Eiffage SA (FGR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Presentation] Short video to illustrate how are the jobs, lines of businesses of our group. Good evening to all. Thanks for being present at this meeting of presentation of the annual results of the Eiffage Group. I commend the presence of members of the management and the Board members who are with us this evening. '25 concluded on the same trends as the one we had already observed end of June '25 during our last publication, half year publication. In spite of the ongoing tension in geopolitical area, the trends of sovereignty for industry, energy and development of new mobilities remain very powerful growth and for the medium and long term drives. It's a very good year again for the group. Lines of business growing strongly improved their profitability. To be noticed the performance of Energy Systems branch, who overshoots the perspective that we had said -- that we had told you about slightly in volume and more important in profitability. This path of the group has been commended by its integration to the CAC 40 of the Paris Stock Exchange end of December, a recognition appreciated by all of our employees and our partners and an encouragement to follow our strategy based on the complementarity of our businesses, and our geographical focus so as to strengthen our positioning as one of the European leaders of the businesses of construction, real estate, service to energy and concessions. At a time when Europe seeks to strengthen its sovereignty while speeding up its energy transition, the group enjoys very good assets initiated for some of them since many decades. First and foremost, the positioning of the group has a very large European player of the renewable energies. As said in the past years, the group remains the first sun farm installator in Europe. We delivered numerous stations in '25 in France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and we have more than renewed our book of order. Those stations are also going together with operational contracts and maintenance as well as linking to the network. Stations of Cabra and Olivar in Spain are a perfect illustration of that. Beyond the ground farms, many projects of self-consumptions are being developed in European countries. We were awarded the installation for the Minister of Ecological Transition in Madrid, aimed at reducing the release and improve the energy efficiency of this public building. And you can see on this picture, right-hand side, the sun farm on metal framing installed by our teams in Rouen above the parking lot of a bus depot fueling or feeding electricity to a mechanical workshop and offices. We're also reactive on wind farms, onshore -- mass for the wind farms and also the rolling out of fields with Eiffage system -- Eiffage Energy Systems in France and in Spain. We were awarded 2 major contracts for the construction of 2 onshore wind farms in Castile and León, Spain for a global amount of EUR 80 million and total capacity of 270 megawatts of renewable energy. Beyond the sun farms, where our teams are also ramped up on the rolling out of capacity of storage of energy, a major challenge for resilience of the networks to the north of France, Eiffage Energy Systems ensures the design, engineering and building of installation of energy storage station and it's high-voltage station but also maintenance and operation together with the provider of batteries Envision Energy. The station of 50-megawatt will enable to store energy when the RTE network would be in overcapacity and be able to reinject up to 100-megawatt hour once or twice a day during 15 years in Belgium mobilization of expertise of several of our entities of Eiffage Energy Systems and the Eiffage Construction enabled us to win the contract for the implementation of a storage station with batteries of the Tesla technology. Our Spanish teams started the installation of a new system of storage with recycled batteries and new batteries from electric cars in a sun farm in Extremadura. The challenge was to analyze the performance and the behavior of recycled battery compared to new batteries contributing to the promotion and development of circular economy. Eiffage Concession through Sun'R is active in development, operation and maintenance of sun farms in France with a installed electric power of 150 megawatts. Sun'R won in grouping on the airport of Toulouse-Blagnac, a project aim to revalue areas on the airport area with a sun farm of 56-megawatt. Right-hand side, the solar revision of a parking of HVs of Montbartier operated by Park+ works are being made by Eiffage Group in Eiffage Energy Systems. Second part, our positioning as a European leader on the market of metal frameworks offshore, thanks to our Belgian entity, Smulders, which is a subsidiary of Eiffage Metal. Offshore wind farms remains an essential lever for the energy sovereignty strategy, especially on the North and Baltic Sea. Its questioning in the United States is not impacting us since we have no locations there. Smulders has an unequal capacity in Europe with factors specialized on offshore in Belgium, U.K., Poland, Netherlands, France, on screen, the location of Hoboken. Smulders implemented 40 substations and over 2,500 pieces of transition. It was awarded in '25, the market for the development and building of 3 electrical substations to link 3 wind farms in France for an amount of over EUR 1.5 billion. Those 3 substations with the capacity of 750 megawatts each will enable to be linking the transport of electricity of over 2 gigawatts of decarboned electricity. We also took part in the pilot, floating wind farm, each one of them has been built on Fos-sur-Mer and each one is 10 megawatts of power. The park will provide green electricity to 50,000 households per year. We went on with our strategy of development with the acquisition of '25 of HSM Offshore Energy in the Netherlands, acquisition strengthening our expertise on the offshore wind farms enabling us beyond the structures framework -- metal framework to consolidate our capacity in EPC on the substations. Other assets are participation to the program of the French nuclear program with the preparation works on EPR2 in Penly, mobilizing over 1,500 employees at Eiffage Génie Civil Eiffage Metal. In parallel, Eiffage Immobilier develops capacity of housing for the employees on the work site and Eiffage Energy Systems goes on with studies to contract generators, diesel generators for the EPR2 of Penly, Gravelines and Bugey. Beyond that, our teams are active for some years on the nuclear park all through France. They participate in the installation of EDF on new sales of high voltage on the DUS of 24 nuclear reactors and contribute that to the robustness of the French nuclear stations. Beyond the projects over the framing of the extension of the life cycle, we also intervene on operations of classical maintenance. You see on the screen the Blaye where we have been awarded the renewal of our contract of maintenance for 10 years. This market covers the strategic equipment for the safety of installations and mobilize over 20 employees with the implementation of training work site as to train the workers in real conditions and enable the onboarding of new employees. We also have with our subsidiary, Tabelec in Toulouse, a capacity of design and construction of electric boards, very specific, especially for the nuclear market. In '25, Tabelec designed and manufactured boards for the Nuclear Central -- nuclear power point, Hinkley Point in the U.K. beyond this exposure to the wind farms, sun farms and nuclear, the challenges of ecological transition of electricity are supporting our entities of transport and distribution of electricity, very present in France, Spain, Germany, also through the acquisition of EQOS. We're one of the major players who participate in the strengthening and the maintenance of the electrical European networks made even more so necessary by the increase of the renewable energy sources. We do also operations in export, mainly in Africa and Central and South America. On screen, Eiffage Energy Systems installed switches, nonpolluting on a high-voltage station in the area of [ Arm ]. We saved 1,000 tonnes of equivalent CO2 in the framework of commodization of the high-voltage stations of EDF. To summarize, Eiffage was itself on this market 20 years ago. During the strong development, we are really supported by the growth. Our global exposure having reached EUR 3.3 billion in works in 2025. Beyond production and transport and storage of energy, European energy sovereignty is also supported by the improvement of the energy performance of our buildings, our factories and our infrastructures. The brand energy system is also very active, and the maintenance and optimization of the buildings on screen, programming and implementation of the lighting system in several buildings of the Bank of Spain, realized by the teams of Eiffage Energy Systems. Building side, crisis of energy in the past years acted as an accelerator for looking for energy efficiency, and generated a very strong dynamic in terms of renovation in tertiary and as well as in building. Eiffage Construction saw an intake of EUR 450 million of book of order -- order book about the renovation of households in France -- housing units in France. Contract of design realization won in September for the refurbishing of 620 units and occupied site in Rouen. Eiffage Construction also launched at the end of the year, the refurbishing of 360 housing units in the area of Saige in Pessac. This huge program will give a new life to all of those buildings while improving the quality of life of the inhabitants. The refurbished households will have a energy consumption below 90-kilowatt hour per square meter. And the teams of Eiffage Energy Systems support the hospital Saint Joseph Saint Luc in Lyon, in order to obtain a contract of energy and environmental performance for 10 years, an ambitious partnership aiming at a reduction of 40% of energy consumption per year of this hospital while securing its technical infrastructures. Our concessions are also active on the renovation with the Nove project, which beyond the construction of over 2,500 housing units are also refurbishing over 7,500 housing units for other families. Having said about the elements illustrating the force, the strong exposure of the group to the themes of sovereignty, energy and transition, it seems interesting to talk about another asset explaining the growth of the group. Its strong exposure to the traction in our sectors of several major countries in Europe, Germany, Spain, U.K. sorry, Netherlands. Spain is our larger country of activity after -- sorry, Germany is now our greatest country of activity after France with 10,000 employees and sales of EUR 2.5 billion, covering all our works and concessions. And Project won in '25 Smulders and HSM generated EUR 300 million activities in Germany bearing on the Belgium and Dutch factories. At the time, when the German government said it wishes to invest massively in this infrastructure for the decade to come, group is very well positioned to enjoy part of it. Among the many contracts won on the first half year, EQOS signed an important market for the building of high-voltage lines and the replacement of cables on 31 kilometers that will increase the capacity of transport of the electric network. SEH, German subsidiary of Eiffage Metal won a contract for the construction of the new metal bridge on Levensau on the canal channel of Kiel. The new contract illustrates the recognition of the know-how of Eiffage Metal on the civil engineering works in Germany. Through the -- refurbishing recovery plan for the renovation of German infrastructure, Eiffage Metal enjoys a very strong book of order. Eiffage Infra-Bau finalizes the works on the motorway A3 for the Eiffage Concession through a German contract of the Type A model. Beyond organic growth after the phase of integration of EQOS and Salvia, Eiffage Energy Systems continued to strengthen itself by external growth and by acquisition of small companies and goodwill that are strengthening specialties or new territorial matching. In '25, beginning of '26, we have thus acquired IFT, Esacom, HTW, Stampka and the goodwill of Claus Heinemann. Those 5 acquisitions represent in the full year sales of over EUR 90 million and a headcount of 450 -- 440 people. Second country with a strong traction in Spain. We make the EUR 1.6 billion of sales in the works of services to energy, road, civil engineering and metal with a headcount of 7,200 employees. Our teams of Eiffage Construction won in group, the contract for design and construction of the new car race circuit F1 in Madrid, as well as a second contract for the new buildings and temporary structures aimed to host the booths during the Grand Prix of Spain in '26. Eiffage Energy Systems has a national coverage in Spain, very present on wind farms, sun farms and transport distribution of energy, while being the first person -- the first company to maintain the national network. It's also present on the tertiary market and service to collectivities. So as to strengthen its positioning in the industry, Eiffage Énergie Systèmes has acquired 3 companies: CVS specialized in solutions of refrigeration for industry, M3i Controls and Inmotechnia specialized in the control systems. Third, country with a strong traction. The Netherlands, Eiffage Energy Systems entered through the acquisition of Kropman in 2018 with sales of EUR 150 million and 800 employees. Following several acquisitions and organic growth, Eiffage Energy Systems has now over 2,000 employees and sales over EUR 400 million in this country. In '25 with the acquisition of HSM Offshore Energy, Eiffage Metal now has a long-standing location in the Netherlands with 2 factories and over 150 employees. One example on screen, Eiffage Energy System implemented in 6 weeks only, the total replacement of the Alarm fire system of the Theater of Tamboer in the Northern Netherlands. To summarize, Eiffage enjoys the strong traction for our markets of Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. So 3 countries represented EUR 5 billion of activity in the works in '25. Beyond those 3 countries with a strong traction, the group enjoys its historic French base, solid, robust and in growth. And of Belgium, where we are the second actor of the country in our works. We're building group on the new general headquarter of defense in Brussels. The Belgium teams are also working in the port of Antwerp and Bruges, the second greatest port in Europe. Herbosch-Kiere participates in the works on modernization of the Europa terminal that will increase its capacity by 1/3, but also towards a transition of a climate-neutral port. 3 stages in 9 years so that the terminal will remain operational. Eiffage Energy System transforms the port in a connected and smart space, thanks to installation of IoT sensors and a new software infrastructure. Teams of Valens were awarded the market of construction for the new buildings of the school, Leonardo da Vinci in Brussels. Real estate teams signed a bulk sale of 80 housing units, enabling Perrard to start the new works in the future neighborhood of Belval in Luxembourg. After having talked about the exposure to the dynamic of some markets, some countries, another asset of the group, thanks to the capacity of its organization as just to know how to mobilize efficiently the complementarity of its business is to make the difference on several large-sized contracts. First example within the construction, the integrated model, developer, promoter, builder, proved its strength enabled this line of business to face the very significant decrease in real estate. Eiffage Aménagement achieved by the end of the year, the main works of infrastructure of the L'ilot du Ponant, a project of urban redevelopment with the transformation of a former brown land into a top residential area. Eiffage Immobilier in Poland started the transformation of the former street car depot in Poznan, an operation of urban redevelopment that will see the total renovation of the depot as well as the historic buildings made all by Eiffage Construction. Expertise in management and the project of Eiffage Civil Engineering and Eiffage Construction combined with the know-how Eiffage Energy Systems enabled us to train even more and more teams to face the strong demand of data centers and also to change our scale. We implemented our first hyperscale for CloudHQ in Lisses. This extension has already started, and we are answering to several other requests in France, Germany, Belgium and Spain. The combination of the know-how of all those Eiffage Energy Civil, Eiffage Construction, Eiffage Metal, Eiffage Energy System were necessary to deliver in time the Gigafactory of electric batteries for ACC in the north of France. During the first stage of the Grand Paris Express with lines 15, 16, 17, 18, the group was present on 11 stations and separated batches are on macro batches. It has always been the combination of those specialties of Eiffage Energy System and Eiffage Construction, which enabled the group to be the first provider of the society of the Greater Paris area for the implementation of this station. For the new phase, the major project decided to start 4 mega projects in design building, including all the parts of Eiffage Construction, Eiffage Rail and Eiffage Energy System. Eiffage secured the Line 15 East, one of the major lot mobilizing and integrated teams all of its businesses, all of the jobs because it's really a system of transportation that will have to be delivered in 2031. Beyond those complementarity, Eiffage Concession enables us to go up and down the value chain by being a contractor, designer, builder, financier, but also operator and maintenance operator. Once again, our model meeting for tenders is to mobilize our internal skills to realize the -- to implement the needed work for the implementation of the new assets that will strengthen our portfolio of concessions. This is the case of our project, Nove for the Ministry of Army's and it's one ambition families, which ramped up with now over 90% of the designs that are being implemented. '25 was the acceleration of production and delivery of housing units with 600 housing units -- new housing units and over 1,200 which were refurbished. That's also the case of the Port of Marseille, which combines a PPP that enables also to revalue a nearby property. Mobilization of most of the lines of business of the group was determining to secure this contract. In Belgium, starting a tremendous amount of PPP project, buildings, infrastructure, group with its partners won the PPP for the jail of Vresse sur Semois for a global amount of investment of EUR 171 million. On our motorway concession traffic remained constant for the HVs and the LVs. Motorway A79 ramped up in power with over 10% of growth of its traffic. On the project of A412, all of the authorization request has been introduced to us to enable the beginning of the works by the end of '26. Those 2 motorway concessions are the perfect example of projects won by the group after tenders on which the expertise of our concessionaires were partnered with the expertise of all of our lines of businesses without any exception. So as to roll out our expertise and our innovation on the servicing areas at an era of new mobilities, we participated and won the tender for the concession of the servicing area of the Champ d'Amour on Motorway A20 on the network, which is not part of our concession. It's going to be operated under our brand fully. As you have seen, more than a diversification as such, it's the complementarity of the lines of businesses, which is there. The compactness of organization and our family mindset embodied by the engagement of all behind our employee shareholding enables us to seize a lot of opportunities that need the mobilization of many, even all of our lines of business. Facing the ecology transition, which -- with most of these values on the crossroads of our businesses, this is special an asset to capture development opportunities. Without forgetting it's also a fantastic asset of resilience when one of our lines of business is under pressure, like, for instance, real estate for some time now. In terms of concessions, the quality of the results of the group enabled us progressively for over 7 years, to get to the capital of Getlink and becoming its referential shareholder with 27.66% of the capital, following the last acquisition of 7.1% of the capital on October 23, '25. Our participation in Getlink is hence a masterpiece among other of the renewal of the portfolio of concessions of the group since Getlink is concessionaire of the tunnel until '86 there, again, it is about complementarity, because Getlink is active in the businesses of rail infrastructure and electricity transport that we know very well. But this good year of the group should be also in its extra financial component. '25 was also awarded -- rewarded by the improvement of most of our extra financial rating by the various stakeholders as you see on screen. On screen, again, the monitoring of our path of reduction of our gas releases -- greenhouse gas releases on scopes 1 and 2 by reference to 2019. The growth of the sales is more important than the simulated normative growth. Our releases are in line with the target meeting our engagement at Horizon 2030. As you have been noticing, '25 has been an excellent year. The group was beyond the EUR 25 billion sales after a growth of 8%, 4.8% on organic growth. The operational results of the works reaches EUR 1 billion, EUR 500 million for the only branch energy systems as profitability reaches 6.2%, a slightly decrease given the overtaxing of major companies growth 8.9% in the constant perimeter. Thanks to the excellent performance, operational performance, we are much closer than expected of the 2048 -- '24 results, sorry, a debt reduction to the tune of EUR 900 million, thanks to a very good performance, operational performance and the variation of WCR generating cash up to EUR 300 million. This debt reduction coming after EUR 800 million of investment for external growth. Finally, visibility of the group is comforted by a book of order growing by 3%. For our perspective, '26, we're expecting sales on the increase in works and in concession and activity and growth at the Eiffage Energy System and of the same amount as in '25 in infrastructure and in building construction. Operational results, an increase in the works and concession with an improvement of the operational margin of Eiffage Energy System, a consolidation of the level of margin of the other lines of businesses and works. Hence, the net result of the group is expected to be increasing. Thanks to those very good results and the solidity of the group, the Board of Management decided to suggest an increase of EUR 0.01 of dividend up to EUR 4.8 per share. Thank you for your attention, and I invite Christian Cassayre to give you the details of our finance.

Hello, good evening. We're now going to go into the details of the figures that have been broached upon. When it comes to our business, it's going up. This has been detailed by Benoit de Ruffray. So I will simply give you a reminder of the figures, 8% of organic growth, including -- 8% growth, including 4.8% organic. And over the last several years, this follows a 2024 year where we already had a strong growth at 7.3%. And on the period of the graph, it's plus 35% over 4 years. Same commentary over the evolution for contracting a 9.2% growth, 5.3% organic after a 7.5% growth in 2024 and 46% over the last 4 years. If we look at 2025, you can see the geographic distribution in France, growth is higher than usual at 5.6%, this is because there's been a lots of ramping up on larger civil engineering projects and thanks to the Nove contract. The growth in Europe outside of France is 16.6% driven by acquisitions for 18.4% and organic growth was 6.2%. Current operating profit is EUR 2.6 billion, increase of 5.3%, which seems limited when you look at the performance of the branches, which is far above this average. It was already the case at the 30th of June because this year, we have a higher amount of expenses for share payouts, which has been calculated according to the IFRS 2 accounting standard, EUR 60 million more than in 2024, which including EUR 52 million on the holding. This followed the improvement in the price of the Eiffage share following the equity subscription period that was exclusive for staff. For the rest, you can see our margin has improved plus 30 basis points for contracting, plus 15.8% for an improvement in turnover of 9.2% and plus 30 basis points in concessions in spite of an increased amortization expense. We're going to go into the detail of the branches in construction after 2 years of a decrease. We now have a 2.7% increase despite Eiffage going down 15.5%, this is not an impact on reservations. It's an impact on turnover because reservations has been going slightly up for the last 2 years, and we've reached the low point of inflection should no longer go down in renovation, its renovation and services that allow us to perform the Nove contract has generated EUR 400 million of activity at Eiffage Construction versus -- which is EUR 220 million more than in 2024. We can see that this contract is very, very important for the figures of the branch. Our global operating margin is improving marginally but you have to take into account a smaller contribution of real estate, which is significant, EUR 29 million less in 2025 against -- EUR 29 million in 2025 versus EUR 41 million in 2024, it was EUR 84 million in 2022. And this lower contribution because both the rates and the base have been going down, has been compensated by an increase in margin for buildings, thanks to a very careful attention to the execution of projects and a better selection. I have chosen this year to illustrate the activity of the group through its history, looking at our routes, which often run deep. In 2025, we had 2 anniversaries in the branch Perrard, our billing subsidiary in Luxembourg, which is 150 years old; and Herbosch-Kiere, which works in trolling and maritime works and celebrated its 50th anniversary. The infrastructure branch has reached a high point of activity at EUR 9 billion, which is the result of several factors. A good year, all in all, in roads for France, plus 3.9%. There was also an increase in our big major projects in civil engineering in France, Greater Paris Express, EPR2 Lyon-Turin. The European projects also are working very well. HS2 in Norway. A sustained level of activity in civil engineering in Germany without any real acceleration. And finally, it's -- we've talked about it. It's linked to the improvement of wind and sea activity in France and internationally, which also benefited from the acquisition and integration of HSM. This has allowed us to make over EUR 9.2 billion in turnover, mostly on mobility -- sustainable mobility, infrastructure and energy production. Profitability is mainly connected to the activity of Eiffage Metal plus 22% growth, half of which organic and half of which is connected to the acquisition of HSM. In Senegal, you will know that it's the only country in Europe where Eiffage deploys its construction concession model, which allows us to design multi-branch projects, and this subsidiary is now 100 years old. At Eiffage Energy Systems 2025 with a new year of growth with 11.8% growth rate with external growth and was also a strong year of improvement for profitability which is up 40 basis points. Organic growth is 3.4%, 2.4% in France, which is the country growth plus inflation plus a little more, and plus 4.8% internationally, where we are gaining market shares, mostly in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. This organic growth of almost 5% internationally was completed. We've targeted acquisitions -- in 2025, we benefited from the integration of EQOS, which was there with us the whole year against only 2 months in 2024, and we consolidated with the acquisitions -- closed nearby acquisitions in Spain and Germany, we talked about these. Our profitability has strongly improved beyond the target that we had set for ourselves because of the quick integration of acquired companies in 2024 and 2025, which has allowed us to fully capitalize upon new opportunities in the German and Spanish market, this is because of our remarkable historic implantation in France and Europe. We're very agile. We can integrate in a multi-branch projects which allows us to go look for both opportunities and added value in our branches. 125 years ago, the Societe de Force et de Lumiere Electriques which became Forclum and then Eiffage Energy Systems had worked on the lighting for the Paris Exposition Universelle. In concessions, you can see here our main assets consolidated globally with the date of end of concession and our data -- and our rate of retention. The main number to look at is EUR 800 million of turnover on PPPs and concessions in APRR and AREA. There's been an increase in capacity, including in ALIAE. There's been a slight slowdown in other PPP activities in light gray because of the contract for renovation of Nove. The renovation of Nove is generating a decrease in rent, which is planned for in the model and the Decathlon Arena Stade Pierre Mauroy had enjoyed an exceptional year in 2024 because of the Olympic Games. 15 years ago, SNCF Reseau gave Eiffage Construction that has funding and maintaining the rail line in Bretagne Pays-de-Loire, which is now one of our key assets in our concessions portfolio. Here, we look at the APRR scope and AREA where traffic has improved 1.3% with a turnover that has increased 2.9%. EBITDA margin has slightly gone up despite the increase in share payouts expenses that I mentioned earlier, and I'd like to remind you that since 2024, EBITDA has been diminished of the tax on the highways for EUR 127 million, and this year, EUR 123 million in 2024. When it comes to funding, we've made 2 -- we've issued 2 bond tranches, one in May 2025, one in 2026 for EUR 500 million with a fixed income coupon of 3%, which is competitive, which contributes to a slight increase of the cost of debt. Finally, last point mentioned APRR, we've sold our co-owned subsidiary, Axxes, which has allowed us to generate EUR 20 million, about half of which for Eiffage, not included in EBITDA, you'll find it in other financial revenues. 20 years ago, it's another anniversary on the 20th of February almost 20 years ago, day for day, we've integrated APRR to the privatization process, 18 candidates were competing and Eiffage with its Australian partner made the best offer. Outside of the APRR network, we're looking here at the EBITDA margin for main assets. You can see that it's around 80%. And on the right, we wanted to indicate for PPPs and concessions that are being constructed, the incoming turnover for projects, which you can see is not negligible, which is at the heart of our integrated construction -- concession model. And this was explained to great lengths. The final -- the final brink of our concessions. You can see our participation in Getlink, we're now at 27.66% participation. The numbers -- the figures on the right are 100% Getlink. And you can see our quota share is EUR 62 million for EUR 66 million of dividends perceived. This quota share is based on the consensus. We don't have final figures. And we took into account our detention rate, pro rata temporis which gives us a final result of EUR 62 million. We had a remainder of the result of 2024, the consensus had resulted in EUR 14.6 million and amortization for overvaluation of EUR 14.3 million. This is concerning operational elements when it comes to the profit and loss, I don't have a lot of comments beyond what we've already mentioned. You can see the cost of net debt is stable, which means that the cost of the new bonds that I talked about was absorbed by the reduction of net debt. And the element that we have to comment upon is the increase of corporate tax. It's a strong increase of EUR 200 million, EUR 176 million, which are connected to the new taxation in France, which impacts our net result and our net result group share, which is nevertheless very close to its 2024 levels. Adjusted for tax fluctuations, it would have been an increase of 8.9%. You can see the evolution of net debt for 2024. EBITDA is up EUR 378 million, which is very significant. Dividends received from equity associates is mostly Getlink. Working capital requirements has generated cash for the sixth year in a row, EUR 300 million of which come from projects, taxes paid or up because of the new French taxation, which gives us EUR 3.5 billion in free cash flow. Investments in projects are higher than in 2024 because of the increase of the activity, but also the 2024 base reference, which was not that high. Over 2 years, this has increased proportional to activity. In concessions, investments have increased. They were connected to the Nove contract without any effect on the debt at the end of the year because this company is now consolidated as an equity associate. I'll come back to that. We have free cash flow at EUR 2.1 billion after investments. You understand that this is because the investment of Nove of taxation and because working capital requirement contributed less than last year, but it remains very high, thanks to strong EBITDA and the contribution of working capital requirements. This cash flow has allowed us to finance EUR 825 million investments for growth after EUR 900 million in 2024. You can see that we're reinvesting our cash flow significantly. The EUR 825 million amount includes the acquisition of 7.11% of Getlink's equity and acquisitions that were presented in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy as well. When we come to no flow variations, it's a bit technical, but we're talking about the EUR 370 million of debt of Nove, which was consolidated as an equity associated at the end of 2025 because of a change in our groupment agreements at the end of the design phase. The final flow, I will comment upon capital operations. You will find the usual movements on equity, dividends paid out to APRR to its minority shareholder and the dividend paid by Eiffage EUR 453 million, which brings us to our net debt of EUR 8.5 billion, which is down EUR 870 million after more than EUR 800 million invested in external growth. This EUR 8.5 billion debt includes our debt for a concession of EUR 10 billion, down EUR 685 million and a net treasury of the holding and the projects branch, EUR 1.5 billion which allows us to remain very agile financially to capitalize upon any growth opportunity as we've done, especially these last 2 years. When it comes to our order book for projects, we see a 3% growth over year. We can see it's growth in every branch, which allows us to expect a new year of organic growth at a slower rhythm nonetheless than in 2024 and 2025. This concludes for the figures, and I believe we can now move to the Q&A. Thank you very much.

I'm from CIC. I had a few questions. First question, could you share with us your vision of the market of real estate in France and development? We say in France, there's a concession -- second question. We say in France, there's a consensus on the concession system, which should last with new tenders. Don't you think that this will depend on foreign investments. It's not obvious that these investments will be massive. And without massive investments, maybe the state could change the system which would not be the same scenario for us. Third question for 2026. It's a year for local government elections in France. Do you consider there will be an impact risk with these elections with the project activity for Eiffage in France. And you also said that there was a German economic plan. Are you -- do you think you'll be signing the first orders connected to this new German plan?

Olivier, please answer the question on real estate and development.

The market in 2026 for real estate development will remain under pressure, especially since 2026 is a year, as you've said, where there will be local government elections. And these are never favorable to launching new projects or turning new permits. Nevertheless, we will not experience in 2026, what we experienced in 2025 with the collapse of demand for private investors because of the P&L change. And we favorably welcome the housing plan of the government, especially the Jeanbrun law, which would -- should improve our sales. So in this context, we imagine that 2026 will see an increase in real estate activity, both when it comes to operating income and turnover. Camille?

So you've interrogated me on the consensus concerning highway projects. It's true that this consensus you referenced is the conclusion of the work of the Ambition France Transport Conference, which was presented to the Council of Ministers by Minister Tabarot. So today, this is the most probable outcome, and it's the one on which the transport ministry is working when it comes to services, and we are talking to them concerning that, and we are preparing for that as well. I would like to indicate as well that even if highways are, in fact, already built, you must imagine that there are no investments and you need 3 types of investments: First of all, renovations, exploitation and maintenance, adaptation to new mobilities, everything that has to do with electric cars. And investments connected to resilience when it comes to climate change, we can see that in the mountains regions, in the Alps. We already see the effects of that. So there will still be investments that will justify the concession model in the future. Concerning 2026, and the elections, the upcoming elections, I believe that's something we already shared with you. The decision is more and more made in a broader local government. So it's further detached from the direct voter and we see more and more projects that know how to overcome local government elections. I won't say there's no effect but there's a lot of mitigation. It's much less impactful than in the past. I would like to add to that, that our teams and your neighbor to the right which takes care of roads. They're so used historically to have huge gaps, they're so worried about it that they're extremely agile in the face of that. And I must say that it's something that impacts us less and less. It's more significant in terms of construction permits. That's where the impact is. When it comes to Germany, of course, as of today, we're not talking about orders. There is one big German client, Deutsche Bahn, the entire German railway network needs significant work. Their activity is increasing. They had a model to attribute contracts, which was very cumbersome, let's say, and they're working on their operating model now to go faster. I don't know how to make a direct budgetary connection. But fundamentally, their investments are much more significant than in the past. We have a strong growth when it comes to that. And the growth in metal works are also connected to railroads. So we can already see it on Deutsche Bahn and other issues, we don't see it yet. I believe there's a real issue when it comes to the way in which German industries can implement these projects because traditionally, they did construction. And only after that, did they make public tenders that we could act upon. But I believe there will be more and more models in the future, like the A3 highway, and we already have partnerships that are operating from time to time. This is what will allow us to accelerate when it comes to implementation. What you have to remember in the end is that everyone is talking about it, that's great news, because we were facing a big deficit in terms of attractiveness. And now it's completely changing. There's a lot of restructuration in German industry. I believe that historically, we wouldn't have been able to hire workers from the automobile industry, but now there's visibility -- long-term visibility people see that this is work that there's recruitment on, and we will be able to accelerate not only because of budget constraints and budget opportunities, but because there are new people available in the field. So we're very confident that it will be a growth factor in the future. But I want to say [Foreign Language] because you can't change as quickly when it comes to human capacities as we often want to, but it's a very good news for the sector in the mid and long term. There has been some level of acceleration. We've managed to stabilize at EUR 1.2 billion when it comes to German roads, despite the lower contribution of the A3. So we've managed, thanks to orders -- midsized orders to compensate and generate 4% -- about 4% growth on civil engineering and roads in Germany and railroads.

The first one will be about your policy of capital allocation. Could you please remind us what are the major guidelines of yours? You have CapEx of growth, what is your cash for the acquisition? And what is the focus on '26 for those acquisitions? Getlink, you're close to 30%, meaning that according to your policy until now you put this aside or are there some other news this evening? That's my first question. Second question, the free cash flow, beautiful performance one half year, is there a free cash flow guidance? And a question about the data centers because what you presented the slide earlier, I imagine that for the time being, it's a small exposure, but what is the growth rate on this segment? And how far could it go?

I'll leave some questions for Nicolas.

Okay. We'll start with the free cash flow. You feel like answering, aren't you? We shall disappoint, but there's no guidelines. We guide on the result, and you can reconstitute the free cash flow, before variation of WCR. And this is where the complexity starts is to anticipate the variation of WCR, which normatively should be close to 0. We enjoyed for the past 6 years, I said we were in a decrease of WCR over the past 6 years. It's absolutely exceptional in the history of the group and on our industry. We enjoyed 2 major elements. First is whatever is the regulatory and the reduction of payment delays, especially in France, that are abided by or better abided by. We have ins more than outs, and this conformity to the delays of payment has really settled. It's normalized. That's the first element. Second element, which is close to us, strong growth in the company's industries, which are the negative WCR, mechanically generate a decrease on the cash flow. You can see this in the book of order comes from the share of the major contracts, long-term contracts. They have down payments with this conjunction of strong growth, especially on major contracts is beneficiary for the long term. This long term will be, how should I say, leveraged we will not enjoy that in the future. And we established our policy on WCR at 0 because the -- the 2 major contracts full engineering that were quoted in the final phase, we'll restitute the cash flow, which is an accident. So no guidance. Elements that were according to our track -- past track, no guidance. No guidance because, it's part of the WCR performance is done by the end of the year. Ludovic, on the data centers.

Good evening. Data centers, there's 2 activities, goodwill. There are a lot of them. We worked on that for several years on activities of works, but also of maintenance. For some time now, we have seen emerging hyperscale i.e., data center is a very large size, and we positioned ourselves successfully on the first one. The data center of lease thanks to the group, we could come with Eiffage global offer, and it was a success. Those operations are accessible but a very -- how should I say, resource consuming. So our aim is quickly to be able to have 2 hyperscale in parallel and to extend this activity to the rest of Europe on the goodwill first and then on the hyperscale. Those contracts are very demanding. Our first operation lease was a true success. The teams did the admittable work. Those are on the Anglo-Saxon contracts, you have to select your clients. It's a race, of the quality, a race of margin more than volume because we don't always have the capacity to perform an infinite amount of data centers. Let's remain quiet and let's grab this opportunity to develop ourselves on those hyperscales. But maybe to get back to the allocation of capital nothing different from what we said in the previous years. What you have to look into is, remember, the nonrecurrent debt and the EUR 1 billion, we always wanted to be comfortable regarding the variations of WCR we have in the year. So historically, we also talked about the variation of WCR of about EUR 500 million, and the group is much more important than it was some years ago. So it's even EUR 700 million variations of WCR in the year. And if you look into the metrics, take the EUR 1 billion of sales, EUR 550 million after distribution. So for the time being, we still have some ideas in our various businesses. I think what's important is to look over the past 2 years, but also for the past 5 years, 6 years, we always found opportunities to reallocate our capital, and we intend to do so. If you take what's happening on the Energy System branch, the market, I am sure that the market is being consolidated now. And slower than it grows. So 4 major players consolidating on the European level. They're all French, originally French. But at the end of the game, when we look at each other, I like this example. When we announced an external growth none of our competitors announce it, and we don't know it. [indiscernible] it's just to tell you this expression because sometimes it's specialties which are born in the territory at a given time, the market grows so far that it wishes to be supported by an important group. And it's our teams in the area that know them that work them and they come to pair. And together, we will grow faster, hoping that 1 plus 1 makes 3. That's the model we have opportunities. We never look for structures that would be in a bad shape because we do not have the available resources to focus on a major restructuring, but we have a lot of ideas to go on [indiscernible] and work on the country. This is a work site with the energy system branch, which there's much more opportunities because the market is not consolidated yet. Another element of interest is that when we develop the coverage at the national level, when we become a recognized actor, you increase the attractiveness, which is basic when it is about hiring new people. If you wish to grow the way we do in Germany. When the energy system changes size in Germany, it helps the civil engineering, the rail, the metal in Germany because Eiffage is a name, a brand who changes size in each and every business. So there is a cost increase -- cost improvement, and we wish to operate the same model to roll out the same model. I'll give you a simple example. We came up with 2 manufacturers of armament in '25, one that we built in the French area because we answered several tenders for batches and someday, the customer said, "Oh, I want it quick. And I've seen that you have Eiffage Energy System and Eiffage Construction. Couldn't you do it faster if you are paired?" Okay. So we had Eiffage Infra-Bau and Salvia who was acquired by Eiffage and the customer said, together, couldn't it go faster? That's the same model and many, many opportunities. Then you have to take time not to make a mistake in our businesses, the acquisition of a company of construction is first and foremost, it's men and female -- and women, and the culture to be consistent to be able to develop it. And this is what's concerning us. The second element are the concessions. There are some assets from time to time who are on sale. But it's difficult to imagine to be able with the cost of capital to create value. So we focus much more on assets which are already in the territories we know and we have a lot of investments to do because, as I said previously, it's our teams of works that will enable to create this value and have an asset that at the end of the day, will be more profitable. When you combine both currently, we always succeeded year after year, sometimes very importantly, sometimes less importantly to reinvest more than what we successfully created. So this model we wish to carry on with that. And Getlink, I won't pretend I didn't hear the question because if not, you're going to reask it again and again. Globally speaking, things didn't change. I insist for some time, we have seen APRR, AREA to be a very concentrated asset for the group represented globally the concessions of the Eiffage Group. But it was very focused in terms of political risk, in terms of contract because there are only 2 contracts. But on the other hand, an asset spread on kilometers and kilometers. Tomorrow, you'd have a major incident in the [ ops ] , it can block a mile of motorway, but it doesn't stop you from operating the rest of the network. On Getlink, we are focused -- concentrated in time but also concentrated in terms of risk. Even if the cable pass has changed a little bit and diversified the risk, we are comfortable with it. We are with a share that presents in our concessions in our portfolio, Getlink is significant. I'm not going to tell you that, that 40% would have changed our life compared to 30% in terms of risk. The pro is that it's a ranked company, 30% makes a difference. We're not yet at 29.9%, we didn't change. It's still our intent. If there are some opportunities, we're ready to strengthen ourselves to grow up to 29.9%, and we're very glad to have this major element adding to all the others. The management is doing an excellent work. We're absolutely in step. We have to focus on the core of activity that we have to develop. So it fits us to go on like that. I'll just conclude by saying that we have this lock. We never were compelled facing something -- an opportunity of works of concession to be able to -- to be compared to arbitrate because we seize them one after the other. And with the current financial structure of the group, if tomorrow, we have both things, and we're able to mobilize and to move ahead because the group is much stronger than it used to be by the growth of its size and the quality of its results.

Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley. I'm going to give you a short question. On working capital requirements is for Christian.

Yes, Nicolas.

For 6 or 7 years now, it's been -- this masquerade has been ongoing, it has to end 6 years. 6 years, 7 years, it would be richer, but it's only been 6 years. We see prepayment inflows. We could give the number this year. Last year, it was EUR 150 million. There's a lot of provisions, which you can see in the cash flow, and we can see that among your peers accounting is very conservative. And we can see this reflected in the working capital requirements. But are we simply looking at structural working capital requirements with a growing group, which is helping noncash, prudent accounting? We're trying to get you to admit that the cursor on 0 was probably valid for pre-COVID Eiffage probably no longer today. So that's the first question.

I don't see the connection between the end of COVID and cash. But the fact of the matter is, fact that we have more current provisions, you'll see on the balance sheet, we have bigger large contracts with more risks, and they are directly provisioned. But we have bigger contracts that generate more favorable payment terms, and bigger contract with a bigger level of onboarded risk, which generate larger provisions, this has to be the case. It has to be like that. These prepayments if we consider that we're going to renew them that we'll have the same flow of large major contracts in the years to come. Then yes, we can say that we're going to maintain that level and that working capital requirements will not slump and we'll continue to generate cash, but we have to be very conservative because we can see, for instance, on offshore perspectives, there's been a lot of growth. But right now, it's normalizing. And 1 day, these programs will stop, and we'll have to find new sources for growth. So this isn't going to happen tomorrow, but working capital requirements or working capital requirements. Otherwise, it's hidden income, which is not the case. We provision our risks. We make sure that we make ironclad contracts so we protect ourselves from default from clients. And this is very coherent with growth that is normalizing next year. It's normal to anticipate working capital requirements that are going to generate cash, honestly.

Maybe -- so I just wanted to add to that. In our business, I don't think you realize the cash, the cash influx for December. It's far more than the yearly working capital fluctuation. Just to illustrate, it's a multiple of the yearly working capital requirement flows. So I'd like to add that the idea for us is completely impossible. And on the 25th of December, we don't know where we're at because over the last 5 days, it's much more than the yearly change in working capital requirements. But yes, what Christian was describing is reality. If we maintain the group in growth, having a certain number of major contracts that are ongoing. It's logical, but it's connected to that. It's not connected to a structural change.

I will continue. Just to come back to the French residential sector. The activity of promoters, which are extremely optimistic for 2026. What's going to happen if the market really accelerates. Do you have a -- do you have enough projects up your sleeves to accompany that in 2026, 2027? On Eiffage Systems, it's a very beautiful performance on margin for 2025. The question we ask every year. What about 2026? And when you can see this 40 basis point improvement in margin, could you tell us what's really the scope M&A, so the contribution of Germany? And what's really the underlying improvement. So it gives us performance on France, for instance, that would be useful.

So we hope things are going into -- the pace is going to pick up. It's more likely it will happen in 2027. I was talking about the local government elections. This had an impact on offers. So elections are in 2026, but we've been talking about it for the last 10 months locally. And so yes, we have the products, but we're looking at launch in 2027. I will let Ludovic complete, if he wish us, to.

If you look at the history, when we had moderate growth, our progression was 0.2% a year with a recovery phase. Over the last few years, we've gone from 5.8% to 5.9% to 6% and 6.2%. And we've had improvements on basis points while we've been accelerating on external growth. So there's an effect of external growth because we acquire quality countries. We also have fixed expenses that don't increase as quickly because we consolidate, but on the yearly performance, when we analyze the past, about half of our base points improvement is intrinsic to our activities, and the other half roughly is the product of acquisitions.