Elecnor, S.A. (ENO) Earnings Call Transcript

[Interpreted]  Dear shareholders, analysts and other stakeholders who are following up on the performance of the Elecnor Group. Before we start discussing the key highlights of this presentation, let me remind you of how this webcast works. First off, we are going to discuss the milestones achieved in the first half of 2026 from a group standpoint as well as broken down by business line. We are going to discuss Elecnor's stock performance as well as the outlook for the overall fiscal year 2026. Then we're going to discuss the highlights regarding sustainability. And finally, we are going to open the floor for questions. You know that you have the webcast platform available in order to post your questions. From a group standpoint, performance in the first half of 2026 was quite good. Net profit totaled EUR 68.1 million, nearly more than 36% year-on-year EBITDA, which is the best indicator in our opinion, in order to understand our cash generating capacity reached nearly EUR 143.6 million, up 28.4% year-on-year. As for turnover, as you can see, we posted figures similar to the previous period, nearly EUR 2 billion. As for operating cash flow before taxes, which, in our case, is another financial shows solid performance by the group reached EUR 161.1 during this first half of the year. We nearly quadrupled our operating cash flow coming from ordinary activities compared to the previous year, which reached nearly EUR 40 million. As for executable backlog, in the next 12 months, we have surpassed EUR 3 billion, up nearly 6% year-on-year, which ratifies once again the opportunities that Elecnor can still offer to the market. And last but not least, our key asset, that is to say the asset allowing us to present these results. I'm referring to our team, our people. We're already more than 29,000 people at the Elecnor Group, which accounts for nearly more than 5.3% compared to the prior period last year. Now, let me focus on this slide. Here, we try to depict contribution by the different segments comprising the group, contribution to net profit, EBITDA and turnover, respectively. Let me start out with turnover. Services account for EUR 1,218.7 million against EUR 776.6 million coming from Projects. That is to say 61% of our business volume comes from Services, 39% therefore, comes from Projects. If we now refer to EBITDA and net profit and despite that imbalance because we perform more in terms of Services, we can say that Services contributes to EBITDA with nearly EUR 76 million, up 17.3% compared to the previous period in 2025. Regarding Projects, we have posted nearly EUR 78.6 million, which is a positive figure. We have, therefore, grown by more than 44% year-on-year. Afterwards, we're going to analyze these items specifically. As for net profit, in the case of Services, we recorded nearly EUR 35.6 million to net result, but to say, up 36.5% compared to June last year. As for Projects, we recorded nearly EUR 37 million, that is to say, up 64% compared to the previous period. Let me now refer to Concessions and Own Projects. The key player here is Celeo. Due to our equity method approach, we apply this method for accounting purposes. It does not actually contribute to sales or EBITDA only through its stake coming from the results Celeo generates. As you know, Celeo is a key asset to the group with great long-term cash generating capacity as we shall analyze later on during this presentation. Let me now walk you through the key business segments within the Elecnor Group. And let me remind you that under the current framework, the group is comprised of three key business segments for which there are three general directories. We have Services, Projects, and Concessions and Own Projects. In this case, we draw a distinction between Celeo and then development and investment performed by the group. Next, we are going to give you more color on the key aspects characterizing each segment for the first half of the year. Let me start out with Services. In this case, we include power or energy distribution, telecommunications, maintenance and installation Services. This is a manpower-intensive segment. Revenue totaled EUR 1,218.7 million, that is to say up 12.3% compared to the prior period. As you can see on this slide that we are now sharing on the screen, 75% of the business volume in this case is carried out in Spain. During the first half of 2026, we were able to grow by 20.7%, nearly 21% in the domestic market. As for the international market, we work mainly in Italy and the United States. We also operate in other countries such as the United Kingdom for Services. But the main international market for this general director corresponds to Italy and the United States. We were able to do some, well, containment of 7.1% that we hope we will be able to offset in the rest of the year. EBITDA reached almost EUR 75.8 million, that is to say, up 17.3% year-on-year. On the other hand, EBITDA margin on sales for this period totaled 6.2% against 6% in the same period of the previous year. These margins once again reinforce stability as well as our ongoing expansion and growth, as it has been the case over the past few months. During six quarters, six consecutive quarters and after this segmentation approach, our margins have been within the range of 6% to 6.5%, therefore, confirming this position and showing once again the great capacity that we have in order to continue delivering these margins and therefore, continue to grow. Services reached EUR 36 million, 36% higher than in the previous period, therefore, showing excellent performance. Once again, as I mentioned before, this segment contributes more than 60% of the Elecnor Group's total revenue or sales. Let me now focus on Projects. This is another segment, which comprises development, construction, operation and maintenance of clean energy generation and transmission infrastructure. During this period, we performed very well with significant increase in profitability. And this was underpinned by the selection and execution of Projects and prudent risk management as well as a positive performance of our international backlog. These are all the elements that we have been implementing in order to approach new Projects, allocating top-notch professionals to deal with these Projects and therefore, tackle the risks that we face in each project. Several of the Projects that we are now carrying out, especially in Latin America, are now well-advanced in terms of execution, therefore, naturally reducing certain construction risks and therefore, fostering or boosting margin growth, as you can see. EBITDA stood at EUR 78.6 million, more than 44% compared to the first half of 2025. As for profit before tax, we recorded EUR 55.2 million. And as for profit after tax, we are talking about EUR 36.7 million, up 64% compared to the previous period. Regarding sales and going back to the evolution of our larger-scale Projects according to our current scale, we have been able to well actually post 50% less compared to the previous period, leading to significant margins. In the previous period, margins stood at 6%. We closed 2025 at 6.8%. As we mentioned before, we closed Q1 with EBITDA at 7.4%, if I'm not wrong. And right now, we have posted 10.1%. That is to say a dual-digit figure. This once again shows everything that we have been doing through the implementation of our strategic plan, which let me remind you, that entailed some challenges because we had to push up the margins of certain Projects. We are aware of the fact that the Services segment can deliver certain margins associated to certain risks, these margins being rather stable. These Projects, therefore, had to deliver this push upwards in terms of margins. During the first half of 2026, we have been able to post the double-digit margins, which are quite positive in our opinion. As you can also see on this slide, this segment has certain characteristics. Almost 91% of sales come from the international markets. Let me highlight the Projects in Australia, New Zealand and Brazil as well as Chile that have made a significant contribution to this EUR 777 million. Let me also mention the U.K., Angola, Dominican Republic, among other countries, which continue to provide opportunities to the Elecnor Group. We are confident that in the forthcoming fiscal periods, we will continue to increase our business volumes in this market. Now we're going to focus on Concessions and Own Projects. And let me start out with Celeo. Celeo is a company owned and managed jointly with APG, one of the world's largest pension funds. We are already present in 7,949 kilometers of electricity transmission lines, producing 345 megawatts of renewable energy to date. The assets managed by Celeo accounts for EUR 6 billion at the closing of the prior fiscal year. We understand, and afterwards, we are going to review some of the key figures. But the indicator that best shows the performance of the Celeo Group has to do with EBITDA. EBITDA has contributed to significant growth of nearly 7.8%. This increase was due to the operations carried out by the different entities making up Celeo. We have also commissioned some new Projects, particularly in Latin America. And this translates into increased sales and EBITDA and therefore, cash flows. On the other hand, this also accounts for more finance costs because all these Projects are already tied to some finance costs in the P&L accounts. And therefore, this has an impact on the financial statements of Celeo. And that's why we are not transferring this increased EBITDA to increased results of the P&L account. However, we hope that this is going to be offset in the second half of the year. Some of the Projects that are currently being run by Celeo are going to be subject to pricing review in July. Therefore, increased prices might somehow offset that negative accounting effect that we now observe in Celeo. We believe that we are going to be posting similar figures compared to those reported in 2025. Regarding Concessions and Own Projects, development and investment, let me underscore two key developments during this first half of 2026. First half, let me remind you that we, as a group, we are committed to allocating resources to investment assets, which is not an easy target. So far, we have committed nearly EUR 100 million, and this has been materialized into sub-projects. A wind project in Spain. Construction has already begun, and we have already started construction of two photovoltaic projects in the United States. And therefore, we have committed all in all, nearly EUR 100 million to these Own assets in order to run these Projects that we timely announced in the past. We continue to make efforts in terms of investment. It is true that profit in this case is rather balanced compared to previous periods. However, our investment effort is totally in line with the one made last year. So, the Elecnor Group has been applying conservative criteria. But eventually, all this is reflected in our P&L account. Expenses account for nearly EUR 2 million, and this is offset by capital gains arising from the sale of certain stakes held by the group in some promotion companies, Moana and Eternelle to be specific whose corporate purpose in the case of Moana is the operation of a data center. Regarding group management and other adjustments, this slide mainly shows overheads. That is to say all overheads arising from corporate services, administrative expenses, auditing expenses, among others. And then other expenses, which do not fall within the responsibility of any of the business lines making up the Elecnor Group. As you can see here, overheads are also in line with the overheads reported in 2025. Now let me walk you through quickly our main consolidated results. I'm not going to dive deep into the P&L account because I believe that we have already covered the key segments of the group. EBITDA reached EUR 144 million, up 28%, the same as net profit attributable to the company, which stood at EUR 68.1 million. Now, however, let me refer to the balance sheet that you can see on the screen. This balance sheet is very solid with equity in excess of EUR 1 billion, with working capital being positive, and assets in the amount of nearly EUR 4 billion. This EUR 4 billion, however, do not include those EUR 6 billion on account of assets managed by Celeo. Therefore, this balance sheet is rock solid that also has a significant cash position and all this enables us to face any situation that we are faced by, across the different markets where we operate. This is our cash flow statement. I believe that this is one of the statements that best reflects the good health of any company's position. In the first half of last year, our position was already quite positive. However, this year, we can say that we have performed very well. Operating cash flow before taking into account corporate Income tax payments reached EUR 161 million. This is 4x the figure reported in the previous period. Let me also remind you that in 2025, we had some significant cash inflows during the first half of the year as a result of the recovery of payment received in the amount of EUR 155 million, which this year was not the case. As for investing flows, EUR 57 million against EUR 36 million. Therefore, the fact that we have more activity right now, all this contributes to well, the more Projects, and therefore, we had to acquire more Projects. Regarding financing flows, as you can see here, we are showing those financing flows that have to do with dividend distribution. Last year, we paid out EUR 265 million. That was an extraordinary dividend payout, resulting from the significant capital gains delivered by the Enerfin sale. This year, we are including EUR 36 million, and this is the interim dividend that complements the EUR 44 million to be charged to fiscal year 2025. Once again, we believe that this is good proof of the solvency of the different business segments of the Elecnor Group. Our cash position with recourse stands at EUR 200 million. And the difference between last year and this year, apart from cash flow generation, is also related to the acquisition of new equipment and the fact that we had to pay out dividends. We believe that in the second half of 2026, we will continue to perform just as well as during the first half of this fiscal year. Now let me refer to the stock market performance. This was a fantastic year as at June 30, our cumulative growth was nearly 63%, even though there was a slight fall over the past few days. However, all in all, this is great news for 2026, and we believe that the market is really capturing the value that we believe this company has. There has also been a significant increase in traded cash in the first half, which stands at EUR 400 million for this period. So, we are performing very well. As for stock market capitalization, we are at EUR 3.458 billion, all in all. This is the shareholding structure and treasury stocks slide. There's not much to report here. Our treasury stocks continue to be very stable, nearly 6% with our shareholding structure also remaining quite stable. So, there's nothing else to be added in this respect. Concerning distributed dividends, taking into account our dividend payout, I would like to reiterate that our group is totally committed to pay more than EUR 220 million on account of dividends. We have already paid out EUR 44 million so far. We understand that we will be able to exceed this amount in the rest of the 2026- 2027 strategic plan period. This is the forecast for 2026. We will remain aligned with the key trends that are underpinning world's performance. We're talking about urbanization, digitalization of the society, environmental and social sustainability. We remain in line with our strategic plan and the first half is good proof of this. Once again, I would like to ratify the commitment of this group to paying EUR 220 million on account of dividends, as we mentioned before. Regarding the executable backlog that we mentioned at the beginning, we have already reported more than EUR 3 billion in terms of executable backlog. This is 5.6% more compared to the closing figure at the end of 2025. As for the segment breakdown, Services outweigh Projects. The international market also outweighs the domestic market due to all the Projects that we are now being awarded in Australia, among other markets, which once again confirms the excellent outlook that we are considering as part of our business. We are a people-centric company. This is our sustainable value. There are more than 29,000 people in this group. So, this is non-negotiable. We have to focus on people's health and safety. We have to provide people with good quality jobs, promoting equal opportunities for all collaborators. We continue to be committed to the environment. 81% of our revenue is certified by ISO 14001 on environmental management. Many of the Projects that we carry out require responsible biodiversity management and environmental protection in all the places where we carry out Projects. Next, responsible management. Our compliance system is aligned with the highest international standards. We, of course, safeguard sustainable management across the group's value chain. Regarding the basis of presentation and valuation principles applied by the group, as you know, we use this approach in order to channel our investments in Albany Road Solar, Scott Road Solar, and Potter Road Solar. These are the entities that we have set up in order to carry out photovoltaic Projects in the United States. And then Moana and Eternelle that were eliminated from the scope of consolidation as we have already explained. You will find an appendix to all the information that we have already shared with you concerning details about this year's projects as well as the key financials that we have already discussed by business segment. And now I'm going to open the floor in order to answer any questions that you may have.

Alvaro Navarro has posed the following question. In terms of the margin of EBITDA in Q2 has overshot in excess of 12%. Alvaro is talking specifically about the second quarter. What about your outlook for the rest of the year? What part of this margin corresponds to the EnergyConnect project in Australia? Well, the EnergyConnect project has not yet reached the phase where all risks are mitigated. Therefore, out of this margin, actually not much is related to this specific project. We are working intensively hand-in-hand with a client. And we hope that in the coming weeks, we will be ready to make significant steps forward. What about our outlook for the rest of the year? The fact that we posted a double-digit figure is already a milestone. Therefore, we should aim at maintaining that double-digit figure and if possible, exceed that figure. Regarding Concessions and Own Projects, could you please give us a breakdown of incurred expenses? Well, Eternelle and Moana contributed nearly EUR 2 million, and therefore, this offsets the other EUR 2 million incurred on account of expenses arising from this activity. Could you please give us more information about the strategy that you are following, especially in the case of data centers and power and transmission lines? As regards data centers, we continue to be present in that sector, even though we have done an investment rotation, specifically in Moana data, we continue to develop other data center projects, however. But for us, data centers account for a diversification opportunity. Developing these investments could open up new opportunities to the growth. However, we are not relying our growth on this sector. This is just another diversification component to the Elecnor Group. This is natural to our core business. And as for power transmission lines, we are actively present in this sector. This is one of the key growth drivers for the group, and we are spotting already new opportunities in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Angola, the Dominican Republic, in addition to power generation projects, which are also related to power transmission lines, whether we talk about construction of this infrastructure or any works related to network stabilization. In the case of power generation Projects, we also deal with storage systems because we believe that this should also continue to boost our Projects segment. In terms of cash flow evolution, we mentioned those EUR 200 million before. We have some tax payments, investments in new equipment. And therefore, we believe that we will remain flat even though we expect to report a slight improvement in the second half of the year, but we had to work on this. Alvaro Navarro Is referring to a significant increase in the price of materials. So, Alvaro is asking how price increases of copper, aluminum, steel could impact our Projects. Well, we are tendering some Projects right now. And of course, this is something that will affect not only us, but also other bidders. These are just additional risks, just another risk that we normally analyze prior to formalizing any contract. And we try to hedge ourselves against these risks. And we, of course, decide beforehand whether we can assume those risks or not. So, when discussing a project, we always analyze these risks, these materials required that we conduct that analysis in order to be duly hedged or covered. And in terms of profitability, and this is part of development and investment. This is also concerned with Celeo. We are willing to post a minimum profit. And therefore, we must be very careful. We should never jeopardize profitability for the sake of cutting out a construction project. Miguel Medina asks about the degree of trust that we have in terms of recovery in international services in the second half of 2026. The second half of 2026 was characterized by some activity slowdown in the United States. We believe, however, that we will be able to recover that fall of that delay and the fall mainly in business volume. What about EBITDA margin coming from Services? Is this sustainable? Or is it distorted due to project concentration? As I mentioned before, the Services activity is normally tied to framework contracts where each project is tied to a particular risk that is to be timely mitigated. This business is characterized by a profile or a risk profile that is totally different compared to Projects. Margin profiles are also different, the same as cash flow profiles. We applied this new business segmentation as of 2025. So, during this reporting period and even during significant growth periods, the margins coming from this general director or segment have remained unchanged between 6% and 6.5%. And right now, we are more or less right in the middle of this range. Miguel, sorry, is asking about our net cash flow expectation for the second part of the year. Although in the past few fiscal years, we have observed some cash flow seasonality in the second half of the financial year. Therefore, we are moderately optimistic as to cash flow generation in the second half of the year, even though the first half of the year was quite good in terms of cash flow generation. Based on our experience and business development, we believe that we are not going to have significant difficulties in the second half of the year. Maybe we will have to, well, carry out some financial investments. But nonetheless, we expect a very good second half of 2026. As for the key projects in our portfolio, let me remind you that our portfolio is now rising. The projects within our portfolio are projects that have already been formalized. Therefore, this backlog includes all those projects that we will be performing in the next 12 months. We have many new opportunities in Australia as well as in New Zealand. Angola remains another market where we continue to find new opportunities, the same as in the United States. Therefore, right now, the U.S. is contributing mainly to our Services segment, but we are adapting our corporate structure in this country in order to foster segment growth. We, therefore, believe that this might be an important driver in the future. Do you expect to keep these assets in your portfolio? Or do you expect to do any asset rotation? Well, we intend to continue growing in this division. We are always paying attention to rising opportunities. Nonetheless, at this point in time, we are not actually curbed in terms of asset rotation. We have a good cash position and many opportunities in the pipeline. So, this is a segment where we are particularly optimistic. What about margins in the medium term? Do you think that they are going to be normalized at middle single-digit levels? Well, maybe this is rather pretentious, and you know that we are a very prudent group. I don't know whether we're going to post another double-digit figure, but we should be close to that figure. In the Sustainable Projects segment, we have to reach higher margins. In the case of Services, 6% or 6.5% is quite good. We feel comfortable with that. In the case of Projects, as far as we continue to perform well and we continue to handpick our Projects, we believe that we might also build double-digit figures. As for sales in Projects, do you think that falls similar to the ones reported in the first half of 2026 could be expected? Well, we have to wait and see what happens when we finalize each project. At a group level, we expect to report figures similar to the ones recorded last year. Nonetheless, in the case of Services, we observe significant growth. And as for Projects, the same applies due to the execution schedule, even though we might fall slightly. As for next year, we do not yet have any specific or final figures, but we expect to continue growing in this sustainable Projects segment. Celeo has not been awarded any batch of the Enel power transmission auction. That is right. We have not been awarded any concession. But let me remind you what we do. In this case, profitability always prevails. Celeo has to report a certain return on the investment because Celeo is our investing arm. In this particular case, we have not been able to give up on our profitability expectations or our return expectations because, again, profitability is always prevailing in our approach. Having said that, there are other opportunities coming up soon, and we hope that we will be awarded some Projects, both in Chile and Brazil, respectively. Thomas is asking about the revenue decline that was accelerated in Q1 compared to Q2 and the geographies that account for this fall. Well, these are the geographies where we are running the most important Projects, specifically Australia and Brazil. So I insist, we are confident this will change. This is part of the natural characteristics of these projects, but we expect to reverse this in forthcoming quarters. As regards Services, there has been a volume fall mainly in the United States and Italy. In the first quarter of 2026, in the United States, we reported lower business volumes. We believe, however, that we will be able to offset this decline in the second half of 2026. There's another question concerning the correlation between EBITDA and EBIT correlation. As we continue to overcome some specific risks that have an impact on the provisions that we allocate. However, we're not talking about major impacts at a group level if we take into account our consolidation method. When are you planning to recover the guarantee deposit in Australia? Well, we paid this guarantee deposit we had to formalize a forward contract. Therefore, we expect to receive those EUR 234 million translated into the relevant foreign exchange rate. When we complete this project, we hope that this is going to happen in the forthcoming weeks. We are working hand-in-hand with our clients in order to finalize all the pending issues concerning the reception process of this particular project. What about the expected CapEx for the full year? EUR 100 million approximately. That is to say slightly above the figure reported last year, mainly due to an increased business volume. Alberto is asking me about the effect of the deposit in Australia. Excluding this effect, how do we expect working capital to evolve at a cash flow level? Well, normally, this changes in the second half of the year. We have a very optimistic view about this. We have to wait and see what happens in the second half of the year, but we are quite upbeat about it. What is pushing the significant growth of national sales of Services? Well, historical clients are trusting us again and again, mainly telecommunications companies, utilities, power distribution companies. All these companies continue to trust the Elecnor Group. We are providing them with all the possible services within our reach, allocating all of the resources we have available. Of course, we have some limitations because it's not easy to have highly qualified professionals, especially people who are experts on health and safety. It's very important for us to allocate people to work in the field who are duly qualified in terms of health and safety. So right now, domestic growth is being pushed by the fact that our historical or traditional clients continue to trust the Elecnor Group. Well, as for Venezuela, given the political changes that took place in this country, do you have any updates about the potential collection of receivables after the write-offs a few years ago? Well, we continue to keep tabs on developments in Venezuela. We have done our homework. We have filed all the necessary claims before the courts. This has been valued at 0 and the value of our rights will, of course, be changed and we will improve as the situation in the country improves as well. We have done everything that we had to do with respect to our client in Venezuela. Alberto has one final question concerning the project in Australia. Is this project delivering a reasonable margin given the fact that no provisions were released? Well, not many provisions have been allocated to this project. Once this project is closed, we had to analyze the risks that we face and how we will hedge ourselves against that. As I said before, recurrent income is very important for us, and this project will be no exception. The margin that we expect is in line with our best estimates. Once the project is closed and delivered, we will have to analyze whether this might increase the margin recognized for this particular project. However, so far, we do not see a special contribution regarding this project. We have advanced much more in Latin America than in Australia regarding some of the Projects under execution. I do not have any additional questions. in the webcast window. However, if you have any questions, you can contact us through all the channels made available by the Elecnor Group CEO. Thank you very much once again. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]