Voltalia SA (VLTSA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Voltalia full year 2024 results presentation. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robert Klein, Chief Executive Officer of Voltalia.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Robert Klein. Today I'm pleased to present the 2024 full year results together with Yoni Ammar whom you know already well. Yoni who has been appointed recently as my Deputy CEO. I'm also joined by Sylvine, our CFO; and Loan, our Head of Communication and Marketing. So first time I'm presenting myself in front of you then a few words for the one who do not know me well. I joined Voltalia in 2006 when the company was still at its early stages. And over the years, I got deeply involved in Voltalia's growth and transformation, particularly through my role in launching and leading our operations in Brazil and later on in other countries. I've worked across various areas of our industry from land prospection, project development, construction activities, asset management, M&A activities as well which give me a broad understanding of our industry. Today, as CEO, my goal is to drive Voltalia's evolution by strengthening our position in our market, driving sustainable and profitable growth and delivering value to our stakeholders. Now let's dive in our 2024 results and discuss key highlights of the past year. First of all, we achieved our target of 3.3 gigawatts in operation and construction of which 2.5 gigawatts already in operation which means 6% more increased compared to 2023. Our EBITDA of EUR 215 million is in line with our announcement of last August. Now let's highlight our key operational and financial figures. First of all we increased by 20% our Energy Sales turnover reaching EUR 359 million and thanks mainly to the full year effect of our plans commissioned during 2023 we reached a strong operating cash flow of EUR 258 million which will support our growth. However, mainly to the combined impact from the curtailment and the sharp drop of our equipment supply business the net loss stands at EUR 21 million. Operationally wise, and despite a competitive environment for signing new PPAs, we managed to sign 637 megawatts of new PPAs. Part of it allows us to launch 469 megawatts into construction, then 81% more than 2023. Renewable energy market continues to evolve, presenting new challenges and emerging opportunities. First of all, it's a still growing market, even if the pace may slow down a little bit on the -- during the next years, partly, it's also thanks to the competitive CapEx. We reached a very competitive CapEx in 2024, with a decrease of 20% of the solar LCOE and 10% on the wind LCOE. Of course, intermittency and green congestions -- grid congestions are the new reality and new challenges, but also which bring opportunities of new projects of storage, which gets even more every year more competitive and also hybrid projects. And finally, emerging countries continue to offer opportunities for long-term and as per produced PPA. Within this context and in order to embrace opportunities and also be in front of challenges with focus and agility, I decided in January to launch a transformation project called SPRING. SPRING aims at simplifying our business model and governance; second, prioritizing our return against growth; third, consolidation of our geographical presence and not expand geographical presence in other countries for the time being and of course, enhance the overall performance. Let's go back a little bit about our business model. I know that most of you are very familiar with that, but I wanted to insist on the fact that, yes, we are present in development, construction and operation and maintenance, but what differentiates Voltalia with most of its competitors, whether IPP or utilities, the fact that we are present in development. And I believe it's one of our main competitive advantage and contributes to a high value creation. First of all, it allows us to secure the best suitable sites. Second, it lower potentially CapEx as developing projects, we don't need to buy ready-to-build projects to third parties as most of our competitors do. Third, it generates extra EBITDA with very high margins in selling ready-to-build projects, knowing that developing 100-megawatt costs mostly the same as developing 500 megawatts. And finally, it creates opportunities and strategic options that make us potentially whether more competitive or enhancing our EBITDA. For instance, in Brazil, during the last 12, 13 years, we have built almost 2 gigawatts, and we sold even more gigawatts to third parties of projects ready-to-build projects. Then it came to -- the first logical key strategic pillar is, of course, development activities. We achieved 17.4 gigawatts of projects developed in our pipeline. And you can see here that there is -- it's more diversified geographically with less weight coming from Latin America and an increasing number of projects coming from Europe. Also, we focus -- we have focused in something we'll continue to do in the further years in the maturation of our pipeline. Here, you can see that in 2024, we increased by 600 megawatts, the projects which are at the phase of tender ready, which reached 3.4 -- a total of 3.5 gigawatts. The second pillar is we do not like merchant price exposure. That's the reason why our projects are secured by long-term and inflation indexed PPAs like this, ensuring stability and predictability of our revenues from energy sales. Then you can see here that the remaining PPA lifespan exceeds 16 years with EUR 8.1 billion of future revenues, which are already contracted and an indexation 71% of our projects of our PPAs, which are indexed on inflation. The second one is -- I went to the third one, sorry. The third one is our dual positioning in centralized and decentralized green power generation. This allows us to serve a diverse range of energy needs and market demands. Then thanks to this positioning, for instance, we expand market opportunities serving clients who require direct energy procurement as well as those looking for on-site generation. Also, we mitigate our exposure to grid congestion by balancing large-scale projects together with localized generation solutions. Since the acquisition of Helexia in 2019, its portfolio has increased from 56 megawatts to in 2024, 734 megawatt capacity. Of course, this strategy is naturally based and aligned with our mission, which is -- which makes our employee really proud. And also it frequently facilitates our construction activities. Now it's time to dig up in 2024 main achievements, and I will leave the floor to Yoni. Thank you.

Thank you, Robert. Thank you very much. Hi, everybody. Very happy to be here with you today. And of course, very proud and honored to be named as the Deputy CEO of Robert and Voltalia. So yes, let's go through the '24 achievements. First of all, I will walk you through the portfolio, our portfolio and the evolution from a 2.8 gigawatt to 3.3 gigawatt portfolio in operation and construction. First of all, we have commissioned 157 megawatts of plants, mostly Helexia small assets, but as well the Logelbach solar plant in France. Then Robert told it, we have started construction for 469 megawatts of new plants. The biggest and most important ones are Sarimay solar in Uzbekistan for 126 megawatts and Spitalla in Albania. We already started -- also started the project Paddock in the United Kingdom, which is a 50-megawatt project we sold at the end of '24. So minus 50 megawatts comes from the sale of Paddock. And finally, we have sold a small wind project in France called La Faye, and we'll come back to it just afterwards. It brings us to a 3.3 gigawatt solid capacity in operation and construction. But as well, we have increased and improved our awarded contracts to 1.2 gigawatts in order to fuel our trajectory for the future. Those being said, we have a secured portfolio of 4.4 gigawatts to go forward. Coming back to the PPAs. We have been awarded 637 megawatt in '24, 42% more than for the '23 year. Three categories of PPAs. First one, the PPAs called PPAs, which are PPAs signed with public entities like utilities, local, national utilities. For instance, we have signed 269 megawatt in Tunisia with 2 projects, Menzel Habib and Sagdoud. We have signed 109 megawatts in corporate PPAs, very proud actually to power the CERN for 27 megawatts. And of course, Helexia continues its growth with 59 megawatts in Europe and 44 megawatts in Brazil. All solar and part of it in Africa, called Africa, but Africa and international, meaning Central Asia is part of this one, Europe and Latin America. What we can see here is that in 2024, public PPA have taken precedence over the corporate PPAs, which was not the case last year. So we continue to have a balanced commercial approach between the public PPAs and corporate PPAs. Now coming to Energy Sales activity. We have managed in 2024 to secure innovative projects and important projects. I will talk about 2 of them. First one is a storage project in Uzbekistan, which is battery storage standalone, 500 megawatt, 1 terawatt hour of energy, so 2 hours. We confirmed 2 days ago the main head of terms of this contract which finally will be a 15-year PPA. Last year, we were communicating it will be over 10. It would be 15 years. And there is no merchant risk on the scheme of this 500 megawatt of storage. Second one is, Robert went in November in order to secure our positioning in the repowering of a project named Zafarana in partnership with TAQA Arabia, which is the repowering of a wind farm in Egypt, which will be at the end, a project of 3.2 gigawatt 50% of this one will be for TAQA, 50% for Voltalia. And of course, you know exactly how we did it in Serra Branca in Brazil. We will have the cluster approach we already have by the past. Coming to the services achievement for 2024. We already talked a bit about development, meaning sales of projects. We continue to sell regularly in Brazil, 500 megawatt this year. So it's projects which are ready to bid, okay? We consider, as of today, that there is not enough profitability in Brazil to build ourselves the project. And you know that we have a target to remain 50-50 between Brazil and the rest of the world. So we continue to find buyers to buy our projects with our team, which is a very, very performing development team there. Then there's synergies with the sales. The 12-megawatt project in France will continue to be managed by Greensolver, our subsidiary doing asset management and Paddock, we already talked about it. We build it with our internal EPC, and we will continue to operate it at least for 2 years. For the construction activity, in which we have more than 500 megawatts under construction by the end of 2024. Two examples of partnership. First one is Green Arrow Capital in Spain. We are building a first project of 135 megawatts nearby Seville. And as we already communicated a few times, we are also EPC contractor for big and strong players. Here, an example in Ireland, where we are building a 128 megawatt plant for Orsted. Finally, maintenance, 6.5 gigawatts of maintenance for third-party at this time, of which 1.4 gigawatts have been signed for O&M in Arinos projects, which are projects which have been developed by Voltalia and sold. So this is as well something very important with also another contract in Lajes for 266 megawatts in the Northeast region. Finally, coming to 2025, the very last highlights. You saw that we are strengthening our governance. I guess there is some adjustment and reorganization, but the most important issue here is that we have created since Robert arrived, an asset management and performance department, which will take care of optimize the operational assets, notably having a better integration with data collection and data analysis and as well improving all the processes for development and construction management. The idea here, of course, is to go to grab the very last percent of EBITDA for operational assets and the very last percent of IRR on our new assets. Finally, on the right, we have announced that we -- on side of the presidential visit of the President Mirziyoyev, we have signed a PPA for Artemisya. Artemisya is our project -- hybrid project in Uzbekistan, 526 megawatts, 126 megawatts, which is the copy paste of our project Sarimay, which is under construction. So this one is a new one, 126 plus 300 megawatt of wind plus 100 megawatt of BESS, so storage. So this is a very good and very important milestone in order to go to financial close. We have then now ensured 25 years PPAs for solar and wind and 15 years, same conditions than for the previous 500 megawatt project for the storage. On the side of this event, we also signed a small agreement for the implementation of an agrivoltaic pilot project in order to demonstrate to the authorities all the benefits of this technology.

Which country?

Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan. On the right, it's -- everything is Uzbekistan, sorry. You're right. There's a small flag, but it's not that obvious. I now let the floor to Sylvine for the financials. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Yoni. So let's deep dive to the 2024 financials. First of all, I'd like to highlight 4 KPIs, reflecting how we are constructing our financials. So early generation, we mentioned it before, the production energy generation grew by 9% during 2024, reaching 4.7 terawatt hour. Energy Sales out of a total growth of turnover of plus 10%, Energy Sales grew by 20%, while our EBITDA is EUR 215 million. And finally, the cash position from operation is EUR 258 million, the one that Robert mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. And last but not least, we here disclose the free cash flow from operations of plants, which have been commissioned before '23, so more than 1 year of operation, which amount to EUR 106 million. And we would like to share this figure with you to really show the cash generation now the plants which are now in running mode are generating. Turnover. So the turnover overall increased by 10% thanks to, first of all, the plants which are operated before '23 had both volume and price effect. As you can see, the volume effect was negative, minus 6%, while the price effect was positive of plus 8%. The minus 6% is mainly driven with the curtailment in Brazil. As for the full year effect contribution to the turnover, so we had an increase of EUR 73 million. We'll come back to that to see which country we are referring to here. And last but not least, the plant put into operation in '24 contributed by EUR 17 million. Besides that, we did sell some plants in '23 and '24. So therefore, the turnover decreased by EUR 17 million. And the Service contributed on one hand by minus EUR 11 million for development, construction and equipment procurement and increased by EUR 4 million for operation and maintenance. Adjusting with the FX rate for 2024, we reached the EUR 547 million of turnover. Having an overview of the EBITDA, here, we have the components of how it's constructed in '24. So we have the contribution of the plants which are operated for more than 12 months, so the pre-2023 plant. So it's EUR 154 million contribution, on which we add up the '23-'24 plants commissioned, meaning EUR 101 million. We here put the EUR 4 million contribution from plants we sold at the end of the year and Services contribution represents EUR 16 million of the total EBITDA. Deducting the corporate cost, we end up with a EUR 255 million while the overall effect of both curtailment and FX, mainly from Brazilian real currency amount to EUR 40 million. And this is the way we end up with EUR 215 million, which is below the initial target of EUR 255 million and in line with the last announcement of August last year. Let's deep dive now in the Energy Sales. So Energy Sales, I said before, increase of 20% of the turnover. First of all, we had the effect of the production, the volume effect, and we also here share with you the price effect. Overall, we can have an estimated average price of EUR 76 per megawatt hour, which is basically the turnover divided by the production, which is higher than the one of last year. Looking per region, Brazil production went down, not only because of curtailment, we also sell some plants, and we did commission, but the overall effect was a negative one. For France, we have a minus 13%, which is a combined effect of resources, which was not that good compared to the prior period as well as plants which were sold in '23 and '24. While in other countries are growing strongly with the production doubled and the full year effect of the plants indeed in Portugal and Albania, which are a strong contributor to the EUR 73 million I was sharing with you before. As for Helexia production, it also doubled compared to the prior period. EBITDA is EUR 218 million, so it's plus 12%. The plus 12% indeed show a fall in the margin, EBITDA margin of 4 points, which is linked to our curtailed production, which was actually multiplied by 2.6 compared to what we faced in 2023. On the other hand, it was partially mitigated by inflation indexation. Robert mentioned it about the 71% of PPA indexed and the contribution of some power plants, which benefits from high price at the beginning, which is the case in Albania. So Energy Sales is highly dependent on the resource. So what about the long-term resource and load factors? Here, we illustrate with 2 countries, Brazil and France. I will pick up wind for France. So in 2023, the load factor was 23%, higher by 1% compared to '24, 1 point, while the long-term average of Voltalia for wind in France is 25%. So here, you have the illustration of the lower resources I was mentioning before. As for wind in Brazil, we actually had in 2024, 34%, which is 6 points of percentage less than last year, but this is including curtailment. On the top right, you have the same figures without the curtailment effect. In 2024, the percentage is 44%. Here, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that in the second half of the year, though we faced the curtailment, the resources -- wind resources improved. So what about Services? Services here, we have several types, mainly 2. On one hand, development, construction and equipment and on the other hand, the operation and maintenance. Development, construction and equipment altogether represent 86% of the total turnover. It decreased by 7% within the year, mainly driven by a lower volume of activity for third-party clients related to the equipment procurement activity. Whereas operation and maintenance continued to increase by 16%, representing EUR 27 million. And Yoni disclosed to you several examples illustrating new contracts signed over the year. As for EBITDA, so it's EUR 15.6 million, minus 75%, mainly due to the fact that in 2023, we had a record level of sales of projects. It was, in total, more than 800 megawatts sold in '23. This year, we did sell projects because it's our business model, the one we explained before. But the overall project sale -- sold, sorry, was 500 megawatts at early stage for project in development. And on the other hand, we also had some brownfield sold such as the one in France of 12 megawatts. So sale of projects explains the main part of the difference we have in value and margin of EBITDA. Whereas construction and equipment and especially construction had a strong growth, not only in volume of activity, but also in EBITDA margin. We'll see just after more into detail. And finally, operation and maintenance had temporary decline in terms of EBITDA margin contribution, mainly because the level of one-off additional service on long-term contract was lower in '24 compared to '23. And here, I refer to our subsidiary, Greensolver. So a few KPIs to share with you about service activities for better understanding. As for development, indeed, we sell a plant in operation in 2024, La Faye. It's a wind plant sold in France, which actually here, you can see the ratio had an enterprise value per megawatt of EUR 1 million. This still show, as we explained and shared with you last year, the value creation we are able to generate by selling part of the plants from our portfolio. And we have the same approach for project in development and some brownfield, which is lower volume, but we do have as well. So the value generated approximately EUR 1 million per megawatt. Talking about construction, specifically to third-party, we have more than 500 megawatts being built on behalf of third-party clients in Europe, Latin America as well. And the profitability continued to improve, reaching a 9% EBITDA margin. Maintenance is -- and we mentioned it, 6.5 gigawatt operated to third-party clients in various geographies for a total margin of 7%. So let's have a look now below EBITDA. We have both Energy Sales and Services activity. We end up with EUR 233 million in 2024. And then we deduct the corporate cost, it's EUR 18 million. Corporate costs are higher compared to '23, mainly linked to some IT investments we started end of '23 and continue in '24, and we end up with EUR 215 million of EBITDA. Then below you have depreciation, amortization and provision. The depreciation are mainly linked to the increase of plants that we commissioned and we start to depreciate as well as the full year effect we have from the plants put into operation in 2023. We have other income and expenses and that line, you do have some write-off of all projects that we are rationalizing in our portfolio, which are mainly explaining the gap and increase between EUR 18 million and EUR 21 million for other noncurrent income and expenses in '24. Operating revenue EBIT end up with EUR 68 million. The financial result is minus almost EUR 75 million. So it increased by 29% and include, on one hand, EUR 128 million of the cost of net financial debt, while we do also have some revenues and the margin on loans remained stable overall. Finally, tax and income on equity affiliates was minus EUR 13 million, mainly because the fact that last year, we did have tax effect linked to the projects we sold. So a lower tax burden in '24. Minority interest is minus EUR 1.7 million. So we end up with a loss of EUR 20.9 million, which is definitely linked and linked to the fact that we do have the curtailed effect in Brazil, but we do also have the decrease in the solar panel value of inventories, which weighted on our results. So a loss of minus [ 20.9% ] (sic) [ EUR 20.9 million ] compared to a profit of EUR 29.6 million in '23. Let's have a look on the debt and our structure of net debt. So total, it's EUR 1.9 billion growing mainly driven by the portfolio of plants we are developing, constructing, operating. The debt structure is the one you have on the top left with mainly project finance together with bridge to project finance, it's 61%, while the corporate loan amounts to 28%. Finally, the green bonds represent 11% is the one we reimbursed early in January '25. The currency denomination is mainly euro, 2/3 of the total debt, while the Brazilian one represents 1/3. The 26% of debt denominated in Brazilian is also the one you see below in the rate structure, which is indexed, the 26%, while the main and the majority is either pre-hedged or fixed or hedged for a total of 63%. And you do have here the logos of all the partners, the bank partners we are working with either for project finance and corporate debt. To highlight last year, we shared with you our debt strategy, which remains the debt strategy we keep on following and to put some KPIs related to debt together with business KPIs. First one, we were explaining that the PPA remaining life is 16.4 years. Phase to the residual project debt maturity of 14.5 years. It's something we monitor, which shows the value creation of project finance and the optimization and the monitoring of PPAs towards debt maturity. Corporate debt. We do have some to use it as a flexibility tool. We have EUR 319 million of corporate debt bridge long-term project finance, out of which EUR 74 million are drawn. These are projects for which we use our corporate debt. And in the beginning of 2025, we finalize, close and use the project finance debt. So it's temporary. We do have a prudent approach to the overall leverage, which is at the end of '24, 62% net debt divided by net debt to equity and the multiple of net debt to EBITDA, sorry, reached 9%. Finally, we had a slight increase in cost of debt from 5.9% -- sorry, to 6.1% which is mainly due to some -- the short-term loan that we are drawing as well as the new financing and project finance, which are definitely at higher rates than the one we used to have. But this, we monitor it comparing to the PPA price as well, which increased in the same time. Finally, about the cash. So here, you do have the change in cash from '23 to '24. So we go from EUR 319 million to EUR 360 million. Operating cash flow, we mentioned it before, increased by EUR 258 million, which includes both contribution from energy sales activity. Cash flow from our service activity, EUR 68 million. Then we deduct the corporate costs, some nonoperational expenses, a working cap, which is contributing due to lower inventories to finally, after company tax, end up with EUR 258 million. Investing cash is, as we expected, around EUR 500 million, EUR 519 million, while the financing cash flow is composed of EUR 640 million of net debt drawdown, while we repaid and paid interest for EUR 311 million. Having the FX effect neutralized, we end up with EUR 360 million at the end of the year. So let's continue with 2025.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sylvine. What to expect for 2025? First of all, we would like to give you some visibility regarding the SPRING planning. And second, of course, some guidance regarding the capacity that we expect to install in 2025 as well as the energy production forecast. Regarding SPRING, then as I mentioned before, we are, at the moment, in the middle of the diagnostic phase for which we are helped and supported by the contingency company, Kearney and we hope reaching some -- the conclusions from the diagnostic by June of this year. Then the second phase would be the implementation phase during the second half of 2025. And of course, we will come back to you during the presentation of the half year results with the conclusions and the detailed road map of SPRING. Regarding the Energy Sales outlook and the guidance, then we expect to reach around 3.6 gigawatt capacity of plants in operation or under construction, which would be an evolution of around 10% compared to what we performed in 2024. And in which around 3 gigawatts would be already in operation, knowing that most of our plants will enter into operation by the end of the year 2025, representing then a 20% increase compared to the installed capacity in operation in 2024, which would represent taking into account 10% of curtailment in Brazil, around 5.2 terawatt hour, which means 10% increase compared to 2024. Takeaway and Q&A very quickly. Then basically, we reached our capacity target and EBITDA taking into account the announcement of last August. We secured more than 600 megawatts to fuel our growth of new PPAs. We have a strong cash position of EUR 360 million and also a strong operating cash flow of EUR 258 million. And as I mentioned before, the reason why a negative net result in 2024. SPRING will help us to grab the new opportunities and face also new challenges and the perspective of 2025 already talked about in the slide before. Thank you very much, and let's open for the Q&A.

This is the conference operator...

Thank you very much. Yes, I will let the operator remind the questions how to raise questions.

Thank you, madam, excuse me. [Operator Instructions] Back to management for questions in the room.

Yes. Thank you, Sherry. Let's begin in the room. Yes, I can see Arthur from Morgan Stanley.

The first one would be on Brazil and curtailment there. So you assume 10% in 2025. I was wondering if we should consider this as structural going forward, this level of curtailment. And if that's the case, if this has any impact on your project returns on operational projects and if we could -- and if this could create a risk of impairments in the future. And still on the -- on that question, I think the Brazilian regulator voted against the compensation of curtailment for grid bottlenecks. If you could provide any update on that and potential future compensation, that would be helpful. And the second question is just on your transformation plan. I understand we are still quite early in the diagnosis phase. But any thought that you could share on what you've observed so far in your time as new CEO, early thoughts of the diagnosis would be helpful. I know you probably can't say much at this stage, and you want to keep some announcements for later in the year, but yes, that would be helpful.

Regarding the curtailment in Brazil, I am still confident that we will find out some solutions together with the government and also the regulator. First of all, I think we have to divide the issue in 2: technical issues; and second, what ANEL wants to do, ONS restrictions and also political context that we are facing in Brazil. First of all, the high curtailment that we faced last year was mainly due to technical issues for transmission line we were already -- which were late in their operation. And the curtailment has slowed down, and we have a low curtailment, by the way, in January and February, in line with our expectation, what we considered in the financials. Now there are a lot -- you said that ANEL voted against -- yes, 3 directors of ANEL voted against, and there are 2 directors that voted in favor. Then there is an internal fight, I would say, within the ministry, the ONS and ANEL, but I'm really confident that we will find some solutions. Lately, we have all the governors of Northeast Brazil, which have -- which are impacted by the curtailment with a lower level of investments that are happening in Northeast Brazil are going and talk frequently to Lula in order to find a political solution on that. And I remind you that there is a law. We have invested in Brazil in all those assets taking into account the risk of curtailment because in 2004, a law has been voted, which planned the compensation of the full curtailment. Then today, what we are facing is that the law is not applied. And there are some legal actions and also political actions, lobbying action from the government of the north of Brazil in order to reach an agreement for compensation and also to have a perspective regarding how the curtailment are going to be considered in the future. Then I continue to think that for legal reasons, political reasons, we should have some compensation of the revenues that we lost in the past, that there are some technical solutions that are being applied. And by the way, on the second semester, there is a storage auction that would take place, and it will lower the risk of curtailment. And that's the reason why I believe that it's not structural, and we shall be compensated for the past, and we will have some visibility for the future as well. Regarding SPRING, look, I've been appointed for 2.5 months. Then I'm still digging about a lot of subjects, taking into account all the obligations of being here today, for instance, the Board, et cetera. Then I prefer not to comment about it and leave my answers for later on so that I would be maybe more precise with an action and an action plan that will be presented to you by September.

Maybe Philippe from ODDO.

Yes, Philippe ODDO. Several questions. One, you mentioned EUR 76 per megawatt hour as a capture price in '24. In this figure, you have Karavasta pre-PPA. Could we have an idea about the same price without the pre-PPA? Just to have an idea about what's going to be the magnitude for '25 in terms of pre-PPA also because it's until August, if I'm not wrong, for Karavasta. And the normal, I would say, level of prices. The second thing is that globally, it means that are you expecting to have somewhere a kind of stable capture price '25 versus '24 linked to the same structure, means including the pre-PPA of Karavasta. Could we have an idea about the net debt '25 you are forecasting because debt is quite sensitive in terms of financing? It's quite heavy. And just to have no surprise in your lending position at the end of '25. Could we also have an idea about, I would say, the cash cost of interest? You mentioned your financial operating cash flow of EUR 311 million. But in this figure, there is also cash cost in terms of debt. Could you just elaborate on that to help us to calculate, let's say, a global operating cash flow, including the financial charges cash? Are you also comfortable with the level of the consensus? You sent to the market consensus in February. We were discussing about EUR 244 million in terms of EBITDA and a net profit of EUR 4 million. And 2 other questions, sorry for that. But one, could we have an idea about the Helexia contribution in terms of revenues and EBITDA, just to help us to figure out this growing weight of the decentralized solar? And last point, when you mentioned that you have you sold 500 megawatts of projects currently in Brazil, could we have an idea about what is the ratio between the disposal value and the invested capital? Is there any, let's say, deviation versus what you did in the past? Just to have an idea about the trend of the appetite of investors in financial or industrial investors in Brazil for energy assets?

So it's a long list.

Sorry for that.

No, no, no problem. I will probably ask help because I'm not sure I wrote everything. So starting with the price. Indeed, you're right to mention that we do have so-called early generation and high price at the beginning of the operation of Karavasta, so the Albanian plants in '23 and '24. And estimating the effect for 2025, actually, it's -- indeed, it's going to be higher than the average price we got in '23, but indeed lower than the one I calculated in '24. So basically, if you do the same estimates, you have EUR 69 per megawatt in 2023, EUR 76 in 2024. So it will be in between the '23 and '24 prices. And you're right to say that we will have not this contribution within 2025 for Karavasta, which will come back to the long-term contribution we had in our business model. As for 2025 forecasted net debt, actually, as we planned in our long-term and strategic plan for which we shared with you some 2027 targets, we knew that we will have a peak in '24, '25 in terms of net debt ratio to EBITDA because we have a volume of plants putting into construction, which are not yet generating EBITDA. So indeed, the 9 multiple is high, and then we would return structurally and step-by-step to the one we used to have in 2023 by '27. Then you mentioned about the Helexia contribution. So Helexia contribution, the overall EBITDA, it's about contribution, it's about IPP, EUR 40 million out of the total EBITDA. And it's a business model where we do have a strong growth because we've seen the 140 megawatts, which have been put into operation during 2024, which will continue to grow on the same trend. Maybe Loan, is there something you want to comment on the consensus maybe?

Yes. On the consensus, we released consensus based on the analyst update last February 19. They are based on some assumptions that you can find also in the presentation based on the curtailment, and 10% curtailment and the fact that commissioning will occur at the end of the year. So of course, we don't comment specifically on the figures, but this consensus represent kind of a vision of updated views from the analysts based on that.

Regarding the question about Helexia, then the turnover of 2024 has represented around EUR 50 million with an EBITDA of around EUR 40 million. Regarding the sales in Brazil, it's very difficult to answer to that question because we sell the projects at different stages. In that case, it was a ready-to-bid, not a ready-to-build. Then the margin is lower. I mean percentage is extremely high, but in terms of absolute value, lower that we've been performing before with ready-to-bid and build projects. Regarding appetite, then I'm happy that despite the context of the curtailment in Brazil, we've been able to do that sale of 500 megawatts. But of course, the appetite for the time being up to the time there is a regulation visibility regarding how the curtailments are going to be taken and considered. It's more difficult today to sell ready-to-build or ready-to-bid project. But I believe it will come back as soon as there are some visibility about [indiscernible], especially what's going to happen in the future and how the curtailments are going to be considered in the future projects to be -- operate to be commissioned.

And the cash cost of financial…

Could you just repeat the question because I didn't get.

The cash cost your financial target, you have in the [indiscernible] of operating cash flow financial one.

Yes. So actually, it's around EUR 130 million total cash cost, which includes all costs we've paid to all the debt to project and project finance and corporate debt.

About the price you have answered but where -- about the price you have answered. But where is coming from this price of EUR 76 per megawatt hour mainly? Is it possible to have a breakdown of price depending on countries? The second question is about the debt. Except if I am wrong, we haven't seen the evolution of debt between '23 and '24, and are you comfortable with your level of investment because except if I am wrong, all the investment is paid by debt, in fact. So is it a good management on that line? Third question is about stationary storage battery [indiscernible]. I've said to Total and ENGIE that in my opinion, stationary storage is very, very, very profitable. Have you an idea of the marginal profitability of adding storage to renewable energy power plant, not only because of storage itself, but because of the possibility of producing more electricity because of storage and having better efficiency of such a plan? And finally, among all your activity, what is in your opinion the one which is more profitable between maintenance, services and so because I'm not sure that one-digit margin on services is enough in term of expectation of margin for such activity?

[Foreign Language] Now of course, the breakdown of price per country is not available here. Nevertheless, main of the -- a lot of prices are actually public. For instance, all the auction prices for Brazil are public. And each time it is public, we are disclosing it. Nevertheless, we have some, of course, specific contracts, corporate PPA contracts, which are more tricky in terms of confidentiality, and we are not disclosing them. So that's why we are doing a blend in order to give you indication to build models and to look at the value. But the good news is that our prices remain at a good level. And as compared to some of our competitors who saw their prices drop dramatically, 20%, 30% because of merchant exposure, Voltalia remain very secure on its policy about pricing.

So maybe to complete on the debt indeed. So last year, the net debt was EUR 1,590 million. So this year, it's EUR 1,943 million, what I mentioned before. So it's plus EUR 353 million increase from one year to another. Basically, you have 2/3 which relates to project finance and 1/3 which relates to corporate debt. And what I explained before is within the corporate debt, we have EUR 73 million, which are already drawn to be bridged to be converted in project finance. So the increase in the net debt is driven by the financing of our project. Now talking about how do we monitor the debt and the leverage of the debt? Actually, this is the reason why we monitor the maturity and the weight on the debt compared to the PPAs because we do have project finance, which is nonrecourse debt. And the lenders actually test the robustness of our plants by doing some strong analysis, ensuring that we have the repayment ability, especially because we do have long-term PPAs, which are fixed -- which are indexed price, I mean, and not exposed to the merchant. So this is really a way to strengthen our -- indeed, we have a high level of debt because it's our business model, but our ability to reimburse the debt we generate to finance the plants we operate with long-term indexed revenues, which are not exposed to volatility of merchant price.

Regarding your question about batteries. As I mentioned during the presentation, yes, the penetration of renewable, the issues which we face -- the market is facing regarding grid congestion and about -- because of the high penetration now of solar, of course, gives some new opportunities regarding storage, but it will depend really each country-by-each country. In countries, for instance, where the energy price is really low, it's going to be more difficult to be able to make some money on stationary storage, while in other countries and depending also on the regulation, it's something that we are looking very deeply and it's part, by the way, of our SPRING project transformation to see where we could do some business regarding storage and where it could make sense.

It's a good subject for perspective in order to understand the mechanic of such a deal between battery and [ consumption ].

Exactly. It's really a moving reflection that's happening mostly in emerging countries where the penetration is always pretty high and where the grid is starting facing some issues. And before we have -- and also, it's a balance between new transmission lines to be built and also what is the most cost effective to do. Regarding the profitability margins about our businesses, you are in the heart of our SPRING project. Then I have some answers, but if you don't mind, I will reserve my answers for later on. Of course, the most profitable maybe activity is development, as I mentioned before, it's not a secret. We have high margins. As I mentioned before, developing 100 megawatts is pretty the same, not everywhere, but it's pretty the same cost as developing 500 or sometimes 1 giga, and why not affording doing that. And as a matter of fact, at the end, when you manage to do good development, you manage to be serious also because there are a lot of type of developers. And I can tell you because I sold a lot of projects since I've been in Voltalia. At the beginning, investors or competitors were reluctant in acquiring projects from a competitor. But at the end, they were happy because they say, I prefer to buy projects from someone who has also the expectation of building -- who has this knowledge of building than a pure developer that is doing -- that his core business is developing for selling. That's the reason why we've been really successful in selling projects. And the higher margin, but of course, we have to consider the risk of developing activity. And then we -- higher margin versus risk as well has to be considered like, for instance, service for third parties, you don't need CapEx for that. But it's a reflection that is extremely important that we are conducting in this SPRING project.

Yes. Julien Onillon from Stifel. A few questions. First, can we have an idea about the CapEx you expect for 2025 for this year, considering your plan? And how the costs are evolving in terms of spending? Second question I would like to come back a bit with your Egypt projects, which are big projects. What type of contract you have, the type of currency guarantee? We have seen Brazil has been -- has an impact with the Brazilian real in euro terms, I guess, when you transfer in euro. So what sort of protection you have for Egypt? And same question for Uzbekistan in terms of currency? And question coming back to Brazil. You mentioned effectively one of the points, how you can improve profitability in Brazil. Brazil has been declining profitability over the years due to curtailment, due to indirectly Brazil real in euro terms has been also impacting. What type and its part maybe it was the SPRING project, but what type of things you could do in Brazil to recover effectively better margins that you have today, excluding obviously in addition to the curtailment issue, which is an issue which might remain?

I'll take the first one on the CapEx and then we will follow on. So for this year, for '24, it was EUR 516 million. For '25, we expect between EUR 550 million to EUR 600 million CapEx for the year.

The question about the project in Egypt and in Uzbekistan. What is very, very important on this project in Egypt because, of course, you know that we all suffered about convertibility lately on Egypt last year. But this peculiar project will be paid offshore in USD for more than 80% of the contract. The rest is GP, it will allow us to actually pay for the O&M. So it is a very good scheme and very protective for Voltalia. For Uzbekistan, where there's definitely less issues with convertibility. The project is paid in local currency pegged on USD. So this is definitely -- the project and the prices are denominated in USD. And then -- but you receive some then you have to convert them into proper USD currency. Regarding Brazil, indeed, we have been suffering for the last 2 years from the real currency effects and more lately unfortunately. Regarding curtailments, as I mentioned before, I believe that there will be a solution. It has to be -- must be a solution for curtailment. Again, all the IPPs, all investors are impacted and everyone is mobilized in order to find a solution. There are other details that I would be able to provide you afterwards, if you want regarding that, but things are moving. And I believe that we should -- the situation should normalize on one day or the other in order to improve our economics on the projects. Also, I've been in Brazil, I've been knowing Brazil for a while, and I know that it's a country where you have ups and downs. A lot of investors have understood that and played on that. We played on that as well with some really good operations we did, for instance, [ dis-contracting ] some energy at one point of time when there was an excess of electricity and sell it at a higher price. And there are some possibilities to do that. And I expect that in the future, it will happen again. There are also when the context -- the economical context will be better and it could be -- it's getting, by the way, depending on the perspective of the political context and the next election will be in 2026, which may bring the interest rate lower that we have today. And then it could be a time to refinance our projects in order to bring some more value. Of course, operational wise, there are some adjustments to be made in order to improve the economics. But there are a bunch of things that we're thinking about, but some of them are external and other ones are internal. But I would say that in overall, the assets are really good, then we cannot play on the local currency at the moment. But reminding that our PPA are inflated on inflation, then it's a kind of protection as well.

It is fully 100% of the PPA in Brazil are indexed 100% on the Brazilian inflation, meaning while you are having, of course, devaluation, there is high inflation. And there's the devaluation is roughly the difference between the Brazilian inflation and the euro inflation, meaning at the end, the value over the 20 years of the equity which has been injected in euro is protected, okay? You can see it very easily. And when you are looking to the euro, Brazilian FX over 20 years, you see this devaluation. Of course, there is some variation coming with actually highest inflation, but it is a model which is definitely robust.

Maybe we have some questions on the line. Maybe we take 1 or 2. Can we have the question from the conference call and we'll come back.

Certainly, madam. We have a question from Paul Chabran of Kempen.

First, maybe a question for Robert. It's an open question. You have been with the company for a very long time now. Could you maybe share your view looking back on what Voltalia could have done better or just differently and what you think could improve moving forward? And the second question on governance. So Yoni was appointed Deputy CEO. I was just wondering what does this position allows that essentially you couldn't do as a Director because I think you keep the same geographical scope. So yes, just maybe some clarity on this change?

Well, it's a tough question, this one, actually. Well, I'm looking at the moment, pretty much for the perspective and the future. What we could have done differently? I don't know. I haven't thought about that actually. I'm so focused on the future that I have not prepared. I don't know if you are...

I know certainly that the [indiscernible] about the past will be reflected in the future. So definitely, it's a bit a SPRING reflection about.

It is indeed, if I answer you, then I will say we should not have that debt, which maybe we will not -- should do in the future. Then I will answer somehow some of the questions that we are wondering for Spain. Then I'm going to prepare that answer for the next meeting that we will have. And I'm sure I will have much more information considering the big transformation projects we are working on right now.

Maybe just to be clear about at least my perimeter, I was in charge of Europe and Africa, but without North Africa, without France. And now we have structured this with 2 hubs, which are France and Portugal, which will report to Laurent Pillot as well as the subsidiaries. And I'll take over the overall finally, development and IPP over the regions of Latin America, Africa, the full one and Europe and Central Asia, excluding France and Portugal. And this is in the same spirit of the department of asset management and performance creation in order to streamline the all processes and the all knowledge to have better cross experience between all the country managers of the region in order to be more performing on the development, and to be more careful and on the construction, where, of course, as you know, it is a very important moment and a key milestone of the profitability of the project. So it gives consistency on the overall regions.

Thank you, Paul. I will move because I think it remains only 5 more minutes to the platform questions. We have several questions related to the arrival of Robert as CEO, and why and how it has been done and about the departure of Sebastien Clerc, that was a Former CEO, if you want to answer, Robert, on this one?

Yes. I think why I have been chosen at the end? Well, this is a question also I asked to, to the people who interviewed me. First of all, it's been really an open process with external candidates and internal candidates as well. Then they just -- they didn't say, "Oh, we thought about Robert. He's come from Brazil, then maybe he would like to visit Paris and let's call him". No, it's because actually, I've worked on the project Voltalia before Voltalia exists before 2006. As I did in my introduction, I participated to the growth transformation of Voltalia. Brazil represented at one point of time more than 80% of the installed capacity and the revenues. In Brazil, we had all the department, support department engineering already in place. Then basically, I kind of manage a big part of Voltalia from Brazil and from the local team. Then I have this experience of managing large teams and also the experience of dealing with all the value chain in terms of competencies that we can have in the IPP. Then I believe that due to my experience in the business, what the track record of what we've been building in Brazil and my ability to manage a large number of people, that's the reason why probably they chose me.

Of course, Sebastien left at the end of 2024. It was 13 years. He was the CEO of Voltalia. He led a fast-growing period for Voltalia and definitely wanted to move forward to new challenges. And Robert is definitely a continuity, but with a new period and a new philosophy moving forward that we will disclose for after the SPRING diagnosis.

New boost for Voltalia. Maybe another question that we have, several questions related to the current share price situation and related to the fact that if the group will be sold, if the group will be take private by the majority shareholder? Do you have a comment, Robert, on that?

Actually, it's a question to ask to our shareholders, not us. We are the managing people of the company, then they may have this kind of reflection, but they don't share so much with us. And it's a question to address to our shareholders.

I think we're going to take a last question in the room, last, last because I see.

Yes. Just a very quick question. It's Thomas Streater from Streater Research. Could you talk about the data center opportunity in your PPA pipeline? Somebody said plug, baby plug. Does that apply to you? Where do you see the opportunity in data centers?

Yes. I'll take development and then you...

Yes. Of course. Now we are looking, of course, to those kinds of opportunities. There's -- the growth of data centers is huge. It will continue for the next decades with all the AI development and so on. So it is a big opportunity for us. Nevertheless, we see as well that the owners of data centers are very educated players. They were the first one to go for big green PPAs. A lot were done in Northern Europe, of course, because of the heat and global improvement and efficiency of the data centers. We believe it will be -- we will have opportunities. We are thinking about how to get them within our business model, which is not that easy because PPAs with the data centers are mostly short-term PPAs, which is not what Voltalia is looking for. Nevertheless, we are digging. We are looking to the best business model. We are looking also to other kind of opportunities because, unfortunately, there's not only data centers growing, there's also hydric stress everywhere in the world. And desalination is, for instance, something we are looking really deep because the business model is definitely very compatible with Voltalia. And we are looking more than that kind of opportunities right now. But definitely, data center will have -- will play something in the game in the coming years.

And the last one. As far as diversification is concerned, are you intended to potentially answer to any request from Brazil to produce hydrogen coming from renewable or they are apparently proposing in harbor in the Northeast of Brazil in order to fill the potential market of hydrogen? And are you ready or will you be ready to answer to any proposals that Brazil will do in the future to have hydrogen production from renewable energy and mainly solar, for example, in Brazil?

Brazil is looking very closely its role in the green hydrogen market. Then there has been a law which has been voted last year, which incentives for the production of hydrogen and also of ammonia for mostly for exportation, knowing that Brazil also is a large importer of fertilizers, then it's a way of what we call new industrialization of Brazil. Coming back also regarding curtailment, it could be also a solution regarding the demand could increase a lot and could be one of the solution regarding the curtailment because the demand of electricity will be in Northeast Brazil and basically where the wind farm and the solar farm are located. Then we are in touch with several developers which, I mean, there has been some public announcements regarding that, Casa dos Ventos together with Total in the Port of Pecem in Northeast Brazil. There are also FFI Fortescue is developing projects, Vale do Rio Doce, which is a large industrial company, mining company there. And there are a lot of projects now. What is the time frame then this is a question. I'm sure that if Brazil is one of the winner of the market of green H2, of course, there will be plenty of opportunities, and we are positioned for that with a large pipeline. But the future will tell us. I mean there are still a lot of question tags regarding that market and when it will evolve, especially for the countries which will be exported of green ammonia because we have to settle infrastructure for the upstream, but also the downstream and everything has to talk together. Then yes, indeed, it could be a great opportunity. And it's a good question after the question coming from the data center and desalination, then the users of renewable energy are large, which one is going to be the biggest and will evolve the most, we'll see, but we are positioned at least.

Thank you very much. I think we need to close the question-and-answer part.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.