Cenergy Holdings SA (CENER) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Costantino, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Cenergy Holdings conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the first half 2024 financial results. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Sofia Zairi, Chief Investor Relations Officer. Ms. Zairi, you may now proceed.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for joining first half 2024 financial results of Cenergy Holdings. Apart from the results today, we will update you about the strategy of the company and the revisited guidance for the fiscal year 2024 results. Alexandros Benos, the CFO of the company, will be presenting. Following the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. Alex, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Thank you, Sofia. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for attending today's presentation of our company. This sunny afternoon, contrary to what we are used actually doing in the past, our session will include, as Sofia said, besides the H1 2024 results, an update on our guidance for the full fiscal year 2024 and a further elaboration in our strategy looking forward. So our agenda, I will start with the group key financial figures for H1, then present to you a strategy looking forward and close our discussion with the outlook of the profitability guidance. As always, the appendix includes detailed balance sheet numbers, P&L numbers as well as information on the different segments. So without further ado, let's see together the key highlights of today's presentation. First of all, we focus on the very strong H1 results, where the revenue has increased only slightly to EUR 812 million, but the -- backed by order backlog, which is reaching a record high of EUR 3.4 billion almost. But most importantly, the operational profitability, as described by the adjusted EBITDA, reaches almost EUR 120 million with very strong margins for both segments and a 39%, 40% year-on-year growth. Then I would liketodiscuss our intention to raise up to EUR 200 million capital on a nonpreemptive format to support mainly the expansion that we have announced in the U.S., and finish by giving you some updates on our guidance for the fiscal year 2024 for a range of EUR 245 million to EUR 265 million compared to the EUR 230 million to EUR 250 million previously, as well as share with you some medium-term financial ambitions, including numbers on revenue growth and profitability, but we will come back to those in a while. So let's start with the financial figures of the semester. As I said, the analysis of sales per major product line shows a very strong increase in cables projects, almost 70% year-on-year, a constant demand for cables products, a little bit lower for the '24 semester, and a decreased revenue for the steel pipes projects and products, which, in a sense, indirectly shows that the focus of the company is not really on revenue generation. The focus of the company, as we have stated many times, is on the profitability, on the value that we create for our clients, for our stakeholders and for our shareholders. So what do these results show? They show that a change of 2% in the revenue from year-on-year is actually translated to a change of almost 40% in adjusted EBITDA. This 40% increase and the EUR 119 million for the first semester of 2024 translates into an average margin for the company, so including both segments, of 14.7%. If you look at the graph in the middle of the slide, you see that this was 8% 2 years ago and 11% 1 year ago, which is a clear indication of our commitment to producing high-value, high profitability, specialized productstoall of our customers. If we try to break this change into the 2 segments, more information is given for you in the appendix, we see that for the cables, this profit margin is a little bit higher than the average at 14.2%, 2 percentage points higher than last year. Whereas for the pipes, it has reached the really high 16.1%. That is an amazing number if we think that 2 years ago, in the really difficult 2022 fiscal year, this margin was closer to 2%. As I stated in previous announcements, financial results announcements, the steel pipes segment has recovered, has started getting back to track in '22, has recovered in '23. And in '24, it is really flourishing based again on high capacity utilization, this is true for both segments; a good and efficient execution of demanding energy projects, also true for both segments; and a very good selective product mix which enhances margins, which is even truer for the steel pipes segment. If we have to state certain projects, certain works that the segment undertook during the first semester, it will be enough to talk about the starting of production for the phase C of the Doggerbank offshore wind farm. You remember this is the largest offshore wind farm in the world. It's in the northeast of England, of Scotland actually. Also the start of production of Hai Long in Taiwan and the completion of the cables production for the Revolution offshore wind farm in the U.S. On the steel pipes segment side, the works regarding Tamar pipeline in Israel and another pipeline, an LSO pipeline, in Australia have finished, whereas they will -- they have -- production has started for the famous Leviathan pipeline in Israel and the Neptun deep project in Romania, 2 projects with very interesting characteristics, demanding projects with strong profitability margins. Both of these segments doing so well is, I think, a natural result, a natural conclusion, is that the return on capital employed has climbed to an impressive 24.1% for the half year 2024 compared to the 21% at the end of 2023. The backlog, of course, is backing, pun intended, our success in both sense. The commercial teams are working very hardly and very successfully. The backlog has reached in June 2024, EUR 3.4 billion. 2 years ago -- at the end of '21, 3 years ago, it was at EUR 1 billion. And 2 years ago, it was at EUR 2 billion. We now have a backlog which is strong. It is rising. Some of the most significant projects are shown on this world map. The new intake for the cables segment was over EUR 600 million in the first 6 months of the year and another EUR 200 million for Corinth Pipeworks, the steel pipes segment. And this backlog is actually split between EUR 2.82 billion order backlog for cables, which is a record for them, and EUR 560 million and something for Corinth Pipeworks, which is also stable around the EUR 600 million mark at the end of '23. The strong backlog and the good profitability, of course, translates directlytoa very good profit before tax. We have doubling of the profit before tax from the semester first of 2023 to EUR 73 million, and also more than doubling in the net profit PAT for the same period at EUR 56 million. Now if we try to split up to explain a little bit how we passed from a profit before tax in the first semester of '23 of EUR 31 million to the numbers for the first semester of '24, you will see that we have a very strong performance by the cables, adding EUR 28 million gross profit and another EUR 13 million added by the steel pipes, we do have a delta which is negative for the SG&As. In a growth situation, this is something more or less expected. And we also have a positive impact from net finance expenses, which are now lower. They are lower for the company at EUR 31.7 million. This is due to, on the one hand, credit spreads being obtained in the loan facilities that are open for the company subsidiaries. And at the same time, we also have the slight decrease of the reference rate, Euribor 1 month and Euribor 3 months, after the slight change in the monetary policy of the European Central Bank. So that creates a total of EUR 73 million, which is the profit before tax for the first semester '24. That growth has been achieved without putting at risk our balance sheet, which remains disciplined. What do I mean by disciplined? It remains a balance sheet which is balanced between the profitability and the growth-producing elements and its debt. So although debt is higher than the December level, we have an increase of EUR 116 million from December 2023 to EUR 494 million for June '24, it is lower than last year's June '23. This -- I remind you, there is this story about seasonality in our net debt figures, which is linked to the way projects are financed, and executed and invoiced throughout the year. So we always see an increased working capital and net debt in the middle of the year, which is then backtonormal levels at the end of the fiscal year. This EUR 116 million difference in net debt is split into a difference of EUR 56 million in working capital and the rest of the EUR 60 million are due to the increasing, what I would call, long-term or longer-term debt, which is, of course, linked to the important capital investments made in the first semester. So the CapEx in the first semester of 2024 reached EUR 122 million. This is split between Hellenic Cables having the largest part of EUR 105 million and the rest, EUR 70 million for the steel pipes segment. This is similar actually to the full 2023 fiscal year CapEx of EUR 138 million. This does not mean that we expect another EUR 122 million in the second semester of the year. No, most planned CapEx has been already executed and a much smaller portion is expected until the end of the year. I remind you here that last year we didn't have the important expenditure for the U.S. plant, actually the acquisition of the U.S. land plot, which is a part of this year's CapEx, this semester's CapEx. And despite that increased CapEx, despite that increase in working capital, the leverage ratios of the company remain satisfactorily around 2 and are expected towards the end of the year to remain at the same levels. Now movingtothe second big theme of our presentation today and capitalizing on this solid operational and financial performance of the company over the last quarters, not just this semester, but also the last semester of '23. Adding to that, the growth opportunity which lies in front of us -- ahead of us in the medium term, our Board has decided to pursue an equity raise of up to EUR 200 million. The proceeds of that potential equity raise will be used mainly to fund Phase 1 of our first plant in the U.S. and then fund other general corporate purposes and, only if deemed necessary, to further improve existing facilities in Greece. Of course, such a potential capital increase is subject to the customary conditions. One of them is the Extraordinary General Meeting, which will be convened shortly and is expected to take place on October 2 to vote on that capital raise. This capital raise will be structured as a fully marketed offering without preemption rights in order to increase the free float of the stock and increase also the liquidity of the stock. In any case, the company is aimingtopreserve the participation from minority shareholders. That is why we intend to grant a priority allocation to those participating in the potential offering. The timing of the transaction will be -- the timing that the transaction will be launched once all relevant approvals are in place. And I mean by that, not just the EGM, but also the relevant market regulator approvals. And of course, if they are, the transaction is subject to supportive market conditions. What is the rationale behind our U.S. expansion? We have slightly discussed this rationale in previous announcements, but let's reiterate the 5 important points that are behind our decision to expand and to build a factory in Baltimore, Maryland. First of all, the U.S. expansion for us -- the U.S. market for us is a very large and fast-moving market, and it has similar long-term megatrends to our existing core markets, that is Europe. So there is nothing strange or different going on in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world. Secondly, as I mentioned in our discussions previously, the local players, the local cable players cannot really serve the U.S. market, they are under capacity constraints, and they offer very long lead times to the customers, sometimes close to 1 full year. So there is demand from the market which is not satisfied in a satisfactory way right now. Third, in the medium term, we expect -- and not only we as a company, but also all international agencies expect that there will be a large cycle of power grid refurbishments since the U.S. has not done such a large redevelopment or renewal update of its power grid for some time now. Of course, that creates a large demand for cables, as you clearly understand. Fourthly, to establish a local footprint for us is to better serve large U.S. customers. We already serve our U.S. customers but from our facilities in Greece, having a local footprint will facilitate largely such a service. And finally, the U.S. offshore wind, although it's still in its nascent phase, in its early baby phase, it presents tremendous potential, which we believe will come later in our strategy. So the state-of-the-art facility that we are investing right now tries to capitalize on all those opportunities. And to give you a few points of information, as we declared in our press release before the summer, the U.S. factory includes 2 phases. The phase 1 on which we are talking right now, includes a construction of a land cables plant only, and that plant will be commissioned at the end of '24, so at the end of this year. Its cost is around $200 million, and that cost includes the property acquisition that was already completed in the first semester. The money spent on the U.S. plant for the first semester is EUR 29.4 million. Most of that was spent on the acquisition of the land plot. The plant is expected to finish by 2027, and that is the expected start of operations. So at the end of 2027, the plant will be fully operational. It gives us also some optionality because it gives us -- the land plot gives us the opportunity to expand into more products for the U.S. market, including offshore cables. But this expansion is a phase 2, for which no decision has been taken yet. As I said before, this is a limited risk investment. Why do we consider it to be a limited risk? Simply because we will be using the same equipment with plants in Greece. This is something that we have worked with this machinery in our plants in Greece. We focus on land for phase 1, and we have already successfully applied and received, as you know, a transferable tax credit of up to $58 million in the IRA act of the U.S. Finally, the location of the land plots and of the future facility is a strategic one. It is around 154,000 square meters, 38 acres for the imperial, for those knowing the imperial metrics among you. It's a waterfront property in Baltimore. It's close to the U.S. coast for the offshore wind areas and also for the offshore wind construction areas in general. So it has a lot of advantages. This, again, does not mean that our expansion is focusing only on the U.S. As I said before, we are not leaving behind our foundations, our roots. And our roots are in Greece, and that's where we focused all this time our expansion plans. We started with the current plan in -- for Fulgor, which is -- has an objective to increase the capacity of subsea medium, high and extra high-voltage power cables. That expansion is on track and will finish by the end of the year. Then we turnedtothe land cable plants, the Thiva one, which we already had for a very long period. Here, again, the objective was to increase the capacity for underground medium, high and extremely high voltage power cables. We are now at the order stage for additional production lines and additional equipment. And as you remember, we acquired a large land plot in Eleonas, [ Evia ], close to Thiva, where we decided to turn that plant, that area, into a center of excellence for low-voltage power cables. This is the well-known for our Greek colleagues, an ex-factory of [indiscernible], which was acquired in '23. This plant is already partially operational. This is a very positive piece of news for us. Of course, the expansion and the full investment will finish by the end of '25. And also, the Thiva plant expansion will finish by the end -- by the mid of '25. So in a sense, if you look at the slide, Corinth is expected to finish by the end of '24, then Thiva comes next mid-'25 and Eleonas at the end of '25. These capacity expansions, which in a sense doubled our capacity in the respective products, have costed in the first semester of '24, EUR 73 million. Turning to the steel pipes segment, and we shouldn't leave out the steel pipes which also tries to do some selective investments like the split of the LSAW/HSAW lines, building a new plant for cement coating to enhance its cement coating capacity and to be able to provide better products for deepwater offshore pipelines. That investment has also cost EUR 17 million in the first semester. And all of these are already funded. So the question here is we are -- why are we doing all these investments? We are doing all these investments to grab the chance in the attractive segments that we see in front of us. The slide here focuses on cables segment, since the potential share capital increase is also aimed to establish a U.S. presence for cables, but similar capabilities are developed in steel pipes as well. So what is this picture showing to you? A, that Hellenic Cables has an already established successful presence in land cables, construction and industrial ones, and that's what we will leverage for phase 1 of the U.S. Number two, that the future growth is in the subsea and high-voltage segments, and that's what our Greek investments, and hence, the Corinth investment and the Thiva capacity expansion. And all of these together support our -- support the deliverability, if you allow this word, the deliverability of our record level order backlog, meaning that the investments in Greece will be able to support the order backlog that we do have right now in cables and as well, of course, steel pipes. Now behind these decisions for capacity expansions and the new U.S. plant, we have to look at the -- also at the macro long-term trends. The macro long-term trends we are looking at right now consist of 4 important pillars. A, we all believe, not only the company but all international agencies and economic research, shows towards -- points towards an increasing global demand for energy. Why is that? First of all, because of demographic reasons, then because of the rising of the middle class that we see in every country, especially in the developing countries. Third, the trend towards urbanization and industrialization. And fourth, last but not least, the rapid growth in artificial intelligence that will demand very large amounts of energy. The expected increase in power consumption over the next 8 years according to economic research will be 8% per annum due to the new data centers necessary for AI. The second pillar is that this global demand for energy is made in a very welcoming and supporting environment towards green transition. The whole globe, I believe, is now trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They have either announced -- every country in the world have either announced, pledged, put in the law some climate plans. Everyone goes towards that reduction of CO2 emissions. The third pillar we are basing our strategy on is the immersion of -- the emergence of new technologies, new energy technologies. Starting from wind, where we have a good advantage since the Hellenic Cables has delivered -- has been awarded and has delivered until now a large number of offshore and onshore wind farms. Then we turn to EVs, electrical vehicles, that will be the rule in the years to come. Then into hydrogen, which is also a technological improvement that has already been achieved by Corinth Pipeworks. You remember I stated in previous announcements that Corinth Pipeworks was the first company to be certified for high-pressure, 100% hydrogen transmission through its pipelines. And of course, the renewable energy sources for that electricity generation. It is expected that by 2050, more than 70% of the total generation of electricity will be contributed by RES and supported by energy storage, means including the carbon capture storage that some projects have already been executed by the steel pipes segment. Finally, all of these trends that I mentioned before require large, very large investments in infrastructure. The estimates are that for transmission and distribution infrastructure, the CapEx for that infrastructure will be increasing by 4% per annum and will reach the amount of $280 billion in 2050. So there is a lot of money coming into the transmission and distribution infrastructure for energy. Only in Europe, the economic institutions expect that we will need around 40,000 kilometers of new power lines, power grids, high and extra high voltage, to support the electrification of the European economy. And last but not least, we already see that there are new global hub routes for natural gas supplies being built given the Ukraine war. All of the above, therefore, are in line with our strategy. This is a very important point for us, and I would liketostress this point because it is -- we do not want to sacrifice our main principles and values just in the search for the extra Europe. We remain committed to these values, which as I've described many times in the past, are based on 3 key pillars. The first one is value and not volume. That was also clear, I believe, from today's results. We focus on high value-added products on, for example, turnkey electrification projects, on differentiating and innovative solutions to our clients. Secondly, we focus on export sales. The U.S. is one example. The share of wallet that we try to expand with major international oil companies, ExxonMobil, Total being some of them, is a second example. We also try to get into all countries that have attractive RES outlook and build either wind farm or solar panels and so on. Then -- and we also want to expand our business into the Asia Pacific region and the Middle East. And finally, we remain committed with our engineers and with our specialized staff on operational excellence. Operational excellence is described by automation across the factories, real-time maintenance, the so-called Industry 4.0, and a continuous optimization of manufacturing processes. All of the previous factors lead very clearly [ plus ] to the upgrade of the fiscal year 2024 guidance. So we have the previous factors that I discussed with you, the very strong H1 performance and the robust backlog. That's why we have decided to upgrade our adjusted EBITDA guidance for the fiscal year 2024 to EUR 245 million to EUR 265 million. This is an increase of 14% to 24% from last year's adjusted EBITDA. And we also decided, based on the mega trends, on the solid financial results of our segments and on the backlog, which gives us enough visibility for years ahead,toinclude for the first time some medium-term financial ambitions. These medium-term ambitions are expressed both in revenue growth in excess of 12% per annum and an adjusted EBITDA figure of around EUR 400 million, from EUR 380 million to EUR 420 million. I would like to stress here that these ambitions exclude contribution from our new U.S. plant. So what is left now? We are at the last slide of our presentation. The one date which has been added here is the date -- the expected date of the Extraordinary General Meeting, the 2nd of October, and the rest remains as announced previously. With these words, I would like to conclude the presentation from our side and turn the floor back to Chorus Call operator.