Cenergy Holdings SA (CENER) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I am Alex Benos, the CFO of Cenergy Holdings, and I would like to welcome you on this sunny afternoon to today's live webcast, where we will present our company's 2024 financial results. Next to me on today's call to comment and discuss the segment's performance are Mr. Kostas Savvakis, General Manager of Hellenic Cables; and Mr. Ilias Bekiros, General Manager of Corinth Pipeworks. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. So let us now turn to the highlights of our financial results for 2024. The main message here is that our high margins drive excellent performance. We continue to capitalize on growing demand in the energy sector with the contribution of cables projects to the group's profitability being the most important factor as a large number of projects in our large backlog were executed during 2024. Demand for cable projects also remained strong and supported prices in that respective segment. Finally, steel pipes delivered an even stronger performance than 2023, attaining very high margins due to an improved project mix. The key figures to be detailed later are as follows. First of all, we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 272 million, 27% higher than last year, and that corresponds to more than a 15% margin, 200 basis points higher than 2023. Our revenue is close to EUR 1.8 billion, a 10% increase, a yearly increase. And the solid order intake for both segments drive the backlog to a record of EUR 3.44 billion, EUR 290 million increase over the last year. It's important to note the free cash flow generation of EUR 48 million, allowing us to finance CapEx and at the same time, decrease debt. Our balance sheet remains very disciplined with a leverage ratio below 1, close to 0.6x EBITDA. Operationally, we would like to point out that our capacity expansions in all major cable facilities are going on track -- are on track. And the final expansion in Thiva will be fully operational by the year-end. In the steel pipes factory, efficiency improvements and resolution of bottlenecks are driving the company to be ready for new opportunities. All of the above give us a lot of confidence for the future financial performance. And that is why, a, we propose to the general assembly the distribution of a dividend of EUR 0.14 per share, 75% increase from last year's dividend and a similar increase to the yearly earnings before tax. And secondly, we offer to the market a guidance for the financial year 2025 of operational profitability between EUR 300 million and EUR 330 million. Let us now turn to the key financial figures. First of all, from a view of our product lines, from all our product lines, cables projects are the ones that saw an important increase in revenue of 57% year-on-year. And given this line has the highest relative margins, it has contributed to the increase of EBITDA, both in absolute terms and the margin across the whole group. There was a small decrease in revenue from cable products, but the demand, as I mentioned before, was strong for these products, and that kept their prices up. So products, cable products kept satisfactory margins as well. As for the steel pipes, the revenue overall was stable around EUR 574 million. But their EBITDA, as we will see shortly, has increased more than 50%. Why? Because of a very interesting and satisfactory mix. First of all, we had projects in Israel, projects in Australia, the CCS, carbon capture and storage project in the U.S. and a partial delivery of the OMV deep offshore project in Romania. So geographically, our sales continue to be well diversified. And the important messages on this slide is that, number one, the participation of Greece in our revenues has gone down since 2023. So there are more exports. And secondly, we have a slight decrease in the geographical -- in the sales to the Americas that includes both the South and the North America and an increase to the rest of the world. It's also important to note here that the value over volume strategy that we have pointed out so much in the past is paying off and the 10% increase in turnover since 2023 translates into around 27% increase in profitability with margins for the overall group above 15%. Keeping these levels is clearly an intention for the management of the company for the future as we will show you and we'll discuss more in the financial outlook. As for our backlog, our backlog remains strong on the 31st of December 2024, it reached EUR 3.44 billion, EUR 300 million more from 2023. Someone could say that, oh, you didn't have the 50% increase between '22 and '23 or the doubling of the backlog between '21 and '22. Of course, yes, this is partially true, but it is also due to the so-called basis effect and also to the execution of a number of important projects in both segments during '24 and my two colleagues will discuss these important projects and their presence in the global market in a while. What is more important in the backlog is its diversification both in terms of geography, as you can see on the slide, Europe still gets the lion's shares, but CPW is clearly more globally oriented than cables, especially with important projects to come in the Americas and the rest of the world. But also in terms of applications, we see, for example, that offshore wind is not the main part of our backlog. And it's important to have that diversification so that we are not directly related to central policy changes or decisions that we cannot control, but we are connected really to large trends, macro trends like grid enhancements that are not touched by political decisions. So you see that in Hellenic cables, 50% of the backlog concerns interconnections. In CPW, the largest part concerns, of course, natural gas. Natural gas will be -- is and will be an important fuel for the years to come. But CCS, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen pick up, and they are now around 40% of the present backlog. In terms of profitability, the profit before tax rises to EUR 180 million, almost EUR 180 million from EUR 95 million last year. This difference of EUR 85 million comes from both segments, EUR 40 million for the cables and EUR 30 million for steel pipes. We have another EUR 11.6 million added by the decrease in finance charges by lower finance charges, EUR 4.5 million coming in from termination fees of a customer contract. And as a negative shock to that, the EUR 6.2 million increase in SG&As, of course, are due to the rise in revenue. It is a size effect. Also following the share capital increase in October, the successful share capital increase in October, the company's aim is to keep on delivering returns to all its stakeholders. One very important group, as you know, are shareholders. And for those, our dividend policy adapts to the new environment. So we are proposing to our general assembly a dividend of EUR 0.14, as I mentioned before. That corresponds to a payout ratio around 21%, and we expect to keep the payout ratio there in the short-term future. And at the same time, the adjusted return on capital employed goes above 26%, much higher than the 21% we achieved in 2023. We know at Cenergy Holdings that it is very important to transform our manufacturing excellence and modern technology to financial returns. So we focus very hard on free cash flow generation. And I believe that this year, we made quite a good job in this section. More specifically, looking at the numbers, the EUR 276 million of EBITDA, the operational profitability of the group has added -- has been added to EUR 105 million, almost EUR 105 million from a prudent and good working capital management, producing all in all, almost EUR 380 million of cash. That EUR 380 million of cash was more than enough to cover a very ambitious and large CapEx amount. I just mentioned here the capacity expansions in the cable segments, both in the offshore unit and in the two onshore cable units in Thiva and in Eleonas in Greece, cover also all interest payments, EUR 62 million, lower than the EUR 73 million of last year and another EUR 25 million in tax. This is a total of EUR 335 million of outflows. So the net free cash flow generated from production is EUR 48 million, almost EUR 50 million. The increased cash position, however, from January 1 is clearly much higher, and it is much higher because it is affected, of course, by the share capital increase that produced a net amount of EUR 187 million, EUR 200 million capital raised minus EUR 13 million of share capital issue expenses. Other amounts worth mentioning on that slide are the EUR 3 million from grants received. I remind you that both segments try to find grants and support from any national, regional or international sources. another EUR 6 million coming from other investment activities. We subtract, of course, the EUR 15 million for dividends paid, and there is an increase of EUR 29.5 million of new debt that is done in the cables segment to finance the ongoing capacity expansions. So overall, we have a EUR 260 million change in cash, and that gives us a very strong position to start the year and to be able to finance all requirements that are planned for 2025. The good profitability also allowed us to keep a very disciplined balance sheet. What do we mean by that? We mean that the EUR 260 million, EUR 259 million to be exact, in capital expenditures last year was spent to support capacity expansions in the offshore cables, in the onshore cables two facilities that I mentioned before and an important amount also for the steel pipes facility, both strategic and maintenance amounts. Do not forget actually the U.S. plant where EUR 28 million were spent to acquire -- most of the money was spent to acquire the land plot in Baltimore, Maryland, where the new facility will be built. So all of that CapEx was covered by operational profitability. It left us space to decrease net debt. Of course, the very big decrease of EUR 225 million that you see here includes in it the cash impact of the share capital increase, but it leaves another EUR 50 million for a real debt decrease, especially from steel pipes. And finally, we achieved for the first time a negative number for our working capital. I have to note here that the negative working capital is not really a target for the company. It is due to different timing of the so-called milestone payments, so advanced payments that the segments and the companies receive for projects awarded, better payment terms for -- from our customers and so on. So in the long term, we believe that the sustainable levels for working capital will be between 6% and 9%. I would like now to finish this first part of the presentation by giving you a little bit more color per segment. I start from cables. As I told you, in cables is characterized by an increase of around 20% in turnover from 23%, a similar increase in profitability, mainly due to the mix towards the more favorable projects, a very good earnings before tax, close to EUR 180 million to EUR 115 million, sorry. And negative working capital that is due, as I told you, to these milestone payments, timing of the milestone payments and the prudent management of the rest of payment terms, payables and receivables and a small increase in net debt as the needs for CapEx in factories dictated an increase -- a small increase in debt. For the steel pipes company, Corinth Pipeworks, this turnover is stable around EUR 573 million. The stability is in terms of euros -- for euros, sorry. In volumes, Mr. Bekiros will be able to give you some more color that there is an increase in the volumes produced and sold in '24. Most importantly, a very big increase by 50% in operational profitability and excellent margins above 16%. During our roadshow, Mr. Alex, you and I were both asked by investors to -- let's give a forward-looking statement about these margins. We were both clear in stating that margins of 16% in the steel pipes business are not really something that you could find in a textbook. And definitely, in the medium term or in the long term, they might go slightly lower, but we are very happy that Corinth Pipeworks can achieve such numbers for '24 and will keep on achieving similar levels for 2025. Their debt is very small. The working capital is also very small as the capital-related expenditures were much more limited than the cables companies. I now turn over the floor to Mr. Kostas Savvakis for an outlook on the cables segment. Kostas, you have the floor.

So thank you, Alexandros. Good afternoon also from my side. I would also like to welcome you to this conference call today. So the cable segment of Cenergy Holdings, I can say that 2024 was a flagship year for us. Our results, as Alexandros shared with you remained excellent, and we actually outperformed all previously reported highs in turnover, in adjusted EBITDA and backlog. Moreover, we made substantial progress in solidifying the foundations for our future performance by attracting new orders and advancing investment execution across all facilities. In 2024, we showed continued growth and strong performance, resulting in high capacity utilization across all production lines and successful execution of both offshore and onshore projects. Revenue from the project business rose by 57% reflecting the group's value over volume strategy, while low and medium voltage power cables maintained their profitability margins at 2023 levels. These factors contributed to a significant 19% year-on-year increase in adjusted EBITDA that reached EUR 179.5 million. Several new awards for both subsea and land cables boosted the segment's backlog to a record of slightly over EUR 3 billion. This strong project pipeline reinforces Hellenic Cables' position as a major player in their energy transition era and supports its expansion plans to serve the markets that we are involved. For 2025, we expect yet another year of full utilization of our manufacturing plants, which will support our strategic goals. Our investment program is on track. In the submarine cable factory in Corinth, additional lines have been coming upstream since last year and the new capacity is already producing output for our clients. In our land cable facilities such as Thiva, Eleonas and Icme in Romania, our capacity increase program is progressing well, and we will see the additional production being available by the year-end. Key focus remains the flawless execution. Now let's discuss a little bit about our U.S. plant investment and why we consider it a strong opportunity. The U.S. market has substantial growth potential, driven by the need to modernize the aging power grids, advancements in AI and the growing demand for data centers. Our investment in Wagner's Point in Maryland will support these trends. Work is currently underway. Key permits have been obtained and long lead time equipment has already been ordered. We mentioned at the beginning, the high order intake continued throughout 2024, and our latest awards include the [indiscernible] project in Belgium from Elia, the Bretagne Sud project in France from RTE, 2 land cable projects in Germany from Amprion as well as multiyear frameworks for underground cables with Enexis in the Netherlands and with RTE in France. Such awards demonstrate the regional product and customer diversification of our order book and reinforce confidence over our future performance. The segment momentum continues as increased need for renewable energy solutions in Europe, growing electricity demand around the globe and upgrades in power grids are some of the major trends that we expect to save the next decade. Furthermore, the demand for cable products such as low and medium voltage, this demand in all our main markets remain strong, and orders are growing through long-term framework agreements. In conclusion, we remain optimistic about our future financial prospects, supported by a steadily growing order backlog and the smooth execution of our capacity expansion. That was from my side. I will hand over now to Alexandros.

Thank you, Kostas. Thank you very much. It's now the turn of Mr. Ilias Bekiros, General Manager of CPW, to discuss the outlook of the steel pipes segment. Ilias?

Thank you, Alexandros. Thank you also Kostas. Good afternoon from my side, too. And together with Dr. [indiscernible], Mr. Savvakis, I'm also proud to share with you our outstanding annual results, which mark a record-breaking year for Corinth Pipeworks. Our performance this year has been exceptional, reflecting the strength of our strategy of people and the trust of our customers worldwide, allowing us to deliver adjusted EBITDA we've seen of EUR 94 million, up from EUR 64 million in 2023 and EUR 28 million in '22 sounds like so far back in our history right now. Combined, of course, as we said, with impressively low debt and working capital figures. So the company has made progress in all our key metrics such as elevating our customer base, increasing production capacity. Let's remind the teams by -- that we split our spiral and LSAW lines during 2024, strengthening our headcount, focusing on innovation and developing our sustainability strategy, all of which allowed the company to consolidate and grow its leading position in energy markets around the world in the face of very strong competition. So CPW is truly a global business and our presence across markets has never been stronger. Over the past year, we've delivered line pipe products for projects in Europe, in North America, in Africa, Middle East and expanded into Asia Pacific. This is the direct outcome of strengthening our collaboration with all the major international users such as Chevron, Total Energies, ExxonMobil, Shell, et cetera. In 2024, CPW showed its leadership in offshore and onshore pipelines for CO2 and hydrogen being developed as part of global energy transition investments. Proof of this are the projects under execution such as BP project in the U.K., one of the world's largest offshore carbon capture pipelines currently, and additional hydrogen certified projects from Snam [indiscernible] for onshore pipeline infrastructure. At the heart of our success lies our world-class manufacturing capability. We take great pride in our ability to deliver high-quality reliable solutions for challenging offshore and onshore pipeline projects. Our company is now recognized across the world as one of a handful of Tier 1 steel pipe manufacturers capable to deliver technically advanced projects for deep water onshore, sour service, CO2 and hydrogen applications. Significant investments in our pipe production coating facilities have successfully come on stream over the last months, which will further strengthen our capabilities. We also recognize that our responsibility goes beyond our financial performance. As we look to the future, sustainability continues to be at the core of our strategy. This year, we've made significant progress in reducing our environmental footprint, investing in renewable technologies and supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy, and this focus will continue in 2025. On the other hand, we face a lot of risks, geopolitical disruption, increased protectionism such as the U.S. trade tariffs, the expected safeguard from the EU in combination with low steel demand and lower cost competition from major manufacturers, create market uncertainties and unstable steel prices. Nevertheless, CPW's diversified presence in a range of international energy markets, our focus on latest technology and our strong steel supplier and customer relationships will help CPW to navigate these challenges as we move forward. So '24 has been a record-breaking year. Looking ahead now, we have ambitious plans for growth, further investments for innovation, automation and efficiency and of course, in our people and always with a focus on delivering value for all stakeholders. Overall, Corinth Pipeworks maintains a positive outlook for our backlog evolution and our targets for 2025 and beyond. Back to you, Alexandros. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Ilias. So I would like to wrap up this part of the presentation with our 2025 financial year guidance, which reiterates our strong commitment to deliver all three of projects, products and profits. So our EBITDA for 2025 will be in the range of EUR 300 million to EUR 330 million from 10% to 20% higher than this year's profitability. And of course, we keep committed to our medium-term financial ambitions with the base year of 2023 of organic revenue growth more than 12% per annum and a EUR 400 million average EBITDA in the medium term. Our milestones for 2025 are as follows. On April 9, we will publish the 2024 annual report. Then around the end of May, we will have our Ordinary General Meeting together with an update on the first quarter of 2025. End of June are on the dividend related dates: ex dividend, dividend beneficiaries and payments. And by mid-September 2025, we will have an update on the first semester of 2025. I'll now turn to our call operator to guide you through the Q&A session. Thank you.