Sif Holding N.V. (SIFG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody, here in Amsterdam and online for this half year 2026 presentation of Sif Group. With me are 2 colleagues, to my left-hand side, Boudewijn Van Schaïk, our CFO; and to my right-hand side, the incoming CEO, Koen Bogers. Sorry, we need -- there we are. Incoming CEO, Koen Bogers. Maybe Koen, you can give a short introduction to the audience.

Yes. My name is Koen Bogers. I'll be succeeding Fred as of 1st of August. I've been being introduced to the company in the last 2 months, I started at the beginning of May and looking forward to bringing Sif to the next level. Thank you.

Thanks, Koen. And my name is Fred Van Beers, CEO till midnight today. After that, adviser to the Executive Board, helping my 2 colleagues to the left and the right indeed doing what Koen just announced, bringing Sif to the next level again because life continues, so does the company. So what are we're going to present today? I think 2 things without -- 3 things that stand out, and we will deep dive into today. First of all, the important thing of an improving -- steadily improving health and safety performance, which is key to us, key to our people and key to our customers and a license to operate in this business. And as you all know, we have seen quite dramatic downfall last year, early this year, but we're happy to see that, that is improving. And the second main point that we are actually pretty proud of is the fact that the plan we announced exactly 1 year ago in how -- in the revised plan in ramping up the factory has become 100% materialized. And we are now on a steady base producing these 4 to 5 monopiles that we talked about quite a lot per week. We'll come back to that a bit later what that means. The results, we will, of course, explain a bit more, especially why this EUR 40 million shift to 2027 was a good decision in our view. And then a point of concern that we will dive into for sure is the fact you will hear that more companies announcing their numbers today related to offshore wind that we see a very difficult period ahead of us in '27, '28 given the fact that a lot of projects have been on hold or take a lot of delay in FID taking, which is a concern for the continuity of this business, knowing that from the end of '28 onwards, a lot of activity is expected to be seen in this market, which -- and that's an important point to come back to later, is also very much supported by actions taken at various governmental bodies. And then last but not least, we will tell a bit more about the status of this exclusive 190 kiloton project that we've been talking about now close to 2 years, I think, that we have it in our book. And of course, that relates quite heavily to what I just said in relation to delays in FID taking of projects in general. But first of all, our health and safety performance. Let's start with health this time. You know and we've talked about it quite often that we have done a lot of things to bring down our sick leave, but have never been successful. This time, though, we can see that the sickness leave is declining given the efforts we're taking. partly due to the fact that quite some long-term sickness people are -- have left the company, so to say. That helps, of course, in the statistics. But I think more importantly, we've been able to improve the circumstances, especially in the new factory in relation to dust quite significantly, and that helps. So as simple as that, besides the fact that individual efforts given to people is paying off as well. On the safety side, the total recorded injuries actually have increased a bit. But the good news is it's relative, I would say, minor things, like cutting in a finger, stumbling over and hurting a knee, but not the more serious lost time injuries that we saw happening early this year. They haven't materialized anymore, I would say, close to half a year now, which is good news. Looking at the market, and I've shown this picture -- we have shown this picture, I think, 6 months ago as well. Here, you can see the numbers of gigawatts connected to the grid, excluding China and excluding the U.S., so predominantly Europe. And here, again, we see that the dip that we are facing now relates to the gigawatts connected for '28, '29, '30 that are predicted. So you can see that quite a lot of gigawatts will be connected this year and next year, but the production of equipment for those gigawatts connected to the grid has been done 2 years ago or today as we speak. And that's we are literally delivering, as I said before, 4 to 5 monopiles, but also turbines, et cetera, that's full speed ahead at this moment to deliver on what it has to be connected in these 2 years. But after that, we see a quite significant drop in gigawatts connected to the grid. And that, in combination with a significantly ramped up supply chain in all areas, whether it's installation vessels, turbine manufacturers or in our case, foundation builders means that the market will be thin in the coming 2 years. We said that before, and we clearly see that happening today as we speak in the time it takes for tenders to materialize in exclusive -- or shortlisted exclusive or contracted stages. That doesn't mean it's dead. We do clearly see on the other hand as well that all these predictions coming from basically the North Sea Summit declaration in Hamburg early this year and now being addressed by the NSEC organization, the North Sea Energy Coordination teams of governmental bodies that all -- that are working hard on materializing on these gigawatts, both on wind farms, but most of all on grid investments, grid connections and interconnectors between countries. So what are the highlights for '26? And the picture on the right is actually showing the North Sea planning related to what I showed on the previous picture. And the green parts are the offshore commissioned or operational wind farms, the blue ones that are in the pipeline and the yellow ones that are in development stage. So there is unchanged, a lot to happen in this market. The only and most important key point in the market today is time with which the ambitions are translated into real projects. So looking at us, the top 2 parts basically relate to the fact that this factory is running now as it should. One note to be made on that, and that relates to the top part. We are extremely busy delivering on the order book that basically is the order book that we had materialized or in the pocket when we took an FID for the new factory. And the 9-month delay on those projects means that the projects are quite squeezed on one after the other. We have delivered and completed Ecowende. We are close to finalizing Baltyk 2 &3. The last monopile is finished from a black steel perspective in the coating now. we have started up Oranjewind for the Netherlands and East Anglia 2 for the U.K. and they're progressing quite nicely. So the point now is -- and I think by the way, you will come back to that later as well, that after having delivered now on these projects and after having a factory up and running, we now need to focus on costs and efficiency of that factory. That's the next phase in our process to focus now on not only delivering, but also delivering fully within the cost projections we have made for these projects. And that is reflected also in the numbers because that costs us a bit of money. Again, in Q2, we delivered 59 monopiles, should have been 60 actually. It was up to us, but it would have been nice. But 59 monopiles in 3 months only is, I think, the best proof of the fact that we are delivering on a constant basis now the monopiles we promised the market. And that is all related. And again, maybe we're going to say it 10 times this time because you have to celebrate your successes as well. We are so happy that we were able to deliver as a team of 1,000 people on the new plan that we released in August last year. It's working. So that's good. The third one, I guess, is the important one for the future because that is our stick in the sand for the future order book, and that is this 190-kiloton project. There has been a lot of progress made on this project. You have to -- just to give some numbers, there's about 60 to 80 people on a continuous basis working now on all the preparations for the execution of this project by customer, by us, by supply chain, by designers, all in order to be prepared if the final go comes that we go immediately ahead, full steam ahead with production as we want it to be in May next year, but it could, of course, still be September as we have announced earlier. But the focus, of course, not only by us, but also by customer and our partners is to be able to start in May next year. So we're doing things in parallel here. And without -- of course, that could be your next question, without taking massive costs at this moment, but by simply being clever on how we work purely investing in people. And if costs have to be made, we are discussing things like early works agreements, et cetera. So there's a lot of progress that I want to share with you that is being made and a lot of efforts that are being put in place. But I can also imagine that everybody is saying, that's all nice and dandy, but show is the contract. And of course, that's also the main discussion topic in -- we have with our customer and governmental bodies related to this project. Last but not least, I said it already, a lot of progress being made on the governmental decision-making level, all levels, whether it's Swapgusta, the DG trade, DG Climate, DG GRO and at the member state levels in Berlin when it comes to steel protection measures for our industry, and Germany is an important one. We go -- we work hand-in-hand with our colleagues in this industry through our OWFA branch organization. And we see quite a lot of action there. But the only problem in this field of expertise is time. What we consider quick is an hour. What they consider quick is a quarter of time. And that is the issue we are addressing with them. But we do see them moving quite nicely towards a level playing field setup when it comes to new tenders, when it comes to steel protection measures, when it comes to protecting the European supply chain in general related to offshore wind. But time, and that's the warning we put in here as well. Time is running out, though because the order books start being empty. Colleagues from us are also running out of order books. And if we want to materialize the ramp-up that I just talked about, we need to have continuity in the European supply chain in this business. And with that, I hand over to you, Boudewijn, to take us through the numbers. Always the best part of this day.

Thanks. Yes, I want to start and Fred alluded to it, celebrating our successes, I think, is important, but also standing still from where we've come from over the last 12 months. And when we sat here a year ago, my first session with you guys was quite painful, and we explained that we were more than halving our EBITDA guidance for 2025, basically resetting the ramp-up of the plant, taking a step back, focusing on long-term reliability and consistency. So I think our literal words were short-term pain for long-term gain. And looking where we stand today, we have delivered on that commitment. We said by the end of H1, we will consistently be delivering 4 to 5 monopiles per week and delivering on our order book, and that's exactly where we are. And it's not just that, but it's also these numbers, and we've almost doubled our revenue. I think at this point, we're almost where we were full year 2025. Same for EBITDA. Contribution margin also significantly improved. So it's not just the performance in the factory, but also the translation to the financial performance that we knew we could achieve, and we are achieving now. To Fred's point, though, there is still room for improvement, not necessarily in the number of monopiles per week, but in the efficiency of how we operate and also in our cost base. So those are things we're going to definitely continue to work on going forward. The consequence of the market slowdown that Fred spoke about indeed is that our order book is shrinking. We still have 422 kilotonnes, but of that 197 is still exclusive, so it still needs to be firmed up. So historically seen, we do have quite a thin order book. We recognize that. And again, we're doing everything we can in a very thin market to push forward and secure what we can. On the projects that we are tendering at the moment, we're shortlisted on most of them. Again, nothing is committed, nothing is in writing, nothing is in contracted, but we do see where we are focusing on that we are well positioned with those customers. So that's what we're working on and prioritizing now is securing that order intake at terms that work for SIF. And particularly, as Fred mentioned, the 190 kiloton run, that's our top priority. Obviously, with the struggles we had, the ramp-up, there's been quite a bit of focus as well on our liquidity, on our working capital movements and working capital needs. That's obviously something we're still very much focused on. We see unwinding of a lot of working capital this year, which relates to those projects we secured at the time of taking the investment decision and that we have to deliver on now with higher costs on our operations than we initially anticipated. And in combination with the delay, clearly, that puts pressure on that. So we continue to focus on that. We looked at issuing a bond a few weeks ago, 2 months ago. It was a very interesting process for us to go through. I think we learned a lot through that process, ultimately took the decision not to do it, driven by the market, but also the terms that were available to us. And now we continue to look at what can we do, what do we need to do should we want to strengthen our balance sheet and raise additional liquidity. So it's not -- the bond didn't go ahead. It was a conscious decision from us at the time not to do it, and we keep moving forward, focus on the order book, focus on delivering and of course, looking at our liquidity and working capital as we move forward. I think back to the numbers, we delivered 101 monopiles, which is a fundamental achievement in 6 months and a number of precision pieces as well for East Anglia. So that's the last project in the order book. And we've also spent a lot of time, and I think that translates as well to the operational improvement we've seen is better alignment with the business in terms of our management. We really are running Roermond and Maasvlakte now as 2 separate businesses as independent business units. They both have a strong management team. They both have a director running the business. So we see a lot more focus sites specific rather than focus on just one hole because there are 2 separate businesses that work very well in tandem. Our strengthened senior management with a new COO -- CEO, sorry, and of course, Koen, who just introduced himself, who will take over the reins at 1 minute past midnight today. Just yes, graphical representation of the results. It always looks much nicer in bar charts that stick out nice and high, but it really does show the substantial improvement both in terms of the kilotonnes we produced, the contribution, the EBITDA and some discussion on whether this is an improvement or worsening of working capital. I think that's -- the jury is still out. For me, it's an improvement because we have less liabilities on the balance sheet, but obviously, that uses cash. But where we've come from in the last 2 years really showed the nature of having these lumpy advanced payments from customers and having to deliver the work later. And that is flowing out of the order book to a much more sustainable level, I think, than where we've come from over the last 2 years. The last point on the slide, because of the accordion effect that Fred was talking about where with the delay in the start-up, the decision we took last year to slow things down, but an order book that had fixed delivery milestones under the contracts, that compressed to an extent where contractually, we had to take reservations for what we call liquidated damages towards customers. So we still delivered the projects on time for the installation campaigns. But under those contracts, there were already LD milestones prior to the final delivery date and being held to those contracts by customers meant about 19 million in downward adjustments to revenue in Q1, which also has a direct translation to EBITDA. Then from an ESG perspective, I think a logical consequence of much higher production, much more work taking place in the factory is the increase in our CO2 tonnage. So that's fairly linear in terms of the increased production, also contributing to a lot more renewable energy with the monopiles that we've produced. And coming back to Fred's point on improved safety on an LTIF basis, we see an even bigger reduction in our injury frequency rate than we've seen over the past years other than 2024. So that focus also translating into the reduction in the frequency relative to the number of hours worked. Then again, looking at the order book. So particularly focusing on the orange bar for 2026 on the left-hand chart, the EUR 225 million that we have in the order book, that's a relatively low number. But with the exclusive project that we hope to translate into a contractual order in the coming months, we hope -- or we anticipate that, that number will improve with the blue part. You might see it says EUR 197, not EUR 190 because there are also some OSS projects in there where we are in exclusive negotiations as well. So that's the EUR 7 million difference between the 2. Contribution per tonne, still at very healthy levels, slightly lower than 2025. That has just to do with the tonnage on the Empire Wind monopiles, which were a lot larger in weight than the monopiles we're producing now. So relatively per tonne, a slightly lower contribution, but still at very, very healthy levels. And I think what we -- more importantly, the contribution per month that has improved significantly compared to historical years. Just quickly on the covenants. There's been a lot to do about that since we did the amendment in September last year, where we faced a covenant breach, again, due to the decision to slow things down. Good constructive discussion with the banks at the time. We amended the covenants and as per the 30th of June. So now we've come out of that amendment period. So we amended them for December and March. And now for the first time, we're back at the original levels under the financing documentation. So good that we've come out of that dip. And that's again a translation of the financial results. So as we're becoming more profitable and as we're building up our EBITDA because leverage is on the last 12 months basis, we're replacing sort of low EBITDA months in 2025 with high EBITDA months in 2026. So we'll continue to see leverage improving, and we expect solvency to improve as well as we move forward. Fred, back to you.

Yes. We've come to the last slide already to open the floor for questions after that. But to recap and expand a little bit on the last one. To recap, our strategy remains unchanged, and that is a total solution provider of monopiles for the longer term and maintain our market share as it is. But the focus, of course, has shifted very clearly to filling the order book for the '27, '28 period, which is a fighting market period. We're good positioned with the run rate now that we have in the factory that is clearly showing up in the discussions we have with potential customers. But there's not enough projects for the total supply chain. Our position in Rotterdam is a benefit. The output is a benefit, but it has to -- we fight for it every day in everything we have. I think that's also what is to be expected from us as a team to do instead of spending a lot of time on a very long-term nice planning, et cetera. We have to survive also tomorrow. And that survival is a clear message that we're bringing out not only today, but are actually constantly bringing out in our discussions with the EU and EU member state representatives. We need to speed up this -- the rollout of what is now predicted to be installed up to 2040, which is an extremely nice ambition. But ambitions alone don't feed out. We need to see the projects materialize. And I think the good news here is that the agreements that have been made between the U.K. and the Netherlands, between Germany and Denmark on interconnectors, on actually in the Denmark, for example, building wind farms for the Germany market are clear signs that this is taken serious by politicians, but it's -- again, it's the speed with which they translate ambition into action that is our concern. We are making very good progress on this 190-kiloton project. And I think you could say why isn't the contract there? That's one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is that we're talking with 60 to 80 people on the project, and that's still today, 2 years after the first announcement. That probably means that everybody is taking this one very serious, but life and the world has changed and the times -- we need more time to conclude on the whole chain of -- from PPAs down to supply chain. And that needs to be covered. But everybody is working on that. So I'm pretty confident that this project will materialize. The question is, will it materialize in time for us to close the gap that we are facing after delivering the last order. And that is probably a nice bridge to the last point that I first want to address or that I want to address is the fact that this is the reason, the explicit and only reason actually that we are pretty confident that this project should materialize for the start somewhere between May and September next year. That we have said, okay, we have float in our last project, East Anglia, mainly and a bit of float at the end of the other project Oranjewind. Let's use the time now to the maximum for producing those projects at a little bit lower pace, but with continuity well into '27 so that we have -- can make a connection by having sufficient people actually in the team with experience that is needed to ramp up again for the next order instead of focusing fully on delivering on the earlier guidance of EUR 135 million minimum for '26 and then facing a massive gap in '27, which means 2 things, '27 is looking a little bit less favorable, but far more important, we will lose a lot of experienced people than by the end of this year that we know by the hard way. We learned that the hard way. We know that it takes a lot of time and effort and money and pain to take them through the learning curves again for ramping up for the next project that will materialize in May or September. So that was an explicit decision, and we know that it could be seen as a bit disappointing for this year. I think the drivers behind this one are totally different from the drivers we explained last year. For us, this is a conscious decision to secure continuity in the company in difficult times. And with that, Boudewijn, correct me if I'm wrong, we've come to the end of the presentation. And now we come to the fun part again, and that's opening the floor for questions, remarks, whatever. Thijs, welcome. Good to see you here as well. I don't know. But in this role, yes.

[indiscernible] A couple of questions from my side. First of all, the EUR 18.8 million kind of penalty you have taken. Firstly, is that related to the total orders, so how many kilotons involved? Or is it related to those monopiles have been delivered too late? And the third part of it is this EUR 8.8 million is purely allocated to Q2 or H1 in total?

So I'll start with the first one. It's predominantly related to H1 indeed. So we see the projects that we had to deliver end of last year, H1 this year were the ones that were most compressed and where we had this problem. It's on a -- typically on a per monopile basis. Under the contracts, we have certain milestones to deliver what we call ready for loadouts to have the monopiles ready. If we're not, there's typically a day rate or a week rate that starts accruing every time you're late. So it's not tonnage based, it's date and monopile related.

Then a brief follow-up. If you could you make a split into Q1, Q2 and how many monopiles does it refer to?

Yes, I don't know exactly how many monopiles split over 2 projects, and it's very specific on milestones for specific monopiles. In terms of split over the 2 quarters, we took a provision of EUR 5.5 million in Q1, so the remainder would be in Q2.

And then secondly, you're still working hard on this 190 kiloton project. The cost you make to get this project going, firstly, how much is it? And is it taken in the P&L account? Or have you capitalized those costs?

So at the moment, they're in the P&L because there's no contractual basis for us other than the exclusive agreement. So if there's an early works agreement, an EPCI agreement, a formal contract, then we'll start capitalizing costs.

It's basically manpower.

It's basically manpower.

You will reverse it. You need to look at that. And again, the cost more or less a proxy, how much -- how many costs? How much?

It's not significant. There's no -- there's very little external cost because it's all internal manpower. So it's internal hours, internal rates. We're talking a few million in the course of the next few months.

Philip Ngotho from Kepler. I would like to focus on the liquidity position. First of all, can you maybe indicate what you expect in terms of working capital outflow for the remainder of the year? And I also see the contract liabilities are still at about EUR 140 million. So how is that going to evolve going towards year-end? And the other point I have is on the accelerated payments on payables. You mentioned that it was to optimize solvency. Can you help explain that because I was a bit surprised to see, I mean, how does solvency relate to payables? And what do you expect going forward as well? Should it normalize? Or are you seeing maybe suppliers actually asking for Sif to pay sooner given, of course, your liquidity position? And the other question I have is on the remaining 225,000 tonnes in the order book. How much do you expect to produce in the second half of this year?

I'll start with the solvency one. So it's not necessarily the liability, but it's the current assets associated with it. So the minute we invoice the customer before they pay, that drives the solvency because it impacts the asset value, so the denominator of the solvency calculation. So that's more the timing. And if we have cash, it increases the assets as well. So in effect, it doesn't matter depending on what we do with the cash, but the current asset is typically what we focus on for the solvency.

How is working capital going? And you haven't seen any suppliers actually asking for quicker, faster payments from.

No. We have ongoing discussions because clearly, our suppliers redress as well. But we have contracts with all of our suppliers. We have payment terms with all of our suppliers. Our contracts are structured in such a way that everything is aligned with when our customer pays us versus when we pay our suppliers. So there's -- in essence, our suppliers run very little risk in that sense. They're not dependent on future sales that are not contracted for their payments. It's all linked to those milestones, to those payments with our customers. So there's a good match, let me put it that way, in the cash flow timing of our payments vis-a-vis our suppliers. On the working capital point, so we'll see a lot of that, and we'll see with the East Anglia project specifically, we received quite some upfront payments from them on the capacity reservation payments quite a while ago. That impacts the first part of the project. So we'll see that winding through the working capital. We'll be ordering and receiving most of the steel for East Anglia in the second half of this year, and that's where the biggest mismatch comes from because we'll get paid by our customers for the steel. We'll receive the steel, but the revenue recognition only comes on a percentage of completion of the actual monopiles. So that's going to first increase before it decreases. So it's just going to depend where we are in terms of percentage of completion at year-end, what the exact impact is going to be in the second half of this year. So we might see a small increase in contract liabilities towards the end of this year and then come down early next year. And yes, that's more of an IFRS thing. That's not a cash thing, but an IFRS thing that largely impacts those contract liabilities. But cash-wise, we'll certainly see quite a bit of movement there because the steel is obviously a big part. But again, payments are linked when we pay for our steel, it's because our customers have paid us for the steel. So there's no mismatch there in terms of cash out. That's also well balanced.

Can you give any guidance on what you expect in terms of really working capital outflow for the segment?

Cash-wise, it's fairly neutral, again, because most of the -- our payments are linked to cash inflows from the customers. Yes.

Just last question then. Given the liquidity position as it is now, just short of EUR 60 million, do you think that's sufficient to run the business for the -- until the remainder of the year?

Yes. Good question. Is it sufficient? Yes. Why did we look to do the bond and why are we continuously looking at improving that is for a business like ours, which is quite lumpy. So for example, steel deliveries come in on a weekly basis, customers pay on a monthly basis. So there are some -- sometimes some timing mismatches. So we need a company like ours should have a stronger balance sheet to manage that to not be surprised by a delay on one side or the other side. So the way we finance now, we have enough liquidity. Do we have a lot of headroom? No.

Sorry, Jeremy Kincaid from Van Lanschot Kempen. Sticking with the capital structure and liquidity headroom. Can you talk to the different scenarios around how that is impacted, say, if the 190-kilotonne project starts up in May versus August? Do you think you don't need to do anything if it starts up in May? And does that change if it's August?

Yes, good question. Look, I think either way, we need to strengthen our balance sheet and improve our liquidity position. So I think regardless of whether it starts in May or August, I think that's something the company recognizes is important that we'll continue looking at. But clearly, there's a big difference between those 2 scenarios because 3, 4 months, we have different scenarios in terms of how we can reduce our cost base, how we can further ramp down our workforce. But what Fred alluded to, we have to balance that with operational risk of every person you let go, you have to rehire them or somebody else a few months later. And there's a cost associated, there's a risk associated to that. So we need to balance that, but we need to be able to fund it as well. So clearly, the cash burn is much higher if the project only starts in September versus May. And for that, we have all the scenarios on what we can and can't do cost savings, less people, but also from a funding perspective.

And now that the bond issuance didn't go ahead, do you think you're still trying to shore up the capital structure before you get the 190-kiloton announcement? Or do you think you'll now wait for the 190 kilotonne is locked in before deciding anything?

Yes. I think it would make sense to wait and to have that as a building positive momentum to then use that as the backbone of a formal funding if we go down that route.

On the liquidated damages topic as well, 19 million. Was that in your guidance already? Because obviously, you're reducing your guidance by $40 million, but that reflects the timing shift.

Correct. So we knew last year that we were under pressure. So we really took that into consideration in the minimum. That's why we said minimum EUR 135 million because we knew there were a few things that could work against us, work for us, but we knew that EUR 135 million was achievable regardless.

And then just a small operational one. You mentioned you're starting up Oranjewind and East Anglia at the same time. So does that mean you're doing TPs for one and then monopiles for the other? Or are they both same spec monopiles? Separate locations, though.

Yes. It's the thing of simplification is not exactly parallel. It's work in progress now in parallel, but we started up with, I think, the TPs together with the top sections at Roermond. And now we have started up the rest of the monopiles at -- of Oranjewind at Maasvlakte.

My name is [indiscernible]. I have one question for Fred. You talk about the competition is in need as well for orders. How exclusive are the negotiations you have with the customer for the 190 kiloton. Is there a possibility that somebody of the competition.

It's an exclusive negotiation, as we said, and that literally means exclusive. Will the customer do market signings on pricing, et cetera, whether we are still in line? Yes. But the whole discussion and the whole setup of the agreements is a 100% exclusivity with Sif.

All right. Are you aware of any of the competition of the other players in this market that are in trouble? What kind of trouble?

We know.

One or more?

No. Well, it depends on how you define trouble. I mean a couple of them that have disappeared from the market. There's basically one in Spain and one in Denmark with respect to monopiles, not as a company as a whole, but with respect to monopiles. We know for a fact, and it has been in the press, I think, also quite often that the one -- the start-up in the U.K., having spent EUR 1.2 billion, still having issues in not only ramping up but starting up their production. They haven't produced a single monopile yet. So that is a different kind of trouble, so to say. And then we know that basically, the ones that are left are EW is doing good work, but has also is expected to see, I think, holes in their order book '28 onwards. So they look relatively okay for '27. Steel wind and IZEA are on a more or less in between basis when it comes to '27. And then the big, let's say, threat for the European supply chain is mainly Dajin in China who is very aggressively bidding for projects, but has also its limitations on capacity. But that's always a bit of a dark horse that you don't know exactly what they do and can do and will do.

[indiscernible], Edison Group. A couple of questions. Maybe starting with the 190-kiloton project. What is the scenario if it doesn't go through?

Come to -- we can't live from dreams alone. Then you look at -- I think we discussed that also half a year ago, then you come to a significant size down of the company. That basically means letting go the biggest chunk of your experienced people, not only the flex workers, but you also have to look at temporarily outsourcing our payroll people.

Dramatic scenario, yes.

It's quite dramatic. Meaning we have a continuation in our OSS at Roermond with the offshore steel structures. But that is, as you know, limited tonnage and limited possibilities, but much likely you could -- you look more or less at a sort of factory for a while.

And then, let's say, the financing of the bond that didn't really go through. What were the conditions that made it not going through?

Yes, interesting question. I think there were a number of factors. But if I summarize, it was the progress on the exclusive project that is not yet firmed up. Although with the sizing of the bond, that risk was pretty well mitigated. But then the follow-on risk was, okay, but when does the market return? Is that mid-'28? Is that mid-'29? And that timing uncertainty in combination with not yet a firm contract for the exclusive project was what investors were worried about. And to Fred's comment as well, then you start talking about structure and pricing, and that is where we said, look, if it doesn't work for us, it doesn't work.

So the most probable scenario, if the 190 kilo project goes through, it will be, again, the bond.

It could be. Yes. Definitely an option.

Thijs Berkelder, ABN AMRO ODDO BHF. First, a big thanks for Fred, been here for so long and being probably the nicest CEO I've ever seen. Won't be able -- well, your successor won't be able to beat you. But of course, a question for Koen. What is your ambition level, where do you think you will do things differently than Fred or maybe short explanation what your standard style maybe is. And let's start there.

Thank you. No, I'll be bringing Sif to the next level of performance. Of course, I have to deal with the same market situation as Fred and Boudewijn just explained. So there will be, for sure, a dip in the next few years. But we're very confident about the market developments after that. The last 2 months, I've been working intensively with all the teams in Roermond and Maasvlakte and visited several customers and partners together with Fred. So I'm very impressed with the ambition of the sector, the craftsmanship of our people, and I'm looking forward to working with them and bringing the business forward.

And Thijs, he's actually quite a nice guy because we work together now for 3 months, and I can tell you that there's nothing that they could in that respect.

Good to hear. Then maybe the tougher questions. The press release clearly states discussions with your shareholder. Debt market says no to you. So that means discussions with shareholder. I read then also discussions on potentially acting on your equity lines. Can you maybe further explain? If I look at -- you asked for it global market circumstances, Dajin raised a lot of cash in Hong Kong for further expansion. EW a year ago or so got Sumitomo in as a co-shareholder, big conglomerates with big cash positions. So the name of the game is big boys and consolidation. So is one of the scenarios also potential consolidation with, let's say, Steelwind dealing or with Haizea or someone else? Or are discussions open or is the mindset open for having also a larger outside industrial shareholder coming in?

Yes, I think -- and add if you want to. But from my perspective, and I think to Koen's exact words, we're positioning Sif to be ready for the next level, for the next growth phase. And we're looking at all options, what is necessary for Sif to be there. It could be that we do nothing. It could be that we just raise funding. It could be that we consider a strategic transaction. I think all options are on the table. We don't have to do anything, but we're looking at what is in the best interest of Sif going forward to be there for the years ahead.

But has Dajin already approached you for a potential acquisition or CS Wind or one of the other -- we found out is 3 weeks after they received the letter was published. Have you been approached already?

Yes, we can't comment on that. We can't say yes or no.

You're not saying no, is this yes.

No, we're not saying anything.

And a follow-on question on the exclusive project. My understanding is that the prime hiccup is in the connection to the shore that we're close to settling that connection. Exclusive project.

You mentioned it.

It primarily relate to the connection to the shore. Let's say, the DSO or the DSO wanting to have an adjustment or the population wanting to have an adjustment, and that's maybe the key reason for the delay. But I'm just asking so is it that the project in your view, will land, and that's only a matter of May or September -- in no way December.

No, I think there's a few things here. First of all, to your point as well, anything that takes -- that is related to the delay has nothing to do with the customer relation with us or the supply chain as such. So that is basically a done deal. That's why I'm saying it's -- we're exclusive here for a reason. That's not the issue. The issue is more and then you come to what basically is the issue in many more projects at the moment is do we have one on-time right grid connection. Secondly, do we have sufficient takeoff guarantees once we start delivering power to justify a business case and an FID taking. And that in relation to EU governmental bodies, understanding them well, as we have mentioned here a few times, that time is of the essence now and continuity is at stake if things don't move quickly. And I think that these factors, 3 factors, pressure on continuity, pressure on everybody realizing that grid and power takeoff are a bit of an issue at the moment and need support from one way or another in a kind of governmental support without being subsidy when it's not allowed is, at this moment, the key discussion going on which -- and the progress being made on that for us is sufficient reason to believe that we should be able to start between May and September with this project. But as we all know, it's only a deal when the signature is set by all parties.

And the EUR 190 million is a split between monopiles and transition pieces.