretty well. And we expect next year an increase in sales and an increase also in performance. We don't disclose margins by product lines. But let's consider that we can see stability in signaling improvement in in service, looking at other than rolling stock product lines.

Thanks. Martin, I think you've talked a lot about restoring consistent execution. But do you think that the company also needs to rethink entirely the group's commercial strategy? And perhaps become far more selective than before, especially around the rolling stock category. And I guess the question is from a balance sheet perspective, obviously, if you're becoming more selective there is kind of a thread of between the near-term pain on the cash flow side and the long-term gain. So -- how long do you think the group could afford being more selective in cash flows.

Thank you for the question. First, is 2 aspects to the question. On selectivity, there is a strong process which has been put in order to be -- to have have golden rules and to be sure only on good I think that -- the level of risk, which is embarked in this order book is better than in the past. Nevertheless, we have to progress in that -- and it comes also to a topic of strategy. It is where do we want to be present. Today, we have identified 13 priorities in terms of markets. what kind of offering do we want to do on the different markets. And this is a topic I will look at in the next months and which will be part of what we will present in the CMD because you're right, the market is very strong. So we have a lot of opportunities. And it's -- for us, it's important to focus on lower risk -- at the same time, with a good gross margin, but the level of risk that we embark is key. Today, what we are -- the guidance we are giving is a book-to-bill which is higher than one. But we say that we don't plan to have the same level of order intake than last year. It also shows that our ambition is really to be selective and we are taking orders because it's necessary in a project company. I mean that's the blood of a company to have new projects, we should not be driven by down payments.

Yes. Maybe, Gail, I will do a follow-up on this one. Definitely, we do not take new orders for cash reasons. I mean, I do not see a signal of the order intake in the rolling stock product lines that we have taken that we have been awarded. -- in '25, '26 that has been done for only cash reasons. By the way, it's a decision of the client to the the contract, it's not us. And we have raised the bar in terms of cash curve. And what we have seen in some, I would say, cash-in headwinds this year is coming from progress payments that are not in the timing that we expected, okay? And the down payments from new order has a limited share of total cash in into this year. So I would definitely decouple the question of liquidity and balance sheet management and the question of selectivity that has to do with the quality of the execution that is another topic that we will address during the Capital Market Day.

The next question comes from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. .

I have 2 questions. The first 1 is kind of going back to the backlog and how quickly you can act on things in the backlog. I was wondering if you could help us understand at the how many -- what percentage of products is at each space? How much of your backlog is in kind of in the early design phase, early ramp-up phase and the well advanced stuff where it might be hard to act because much has already happened that compromises maybe the gross margin going forward. It would be interesting to know that. The second question is just regarding sort of your points you made or on the balance sheet. I was wondering if you would also consider like you did some years ago, some inorganic measures to further strengthen the balance sheet for the refinancing and the other things you've mentioned.

Maybe I have to clarify what is my ambition in terms of operational excellence. I don't focus on solving a few projects in terms of improved delivery better, right first time, engineering, et cetera. But I believe that we have to do and that what we are starting to do is to put the system under tension in order to improve our operational efficiency across the board. And to improve all projects, even the projects which are going well. And so yes, the problem that we have had last year, which led to the change of guidance were a limited number of projects. But what needs to be done and what we are starting is to improve the performance on all projects and to improve our Lean standard in all our shop floor and all our engineering office. So I don't think that it should be a good way to see to measure the speed at which we will recover based on only a few projects. It's more the speed at which we will improve the performance in all shop floor, all these in office. And as I said, it is a progressive improvement that we are expecting and that we have put also in our guidance '26/'27. Bernard?

Yes, I will take the second 1 on balance sheet. The current rating position does not rely on inorganic actions. Current metrics are in line next year metrics are in line without inorganic actions, but selective measures could provide opportunity upside, and that's part of the review of the new CEO, but it's not needed from a balance sheet and rating point of view.

The next question comes from Vlad Sergievskii from Barclays.

I'll ask a couple 1 by one. First 1 is on provisions, which appear to be support and profitability in the second half risk on contract provisions were the lowest level since 2021. Could you help us to reconcile such a low level of new provisions with actually very high order intake, steady revenue growth and several problem projects that you actually highlighted today.

Okay. I will take this one. I mean the risk on contracts are -- I mean, the provisions are down from EUR 921 million to EUR 866 million. So it's a variation of million, so that's not a huge impact. And it's driven by the natural loss contract provision burn-off that comes naturally with the completion of such contracts. So I see the trend in provisions on contracts totally consistent with the end of such legacy contracts.

Understood. I was talking about new provisions, right, which were at a lower level compared to the prior period. If I can also ask on contract...

If I may do a follow up on your comments. On new contracts, we don't take provisions because we do not take any onerous contracts. So we might revise the gross margin at completion but not create provision for losses.

Understood. If I can ask about contract assets. It's obviously another half year increase. has been steadily increases for 2 years. Have you done the full review of the quality of contract assets? And are you comfortable that all the EUR 6.5 billion genuine assets that will be invoiced to customers in due course. And would you be prepared to commit when do you think contract asset Salto will start going down?

What I did is an extensive review with all regions on their full business. And regions that were contract by contract. But at my level, what I did so far is regions by region. We did also the first management business review, and we will adapt the governance to be more focused on deliveries Today, I don't have the figure and maybe, Bernard, you can help me on that to see when will the contract asset decrease. This is not what we are looking at is how we can improve deliveries, how we can improve working cap project by project, not contract assets directly. But maybe, Bernard, you can help me on the...

Yes. Maybe a follow-up on this one. Definitely, yes, we plan to reduce contract assets, and that's part of the plan. The timing is subject to some, I would say, actions. So I'm not to commit on anything like that today. But just to -- again, to look at that, I mean, contract assets, yes, indeed, have increased. Contract liabilities also have increased [indiscernible] of that. And the net of that has just increased by EUR 85 million, EUR 85 million. So when we work on a backlog of above EUR 100 billion, a variation of EUR 85 million is something, of course, that is significant on a yearly basis. When we look at the scale of what we are doing, I don't think it's that material. On top of that, what I wanted to say is that the EUR 600 million increase in contract assets is EUR 400 million for rolling stock, but EUR 200 million for service. And 1 part of that, that you may have missed is the impact of so inflation, escalation of our prices that we recognize year-on-year but in terms of cash, sometimes it comes at deliveries or at the end of the contract. So this inflation impact that has been quite significant in last year plays in a role in the increase of contract assets and in the gap between margins and cash.

The next question comes from Delphine Brault ODDO BHF.

6 Yes. I have to First, your Chinese JV contributed significantly to adjusted EBIT plus 40 bps. How sustainable is this contribution? You mentioned notably an exceptional contribution. So what should we expect for this year? And second, if I remember correctly, 2 years ago, you stated that working capital should deteriorate by a cumulative EUR 1 billion over 3 years. Is this assumption still valid?

So maybe I can take the first one. The contribution of China's JV in '25, '26 was exceptional. And so what we have put in our guidance is a normalization of the contribution of Chinese JV to our P&L.

Yes. Just to be sure, Delphine, I mean, having a great contract execution of some of our JVs is good news. By the way, some deterioration in some contracts has the same nature of one-off as a good contribution in China from JV. So it's on 2 different lines in terms of P&L. Maybe the governance is not the same, but the nature of it is totally consistent with what we see in the execution of other contracts in the gross margin. Now back to your second question, the deviation that we have seen in the third year of the 1.5 billion cumulative cash guidance is coming from margin deviation, FX and CapEx -- so we could consider that part of the CapEx increase is part of the EUR 1 billion headwind that we explained 2 years ago. The rest is pretty new. So I still see some headwinds coming from the change in the mix and to kind of of normalization of the working cap. So I would say the story is the same.

The next question comes from Jonathan Mounsey from BNP Paribas.

Maybe a couple of accounting questions. Obviously, you report today on the same day of Siemens stores. I'm just looking at mobility today, they actually cut guidance on revenue. And as I understand it, the reason they did so is because U.S. tariffs have an impact on cost. And obviously, they are recognizing revenue on IRS 15 and that therefore has an implication. So they actually -- the revenue is missing, and it will miss all year versus previous expectations. Is there potentially a similar effect to come for you too? And just secondly, on interest costs, you will be refinancing that, I think, $700 million in October. Obviously, the coupon is exceptionally low on the existing bond. I guess we can expect interest charge to rise over the final 6 months of the year and obviously for the year to follow. Could you give any guidance on what the impact of all that is likely to be.

Jonathan, yes, by the way, we have the same IFRS rule as Siemens just to be sure you get that. But for us, the U.S. tariff situation is pretty different. I mean 85% of what we do in the U.S. is by American compliance. So we do not have the same impact. And that's something that we explained for the last 12 months. We discussed with the clients. and there is a kind of reinvoicing of the impact with the clients. So no major impact, such as the one you mentioned before, by the way, the situation needs some clarification in terms of legal framework in terms of tariffs and impacts on clients. So to make a long story short, we do not see at all the same impact on gross margin at completion and revenues as the 1 that you mentioned. On financial costs, the answer is yes. The refinancing will have an impact. The the interest on the bond that is maturing in October was almost nil. So by definition, when you look at the interest rate situation, it would go up. So we expect total financial expenses to increase next year compared with this year -- or I should say, this year compared to the last year.

The next question comes from Andre Kukhnin from UBS.

Can I just start with thinking about the profit bridge for the fiscal year that you've just started [indiscernible] when we get there in a year's time, how would you expect it to look vis-a-vis the guidance recurring? Do you expect further operational improvement like you saw 50 bps basis points in 2026. Just wanted to understand how you see the mix of these likely conflicting drivers to play out in the next 12 months?

Andre, I will take this one. So to make it very simply, we see 50 bps negative coming from a combination of higher R&D and normalization of JV contribution and 100 bps improvement coming from gross margin increase is going to be, again, a combination of many things in many contracts plus 10 bps coming from maybe FX. No more scope but impact. So to make it very simply, 50 bps headwind from higher R&D, lower JV contribution and in the region of 100 bps improvement in gross margin.

Maybe I can add something here. You could wonder why we are increasing R&D the increase of R&D is a decision in order to speed up the maturity of technologies on platform below bid and tenders so that we derisk contracts. I believe that this is 1 of the good decisions in order to be more predictable in what we deliver in the gross margin of the projects.

That's really helpful. And obviously, this bridges year-on-year impact. And can you help us quantifying the kind of the overall burden on the margin now from the execution issues. Is that the 60 bps that you incurred in fiscal 2026? Or I guess that's added up over last couple of years at least?

Yes. I can take this one. When you added up the -- all the impacts on the last years, Yes, I mean the total contribution of project execution was a negative in the 150 bps region as a total. Part of that was compensated by the improved industrial efficiency, but project execution by itself.

[indiscernible].

I've got a short 1 on free cash margins and a longer 1 on engineering, and perhaps we should go 1 at a time. Just on the free cash flow margin, Martin Hi, you talked a bit about a longer-term ambition of being in line with the best peers, best-in-class peers. I think your German friends have been rolling close to 10% free cash margins for a few years with the odd exception versus your 0 this year or 1 to 2 over 3 years. I understand there's no quick fixes. I just wonder how long do you think that would take? Is it a 5-year story or a 10-year story. That's the first question.

Okay. And this is -- I understand the question. I was expecting it. And this is typically what we plan to to work on in the next month in order to have a comprehensive presentation at the Capital Market Day beginning of next year. I think it would be present have not been here for more than 2 months, I mean, 7 weeks exactly to tell you how long it will take. But it's clear that our ambition is to be at the benchmark of the market.

Very fair answer. Could you talk a bit about engineering, please? And I sort of freeze discipline and standardization. From your own understanding, have you got to the idea yet as to what Alstom is doing in terms of percentage of value engineering, how much is a design freeze today and whether you'd like to change that and whether you'll say nodes a bespoke customer specs even at the cost of orders and where you see the biggest productivity today on that? Is it design validation or more motion or more supply readiness or factory flow? Just to understand what you're seeing at this early glance on the problems.

Okay. I mean you have identified a lot of the root causes. First, it starts by the bidding and the selectivity of the process. And it's true that in the golden rules that have been set in Alstom in order to decide if we bid or not bid the proximity of what the customer is expecting compared to an existing platform is something which is absolutely -- which is important. The way we measure that, the way we identify what are the gaps between what we already do and what the customer needs has to be very strong in the past, sometimes, we underestimated the number of modifications that we had to do. And then it has a domino effect because it creates extended development, desynchronization between development on the same platform. And is 1 of the pillar of the -- of what we need to do to improve. And that's why left shifting some platform maturity before a bid is absolutely necessary. Then the good thing that I see in our rolling stock product line is that we have a lot of new products have been decided and which are being developed today in high-speed train, regional, et cetera. And so today, we have -- in the last 5 years, we have faced a lot of engineering activities. A lot of new people have joined us, which is a good asset for the future. But it's true that skill has been building progressively. And I think that we have to be very careful on the staffing and the way our teams are need for that. And the third topic I'd like to underline and please remember, I'm new in this job. But what I see is that we have some complexity in the way we work between regions because I believe that the fact that Alstom is global is a very good thing. We discussed about tariffs before. But even when we speak about engineering because we are making a lot of development worldwide, which allow our team to gain experience. Now we have shared this experience between regions, between countries. And what we are -- what we are engaging today is to have a tiger team, which will help some critical projects in some regions, leveraging on skills, which exist in other regions in order to make sure that the -- we can leverage on other skills existing in the company. And today, I have to see that sometimes between engineering teams in different parts of the world. We have not been always with harmonized processes and seamless activity. So sorry, if it was a little bit not very structured, but that's the way I see the situation in engineering.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Martin Wilkie from Citi.

It's Martin from Citi. I just wanted to come back to the gross margins. And obviously, you've given some time now, the gross margin in the backlog, 18%, it's similar to where you were 6 months ago. And I know there's a lot of moving parts in that because there are longer-dated contracts in service and signaling and things like that. But I was surprised that, that number hasn't gone down slightly given some of the rolling stock contracts that you have at the moment that are going through a lower gross margin. Can you just give us some of your thoughts as to sort of why that remains unchanged and what you're effectively embedding in terms of the assumed remaining gross margin in the backlog for some of these problematic rolling stock contracts.

Martin, this is Bernard. I will take it. So yes, the gross margin is pretty stable. It's up 20 bps year-on-year. So a lot of moving parts. On the plus side, positive side, the quality of order. I will not quantify it, but it's true that the quality of the order intake is still very good. with kind of a strategic bidding approach, focusing on the good opportunities. maybe more pricing discipline across the industry as well. So that was a positive . On the negative side, the mix this year was not as good as last year because you've seen a very strong to bear on the rolling stock side. So that was more a kind of headwind. Same thing for the negative revisions of margin at completion, you've seen a quite strong impact in the gross margin that we have traded that was discussed before some loss inflation the reduction in provision as well. So the maximum impact came from the revision, but the maximum negative impact come from the negative revisions of margin at completion. The vast majority of that came as an impact in the P&L as well as in the Balog and still some to be traded when it's not on contracts and when the percentage of completion is not 100%. And then I must say, we also take some, let's say, cautiousness in the way we book some contracts in order to have some buffers going forward. So these are all the moving parts when you analyze the gross margin or more than EUR 100 billion backlog.

Great. And if I could have a follow-up just unrelated on on car production, you guided for an increase next year. I know it was slightly lower in the fourth quarter. And that does suggest that some of these throughput rates is going higher. Do we have any sort of measure as to what that looks like compared to what you might have thought a couple of years ago. So when we -- even though it's up sequentially relative to where you might have been thinking is that car production level is still lower than what you might have hoped if we were to think as a couple of years ago or is that back up to the level that you would have thought? Just to give us some sort of sense as to where you are in that trajectory of improving car production.

Yes. I was not there a few years ago, but I will try to answer it compared to based on what I understood of the situation. I think that the capability of the company is to deliver much more than 4,500 in terms of industrial capacity, et cetera. And we did that and we were aiming to a higher number in the past, for sure. At the same time, delivering a car in serial production is quite different in terms of workload, in terms of complexity and delivering a car which is in ramp-up situation. So it's not always obvious to compare a situation where we had more serial production car and potentially simpler cars because high-speed train is not similar to other car. And so we have to be careful when we are comparing the situation at several years of difference. When we when we have set this objective, it's clear that it needs a significant improvement operationally in order to overcome the difficulty we had last year and to go further in terms of card deliveries. Thank you. so it's now time to close this call. And so maybe a few words. This was my second call with the investment community in the start of my mandate in -- so in 7 weeks. And my objective has been to be candid about where the group is and where it is performing well, equally where we need to read a bar in terms of level of execution and particularly in rolling stock. To be clear, I'm mindful that there is a lot of work which remains to be done. And some actions have already been launched. And now the urgency is also to work on deeper changes that the purpose of what we will discuss in the Capital Market Day beginning of 2017. So thank you for your time, and have a good day.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The live presentation is now over. You may now disconnect.