DEME Group NV (DEME) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations at DEME, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to DEME's Full Year 2025 Earnings Call and Webcast. Joining me today are DEME's Chief Executive Officer, Luc Vandenbulcke; and our Chief Financial Officer, Stijn Gaytant. Both Luc and Stijn will take you through the presentation, which will be visible on screen during the webcast and also accessible on DEME's Investor portal. Slide 2 briefly outlines the agenda. Luc will kick it off with the executive summary, after which both Stijn and Luc will further elaborate on the group's financial results for the year, the performance of our segments and highlighting some of the major projects, also DEME's progress in the ESG domain to then conclude with the outlook. After the presentation, we will open the floor for Q&A. And so without further delay, I'll hand it over to Luc for the executive summary.

Thank you, Carl, and good morning to everyone also from my side. As you can see, in 2025, DEME's people have once again delivered excellent results, and that even in the context of pretty turbulent market conditions. They've helped DEME to achieve the record results that we are announcing today. Let me give you a couple of key figures. The group turnover of EUR 4.2 billion in 2025, climbing from EUR 2.7 billion in 2022 a very meaningful step-up in profitability. EBITDA for the year was good for more than EUR 930 million, and that is almost a double if you count from 2022 to 2025. EBITDA margin for the year was 22.4% and a 380 basis point improvement over the last year's 18.6%. The group's net profit reached EUR 346 million, rising from EUR 288 million in 2024. Our order book stood at EUR 7.6 billion, down from EUR 8.2 billion in 2024, but above both the midyear and the Q3 '25 level and reflecting the addition of new follow-on and maintenance contracts and also including the integration of the Havfram order book. Regarding Havfram as you know, we have made this important strategic acquisition in 2025, whereby we acquired 2 world-class vessels, the Norse Wind and the Norse Energi. And we did that to further expand in the Offshore Wind Energy sector. We have taken delivery of both vessels now, and they are set to commence their initial project work in the course of this year. In line with our policy, we will this year propose a dividend of EUR 4.5 per share, and that marks an 18% increase on last year. And looking ahead in 2026, which is already a special milestone year as we will be celebrating DEME's 150 years anniversary, we believe again to be well positioned to navigate this dynamic market environment. And we are guiding for a turnover and an EBITDA margin to be in line with the 2025 level. And now I will hand over to Stijn, who will walk you through the financial highlights in more detail.

Thank you, Luc, and also good morning on my behalf as well. The table presented here not only displays DEME's performance during our record year of '25, it also demonstrates a sustained multiyear trajectory of growth and also an improvement across all key financial metrics. In '25, we delivered a turnover of EUR 4.15 billion. It marks the second consecutive year with revenues firmly above the EUR 4 billion milestone, but the more significant development is also the substantial improvement in profitability. Our EBITDA reached EUR 931 million, translating into an exceptional EBITDA margin of 22.4% and showing a 22% increase versus '24. And I really want to use the opportunity to stress very clearly that this EBITDA performance reflects an effective operational execution throughout our project portfolio, and it also underscores the quality of our earnings. The nonrecurring items recorded with half year results, such as the U.S. project cancellation fee, the gain on the Sea Challenger and the negative impact of the Energy Island project were largely offset one another and are combined immaterial to the group's EBITDA for the year. Now on depreciation and impairments, there was an increase to EUR 498 million, mainly due to previously announced accelerated depreciation on one of the offshore energy assets, which gives a figure of EUR 64 million impact for the whole year. There were additional contributions, some project-specific assets like Fehmarnbelt project, the Yellowstone rock dumping vessels, several vessel lifetime extensions and also the first depreciation related to the Norse Wind, which joined the fleet in the fourth quarter of '25. As mentioned by Luc already, Norse Wind, Norse Energi were part of the Havfram deal, which we signed in the second quarter of the year. Now in relationship to this transaction, the PPA has been concluded as an asset deal. So as a result, there is no goodwill that you will find in our figures. And that means that nearly the entire transaction value is allocated to the vessels with only EUR 3.9 million booked as an intangible asset, representing a favorable order book terms relative to the market. So after accounting for these depreciations, the EBIT lands at EUR 433 million, which is representing a strong 10.4% margin. Financial results amounted to minus EUR 21.5 million with the difference, as you can imagine, compared to last year, mainly due to currency fluctuations, a weaker U.S. dollar and also the interest charges on our EUR 700 million bilateral term loan, which was used for the Havfram acquisition. Taking into account our significant U.S. activity in '25 and also the volatility of the U.S. dollars, I believe this limited FX impact demonstrates also an effective hedging and a robust management approach towards financial risks. Taxes totaled EUR 100 million, which is a tax rate of 24.2%, which is an improvement compared to 26 year before. Now our share in results from joint ventures and associates remained quite stable at EUR 40 million, supported by contributions from the operational offshore wind farm in Belgium, port developments and also especially the continued strong performance of our Taiwanese joint venture. Now taking this all together, DEME delivered a record net profit of EUR 346 million, 8.3% margin and 20% growth year-over-year. Now let's see how these P&L figures are reflecting into our main balance sheet, and we are presenting a comparative analysis over the last 3 years. Working capital remains strongly negative at minus EUR 742 million, which is pretty consistent with our long-term historical average of around, let's say, 19% on turnover over the past 12 years. It reflects also continued disciplined contract and cash management, which, for example, also increased advanced payments compared to last year. The EUR 71 million deduction compared to '24 is mainly linked to the Belgium Energy Island project. The CapEx reached EUR 445 million, which includes recurring project investments, vessel lifetime extensions, capitalized maintenance. And also in addition, we booked roughly EUR 200 million of shipyard payments for the Norse Wind and Norse Energi. Now this combining with the EUR 537 million, which we paid to the sellers in the second quarter of last year on the Havfram deal, a total of EUR 736 million out of the EUR 900 million that we announced for the Havfram acquisition has been spent in '25. Now despite a significantly higher operating cash flow before working capital movement being EUR 818 million in '25 compared to EUR 707 million in '24, the combination of a lower working capital, a higher CapEx and the Havfram acquisition results in a free cash flow of minus EUR 394 million. I would like to highlight that excluding the Havfram transaction, the free cash flow would have been good for EUR 342 million. Considering the EUR 700 million bilateral loans we raised for Havfram, EUR 205 million of loan repayments we have done during the year, the net financial debt now stands at minus EUR 391 million compared to minus EUR 418 million midyear and plus EUR 91 million end of '24. Now as a result, the net financial debt over EBITDA ratio stands at only 0.4 compared to minus 0.1 previous year, which I believe further demonstrates the robustness of our balance sheet and cash and cash equivalents ended the year at EUR 846 million. In summary, even after having absorbed most of the Havfram transaction already in '25, DEME upholds a very strong, a very resilient balance sheet. And I believe we have demonstrated that within 1 year, DEME's capacity to absorb such a large-scale transaction is present, and it is very well positioned to also pursue further value-creating investments. Now having a look at the order book. On the left graph, you will see that the order book remained healthy at EUR 7.6 billion and slightly higher than the EUR 7.5 billion we reported midyear. Midyear included Havfram order book. That means that in the second half of the year, we have added follow-on contracts, a broad range of smaller awards across all contracting segments and several new larger contracts. Now looking at the geographical break down continues to be our anchor market. It presents 78% of the total order book, up from 71% last year, underscoring our strength and also our strategic importance of our home region. Asia and Africa remained stable year-on-year, reflecting steady tender activity. And finally, as you can anticipate, we do see a decline in the Americas. We went from 12% to 7%, and that's the direct result of an effective project execution on our U.S. offshore projects and of course, the absence of new U.S. offshore wind additions given the current market circumstances. On the right graph, you will see the order book runoff over the coming years. So for '26, we have EUR 3.6 billion already well secured, which is a consistent level compared to previous years and is also supporting our guidance that we've provided. And looking further on, we have EUR 4 billion lined up for '27 and beyond, which we consider to be a healthy position. In summary, I believe in the second half of the year, our order book grew from EUR 7.5 billion to EUR 7.6 billion, with new orders exceeding as such, the EUR 2 billion of turnover that we have delivered during the same period, which is a clear sign of sustained demand and also a very disciplined contract acquisition. Now looking at the group turnover, there are really 3 key messages I would like to emphasize. First of all, we delivered a 1% year-on-year growth on the turnover. For the second consecutive year, DEME has surpassed EUR 4 billion in turnover, demonstrating the company's structural scale and looking at the bigger picture, our progress is remarkable in just 5 years, turnover increased from EUR 2.5 billion to EUR 4.15 billion, reflecting a compounded annual growth rate at nearly 12%. If you look at the segment breakdown in the middle of the slide, we see that the drivers behind this performance in '25 are a 4% increase year-on-year in the Offshore Energy segment, which is supported by high activity levels and solid execution. The team clearly navigated the challenging situation in the Americas remarkably well and contributed positively to the overall growth in '25. Dredging and Infra delivered essentially stable revenues with a noticeable stronger second half, supported by a higher vessel occupancy, especially for the cutter suction dredgers. And in environmental revenues were down 90% versus last year, and this is mainly linked to project phasing. And as a result, the segment contributed around 6% of turnover this year, slightly below its historical range of, let's say, 8% to 10%. Looking at the geographical breakdown, Europe remains our main market, representing 54% of group turnover in '25, which is a slight decrease from last year. And this change is mainly due to, on the one hand, increased turnover for the Americas, which was already reflected in the order book reduction and also strong growth for the Asia region, supported by several dredging projects across the region and strong offshore activities in Taiwan. Overall, the main takeaway here is that we have a consistently expanding turnover base that is well diversified and supported by our key markets. Now if we look briefly at the four segments, we start with Offshore Energy, where you see that the order book has remained healthy at EUR 4.2 billion year-on-year. After the Havfram addition in the first half, that means that the second half brought another EUR 1.2 billion on new intake, exceeding the EUR 1 billion of turnover for the same period. The growth trajectory of the segment here is clearly visible. Over the past 5 years, turnover has steadily increased, reaching EUR 2.1 billion in '25 and a 4% improvement on a year-on-year basis. Interesting to mention that 92% of that turnover of the year is linked to renewable energy activities, which underscores the strategic focus that we have -- we have and the market leadership in the global energy transition. If we turn at profitability, segment maintained its very strong momentum from the first half, delivering a full year EBITDA of EUR 633 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 30.7%, and this compared to 21% of the last year. And that means that in absolute value, that is an outstanding 52% increase in figures. On the right-hand graph, you can clearly see what underpins this profitability. It's a high fleet capacity, solid utilization of it across the year and also excellent project execution. The slightly lower average of occupancy that you might notice of 44 weeks is partly explained by the Norse Wind because this one is already included since quarter 4, but is currently transitioning to Europe and therefore, is not yet accounted as operating weeks. I think all in all, it's very fair to say that Offshore Energy delivered another outstanding performance throughout '25, combining commercial strength, operational excellence and record profitability. For Dredging & Infra, the order book remains healthy at nearly EUR 3 billion, but down compared to a strong '24 comparison basis. This order book combines Dredging & Infra projects combined, and we are seeing a steady progress on turning backlog into turnover for the main infra works in '25, such as the Energy Island, Fehmarnbelt and the Oosterweel Connection works without currently any material intake of new large infra works in the order book during the year. Now for the dredging part, we continue to see healthy tender activity, which is supported by an order book intake surpassing the turnover in the second half of '25. The turnover of the segment is nearing EUR 2 billion and remains essentially stable year-over-year. Now relating to the EBITDA, we closed '25 at EUR 302 million, which represents 15.5% EBITDA margin. This outcome reflects two things. On the one hand, the 12.3% EBITDA margin, which we reported in the first half and an 18.5% EBITDA margin in the second half of '25. This rebound is consistent with the segment's average EBITDA margin in prior years and also confirms that the nonrecurring item mentioned in the first half under [indiscernible] 37 did not require further adjustments. And in relation to the fleet utilization on the right, you notice a lower overall occupancy, which is mainly the cutter suction due to temporary reduced demands in the first half of '25, but it picked up in the second half. For Environmental, the order book of our Environmental segment increased with 16% to EUR 408 million, demonstrating the team's strengths and their successful efforts in targeting opportunities, mainly in Belgium and the Netherlands, but with further reach to other European countries as well in the pipeline. Continued progress on remediation and high water protection works in Belgium and the Netherlands delivered EUR 272 million and an EBITDA of EUR 40 million. The EBITDA margin increased to 14.7%, up from 12.9% in the same period last year. As such, the higher EBITDA margin in '25 offset partly the reduction in turnover of 19% caused mainly due to project phasing. Now if you have a look at the concessions on the Concessions segment, the net result from associates contributed EUR 14.4 million. As in prior year, the wind production was on the soft side, impacting the upside in the operational wind farms. Nevertheless, this was partly offset this year by a stronger port concessions activity. Concessions also streamlined the ScotWind concession portfolio, exiting the Ayre project and strengthening the stake in Bowdun. The financial impact of this transaction was really minimal. And then Concessions also continued to manage and further develop Port-La Nouvelle and Port of Duqm in Oman. And we were also very pleased with the auction win for a 25-year concession for the Port of Paranagua for which preparations are ongoing. That's it for my part for the time being, and I gladly hand over to Luc again.

Thank you. Thank you, Stijn, for the comprehensive overview of the financials. And in the next part of the presentation, I will go now more into depth into some of the key projects that we have executed in 2025. And let's start with Offshore Energy. So we will see a map here. And as Stijn mentioned, Offshore Energy has had an outstanding year. You can see here, we have on the map, there's a lot of countries, of course, the Mercator projection doesn't help us, but we have been active across 3 continents. And if we start from the West in the U.S., our teams have maintained their momentum in 2025 and had a strong installation year and that despite, as you have seen, some stop-and-go cycles, and that was, let's say, due to the regulatory headwinds that we have seen over there. We've been working on 3 offshore wind projects, all 3 of them on the East Coast, Empire Wind, where we did cable laying works, Vineyard Wind, mainly turbine installation works. And those are 2 projects that will be completed already now in the first half of 2026. The third one is Coastal Virginia, which I will come back in a bit more detail in a second. Now Europe also remains a very important offshore wind market for us with major projects underway in the U.K., in France, in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. And our Asian activities are mainly focused on Taiwan for the moment being, where Hai Long and Fengmiao are already our fourth and fifth offshore wind projects since we started there in 2023. To our opinion, Asia is expected to remain an important market in the upcoming years, and we are also taking positions to start works in other countries now such as Japan. Now most of our activities, as you see, were focused on offshore wind projects, but we also delivered work for non-offshore wind projects and that in each of these continents again. We -- including some decommissioning project in the North Sea, a pipeline duplication project in Australia and a dredging campaign for the offshore West White Rose project for the Cenovus Energy in Canada. Now that's a little bit a global overview, but I would like to take the opportunity to focus on a few of these key projects. And let's start. You see here the Orion working on the Virginia Offshore Wind project. It's called the Dominion Energy Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project with a capacity of 2.6 gigawatts of clean energy. It's the largest wind farm under construction in the U.S. We are responsible for a very large scope being the installation of the monopiles as well as the offshore -- as the offshore substations, the cable installation and the scour protection. The Orion has brought the floating installation concept to the U.S. and that for the first time. And we introduced an approach, including a fully customized logistics chain adapted to this quite specific U.S. market. All monopiles were installed and that in 2 summer campaigns in 2024 and 2025. And we continue to make steady progress. We are installing the rest, about 50 last transition pieces. The 3 substations have been installed and the Orion remains engaged, of course, to complete this project and will then return to Europe to initiate new projects in the spring of this year. On the next slide, we see also a quite representative slide on the projects of Ile d'Yeu and Noirmoutier, which are both located on the French Atlantic Coast. On these projects, we faced challenging rocky seabed conditions as we previously had on the Saint-Nazaire projects. And the Ile d'Yeu and Noirmoutier project scope included the engineering, transport and installation of the monopiles foundations as well as, again, the installation of a substation. We optimized and deployed again our offshore foundation drill and the so-called MODIGA, which is a special tool, which encapsulates the drilling, installation and grouting operation and protects them from especially here, the very harsh Atlantic conditions. Seabed preparation at the projects began in 2023, and the final monopile was installed on schedule in June 2025. I think these French wind farms are good showcases to highlight our capabilities and expertise as a one-stop shop for any packages of wind farm developers requirements and even dealing with very difficult like here, rocky seabed conditions and difficult oceanic conditions. Now on the next continent, you can see here a beautiful picture of the Green Jade which is our joint venture, CDWE vessel that completed all of the jacket foundations for the 1 gigawatt Hai Long wind farm in Taiwan. And Hai Long, as was mentioned before in the presentation, 1 of the 6 offshore wind farm projects in Taiwan, which we are involved in. Again, the Oceanic challenges are very significant over there in the Taiwan Strait, known for harsh marine conditions, very strong currents, large water depths and frequent typhoons, but we delivered. The team deployed the Green Jade, as you can see, to install 73 jacket foundations. And again, here, they implemented innovative solutions, including an optimization of the pin pile fastening and lifting tools and completed the installation phase even ahead of schedule. Today, we are progressing with the last part, which is the turbine installation activities and the sea challenger will start over there in April to continue those turbine installations. Let's go now to the Dredging and Infra segment. As you can see on the slide, our Dredging and Infra segment demonstrates strong global coverage, and it features a blend of capital dredging and maintenance dredging, and that's around the world. And we are also, as you know, doing a number of marine infrastructure activities, but that's more focused on Europe. The dredging team handled projects in a large number of countries in the U.K., France, Belgium and Germany. And we launched a number of new ones in Spain, more in Southern Europe here, Spain, Greece and Italy. Ongoing efforts continued in the Middle East and in West Africa, including a special quite flagship coastal protection program in Ivory Coast. The teams also kept a solid presence in India. We started working in Indonesia, and we performed a maintenance dredging campaign in Australia. Then the Infra team, they make substantial progress on major multiyear projects and that in Belgium, in France and in Denmark. Now again, here, a couple of exemplary projects. We start with the Ardersier Energy Transition Facility in Scotland where we completed the dredging and the leg reclamation works. This project is located in the Moray Firth in Scotland, and it was previously -- it's a site which was previously dedicated to the oil and gas industry, and it's been completely reshaped into a hub for Offshore Renewable Energy, which offers direct access to the North Sea wind farm zones, which will, for the Scottish government, be an important enabler in the Scottish Energy Transition plan. DEME was here tasked with deepening and widening the harbor and the harbor and access channel to accommodate for heavy lift vessels transporting those big offshore wind components. We deployed the cutter suction dredger D'ARTAGNAN, which we see on the picture, and the channel depth was increased here to about 12.4 meters, and we created a width of 160 meters. All works, of course, complied with, as you know, Scotland's very strict environmental standards using special coastal modeling and assessment studies to reduce further the ecological impact of what we are doing. DEME's involvement in the Odyssey project also builds on our strong track record that we have already in Scotland, including, as you know, in the previous years, major roles in the construction of the Moray East and Moray West offshore wind farms. Next project we want to highlight is the Princess Elisabeth project, really a world's first energy island. And the -- we are in a joint venture which is called TM Edison. We completed the first 2025 offshore campaign season last year, installing 11 caissons. They are at their final location, which is about 45 kilometers of up to 22,000 tons, and they form the outer walls of the future island, creating a safe harbor for the future electrical infrastructure. Now our offshore teams made sure that the structures were installed but also secured for -- during the winter. At the same time, the remaining 12 caissons were completed onshore in flushing and the offshore activities will resume in the coming weeks in spring, focusing on completing the whole islands interior. Now developed by the Belgium transmission system operator, as you know, this artificial island will connect offshore wind farm and serves as an energy hub connecting then directly to the Belgium and electricity grid. Next project is the Abu Qir project in Egypt, which is a project that really stands out for me. It's one of the largest dredging and land reclamation projects in our history -- in our history today, I would say. And several of our dredgers were again occupied on this project last year. This multiyear project will eventually see an entire new city quarter and a greenfield port constructed near, as you know, Alexandria, and this port will be one of the biggest and deepest port in the whole of the Mediterranean Sea. I remember flying over the area in 2025, and it's already possible to see where DEME has created this 1,000 hectares of new land deploying different vessels with careful management of the many interfaces, as you know, of this complex and multifaceted project. It's impressive, and we are again making very good progress on this project. Then we go on to the third contracting segment, which is our Environmental segment. And in 2025, the Environmental segment completed the -- in Norway, the Bergen remediation project, and at the same time, we made steady progress on our key projects, both in Belgium and the Netherlands. This segment also continued to expand capacity by upgrading our soil treatment centers, and we are scaling up our Cargen active carbon solution, which I will give a bit more detail in the following slides. Again, taking a couple of key projects, let's start with Feluy, DEME's Environmental segment is focusing, as you know, on remediating brownfield sites and redeveloping them to give them a valuable future purpose. I think this site of formerly owned by the chemical giant BASF is a prime example of such a project. Here, our environmental team, and that is in a PPP and a public private partnership is responsible for the purchase remediation and redevelopment of this 65-hectare site. Polluted soils, contaminated groundwater and obsolete infrastructures are just some of the challenges that we encountered here and around 150 tons of soils are being treated, most of them on site, avoiding truck journeys and emissions. And this demonstrates our focus on adopting a circular approach. Around 4 million tons of recycled clean soil from our treatment centers is also used for backfilling and creating level surfaces, preparing them already for the construction of brand-new buildings. After the remediation, 2/3 of the site will be available for industrial activities and 1/3 -- approximately 1/3 will be a biodiverse area. As I said before, I would come back to Cargen. That's our joint venture specialized in activated carbon treatment and remediation solutions, and that's now scaling up the volumes and scaling up the commercial capacity. Established in late '24, Cargen manufactures its own carbon capture filters and is as such, a valuable addition to our solutions portfolio for treating polluted soil and water, which allow us to deploy our own filters and also to deliver it to third-party customers. And you can see here on the picture, it's an example. It's a setup of 8 large what we call the brand Aqua Pure filters at the recycling site in the Netherlands, which these filters are processing contaminated soils, highlighting really the flexibility and scalability of this solution to meet the clients' requirements. And then finally, I go to our fourth segment, that is our Concessions segment. The Concession segment remained involved in operational wind farms in Belgium, of course. And for Dredging and Infrastructure, the team continues to manage and further develop the participation in its portfolio, including Port-La Nouvelle in France and Port of Duqm in Oman. On both port developments, we see good progress with year-over-year increased contribution to the group. Following the successful opening of the tunnel, DEME Concessions entered into a provisional sales agreement in 2025 regarding our stake in the Blankenburg Tunnel project with the final closing of that transaction expected in the first half of 2026. Then at the same time, we streamlined our participation in the ScotWind concession portfolio and that in October last year. To explain that a bit, following a swap share, DEME Concessions and Aspiravi International, we increased together our stakes and are now joint owners of the Bowdun Offshore Wind Farm project. As you know, that's a 1 gigawatt project designed as a bottom fixed site, and we will -- the 2 of us hold 70% and 30% of the shares, respectively. As a result of that, Qair International became the sole owner of the Ayre Wind Farm project, which is in its turn a floating foundation site. On the Bowdun site, as I mentioned, it's a bottom fixed offshore wind farm with now financial close anticipated for 2030. On this project here, you see the Paranagua port. In October, a consortium including DEME won the auction for a 25-year Concessions to operate, maintain and expand the access channel to this port to the Port of Paranagua, which is Brazil's second largest public port. This contract is expected to close in the coming weeks, after which it will be added to our order book. The main works will involve deepening the channel, which will allow larger vessels to access the port, and it also involves the maintenance of the projects -- of the channel step through regular dredging and vessel management or vessel navigation management. The operations are here expected to start in October of this year. That were the segments, and I would like to now move on to our ESG achievements in 2025. Let's first look at the environmental part. DEME's eligible and aligned activities continue to grow in 2025, and I'm talking about the EU taxonomy now, of course, with 52% of group turnover categorized as eligible and 47% as aligned, and that compares to 45% and 42% in 2024, respectively. The rise is mainly accounted for by the fact that offshore energy now represents a larger share in our turnover and more taxonomy aligned activities across our other activities. I'm really very pleased with this result as I see it as a measure of genuine sustainability contribution and a recognition, positioning DEME as one of the leading performers and markedly above average scores both in Belgium and in Europe. Now if we look at the CapEx EU taxonomy, our eligible and aligned CapEx activities grew substantially compared to 2024, primarily due to investments in the 2 new Havfram vessels. Both, as you know, are intended to be deployed in the offshore wind sector and qualify as taxonomy eligible. And for our greenhouse gas footprint and energy management, will keep reassessed in 2026 against our targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We expect to see a step-up in 2026 as we integrate Norse Wind and Norse Energi into our fleet, and these vessels are featuring installations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, DEME has further invested in shore power connection in Flushing to enable our vessels to switch off onboard generators in our port. While we certainly maintain our focus on using low-carbon fuels where possible, the proportion of low carbon fuel consumption was around 5% to 6% in both '24 and '25, and that's a decline from 2023, largely due to low industry take-up and limited availability of low carbon fuels in the regions that we are operating in. Let's go to Social then. As we continue to invest and attract and retain, of course, top talent, the group's workforce further increased to nearly 6,000 employees, and that reflects a 3% increase compared to 2024. We are pleased to see that in '25, our HR team was honored with the esteemed HR Ambassador award which is always encouraging to see. It's encouraging to see that our commitments to lifelong learning and lifelong careers is received by external appraisal. Then we go to our safety metric. The primary metric is the lost time injury frequency rate. It remained below our target of 0.2, and it's at 0.18 in 2025. And as you know, safety remains really as a top priority within the group. And we have a lot of ongoing initiatives such as the Safety Week, Safety Success Stories and a lot of safety awareness campaigns that are really helping us to embed safety in our organization. And finally, let's go to the last part, which is the outlook and the dividend. We start with the outlook. We expect turnover and EBITDA margin in 2026 to be in line with last year's level, giving the existing projects in the backlog, the pipeline of new opportunities coming along and the current fleet capacity. CapEx is estimated to remain around EUR 450 million, and this includes the upgrade, the repair and the maintenance investments in the fleet and the remaining payment for the completion of Norse Energi. And is before, of course, as you know, potential further large capacity expansion to support our longer-term growth opportunities. Now looking further ahead in the midterm and despite current geopolitical tensions, we remain confident that DEME is well positioned to continue delivering robust, sustainable performances. In line with our dividend policy, targeted to a payout ratio of 33% of DEME's net group profit, the Board will propose this year a gross dividend of EUR 4.5 per share, and that represents an 18% increase compared to last year. And then as I'm almost finishing off my part, a few more slides about the existing year that we have ahead of us, exciting year that we have ahead of us. We are delighted that our 2 new next-generation offshore installation vessels, Norse Wind and Norse Energi will be -- have been joining the DEME fleet, but they will start their first projects now very soon. Norse Wind is expected to commence turbine installation works for Vestas in the first half of the year, while Norse Energi is scheduled to start its first project activities around summer of this year. Another remarkable event is, as we mentioned earlier, DEME will be celebrating a remarkable milestone this year, 150 years of shaping horizons around the world. You can see a couple of pictures here, but it's truly remarkable. And if you look back at those 150 years of history, we were there in the beginning of the century in Argentina. We have lived through 2 world wars, the Panama Canal, Suez Canal. So a lot of big events DEME has lived through. And throughout the year, you will see we will be sharing 150 inspiring stories. I've seen many of them already are already public. It's really fantastic campaign. And you will see those on a dedicated anniversary website. These snapshots that we will be giving highlight our pioneering people, our projects and the innovative breakthroughs that have been made through the history of DEME and that made the DEME to the company that it is today. So I really invite everybody to go and see our fascinating history on this special website. And that finalizes my presentation. I thank you, and I will now hand you back to Carl so that he can start the Q&A session.

Thank you, Luc and Stijn. We will indeed now begin the question-and-answer session. There are different ways to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] We are now ready for some first questions. And I see that we have some questions in the chat, and let's take them first as they came in first. So it's -- Luc, Stijn, it's a question on offshore energy. It comes from our analyst at KBC Securities, Guy Sips. So offshore energy margin at 30%, actually at 31% level. And the question is about the sustainability. So to what extent do you see this margin level as structurally repeatable, especially as Norse Wind and Norse Energi ramp up in '26. What mix pricing or utilization assumptions underpin your guidance for full year '26 margins will remain in line with full year '25. Stijn, I think you'll kick it off.

Okay. I'll take that one. Thanks for that question. Now you will know that the offshore segment as any segment within the DEME Group remains quite a project-driven business [Audio Gap] of 31%. The 31% driven by a disciplined execution and also quite a strong project mix and also strong contracting management as well. It's clear that there's a positive trend. The figures show that. And without being too over specific on future numbers, we are confident that the projects which are currently still in execution and also the ones which are in order book and on the near-term [ Mercator ] as well can continue to deliver quite a solid profitability of with the main element also that they need to be, of course, well executed. And for example, an addition of Havfram is helping in that aspect. And the confidence is also reflecting actually in the guidance that we're giving for '26.

Yes. Thank you, Stijn. And I see also a first analyst queuing up for a question live. Thijs Berkelder, you have the floor.

Do you hear me?

We do. We do. Good morning.

Okay. Yes. So coming back on the previous question, I think that those are the main questions we all have. What to expect for 2026? You're guiding a stable EBITDA and logic consumption is more or less flat revenues, roughly flat margins year-over-year. Your dredging margins in '25 were well below normal levels. So assuming dredging margins more normal in '26, let's say, 18%. Is it then logical to assume offshore energy margins slightly lower, let's say, 25% and then have the combined at around 22% as a starting point for '26. Is that a logical assumption?

Okay. So thank you for your question on our guidance for '26. I'm looking to both Stijn and Luc.

It's a good mathematical possibility. The exact margins for each of the segments will, of course, depend a little bit on the phasing of the projects where we are. Some projects accelerate the other ones. But in broad line, it is one of the assumptions you can have if you follow the guidance and details that we have given.

Yes.

Does that respond the question? Okay. You have -- you are allowed to one more question.

Yes. But related to that outlook question, do you also mean or guide for a stable net result? I guess that's the suggestion. And last year, you had quite some -- quite a large amount of one-off charges. So isn't it so that we should see a further step-up in the net result in '26?

Well, the one-off elements referring to, and I think I also touched upon it in the beginning, if you combine them all together, the impact is really immaterial on EBITDA and bottom line maybe for one specific element, but then on the other side, so we are always a bit careful with giving an indication bottom line. You've seen we've managed quite well the quite big volatility on the currency rates. But of course, these elements are not always that easy to predict. So we are always a bit more careful to also give a guidance on what was going to happen bottom line. But I again use the opportunity to state that these one-offs altogether really have no impact on the figure.

Okay. Thank you, Stijn. I'll switch to another question in the chat forum on order book dynamics and visibility. So observation that the group order book fell from EUR 8.2 billion to EUR 7.6 billion year-over-year despite a good intake and the Havfram integration. And the question is, can you clarify how much of this decline is due to timing, major projects executed faster than replenishment versus structural changes in tendering pipelines? How confident are you, are we in replenishment in the first half or in '26, particularly with intakes in Europe and APAC? Stijn, perhaps you'll kick it off on this.

Yes. Maybe a bit more to indicate that we should not focus too much on, I think, the exact values, and I'd like to give you an example of that. If you look at, for example, the order book of 2022 that we presented end of '22, that was EUR 6.2 billion. And in the year-end plus 1, that was EUR 1.6 billion. So that reflected to the year of 2024. And at the end, we had a turnover of EUR 4.1 billion. If you look at the order book of '23 that we declared, that was EUR 7.6 billion at that moment. The year-end plus 2 at that moment already had a EUR 2.6 billion in the order book runoff. And there, the turnover realized at the end was EUR 4.1 billion. If you look at the order book of '24, at the end, that was the EUR 8.2 billion that was mentioned just now. In the year-end plus 1, that was EUR 2.3 billion, and that is reflecting to 2026. And if you look at our guidance that we're giving, there we say that turnover is in line. So why do I give that example to identify that between a EUR 1.6 billion and EUR 2.6 billion in the runoff of an order book, at the end, we can still arrive at the same figures. So it gives an indication, but we do not always say that we want to focus too much on exact values. We do feel that this is a very healthy order book, and that's a bit more from a bit historical background that I would like to share with that.

I think adding to that on -- I think the question was how confident we are in replenishment. What we see today and not giving exact figures is that we remain having a very strong tender activity. And that is really, I must say, across activities and segment and across the geographies that we are working on, except maybe offshore wind in the U.S., which, of course, you are all familiar with. But so based on that, we are pretty confident that in the period to come, the question was specific to H1, but I think in the period to come, we will see new orders coming in. And as always, of course, we will announce them as soon as we have them.

Yes. Thank you, Luc. A follow-on question that came in is related to our concessions and the share swap in the ScotWind project. So the question is, can you explain the rationale about the fact that you have stepped up your position in the bottom fixed in the Bowdun Wind Farm and exited actually the floating wind farm. I think, Luc, that's probably the question for you.

Yes. Well, I think in general, it's fair to say, and I think I made that point before that we want to execute the wind farms that we are involved in. And that we see the tendency that we see even before AR 7, which confirms that, that we think it's going to take a bit more time before the floating [indiscernible]. I think for those who are not familiar with it in the AR7 in the U.K., we had GBP 91 per megawatt hour for the bottom fixed and GBP 216 -- GBP 216 per megawatt hour for the floating. So that, to my opinion, confirms that there's still quite a gap to be bridged. And based on that, it was our preference to have a larger stake in the bottom fixed project Bowdun, which we have now together with Aspiravi. So that was most of the rationale for us. And maybe our partners of Qair have another view on that are a bit more bullish on the floating. But I think we found each other there in having each our own views on these -- on the future of these wind farms.

Yes. Thank you, Luc. And we're already nearing the end of our Q&A because we have one more question left in the chat. It's about working capital, the working capital swing and free cash flow. So the question is, how should we think about the working capital profile in '26? Does full year '25 represent a temporary reversal after an exceptionally strong full year '24? Our structural factors such as project phasing milestone timing shifting the cash conversion pattern going forward? I think that's a question for our CFO.

Yes, I'll take that one.

I hope so.

Well, to put it a bit in perspective, if you look at the current negative working capital compared to turnover, it is actually not that bad. It's around 17%. I think 2 years ago, it was 14%. Last year, it was 20%. The average is around 19% and we do feel pretty confident that we would be able probably in the year of '26, pending, of course, milestone payments and such on specific projects to grow back towards the historical average that we had in the last 12 years. So we do feel that we might have a small positive upside on the working capital.

Yes. Still one more question that came in. And I think, Luc, that's probably one for you. It is on our view on the offshore market on the midterm and long term. I think that's probably top of mind question for many investors, the overall offshore market status. And whether you can shed some light on your take...

Yes, of course, I can give you our view on this, and it's multifaceted, I think. Let me say, on the mid-, long term, we are very confident that the market will be there and is there. We have seen now, of course, you saw the Hamburg conference, but we have had 3 conferences in a row where the same was being said. Now our view is that both the people who are policymaking and the developers and the supply chain are more or less aligned on the future numbers. So that is good. I've said before, we have a recalibration. There was these auctions without any support system, which failed. And now we see AR7, we see the Netherlands, we see Denmark. We see hopefully very soon now, Belgium, Germany reconsidering the -- to go to CFD, which really is the system to go to. So that is happening. I think that in going to this very large demand on which we have consensus towards the end of the decade, there may be periods in which it is a little bit calmer. Although from a practical point of view, because I see all these studies and all these numbers, we have not seen that most of the time, this is being leveled out because the demand is -- if the demand is a little bit lower, the developers start shifting their projects. So to our opinion, that will be more or less leveled out. And I think at the same time, we as DEME, we are, I think, cost leader quality leader to our clients. So we see a market -- still a growing market in which we will be able to certainly have our market share. So I'm pretty confident. And so the market will be there and leading up to this vast demand. I think the -- let's say, the ups and the downs will be more leveled out certainly for DEME. I don't know whether that is...

Yes. Thank you, Luc. And I think with that, we have reached the conclusion of our earnings call. Yes, we also understand that it is an extremely, extremely busy morning with many results coming out. On the other hand, it's a good observation that we are able to wrap it up within 1 hour presentation and Q&A. If you happen to have further questions or wish to provide feedback, you know where to find me. And against the backdrop of our financial calendar now displayed. I'd like to thank you all for your participation and also, of course, Stijn and Luc for their insightful presentation and for addressing the questions. I wish you all a great day.