DEME Group Aktie

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor relations, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to DEME's Half Year 2026 Earnings Call and Webcast titled Strong First Half Results, On Track for Another Record Year. Joining me today are DEME's Chief Executive Officer, Luc Vandenbulcke; and our Chief Financial Officer, Stijn Gaytant. Both Luc and Stijn will take you through the presentation, which will be visible on screen during the webcast.

Slide 2 briefly outlines the agenda. Luc will kick it off with the exec summary, and Stijn and Luc will then take you through the group's financial performance and the results of our 4 segments. We will also highlight several key projects before Luc will then conclude with the outlook. After the presentation, we will open the floor for any questions you may have.

So without further delay, I'll hand it over here to Luc for the exec summary.

Thank you, Carl, and good morning to everyone. As you all know, 2026 is a very special year for DEME. We will be celebrating, or we are celebrating our 150th anniversary. And I would like to begin by personally thanking our employees, both our current employees, but also our past employees because their hard work and determination have shaped DEME into the global group that we are today. Their commitment, as you will see, is once again reflected in our performance as we delivered the strongest first half in DEME's history.

Let me now walk you through the key highlights and financial results for the period. Against a backdrop of rapidly evolving market conditions, we delivered more than EUR 2 billion of turnover, and that for the fourth consecutive half year period. At EUR 2.2 billion, DEME delivered its strongest first half top line performance ever. We also achieved record first half EBITDA of EUR 466 million, which corresponds to a margin of 21.6%. Net profit reached a record EUR 215 million, which is an increase of 20% compared to EUR 179 million a year ago. The order book stood at EUR 7.1 billion. While somewhat below the level reported a year ago, it remains healthy and robust. We continue to see supportive market fundamentals, healthy tendering activity and a substantial project pipeline. Together, this should help us to keep the order book in good shape.

And in this anniversary year, I'm pleased to say that 2026 is shaping up to be another exceptional year for DEME. Reflecting our strong first half performance and the visibility we have today, we are raising our guidance for the year. For 2026, we now expect turnover to slightly exceed the 2025 level and the EBITDA margin to stay in line with the 2025. Our brand-new offshore assets, the Norse Wind and Norse Energi have successfully entered service and are currently executing their first projects, which is reinforcing our position at the forefront of the offshore energy market.

In addition to that, we have continued to invest in our dredging fleet. We have ordered a new hopper dredger with a capacity of 22,000 cubic meters, which is expected to be delivered somewhere in 2029. So that's it for the highlights.

I will now hand over to Stijn, who will walk you through the financial highlights in a bit more detail. Stijn?

Thank you, Luc. And also from my side, a very good morning to everyone. Now let me walk you through the key highlights of our first half year performance. Our order book stood at EUR 7.1 billion compared to EUR 7.5 billion in the same period last year and EUR 7.6 billion at year-end 2025. The order book continues to provide a healthy visibility. This should also be viewed in the context of the record turnover that we have delivered during the first half of this year.

As such, group turnover was up 2% to almost EUR 2.2 billion. This was driven by the sustained performance of our 2 largest operational segments, which both saw revenues further increase. Now EBITDA stood at EUR 466 million, representing a margin of 21.6%, which is comparable to the previous year. This result was driven by the Offshore Energy segment, which has seen profitability normalize from its peak 2025 levels as well as a strong rebound in our Dredging & Infra segments, where the EBITDA margin improved to 22% from 12% a year ago.

Depreciation and impairment expenses amounted to EUR 235 million and were pretty much in line with last year. For the first half of '26, this included the depreciation of the Norse Wind and Norse Energi, while last year, we had the depreciation level, amongst others, driven by an accelerated depreciation of an Offshore Energy auxiliary asset. As such, EBIT for the period reached EUR 231 million. It represents 10.7% of turnover and there is an increase of 3%. Net financial result amounted to minus EUR 23 million compared to minus EUR 9 million in the same period last year. The delta is partially explained, as you can expect, by the interest component on the EUR 700 million green term loans that we had taken up in 2025 to finance the Havfram transaction.

Current taxes and deferred taxes account for minus EUR 50 million, which reflects an effective tax rate of 24%, broadly in line with the effective tax rate year-on-year of 23%. Now a particularly strong contributor this semester was our large portfolio of joint ventures and associates, which generated a contribution of EUR 59 million. It reflects good operational performance and mainly favorable project phasing across several businesses in Japan, Taiwan and Europe, complemented also by solid results from our concessions activities.

Now given the strong contribution in the first 6 months, we do expect a more normalized contribution from the joint ventures and associates in the second half of '26. Now the combination of solid operational execution, strong recovery in Dredging & Infra, resilient offshore energy performance and the higher contribution from joint ventures and associates resulted in a net profit increase of 20% to EUR 215 million. And this translates in earnings per share of EUR 8.53 compared to EUR 7.08 in the first half of '25, which means we continue with DEME's track record of delivering profitability and also creating shareholder value.

Now in relation to balance sheet items, the operating working capital was minus EUR 835 million. This compared to minus EUR 742 million in the full year '25. So we have had an improvement of EUR 92 million in the last 6 months, and we had minus EUR 817 million in the first half year of '25. So that means around 20% of the turnover that remains well within our historical operating working capital range of approximately 19%. Now DEME's investments, so excluding financial fixed assets in the first half amounted to EUR 227 million, and they include the final construction payment for the Norse Energi, which we paid at the beginning of January, project-specific investments, lifetime extension of vessels and also capitalized maintenance and repairs. The investments in the first half of '25 were EUR 141 million.

Now supported by sustained strong operating results, improved working capital and despite a higher CapEx compared to prior year and a higher paid out dividend of EUR 130 million. The free cash flow rebounded to EUR 231 million. If you compare it with the first half of '25, you make extraction of the Havfram acquisition, that figure was EUR 123 million, including with Havfram was minus EUR 440 million free cash flow mid-'25. Now taking the aforementioned elements into account, the net financial debt decreased to minus EUR 291 million compared to minus EUR 418 million in the first half of '25 and minus EUR 391 million at the end of '25. So as a result, the net financial debt over EBITDA ratio is currently 0.3. It was 0.5 at midyear '25. And related to cash and cash equivalents, as of end of June '26, it stands at EUR 845 million compared to EUR 709 million year-over-year and end of '25 was EUR 846 million.

Now let's take a look at the general overview of the order book. Now at EUR 7.1 billion, DEME's order book remains above the EUR 7 billion threshold for the fourth consecutive year and continues to provide a healthy visibility for the remainder of the year and a solid foundation for future operations. Now while the order book is somewhat lower than the higher levels reported during the previous 2 years, this evolution should primarily be seen in the context of strong project execution and as such an order-to-turnover conversion, which contributed to DEME delivering a record first half year turnover.

In addition, order intake in offshore wind is currently affected by the timing of investment decisions, while a number of large U.S. offshore wind projects have been successfully completed and as such, therefore, are running off the order book. As I said before, we consider the current order book to be healthy and also very well balanced. It is supported by continued demand across all our core markets. That has been achieved despite a limited contribution from both United States and the Middle East, as you can imagine, reflecting the current political and geopolitical environment in those regions.

If you look at the geographical breakdown, Europe remains clearly the largest region, representing 80% of the total order book. The exposure to the Americas market declined to 5%, down from 10% on a year-on-year basis, clearly reflecting, as mentioned before, the successful completion of the projects in the U.S. and a somewhat subdued order intake environment.

Looking at the order book runoff profile, we continue to enjoy strong visibility for the remainder of '26, approximately EUR 2.1 billion scheduled for execution in the second half of the year, supporting again our confidence in the guidance provided for '26. Now for '27, the order book currently reflects volumes below the level reported in the past 2 years. And looking a bit further ahead, the volumes scheduled for execution in '28 and beyond remain broadly consistent with previous years, underlining the continued depth and also the resilience of DEME's project pipeline.

Now as mentioned earlier, revenue increased by 2% to EUR 2.2 billion. As Luc already mentioned, the highest first half revenue level ever for DEME's history. Growth was driven by the 2 largest operational segments. Offshore Energy revenues increased 6% Dredging & Infra delivered a further 2% increase and 2 together were more than sufficient enough to compensate for the lower contribution from environmental.

Now if you take a step back, we're talking about 150 years of DEME, it is remarkable that the revenue generated during the first 6 months of '26, so this year, exceeded DEME's total full year revenue in 2020. It clearly illustrates not only a significant growth achieved over the recent years, but also our ability to scale the business while maintaining strong profitability levels. Another important characteristic of today's DEME is the diversification in the business portfolio. As you can see from the segment breakdown, the revenue is well spread across our core activities with Offshore Energy representing 52% of the turnover and Dredging & Infra 42%. A balanced earnings platform which allows us also for different project cycles.

Now when we look at the geographical breakdown, we remain firmly rooted in Europe with more than 60% of the group turnover realized in '26. Revenues in Americas declined as anticipated and Asia represented 12% of the group turnover compared to 15% in the prior year period. And Africa increased its contribution to 9% of group turnover, reflecting continued activity across a number of projects and further also supporting the geographical diversification of the group.

Now going to the segments. In the first half of 2026, the offshore energies order book stood at EUR 3.7 billion, moderating from the '24 and '25 peak. This is due to the strong order to revenue conversion and also the timing of the new offshore renewables investments, which are temporarily lagging the roll-off of the U.S. projects. Meanwhile, the Offshore Energy team secured some new offshore wind projects like Zeevonk in the Netherlands and Katagami in Japan. And of course, we also continue to pursue a healthy pipeline of opportunities.

Now with successful execution in U.S., Taiwan and Europe, the segment delivered another strong performance with turnovers of EUR 1.2 billion, increasing from the EUR 1.14 billion half '25. Now as the graph illustrates, Offshore Energy has been on a strong and sustained growth trajectory over the past 5 years. This translated into a strong first half performance '26 with the segment achieving its highest revenue level ever. One point worth highlighting is that 2% of Offshore Energy's turnover in the first half was related to nonrenewable activities compared with 9% a year ago.

Now while turnover remains an important metric, it can vary considerably for a similar level of vessel activity depending on project scope, supporting services and also local requirements. Now as a CFO, I therefore, place equal, if not greater emphasis also on profitability. And in that respect, I'm pleased to see that the segment delivered a solid result, reporting EBITDA of EUR 322 million and maintaining a high EBITDA margin of 27%, supported by disciplined project execution and a continued focus on operational excellence. EBITDA was EUR 36 million below the record level achieved in the first half of '25. However, the prior year result, as you will remember, included a one-off cancellation fee and a gain on the sale of fixed assets. The asset disposal loan, for example, contributed already EUR 17 million to the EBITDA last year.

And then on the right-hand side, you will notice the fleet utilization. It was lower than last year with an occupancy reaching 18.2 weeks or 70%. And it reflects a combination of different factors. We have on the one hand, the entry of Norse Wind and Norse Energi entering the fleet and starting their first projects, respectively, at the end of quarter 1 and the end of quarter 2 of this year. Then besides that, you had, for example, the Orion and the Sea Installer, which are relocated from the U.S. East Coast to Europe. And of course, in addition, we also had some several scheduled repairs of other vessels.

Now for Dredging & Infra, the order book remained healthy at over EUR 3 billion, broadly in line with the level reported a year ago and continues also to be supported by a solid tendering momentum, diversified opportunities across multiple geographies. Key contracts were concession for Port of Paranaguá in Brazil, several port-related contracts in Tunisia, India, Indonesia as well as a range of new projects along the West African coast. As such, turnover increased by 2% year-over-year, showing the resilient market demands and also a very robust fleet utilization.

Now the most notable development was the significant improvement in profitability. The EBITDA margin rebounded to 22%, so a nominal EBITDA contribution of EUR 212 million compared with 12% in the first half of '25. It reflects again a strong combination of improved project execution, good project progress and also a higher vessel utilization level, where especially the cutter suction dredger fleet particularly showed a good recovery. It's also important to remember that the first half of '25 was impacted by losses incurred on our Belgian offshore infrastructure project work. And then during the first half of '26, substantial progress has been made on this project itself.

Now as a result, Dredging & Infra returned to profitability levels that more accurately reflect not only the underlying quality of the segment, but also the earning capacity of the business. For Environmental, the order book increased to EUR 337 million, which is supported by new contract awards in Belgium and the Netherlands and also complemented by the first significant project outside the Benelux region. Revenue amounted to EUR 131 million compared to EUR 142 million first half '25. The decrease is mainly related to project phasing, while in the meantime, we continue, of course, our works on the several long-term remediation and flood protection projects in Belgium and the Netherlands. And during the period also, the team also started working on the Port of Bagnoli project in Italy. Such EBITDA amounts to EUR 15 million. It corresponds to a margin of 11% and is compared to 15% a year ago.

Now at the same time, the segment continued to invest in future growth through the expansion of its soil treatment facilities and also the further scale-up of the Cargen activated carbon solution, supporting its long-term growth ambitions in environmental remediation. So despite maybe temporary project phasing effects on revenue and also on profitability, the environmental strengthened its order book, expanded its geographical footprint and continued investing in future growth platforms.

And the last segment, the Concessions, they report a net result of nearly EUR 10 million compared to EUR 5 million in the first half of '25. Why is that? Well, wind production did improve compared to the prior year, but remained below historical levels, while on the other hand, port concessions activities continued to provide a recurring contribution to the results. The segment continued to operate wind farms also in Belgium and is advancing with the Bowdun project in Scotland and is also moving ahead with carefully selected upcoming tenders in Belgium and international markets.

Concession team has achieved several important milestones, and I briefly already made the reference to the concessions for Port of Paranaguá in Brazil for 25 years. I think overall, Concessions portfolio continues to generate recurring earnings, create strategic growth opportunities and also supports the value creation across the wider of the DEME Group.

And with that, I hand over to Luc, who will discuss some of these developments in more detail.

Yes. Thank you, Stijn, for this comprehensive overview of the financials. The next part of the presentation, as you know, I will take you a bit more into depth into some of our key projects of the last half year. And let's start with Offshore Energy. So you see a map here. I will take you through it a bit from left to right. We'll start in the United States. And in the U.S., the offshore energy team successfully completed all the works now on the Vineyard Wind project as well as the cable activity, installation activities for Empire Wind 1. That leaves us with one ongoing project that is the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Projects, where our teams have completed the installation of all 176 foundations, all transition pieces and all offshore substations.

Orion and Sea Installer, which were active there have crossed the Atlantic, and they have commenced new projects in Europe, meanwhile, in the second quarter of '26. Now the remaining activities on Coastal Virginia for the year include inter-array and export cable installation as well as some rock placement operations. Then we go to the other side of the map in Taiwan. We are making good progress, both on Hai Long and on the Fengmiao project. And our recently upgraded jack-up vessel, the Sea Challenger has started installing turbines at Hai Long. And at the same time, on Fengmiao, difficult word, Fengmiao, Green Jade has completed all pin pile installations and has successfully installed the offshore substation and the topside on top of it.

The vessel also started jacket installation works now recently in August. Going to Europe, the team installed all 62 jacket foundations on the Dieppe-Le Tréport offshore wind farm in France, and they also commenced the installation of the inter-array cables. In the U.K., our cable layer, Viking Neptun continued cable installation activities at Dogger Bank C, and the vessel was also busy at the Baltic Power project in Poland. In the Netherlands, closer to home, the team began cable installation works on the IJmuiden Ver Alpha/Nederwiek project. In Germany, we continued -- or we completed rather, the activities at He Dreiht, and we continued the work on Nordlicht 1 and Nordseecluster A. And the preparations for Windanker project are also underway.

Now let me take the opportunity to take you a bit more in depth in some of our main projects as examples. The first one is Nordlicht 1, which is starting to take shape in the German North Sea. We were awarded the contract for the transport and installation of 112 foundations at both the Nordlicht 1 and Nordlicht 1 project, as well as the scour protection at both wind farms. Orion has installed the first monopile in July and now already completed approximately 47 monopile installations. I think this is a remarkable achievement and a clear illustration how a high-performing asset and that combined with the expertise and the execution capabilities of our team can really deliver outstanding productivity offshore.

Following the installation of the first monopile foundation, the installer already commenced the transition piece installation as of early August and has already installed about 20 units. With this project and others, DEME is further expanding its extensive track record in German waters, both in the North Sea and the Baltic. And as you know, over the years, we have contributed to many German offshore wind projects, just to give a couple of them, Kaskasi, Merkur, famous Merkur project, Hohe See, Albatros, Godewind, and Borkum Riffgrund.

Then we go to the second project, and we are seeing a picture here of the Norse Wind. And we are delighted that, that new jack-up has already smoothly entered into service and is already performing its second project, and that RWE's Nordseecluster offshore wind farm in the German North Sea. This follows from the first one, which was the successful completion of its first project at the He Dreiht wind farm also in Germany. North Wind operates from the Port of Esbjerg in Denmark and can transport and install up to 5 turbine sets per cycle. The vessel installed the first Nordseecluster turbine around June. By the end of the year, all 44 Vestas turbines are expected to be in place. Now once completed, Nordseecluster is expected to generate around 6.5 terawatt hours of electricity annually.

Then we are going to France, and we're looking here at the Dieppe Le Tréport offshore wind farm. DEME was here awarded several contracts for the wind farm, including the transport and installation of the pin piles and jackets, the foundation and topside for the offshore substation and the inter-array cables. We deployed our jack-up installation vessel -- our jack-up vessel Innovation to install all jacket foundations, and we also commenced the installation of the inter-array cables. During this latest campaign, we reached quite an important milestone. We have already installed 200 foundations in French waters in just 5 years of operations over there.

Then we are going to a project in Taiwan, Fengmiao 1 in the APAC region, where DEME's joint venture CDWE has been busy in the first half, particularly with the Hai Long and as I mentioned before, Fengmiao offshore wind projects. We achieved a double milestone at the Fengmiao offshore wind farm, deploying Green Jade and completing both the pin pile campaign and the transport and installation of the offshore substation ahead of schedule. And you can see here on the picture, the foundation of the substation. Together, the foundation and the topside weigh more than 8,000 tonnes, making it the largest offshore substation installed in Taiwan to date. Additionally, we also commenced on Fengmiao, the jacket installation works this month. So that's it for Offshore Energy.

So we go now to the Dredging & Infra segment. So as you can see on Slide 21, our Dredging team was busy all over Europe with multiyear maintenance contracts and also new projects. Just -- let's just highlight a few. We completed maintenance works at London Gateway, and we made progress on the dredging and reclamation works for a new offshore terminal at the Port of Cuxhaven, and that in Germany. In France, the La Chatière project in Le Havre entered its second year. And in Spain, we successfully executed beach nourishment works in the Valencia region, while at the same time, several projects progressed both in Italy and Greece.

In the Middle East, and of course, despite regional market turbulence, which we encountered, the segment still delivered solid operational progress, completing works in Saudi Arabia and continuing activities at Abu Qir 2 in Egypt. The coastal protection works in Grand-Lahou in Ivory Coast, that is, were finalized, while several dredging projects continued in the West African region. In India, maintenance and capital dredging projects were carried out in Paradip, Varsha, and Mumbai. Meanwhile, also our infra activities progressed well. I will come back to the Princess Elisabeth Island and also to the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link project in a moment. But at the Oosterweel connection, all tunnel elements were immersed and connected. In France, we worked on the Port-La Nouvelle project, which entered its final phase following the completion of all civil construction works.

Now let me give you with this very beautiful picture here on the screen of the -- it seems like an atoll, but it's becoming an island in the coming weeks. Let me provide some more details to some of the main projects during the first half. DEME is part, as you know, of the TM Edison consortium, constructing the Princess Elisabeth Island in the Belgian North Sea. Following now the second installation campaign, all 23 caissons have now been successfully installed, and they really shape the outer walls of the future island and they create a safe harbor for the electrical infrastructure, which will then follow.

So as mentioned, the sand filling and the preparations for the island's interior are now underway and ongoing. This island, as you know, is about 45 kilometers offshore and will really be a cornerstone of Europe's offshore power grid, connecting wind farms and also international interconnectors to Belgium, a project which we are particularly proud of.

Now we're going to the Fehmarnbelt project. On the Fehmarnbelt fixed link project, a major milestone was also achieved with the immersion and connection of the project's third already standard tunnel element following months of careful planning and coordination. And you see here a picture with, if you look well, the elements slightly underwater. This milestone marks the transition to full execution of one of the project's most critical phases of the project, which at 18 kilometers long, will be the longest immersed tunnel in the world. To give you a couple of dimensions, measuring 217 meters in length and weighing 73,000 tons per piece. Each element must be transported, positioned precisely and installed in a tunnel trench at depth of up to at the deepest point, 40 meters. A total of 89 elements will be carried by the immersion pontoons, which you see here called IVY1 and IVY2, and they are both equipped with high-precision alignment systems.

The second project here is the Bay of Naples, where we are carrying out marine and environmental works for the redevelopment of what they call the Bagnoli-Coroglio industrial area. This is a high-level site that will host the 38th America's Cup, which is scheduled to begin in July already next year, so a tight schedule. We are preparing the venue for already the preliminary regattas, which will be taking place as of next month. I think it's really another strong example of DEME's ability to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions to complex marine because we have works here, environmental works, civil works, dredging works, while at the same time, meeting demanding time lines.

The next slide is about a fleet addition. We want to further strengthen and expand our dredging fleet. And as such, we recently ordered a 20,000 -- 22,000, sorry, cubic meter trailing suction hopper dredger, which you can see here on the render. The new dredger will support our long-term competitiveness, both in capital and maintenance dredging, land reclamation and offshore seabed preparations. It is designed to enhance operational efficiency through a structurally lower cost per dredged cubic meters, while at the same time, reducing greenhouse gas emission intensity. The delivery is scheduled for 2029. The vessel will be built in China under our supervision and will then be outfitted in Singapore.

And we are going now to the third contracting segment, which is environmental. So here again, a map. In the Netherlands, operational works on the Gorinchem-Waardenburg, so-called GoWa dike reinforcement project were successfully completed, while our activities continued on other flood protection and infrastructure projects and the sand supply project for the Port of Rotterdam. At the same time, preparatory works are underway for a major remediation project at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, and the activities are scheduled to start there in the second half of the year.

In Belgium, Oosterweel and the BASF Feluy project forged ahead. At the same time, we also carried out maintenance works on the River Meuse. In addition, soil investigations were initiated for the redevelopment of the former ArcelorMittal site near Liège. Environmental also continued to expand and upgrade its soil treatment centers, both in Belgium and the Netherlands. And through the Cargen joint venture, the segment is also scaling up the volumes and the commercial capacity of its activated carbon filtration solutions.

Now on to some of the key projects. First one is the Vilvoorde. Our environmental team continued to make solid progress here at the former BASF site in Hainaut, in Feluy. That is under a public-private partnership where we are responsible for the purchase, the remediation and the redevelopment of a 65-hectare contaminated site, which you see here on the picture. Our work addresses both contaminated soil and groundwater. We have already removed existing infrastructure and our R&D department developed a specialized biological solution to neutralize the pollutants. Around 150,000 tonnes of sludge are being treated and mostly, that's important on site itself, avoiding truck movements and emissions.

In addition, around 4 million tonnes of recycled clean soil from our treatment centers will be used for backfilling and creating level surfaces at the site. We're going to the Netherlands now to Marken, where together with our partners, we are making steady progress in reinforcing the dikes around the island of Marken. Marken is famous for its iconic green wooden stilt houses. Reinforcing the dike is a complex undertaking that requires customized solutions to preserve the island's cultural and historical character. For example, the design closely follows the original dike line, preserving views of the specific landmarks. To limit disruption, most of the work is carried out from the water. The dike is being strengthened in phases using tailored engineering methods for the soft ground conditions, which we encounter over there. Set for completion in '28, Marken will be protected against high water for at least another 50 years.

Now to conclude the segment review, let me turn now to concessions. A couple of key projects. We continue to operate our wind farms, obviously, in Belgium, and we have advanced on the Bowdun concession project in Scotland. Meanwhile, our port concession activities continue to deliver recurring contributions and create new growth opportunities. In March, we signed a 25-year concession contract for the marine access channel of the Port of Paranaguá in Brazil, which I will outline in a bit more detail on one of the next slides.

The team continues to manage and further develop its portfolio of port participations, including Port-La Nouvelle in France and the Port of Duqm in Oman. At the Port of Duqm, operations were temporarily impacted at the start of the conflict in the Gulf region. But despite this, we are making headway. On the infra side, Concessions concluded the sale of its stake in the Blankenburg Tunnel project in April, which resulted in a gain on disposal amounting to EUR 2.6 million. Our deep sea mineral exploration subsidiary, GSR, signed an MOU with Japan-based Deep Ocean Resources Development, and that is covering a pilot mining test. The test is intended to validate the operational and environmental performance of an integrated commercial-scale mining system.

In our green hydrogen activities, HYPORT Energy continued to advance its projects both in Oman and Egypt. And for HYPORT Duqm, OQ and DEME have an agreement to take over bp's stake, and both partners will now continue developing the project together. This is now a picture of our project in Port-La Nouvelle, where the civil construction works were successfully completed in the first half of this year. The new deep sea berth welcomed already its first ro-ro ships in December '25. And as you can see on the picture, the new liquid berth terminal saw the arrival of its first vessel now recently in June.

And finally, on to our outlook for the remainder of the year and 2027. Despite global macroeconomic turbulence and continued uncertainty in the Middle East, we still remain confident in DEME's ability to deliver strong financial results. This confidence is supported by our solid order book, a healthy balance sheet, attractive market fundamentals and diversified activities. For 2026, we expect turnover to be slightly above the 2025 level with an EBITDA margin in line with 2025. Our '26 capital expenditure outlook remains unchanged at approximately EUR 450 million, and this includes upgrade, repair and maintenance investments in the fleet, but also the payments for the completion of the Norse Energi and already the initial investments related to the new hopper dredger.

For 2027 and based on the visibility we have today, we expect to maintain strong profitability with EBITDA broadly in line with 2025 despite a somewhat lower top line. As mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, 2026 is a remarkable milestone year in our history. We have been shaping horizons around the world for 150 years. You can explore our history on the special anniversary website where we are sharing 150 very inspiring stories about our pioneering people, projects and innovative breakthroughs.

So with this, I conclude my part of the formal presentation, and I will now hand you back to Carl so that he can start the Q&A session.

Thank you, Luc and Stijn. We will indeed now begin the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] So without further ado, I think we're ready now to take the first question. And I see that we have already people lining up in the webcast and on the conference call line.

Let's start with the first question from Guy Sips from KBC Securities.

Yes. First of all, congratulations with very good results. I have 2 questions. The first is on your 2027 outlook. What are the main drivers, building blocks behind this resilience in profitability? Can you give somewhat more color on this one?

And the second question is on first recent acquisition of Menck. You are historically working closer with independent equipment providers such as IQIP rather than vertically integrated -- integrating these capabilities. How do you view Cadeler's acquisition of Menck and going forward, how will you intensify your relationship with IQIP or other players?

Thank you, Guy. Luc, I think a bit of color on our '27 outlook.

Yes. Good morning, Guy. Thanks for your question. Yes, you were -- your first question is about the outlook for 2027. Now I mentioned, I think, during my presentation that we base this on the fact that we continue to see supportive market fundamentals. There is -- I see across our activities, a healthy tendering activity. And of course, following on that, I tend to see a good pipeline of opportunities. And based on that, I think we expect that those factors will contribute to a positive evolution of the order book in the coming months. But maybe your question was also a little bit on the flavor and maybe I should give a little bit more granularity on the segments.

So maybe very shortly, if I take them in the order we have them, offshore energy, there, I think we need to distinguish a little bit between the short term and the long term. And what you do see that our U.S. large offshore wind farm projects, we are now on the largest one will complete this year. You know that these American projects contribute strongly to turnover and that is, let me say, thanks to or due to, however you see it, the regulatory requirements with the Jones Act, so that increases the turnover.

And also U.S. was a new market. So a lot of the supplies were coming from Europe. So a lot of logistics also. So you see that, that is a contributor to higher turnover. The market, which is, let's say, discontinued a bit in the U.S., is rapidly being replaced by the European and the Asian market where we see the next growth phase happening. But of course, that lags the U.S. turnover runoff because, of course, we have a good fleet occupation, which we see, but the turnover in these European and Asian projects is somehow lower because you don't have the Jones Act, you have a bit less logistics. So that's a little bit what we are seeing right now. And so we see a little bit of a timing effect, but we don't really see a deterioration in the profitability profile of that business.

And we also see that there the -- I would say, the next growth cycle is developing. You see that. You have seen the recent auction activities in the Netherlands, in Denmark, in Korea. So there, we see a takeoff. We see good, let's say, customer discussions. You also see the OEMs, which bring the positivity in the market. And it's the same as we see the long-term drivers are firmly intact. Then maybe going a little bit to trading and infrastructure. Yes, you have seen we had a good occupation. We think this is a robust segment, generating solid and also resilient results. You have seen that over the past months.

I see a lot of tendering activities, I would say, across the world, including the Middle East, where clients are continuing to tender and negotiate, but some of them obviously waiting for a more stable situation. So there also, I think we have a strong basis for a sustained performance and project awards in the near future. And then if I look at the somehow smaller segments, and you're coming to environmental and the concession business, maybe taking them together, yes, they are -- we expect that they will continue to contribute, I would say, their fair share to the group's profitability.

Thank you. So the second question of Guy, if I resume that correctly, is about reference to Cadeler acquiring Menck and, yes, strategic hammer equipment. So how -- what is our take on that?

Yes. So on the takeover itself, I think I prefer to be consistent in our messaging and not comment on the transaction itself. But let's say, we do not really see that this transaction materially affects our own ability to access the equipment market. That's one thing.

Secondly, you have to understand installing foundations is a pretty diversified activity with pretty diversified challenges. If I look at hammer -- you say we're talking about Menck, talking about hammering, but we are installing suction buckets. We have taken over SPT, as you know. We've been doing quite some drilling works. We have a strong partnership with Herrenknecht there. You have a participation in GBM. In the Netherlands, we use vibratory hammers. Noise mitigation is one of the things which will occupy us in the future.

So a lot of diverse evolutions. We are strong believers in what we call horizontal integration, horizontal integration, which means that we want to present full packages to the clients being, as you know, turbine installation, foundation installation, soil investigation, turbine -- yes, the turbines, cable installation, erosion protection and having partnerships, framework agreements with the supply chain for those kinds of tools. I think that's for us, a better way of approaching that. So I think we -- that's a little bit our view on that.

Thank you, Luc. I think we'll shift to the next question from Philip Ngotho from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Two as well, if I may. Yes, also coming back a little bit on Cadeler, but then on other point. I'm just wondering if you could maybe talk about what you're seeing in terms of competition capabilities. Cadeler, of course, announced they just installed their first foundation installation work on Hornsea. So they were already announcing, of course, that they would like to move more into offering complete installation services as well, and engineering. So how do you see that evolving? Is the competition increasing on that side? And also maybe on -- in terms of supply to the market, they just announced also new builds. So what's your view there? What are your own plans? And how do you see moving towards 2030 there?

And maybe the last question is on the Havfram, earnings contribution. How much do we already see this year? And what is the delta in 2027 versus 2026 vessels?

Yes. Okay. Thank you, Philip. I think probably the first question, Luc, also one for you on Cadeler and yes. So them adding vessels and the competitive capabilities there.

Yes. I think -- thank you for your question, Philip. I think I gave part of the answer already in the previous answer. But let's say, in terms of capabilities and competitors' capabilities, let's maybe take it on our capabilities because I prefer not to dwell too much on the competitors in DEME's highlights. We are adding capacity in a number of ways. You have seen that we have, of course, added Havfram. We are investing in trenching support and cable laying vessel. So we're adding capability there.

And then secondly, we also are adding capacity to the fleet in terms of, let's say, operability. It's not always about just adding vessels. We think we have a very good mix of vessels. And your question was pointing at foundation works, for instance. If you look at, we have a very good mix of what is called in the market, the floaters, the Orion, you saw many pictures of them and our meanwhile 5 large jack-up vessels, our capabilities for different foundation installation types, very good and strong engineering capabilities, which we share across our segments.

And to give you an example, we are working on the Nordlicht 1 project. We started early July. And touch wood, I think by the end of August, we will have 50 monopiles in the ground. So it's also improving the capability. I think we have a strong offering there, being able, which I said in previous cases, obviously, to face competition in terms of supply and demand. You referred to new orders. I think they were known already in the market. And again, I can only point out the strength of our own fleet, which we have. So I think that's a little bit what I would like to comment to that. In terms of exact Havfram earnings, that's a question which I happily pass to Stijn.

Thank you, Luc. Now Havfram, it was already mentioned. So Norse Wind and Norse Energi. Norse Wind started end of quarter 1 contributing, Norse Energi end of quarter 2. What is typically for these kind of contracts because, of course, we took over the order book of EUR 530 million from the acquisition from Havfram together with the vessels is that the current contracts are, of course, more on a day-rate model. That means that the top line contribution is a bit less. But we do see that profitability remains very attractive. And it also shows Norse Wind finished their first project and is already on the way working for the second one. So it is contributing as we expected, for sure.

Okay. Yes. Thank you, Stijn and Luc, on the first question. Moving to Thijs Berkelder for ABN AMRO ODDO.

Can you hear me?

We do.

Okay. Well, first, congrats with the strong performance. My question is also on hammering. And a specific question, if I'm correct, you just offshore Germany tested IQIP' new hammering technique called EQ-Piling or PULSE Piling, which according to my understanding, should make it possible to install monopiles as fast as with existing techniques as well as with a much lower noise footprint. Can you confirm this massive progress of this new hammering technique? And what will this mean for your future installation vessel plans?

Second question is on guidance. It's only guide on group turnover and EBITDA, not much on the contribution of your JVs and associates, while these now represent close to 30% of your bottom line earnings. It may be possible to give more specific guidance for your net earnings expectations going forward. I understand not now maybe and maybe better to have specific margin expectations per segment.

I think first question on IQIP.

Thank you, Thijs, for your good questions. The first one is referring to the testing of the IQIP EQ hammer. I'm hesitating a little bit because I think here, I'm bound by many NDA clauses. So I think it's rather a question to IQIP, honestly, on the exact things. We have been supplying a vessel for these tests. That's correct. I'm also not sure that all the detailed results are there. What I can say is that there is a demand, which I also expressed in my previous question for noise reduction measures, and that is something which, amongst others, with IQIP, we are looking at, let's say, improving those solutions and reducing the noise's impact on future installation plans. I would not say that this impacts us a lot for the moment being.

Again, let's await the detailed results, which I'm sure IQIP will come up with to the market. We are -- if that is part of your question, we are perfectly able to handle that new tool. And we will, for sure, use it if it demonstrates both noise reduction and speed -- same speed or speed improvements. So that's a little bit what I can comment to that.

Stijn, I think the second one was more on the JVs and on the guidance there.

Yes. So in details, the contribution of joint ventures and earnings with EUR 59 million is high, certainly compared to year-on-year comparison basis. So from the EUR 59 million, EUR 10 million is related to concessions. So they doubled their contribution compared year-over-year. The remaining one is a big pool. We share in our yearly report always the total amount of joint ventures and associates that are about EUR 70 million, which means that you have smaller contributions in there as well, and you have some projects as well. But of course, these projects because they are lesser in the combination of the 70 entities, means that we are a bit more prone for project phasing, whether something is at the end of the project. So where in the total package of offshore segment, things are a bit balanced out.

Here, you have temporarily higher figures. That is also the reason why I clearly mentioned just before that we should not expect a similar amount of contribution of joint ventures and associates for the second half. On your questions, why do we not guide on net results? Well, for one reason, a bit related to this. But also, there are other elements, financial results, currencies, can sometimes have a big impact, and it's not always that easy to predict. So that is why we are staying with turnover and EBITDA, bearing in mind that for 2027, of course, we are now talking about absolute terms in EBITDA and no longer in margins.

Yes. Coming back to Luc, and maybe very important, are you currently primarily making use of the hammers of IQIP, or are you also a customer of Menck? And given that Cadeler's acquired Menck, how have you -- or do you secure then your hammer demand for the next 10 years?

Yes. I think I have -- I think this is a question which I can probably be quite straightforward. There's a lot of pictures on the Internet, which will confirm. We have used a lot of IQIP hammers. I gave you the progress on some of our projects. We are very pleased with the performance there. We have also used and worked with Menck. Securing the I would -- I'm not going to say hammering, but securing foundation installation techniques for the next 10 years is not a worry to DEME for the reasons that I explained before.

The foundation installation market hammering is part of it. Impact hammering you're talking. We have your previous question on EQ, where we certainly will see evolutions. We have vibrating, which becomes more and more performant. We have suction pile technology. We have the drilling. So it's not a concern. We are doing that through normal market tendering through framework agreements to long-term partnerships. So we don't see an issue there.

Next one in line is Luuk Van Beek from the Degroof Petercam.

First of all, a question about the pipeline. You are very confident on the pipeline and the number of tenders ongoing. There was also a peer that was a bit more cautious in the sense that the macroeconomic environment is affecting the willingness to actually take decisions on the things in the pipeline. Is that something that you see any sign of? Furthermore, on the nonrenewable energy, it went down quite a lot this year, year-on-year. Is there an opportunity for the coming years? So can you comment on if there was a one-off? And how do you look at the outlook for the nonrenewable part for the next couple of years?

And a quick question on the working capital. It was down a lot in H1. Can you comment if you should take into account any special effects in H2 regarding milestones or things, prepayments?

Thank you, Luuk. Could you maybe just repeat a little bit because the line was not so good. On your first question, you were saying that I think we are confident on the pipeline, but there was a remark on the peers and your question was referring to that. I didn't get that exactly. Could you repeat that?

Yes. So if you see any signs that due to, say, the macroeconomic uncertainty, people are slower in taking decisions on the projects they are tendering.

Okay. So I have your questions now. So on the first one, we see -- as I mentioned before, we see a high volume of tenders ongoing. We see also project awards. But I also said, I think, in one of the questions before, it's true that in the Middle East, we see a healthy and specifically in the Middle East, we see a healthy tendering activity. But there, of course, the awards are -- clients are a bit hesitating to have the award now. They make sure they prepare their projects, but they are waiting for a bit more stability in the region. So that's -- but that's to what we see only specifically in the Middle East.

Now on the outlook, you were, I think, referring your question to renewables versus nonrenewables. So the -- in terms of renewables, that is offshore wind. Nonrenewables, as you know, you have seen that in our presentations, we also do erosion protection for pipelines. We do decommissioning work. We do a number of -- we have done in the past supporting works for nuclear. That all falls under the nonrenewable. And yes, indeed, also there, we see a healthy tendering activity and a pipeline of projects coming to the market. And then maybe Stijn...

And on the working capital, yes, I'm very pleased that, that has improved with roughly EUR 100 million. That's amongst others, driven, of course, by the progress we're making on certain projects, which are linked to milestones and as such payments. Secondly, also the advanced payments that we have currently in are higher compared than end of 2025. But overall, as I mentioned, working capital is roughly 20% of the turnover. I am quite pleased with that. If you look historically, the average on the last 12 years has been 19%. So should we expect very high increases? Well, that will depend a little bit maybe on what is the intake that is going to happen on future projects. But for the time being, I'm quite pleased with where we are today.

Yes. Thank you. We'll now -- thank you, Luc as well. I propose we just take 2 questions from the chat as well. There is one from Tijs Hollestelle from ING. I think we briefly touched on the subject, but perhaps you can add some more color.

Question is, why is there no material impact on profitability expected from the ongoing lower order intake in Offshore Energy division? I assume he's pointing to '27 where we said that EBITDA is expected to remain in line with '25. Stijn or Luc?

Maybe, Tijs, I don't know when you sent in the question exactly. I already gave a little bit of guidance, I think, on that, especially pointing also at the at the higher turnover, but not necessarily higher margins, which were coming from the large U.S. market where you see that vessel occupation and, let's say, margins or vessel occupation is now moving to the European and Asian markets where, let's say, the turnover is somehow a bit lower because of the lesser logistics and less Jones Act activities, but where you have a good occupation of the fleet and following from that also rather a stable EBITDA.

Yes. I'll pick up one more from Patrick Millecam, Value Square. Referring to results out last week from Boskalis, they had a rather or more negative view on their outlook. The recent geopolitical developments continue to impact market conditions and investment decisions in various regions. This is particularly visible in parts of the dredging market and in certain offshore service activities. Do we agree on the view of Boskalis? Or what is our take on that, I would say?

I think I've commented, I think, in the different questions already a little bit on this, Patrick. The -- I think our message is referring to our own visibility and our own product mix, which for everybody is different in our product mix and based on what we see today. So we have our existing order book. We have the project pipeline, the fleet deployment, the ongoing tender activities. You have seen how we view the market and how we guide today. So that's our view on our own activities.

Okay. Good. Very good. Thank you, Luc. And I think with this, we can bring the earnings call to an end. So for sure, anyone with additional questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly. You know where to find me. I would like to thank you all for participating and to thank Stijn and Luc for the presentation and for answering all these questions. Thank you. Meet you soon.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations at DEME, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to DEME's Full Year 2025 Earnings Call and Webcast. Joining me today are DEME's Chief Executive Officer, Luc Vandenbulcke; and our Chief Financial Officer, Stijn Gaytant. Both Luc and Stijn will take you through the presentation, which will be visible on screen during the webcast and also accessible on DEME's Investor portal.

Slide 2 briefly outlines the agenda. Luc will kick it off with the executive summary, after which both Stijn and Luc will further elaborate on the group's financial results for the year, the performance of our segments and highlighting some of the major projects, also DEME's progress in the ESG domain to then conclude with the outlook. After the presentation, we will open the floor for Q&A. And so without further delay, I'll hand it over to Luc for the executive summary.

Thank you, Carl, and good morning to everyone also from my side. As you can see, in 2025, DEME's people have once again delivered excellent results, and that even in the context of pretty turbulent market conditions. They've helped DEME to achieve the record results that we are announcing today. Let me give you a couple of key figures. The group turnover of EUR 4.2 billion in 2025, climbing from EUR 2.7 billion in 2022 a very meaningful step-up in profitability. EBITDA for the year was good for more than EUR 930 million, and that is almost a double if you count from 2022 to 2025. EBITDA margin for the year was 22.4% and a 380 basis point improvement over the last year's 18.6%.

The group's net profit reached EUR 346 million, rising from EUR 288 million in 2024. Our order book stood at EUR 7.6 billion, down from EUR 8.2 billion in 2024, but above both the midyear and the Q3 '25 level and reflecting the addition of new follow-on and maintenance contracts and also including the integration of the Havfram order book. Regarding Havfram as you know, we have made this important strategic acquisition in 2025, whereby we acquired 2 world-class vessels, the Norse Wind and the Norse Energi. And we did that to further expand in the Offshore Wind Energy sector. We have taken delivery of both vessels now, and they are set to commence their initial project work in the course of this year.

In line with our policy, we will this year propose a dividend of EUR 4.5 per share, and that marks an 18% increase on last year. And looking ahead in 2026, which is already a special milestone year as we will be celebrating DEME's 150 years anniversary, we believe again to be well positioned to navigate this dynamic market environment. And we are guiding for a turnover and an EBITDA margin to be in line with the 2025 level. And now I will hand over to Stijn, who will walk you through the financial highlights in more detail.

Thank you, Luc, and also good morning on my behalf as well. The table presented here not only displays DEME's performance during our record year of '25, it also demonstrates a sustained multiyear trajectory of growth and also an improvement across all key financial metrics. In '25, we delivered a turnover of EUR 4.15 billion. It marks the second consecutive year with revenues firmly above the EUR 4 billion milestone, but the more significant development is also the substantial improvement in profitability. Our EBITDA reached EUR 931 million, translating into an exceptional EBITDA margin of 22.4% and showing a 22% increase versus '24. And I really want to use the opportunity to stress very clearly that this EBITDA performance reflects an effective operational execution throughout our project portfolio, and it also underscores the quality of our earnings.

The nonrecurring items recorded with half year results, such as the U.S. project cancellation fee, the gain on the Sea Challenger and the negative impact of the Energy Island project were largely offset one another and are combined immaterial to the group's EBITDA for the year. Now on depreciation and impairments, there was an increase to EUR 498 million, mainly due to previously announced accelerated depreciation on one of the offshore energy assets, which gives a figure of EUR 64 million impact for the whole year. There were additional contributions, some project-specific assets like Fehmarnbelt project, the Yellowstone rock dumping vessels, several vessel lifetime extensions and also the first depreciation related to the Norse Wind, which joined the fleet in the fourth quarter of '25.

As mentioned by Luc already, Norse Wind, Norse Energi were part of the Havfram deal, which we signed in the second quarter of the year. Now in relationship to this transaction, the PPA has been concluded as an asset deal. So as a result, there is no goodwill that you will find in our figures. And that means that nearly the entire transaction value is allocated to the vessels with only EUR 3.9 million booked as an intangible asset, representing a favorable order book terms relative to the market. So after accounting for these depreciations, the EBIT lands at EUR 433 million, which is representing a strong 10.4% margin.

Financial results amounted to minus EUR 21.5 million with the difference, as you can imagine, compared to last year, mainly due to currency fluctuations, a weaker U.S. dollar and also the interest charges on our EUR 700 million bilateral term loan, which was used for the Havfram acquisition. Taking into account our significant U.S. activity in '25 and also the volatility of the U.S. dollars, I believe this limited FX impact demonstrates also an effective hedging and a robust management approach towards financial risks. Taxes totaled EUR 100 million, which is a tax rate of 24.2%, which is an improvement compared to 26 year before. Now our share in results from joint ventures and associates remained quite stable at EUR 40 million, supported by contributions from the operational offshore wind farm in Belgium, port developments and also especially the continued strong performance of our Taiwanese joint venture. Now taking this all together, DEME delivered a record net profit of EUR 346 million, 8.3% margin and 20% growth year-over-year.

Now let's see how these P&L figures are reflecting into our main balance sheet, and we are presenting a comparative analysis over the last 3 years. Working capital remains strongly negative at minus EUR 742 million, which is pretty consistent with our long-term historical average of around, let's say, 19% on turnover over the past 12 years. It reflects also continued disciplined contract and cash management, which, for example, also increased advanced payments compared to last year. The EUR 71 million deduction compared to '24 is mainly linked to the Belgium Energy Island project. The CapEx reached EUR 445 million, which includes recurring project investments, vessel lifetime extensions, capitalized maintenance. And also in addition, we booked roughly EUR 200 million of shipyard payments for the Norse Wind and Norse Energi. Now this combining with the EUR 537 million, which we paid to the sellers in the second quarter of last year on the Havfram deal, a total of EUR 736 million out of the EUR 900 million that we announced for the Havfram acquisition has been spent in '25.

Now despite a significantly higher operating cash flow before working capital movement being EUR 818 million in '25 compared to EUR 707 million in '24, the combination of a lower working capital, a higher CapEx and the Havfram acquisition results in a free cash flow of minus EUR 394 million. I would like to highlight that excluding the Havfram transaction, the free cash flow would have been good for EUR 342 million. Considering the EUR 700 million bilateral loans we raised for Havfram, EUR 205 million of loan repayments we have done during the year, the net financial debt now stands at minus EUR 391 million compared to minus EUR 418 million midyear and plus EUR 91 million end of '24.

Now as a result, the net financial debt over EBITDA ratio stands at only 0.4 compared to minus 0.1 previous year, which I believe further demonstrates the robustness of our balance sheet and cash and cash equivalents ended the year at EUR 846 million. In summary, even after having absorbed most of the Havfram transaction already in '25, DEME upholds a very strong, a very resilient balance sheet. And I believe we have demonstrated that within 1 year, DEME's capacity to absorb such a large-scale transaction is present, and it is very well positioned to also pursue further value-creating investments.

Now having a look at the order book. On the left graph, you will see that the order book remained healthy at EUR 7.6 billion and slightly higher than the EUR 7.5 billion we reported midyear. Midyear included Havfram order book. That means that in the second half of the year, we have added follow-on contracts, a broad range of smaller awards across all contracting segments and several new larger contracts. Now looking at the geographical break down continues to be our anchor market. It presents 78% of the total order book, up from 71% last year, underscoring our strength and also our strategic importance of our home region. Asia and Africa remained stable year-on-year, reflecting steady tender activity. And finally, as you can anticipate, we do see a decline in the Americas. We went from 12% to 7%, and that's the direct result of an effective project execution on our U.S. offshore projects and of course, the absence of new U.S. offshore wind additions given the current market circumstances.

On the right graph, you will see the order book runoff over the coming years. So for '26, we have EUR 3.6 billion already well secured, which is a consistent level compared to previous years and is also supporting our guidance that we've provided. And looking further on, we have EUR 4 billion lined up for '27 and beyond, which we consider to be a healthy position. In summary, I believe in the second half of the year, our order book grew from EUR 7.5 billion to EUR 7.6 billion, with new orders exceeding as such, the EUR 2 billion of turnover that we have delivered during the same period, which is a clear sign of sustained demand and also a very disciplined contract acquisition.

Now looking at the group turnover, there are really 3 key messages I would like to emphasize. First of all, we delivered a 1% year-on-year growth on the turnover. For the second consecutive year, DEME has surpassed EUR 4 billion in turnover, demonstrating the company's structural scale and looking at the bigger picture, our progress is remarkable in just 5 years, turnover increased from EUR 2.5 billion to EUR 4.15 billion, reflecting a compounded annual growth rate at nearly 12%.

If you look at the segment breakdown in the middle of the slide, we see that the drivers behind this performance in '25 are a 4% increase year-on-year in the Offshore Energy segment, which is supported by high activity levels and solid execution. The team clearly navigated the challenging situation in the Americas remarkably well and contributed positively to the overall growth in '25. Dredging and Infra delivered essentially stable revenues with a noticeable stronger second half, supported by a higher vessel occupancy, especially for the cutter suction dredgers. And in environmental revenues were down 90% versus last year, and this is mainly linked to project phasing. And as a result, the segment contributed around 6% of turnover this year, slightly below its historical range of, let's say, 8% to 10%.

Looking at the geographical breakdown, Europe remains our main market, representing 54% of group turnover in '25, which is a slight decrease from last year. And this change is mainly due to, on the one hand, increased turnover for the Americas, which was already reflected in the order book reduction and also strong growth for the Asia region, supported by several dredging projects across the region and strong offshore activities in Taiwan. Overall, the main takeaway here is that we have a consistently expanding turnover base that is well diversified and supported by our key markets.

Now if we look briefly at the four segments, we start with Offshore Energy, where you see that the order book has remained healthy at EUR 4.2 billion year-on-year. After the Havfram addition in the first half, that means that the second half brought another EUR 1.2 billion on new intake, exceeding the EUR 1 billion of turnover for the same period. The growth trajectory of the segment here is clearly visible. Over the past 5 years, turnover has steadily increased, reaching EUR 2.1 billion in '25 and a 4% improvement on a year-on-year basis. Interesting to mention that 92% of that turnover of the year is linked to renewable energy activities, which underscores the strategic focus that we have -- we have and the market leadership in the global energy transition.

If we turn at profitability, segment maintained its very strong momentum from the first half, delivering a full year EBITDA of EUR 633 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 30.7%, and this compared to 21% of the last year. And that means that in absolute value, that is an outstanding 52% increase in figures. On the right-hand graph, you can clearly see what underpins this profitability. It's a high fleet capacity, solid utilization of it across the year and also excellent project execution. The slightly lower average of occupancy that you might notice of 44 weeks is partly explained by the Norse Wind because this one is already included since quarter 4, but is currently transitioning to Europe and therefore, is not yet accounted as operating weeks.

I think all in all, it's very fair to say that Offshore Energy delivered another outstanding performance throughout '25, combining commercial strength, operational excellence and record profitability. For Dredging & Infra, the order book remains healthy at nearly EUR 3 billion, but down compared to a strong '24 comparison basis. This order book combines Dredging & Infra projects combined, and we are seeing a steady progress on turning backlog into turnover for the main infra works in '25, such as the Energy Island, Fehmarnbelt and the Oosterweel Connection works without currently any material intake of new large infra works in the order book during the year.

Now for the dredging part, we continue to see healthy tender activity, which is supported by an order book intake surpassing the turnover in the second half of '25. The turnover of the segment is nearing EUR 2 billion and remains essentially stable year-over-year. Now relating to the EBITDA, we closed '25 at EUR 302 million, which represents 15.5% EBITDA margin. This outcome reflects two things. On the one hand, the 12.3% EBITDA margin, which we reported in the first half and an 18.5% EBITDA margin in the second half of '25. This rebound is consistent with the segment's average EBITDA margin in prior years and also confirms that the nonrecurring item mentioned in the first half under [indiscernible] 37 did not require further adjustments. And in relation to the fleet utilization on the right, you notice a lower overall occupancy, which is mainly the cutter suction due to temporary reduced demands in the first half of '25, but it picked up in the second half.

For Environmental, the order book of our Environmental segment increased with 16% to EUR 408 million, demonstrating the team's strengths and their successful efforts in targeting opportunities, mainly in Belgium and the Netherlands, but with further reach to other European countries as well in the pipeline. Continued progress on remediation and high water protection works in Belgium and the Netherlands delivered EUR 272 million and an EBITDA of EUR 40 million. The EBITDA margin increased to 14.7%, up from 12.9% in the same period last year. As such, the higher EBITDA margin in '25 offset partly the reduction in turnover of 19% caused mainly due to project phasing.

Now if you have a look at the concessions on the Concessions segment, the net result from associates contributed EUR 14.4 million. As in prior year, the wind production was on the soft side, impacting the upside in the operational wind farms. Nevertheless, this was partly offset this year by a stronger port concessions activity. Concessions also streamlined the ScotWind concession portfolio, exiting the Ayre project and strengthening the stake in Bowdun. The financial impact of this transaction was really minimal. And then Concessions also continued to manage and further develop Port-La Nouvelle and Port of Duqm in Oman. And we were also very pleased with the auction win for a 25-year concession for the Port of Paranagua for which preparations are ongoing. That's it for my part for the time being, and I gladly hand over to Luc again.

Thank you. Thank you, Stijn, for the comprehensive overview of the financials. And in the next part of the presentation, I will go now more into depth into some of the key projects that we have executed in 2025. And let's start with Offshore Energy. So we will see a map here. And as Stijn mentioned, Offshore Energy has had an outstanding year. You can see here, we have on the map, there's a lot of countries, of course, the Mercator projection doesn't help us, but we have been active across 3 continents. And if we start from the West in the U.S., our teams have maintained their momentum in 2025 and had a strong installation year and that despite, as you have seen, some stop-and-go cycles, and that was, let's say, due to the regulatory headwinds that we have seen over there. We've been working on 3 offshore wind projects, all 3 of them on the East Coast, Empire Wind, where we did cable laying works, Vineyard Wind, mainly turbine installation works. And those are 2 projects that will be completed already now in the first half of 2026. The third one is Coastal Virginia, which I will come back in a bit more detail in a second.

Now Europe also remains a very important offshore wind market for us with major projects underway in the U.K., in France, in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. And our Asian activities are mainly focused on Taiwan for the moment being, where Hai Long and Fengmiao are already our fourth and fifth offshore wind projects since we started there in 2023. To our opinion, Asia is expected to remain an important market in the upcoming years, and we are also taking positions to start works in other countries now such as Japan.

Now most of our activities, as you see, were focused on offshore wind projects, but we also delivered work for non-offshore wind projects and that in each of these continents again. We -- including some decommissioning project in the North Sea, a pipeline duplication project in Australia and a dredging campaign for the offshore West White Rose project for the Cenovus Energy in Canada. Now that's a little bit a global overview, but I would like to take the opportunity to focus on a few of these key projects. And let's start. You see here the Orion working on the Virginia Offshore Wind project. It's called the Dominion Energy Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project with a capacity of 2.6 gigawatts of clean energy. It's the largest wind farm under construction in the U.S. We are responsible for a very large scope being the installation of the monopiles as well as the offshore -- as the offshore substations, the cable installation and the scour protection.

The Orion has brought the floating installation concept to the U.S. and that for the first time. And we introduced an approach, including a fully customized logistics chain adapted to this quite specific U.S. market. All monopiles were installed and that in 2 summer campaigns in 2024 and 2025. And we continue to make steady progress. We are installing the rest, about 50 last transition pieces. The 3 substations have been installed and the Orion remains engaged, of course, to complete this project and will then return to Europe to initiate new projects in the spring of this year.

On the next slide, we see also a quite representative slide on the projects of Ile d'Yeu and Noirmoutier, which are both located on the French Atlantic Coast. On these projects, we faced challenging rocky seabed conditions as we previously had on the Saint-Nazaire projects. And the Ile d'Yeu and Noirmoutier project scope included the engineering, transport and installation of the monopiles foundations as well as, again, the installation of a substation. We optimized and deployed again our offshore foundation drill and the so-called MODIGA, which is a special tool, which encapsulates the drilling, installation and grouting operation and protects them from especially here, the very harsh Atlantic conditions.

Seabed preparation at the projects began in 2023, and the final monopile was installed on schedule in June 2025. I think these French wind farms are good showcases to highlight our capabilities and expertise as a one-stop shop for any packages of wind farm developers requirements and even dealing with very difficult like here, rocky seabed conditions and difficult oceanic conditions.

Now on the next continent, you can see here a beautiful picture of the Green Jade which is our joint venture, CDWE vessel that completed all of the jacket foundations for the 1 gigawatt Hai Long wind farm in Taiwan. And Hai Long, as was mentioned before in the presentation, 1 of the 6 offshore wind farm projects in Taiwan, which we are involved in. Again, the Oceanic challenges are very significant over there in the Taiwan Strait, known for harsh marine conditions, very strong currents, large water depths and frequent typhoons, but we delivered. The team deployed the Green Jade, as you can see, to install 73 jacket foundations. And again, here, they implemented innovative solutions, including an optimization of the pin pile fastening and lifting tools and completed the installation phase even ahead of schedule. Today, we are progressing with the last part, which is the turbine installation activities and the sea challenger will start over there in April to continue those turbine installations.

Let's go now to the Dredging and Infra segment. As you can see on the slide, our Dredging and Infra segment demonstrates strong global coverage, and it features a blend of capital dredging and maintenance dredging, and that's around the world. And we are also, as you know, doing a number of marine infrastructure activities, but that's more focused on Europe. The dredging team handled projects in a large number of countries in the U.K., France, Belgium and Germany. And we launched a number of new ones in Spain, more in Southern Europe here, Spain, Greece and Italy. Ongoing efforts continued in the Middle East and in West Africa, including a special quite flagship coastal protection program in Ivory Coast. The teams also kept a solid presence in India. We started working in Indonesia, and we performed a maintenance dredging campaign in Australia. Then the Infra team, they make substantial progress on major multiyear projects and that in Belgium, in France and in Denmark.

Now again, here, a couple of exemplary projects. We start with the Ardersier Energy Transition Facility in Scotland where we completed the dredging and the leg reclamation works. This project is located in the Moray Firth in Scotland, and it was previously -- it's a site which was previously dedicated to the oil and gas industry, and it's been completely reshaped into a hub for Offshore Renewable Energy, which offers direct access to the North Sea wind farm zones, which will, for the Scottish government, be an important enabler in the Scottish Energy Transition plan.

DEME was here tasked with deepening and widening the harbor and the harbor and access channel to accommodate for heavy lift vessels transporting those big offshore wind components. We deployed the cutter suction dredger D'ARTAGNAN, which we see on the picture, and the channel depth was increased here to about 12.4 meters, and we created a width of 160 meters. All works, of course, complied with, as you know, Scotland's very strict environmental standards using special coastal modeling and assessment studies to reduce further the ecological impact of what we are doing.

DEME's involvement in the Odyssey project also builds on our strong track record that we have already in Scotland, including, as you know, in the previous years, major roles in the construction of the Moray East and Moray West offshore wind farms. Next project we want to highlight is the Princess Elisabeth project, really a world's first energy island. And the -- we are in a joint venture which is called TM Edison. We completed the first 2025 offshore campaign season last year, installing 11 caissons. They are at their final location, which is about 45 kilometers of up to 22,000 tons, and they form the outer walls of the future island, creating a safe harbor for the future electrical infrastructure.

Now our offshore teams made sure that the structures were installed but also secured for -- during the winter. At the same time, the remaining 12 caissons were completed onshore in flushing and the offshore activities will resume in the coming weeks in spring, focusing on completing the whole islands interior. Now developed by the Belgium transmission system operator, as you know, this artificial island will connect offshore wind farm and serves as an energy hub connecting then directly to the Belgium and electricity grid. Next project is the Abu Qir project in Egypt, which is a project that really stands out for me. It's one of the largest dredging and land reclamation projects in our history -- in our history today, I would say.

And several of our dredgers were again occupied on this project last year. This multiyear project will eventually see an entire new city quarter and a greenfield port constructed near, as you know, Alexandria, and this port will be one of the biggest and deepest port in the whole of the Mediterranean Sea. I remember flying over the area in 2025, and it's already possible to see where DEME has created this 1,000 hectares of new land deploying different vessels with careful management of the many interfaces, as you know, of this complex and multifaceted project. It's impressive, and we are again making very good progress on this project.

Then we go on to the third contracting segment, which is our Environmental segment. And in 2025, the Environmental segment completed the -- in Norway, the Bergen remediation project, and at the same time, we made steady progress on our key projects, both in Belgium and the Netherlands. This segment also continued to expand capacity by upgrading our soil treatment centers, and we are scaling up our Cargen active carbon solution, which I will give a bit more detail in the following slides. Again, taking a couple of key projects, let's start with Feluy, DEME's Environmental segment is focusing, as you know, on remediating brownfield sites and redeveloping them to give them a valuable future purpose. I think this site of formerly owned by the chemical giant BASF is a prime example of such a project. Here, our environmental team, and that is in a PPP and a public private partnership is responsible for the purchase remediation and redevelopment of this 65-hectare site.

Polluted soils, contaminated groundwater and obsolete infrastructures are just some of the challenges that we encountered here and around 150 tons of soils are being treated, most of them on site, avoiding truck journeys and emissions. And this demonstrates our focus on adopting a circular approach. Around 4 million tons of recycled clean soil from our treatment centers is also used for backfilling and creating level surfaces, preparing them already for the construction of brand-new buildings. After the remediation, 2/3 of the site will be available for industrial activities and 1/3 -- approximately 1/3 will be a biodiverse area.

As I said before, I would come back to Cargen. That's our joint venture specialized in activated carbon treatment and remediation solutions, and that's now scaling up the volumes and scaling up the commercial capacity. Established in late '24, Cargen manufactures its own carbon capture filters and is as such, a valuable addition to our solutions portfolio for treating polluted soil and water, which allow us to deploy our own filters and also to deliver it to third-party customers. And you can see here on the picture, it's an example. It's a setup of 8 large what we call the brand Aqua Pure filters at the recycling site in the Netherlands, which these filters are processing contaminated soils, highlighting really the flexibility and scalability of this solution to meet the clients' requirements.

And then finally, I go to our fourth segment, that is our Concessions segment. The Concession segment remained involved in operational wind farms in Belgium, of course. And for Dredging and Infrastructure, the team continues to manage and further develop the participation in its portfolio, including Port-La Nouvelle in France and Port of Duqm in Oman. On both port developments, we see good progress with year-over-year increased contribution to the group. Following the successful opening of the tunnel, DEME Concessions entered into a provisional sales agreement in 2025 regarding our stake in the Blankenburg Tunnel project with the final closing of that transaction expected in the first half of 2026.

Then at the same time, we streamlined our participation in the ScotWind concession portfolio and that in October last year. To explain that a bit, following a swap share, DEME Concessions and Aspiravi International, we increased together our stakes and are now joint owners of the Bowdun Offshore Wind Farm project. As you know, that's a 1 gigawatt project designed as a bottom fixed site, and we will -- the 2 of us hold 70% and 30% of the shares, respectively. As a result of that, Qair International became the sole owner of the Ayre Wind Farm project, which is in its turn a floating foundation site. On the Bowdun site, as I mentioned, it's a bottom fixed offshore wind farm with now financial close anticipated for 2030.

On this project here, you see the Paranagua port. In October, a consortium including DEME won the auction for a 25-year Concessions to operate, maintain and expand the access channel to this port to the Port of Paranagua, which is Brazil's second largest public port. This contract is expected to close in the coming weeks, after which it will be added to our order book. The main works will involve deepening the channel, which will allow larger vessels to access the port, and it also involves the maintenance of the projects -- of the channel step through regular dredging and vessel management or vessel navigation management. The operations are here expected to start in October of this year. That were the segments, and I would like to now move on to our ESG achievements in 2025.

Let's first look at the environmental part. DEME's eligible and aligned activities continue to grow in 2025, and I'm talking about the EU taxonomy now, of course, with 52% of group turnover categorized as eligible and 47% as aligned, and that compares to 45% and 42% in 2024, respectively. The rise is mainly accounted for by the fact that offshore energy now represents a larger share in our turnover and more taxonomy aligned activities across our other activities. I'm really very pleased with this result as I see it as a measure of genuine sustainability contribution and a recognition, positioning DEME as one of the leading performers and markedly above average scores both in Belgium and in Europe.

Now if we look at the CapEx EU taxonomy, our eligible and aligned CapEx activities grew substantially compared to 2024, primarily due to investments in the 2 new Havfram vessels. Both, as you know, are intended to be deployed in the offshore wind sector and qualify as taxonomy eligible. And for our greenhouse gas footprint and energy management, will keep reassessed in 2026 against our targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We expect to see a step-up in 2026 as we integrate Norse Wind and Norse Energi into our fleet, and these vessels are featuring installations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Additionally, DEME has further invested in shore power connection in Flushing to enable our vessels to switch off onboard generators in our port. While we certainly maintain our focus on using low-carbon fuels where possible, the proportion of low carbon fuel consumption was around 5% to 6% in both '24 and '25, and that's a decline from 2023, largely due to low industry take-up and limited availability of low carbon fuels in the regions that we are operating in.

Let's go to Social then. As we continue to invest and attract and retain, of course, top talent, the group's workforce further increased to nearly 6,000 employees, and that reflects a 3% increase compared to 2024. We are pleased to see that in '25, our HR team was honored with the esteemed HR Ambassador award which is always encouraging to see. It's encouraging to see that our commitments to lifelong learning and lifelong careers is received by external appraisal. Then we go to our safety metric. The primary metric is the lost time injury frequency rate. It remained below our target of 0.2, and it's at 0.18 in 2025. And as you know, safety remains really as a top priority within the group.

And we have a lot of ongoing initiatives such as the Safety Week, Safety Success Stories and a lot of safety awareness campaigns that are really helping us to embed safety in our organization. And finally, let's go to the last part, which is the outlook and the dividend. We start with the outlook. We expect turnover and EBITDA margin in 2026 to be in line with last year's level, giving the existing projects in the backlog, the pipeline of new opportunities coming along and the current fleet capacity. CapEx is estimated to remain around EUR 450 million, and this includes the upgrade, the repair and the maintenance investments in the fleet and the remaining payment for the completion of Norse Energi. And is before, of course, as you know, potential further large capacity expansion to support our longer-term growth opportunities.

Now looking further ahead in the midterm and despite current geopolitical tensions, we remain confident that DEME is well positioned to continue delivering robust, sustainable performances. In line with our dividend policy, targeted to a payout ratio of 33% of DEME's net group profit, the Board will propose this year a gross dividend of EUR 4.5 per share, and that represents an 18% increase compared to last year. And then as I'm almost finishing off my part, a few more slides about the existing year that we have ahead of us, exciting year that we have ahead of us. We are delighted that our 2 new next-generation offshore installation vessels, Norse Wind and Norse Energi will be -- have been joining the DEME fleet, but they will start their first projects now very soon.

Norse Wind is expected to commence turbine installation works for Vestas in the first half of the year, while Norse Energi is scheduled to start its first project activities around summer of this year. Another remarkable event is, as we mentioned earlier, DEME will be celebrating a remarkable milestone this year, 150 years of shaping horizons around the world. You can see a couple of pictures here, but it's truly remarkable. And if you look back at those 150 years of history, we were there in the beginning of the century in Argentina. We have lived through 2 world wars, the Panama Canal, Suez Canal. So a lot of big events DEME has lived through.

And throughout the year, you will see we will be sharing 150 inspiring stories. I've seen many of them already are already public. It's really fantastic campaign. And you will see those on a dedicated anniversary website. These snapshots that we will be giving highlight our pioneering people, our projects and the innovative breakthroughs that have been made through the history of DEME and that made the DEME to the company that it is today. So I really invite everybody to go and see our fascinating history on this special website. And that finalizes my presentation. I thank you, and I will now hand you back to Carl so that he can start the Q&A session.

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

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

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

Do you hear me?

We do. We do. Good morning.

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

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

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

Yes.

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

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

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

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

Yes. Maybe a bit more to indicate that we should not focus too much on, I think, the exact values, and I'd like to give you an example of that. If you look at, for example, the order book of 2022 that we presented end of '22, that was EUR 6.2 billion. And in the year-end plus 1, that was EUR 1.6 billion. So that reflected to the year of 2024. And at the end, we had a turnover of EUR 4.1 billion. If you look at the order book of '23 that we declared, that was EUR 7.6 billion at that moment. The year-end plus 2 at that moment already had a EUR 2.6 billion in the order book runoff. And there, the turnover realized at the end was EUR 4.1 billion.

If you look at the order book of '24, at the end, that was the EUR 8.2 billion that was mentioned just now. In the year-end plus 1, that was EUR 2.3 billion, and that is reflecting to 2026. And if you look at our guidance that we're giving, there we say that turnover is in line. So why do I give that example to identify that between a EUR 1.6 billion and EUR 2.6 billion in the runoff of an order book, at the end, we can still arrive at the same figures. So it gives an indication, but we do not always say that we want to focus too much on exact values. We do feel that this is a very healthy order book, and that's a bit more from a bit historical background that I would like to share with that.

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

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

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

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

Yes, I'll take that one.

I hope so.

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

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

Yes, of course, I can give you our view on this, and it's multifaceted, I think. Let me say, on the mid-, long term, we are very confident that the market will be there and is there. We have seen now, of course, you saw the Hamburg conference, but we have had 3 conferences in a row where the same was being said. Now our view is that both the people who are policymaking and the developers and the supply chain are more or less aligned on the future numbers. So that is good. I've said before, we have a recalibration. There was these auctions without any support system, which failed. And now we see AR7, we see the Netherlands, we see Denmark. We see hopefully very soon now, Belgium, Germany reconsidering the -- to go to CFD, which really is the system to go to. So that is happening.

I think that in going to this very large demand on which we have consensus towards the end of the decade, there may be periods in which it is a little bit calmer. Although from a practical point of view, because I see all these studies and all these numbers, we have not seen that most of the time, this is being leveled out because the demand is -- if the demand is a little bit lower, the developers start shifting their projects. So to our opinion, that will be more or less leveled out. And I think at the same time, we as DEME, we are, I think, cost leader quality leader to our clients. So we see a market -- still a growing market in which we will be able to certainly have our market share. So I'm pretty confident. And so the market will be there and leading up to this vast demand. I think the -- let's say, the ups and the downs will be more leveled out certainly for DEME. I don't know whether that is...

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

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Carl Bussche, Head of Investor Relations at DEME. And it is my pleasure to welcome you to DEME's Half Year Analyst and Investor Earnings Call and/or webcast. Joining me today are DEME's Chief Executive; Mr. Luc Vandenbulcke; and our CFO, Mr. Stijn Gaytant. Both Luc and Stijn will take you through the presentation, which will be visible on screen during the webcast and also accessible on DEME's Investor portal.

Slide 2 briefly outlines the agenda. Luc will kick off with the executive summary, after which both Stijn and Luc will further elaborate on the group financial results for the half year, the performance of our 4 segments, DEME's progress in the ESG domain, and then Luc will wrap up with the outlook. After the presentation, we will open up for the Q&A round, giving you the opportunity to ask questions directly to our management.

Without further delay, I'll hand it over to Luc for the executive summary.

Thank you, Carl, and good morning, everyone. I'm absolutely proud of our first half of the year performance. Once again, we have achieved record profitability and that despite the unpredictable and unstable market conditions. These results clearly demonstrate the power of the One DEME Team. Every day, our employees work tirelessly to deliver incredibly complex projects to our clients worldwide. And I would like to wholeheartedly thank them for their continuous efforts. It's therefore with great pride that I will now share the key first half highlights with you.

The turnover grew by 10%, surpassing the EUR 2 billion mark in another milestone achievement. This growth was mainly driven by the Offshore Energy segment, where revenue rose 27% year-over-year as a result of strong demand, high fleet utilization and most of all, effective project execution. EBITDA for the group climbed to EUR 464 million for an EBITDA margin of almost 22%. And that compared to EUR 345 million for an 18% margin in the first half of '24. The group EBITDA margin was also fueled by an outstanding profit performance by the offshore segment. Net profit rose to EUR 179 million, up from EUR 141 million a year ago.

The order book was at EUR 7.5 billion, and that is in line with the EUR 7.6 billion level of last year. This is made up from a combination of follow-up orders, maintenance work, smaller projects and also reflects the addition of Havfram's order book because as I assume most of you will know, DEME has acquired Havfram, a Norwegian offshore wind contractor, and that in April of this year. This acquisition strengthens our offshore wind footprint, particularly when it comes to expanding our turbine and foundation installation capabilities.

The company has 2 vessels under construction, the first of which is on schedule for delivery at the end of the year. And the second one, early 2026. Both vessels are already contracted for projects, as you know, in 2026. I believe the Havfram acquisition to be a very nice example of DEME's willingness to invest in its future, and targeting the right strategic decisions at the right time, in turn, allowing us to deliver sustainable, profitability results like the ones we are presenting today.

Based on this solid first half, combined with the robust outlook for the remainder of '25, management expects full year turnover to be at least in line with 2024, and we expect the full year EBITDA margin now to slightly exceed the 20%. Now before handing over to Stijn, I'd like to share a preview of our new vessel, the Norse Wind. What you see here is the Havfram vessel during its full height jacking test at the shipyard, and is ahead of its delivery later this year. The vessel is jacked up to an impressive 90 meters above the seabed, and we look forward to welcome it into our fleet at the end, as we said, of this year. Stijn now over to you to walk us through the financials of the first half.

Thank you, Luc. The table on the left visualizes what DEME has delivered in the first half of 2025. and compares it with the results from the previous 2 half year periods. It clearly demonstrates strong year-over-year improvement across all financial-related metrics, backed up by a high-quality order book. Some items I'd like to highlight. The order book remains strong at EUR 7.5 billion, slightly lower than where it stood this time last year. It's important to keep in mind that DEME delivered EUR 4.3 billion in turnover over the past 4 quarters.

Turnover for the group for the first half year stands at EUR 2.1 billion, up 10% from EUR 1.9 billion at half year 2024. Profitability has continued to improve, outpacing the growth in turnover over the recent period. An EBITDA of EUR 464 million, which is an increase of 35% year-on-year, represent a margin of 21.9%. This compared to 18% year-over-year and EBIT of EUR 223 million, which is an increase of 49% year-on-year represents a margin of 10.6%. This compared to 7.8% year-on-year.

The net profit for the first half year stands at EUR 179 million, which is an increase of 27%. This compared to EUR 141 million year-on-year. The EUR 241 million on depreciation and impairments for the first half year represents compared to the EUR 195 million year-on-year, an increase of EUR 46 million. This increase can be attributed to mainly 4 elements: the Yellowstone, our most recent addition in the fallpipe vessels was welcome to the fleet in June last year and started contributing to the depreciation only in Q2 of 2024.

Secondly, a reassessment has been made to the useful lifetime of one specific auxiliary equipment for the Offshore Energy segment. The remaining useful lifetime has been adjusted to one remaining year being the end of 2025. This has an additional impact for the first half year of '25. Thirdly, a higher impact of depreciation related to IFRS 16 leasing and the increase to top it off in assets and depreciation related to the Fehmarnbelt project, which is a large marine infrastructure project in Denmark. The net financial result that is part of the bridge between the EBIT and the net profit of the group amounts to minus EUR 9 million. This compared to a positive EUR 30 million in the same period last year.

The delta between both is related to the exchange rate differences in the first 6 months of 2025. Current taxes and deferred taxes account for minus EUR 49 million which reflects an effective tax rate of 23%. Similar to the effective tax rate year-on-year and lower of the 26% tax rate we had at the end of 2024. The joint ventures and associates has last contributor to the result of the group realized a profit of EUR 70 million as a combination of, on the one hand, positive amounts of the associates, mainly driven by DEME concessions.

That said, offshore wind part saw a relatively low production in the first half of 2025 which had a softening effect. On the other hand, we noticed continued positive results on most of our operational joint ventures, of which a considerable portion is related to our setup in Taiwan. Now, how do these excellent P&L figures translate into the main balance sheet items? We present them in comparison to the half year and the end of 2024. The negative working capital of minus EUR 870 million half year '25 reconfirms that DEME's working capital compared to its turnover remains in line with the historical averages.

DEME consistently maintain negative working capital, largely due to disciplined contract management. The CapEx investments in the first 6 months of 2025 amount to EUR 141 million. This is excluding the Havfram acquisition, and there's a decline of EUR 26 million in CapEx compared to the EUR 167 million year-on-year. The current CapEx mainly consist of project-specific investments lifetime extensions of vessels and capitalized maintenance costs.

Of the approximately EUR 900 million communicated for the Havfram transaction, EUR 537 million were spent in quarter 2 2025. Now these expenditures in combination with the increased profitability working capital, slightly lower CapEx compared to the prior year and paid our dividend in quarter 2 of EUR 96 million, results in a negative free cash flow of minus EUR 440 million. Taking abstraction of the Havfram impact, the free cash flow amounts to a positive EUR 123 million. The cash and cash equivalents as of June 25 stands at EUR 709 million, compared to EUR 509 million year-on-year and EUR 853 million end of 2024.

Taking the earlier mentioned elements into account, the net financial debt currently stands at minus EUR 480 million compared to minus EUR 352 million year-on-year, and plus EUR 91 million end of '24. As a result, our net financial debt on EBITDA ratio is now minus 0.42 compared to minus 0.49 year-over-year and plus 0.12 end of 2024.

Moving on to the order book. The comparison on the left graph. The segment breakdown demonstrate a continued balanced and diversified order book for a group order book of EUR 7.5 billion in line with last year's level of EUR 7.6 billion. The order book additions in the first half consists of follow-on contracts, several smaller contracts across all contracting segments, and the addition of the Havfram order book for EUR 530 million. We know that order book intake can be irregular in timing. On the graph in the middle showing the geographical breakdown on the first half of '24 and '25, we noticed the following. Europe accounts for 76% of the overall order book, which is an expansion compared to the 62% year-over-year, reconfirming the importance of our home market.

We see a decrease in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. All driven by a combination of effective project execution and currently less intake. I highlight as well again the order book evolution in the Americas, which reduced compared to first half of '24 from 16% to 10% and reflecting high activity and progress on the projects in U.S. the last 12 months, resulting in order book conversion into turnover in combination with limited additions of new U.S. projects to the order book.

On the graph on the far right, we provide the order book runoff for the coming years. The runoff supports our guidance for the year with volumes for the second half in line with the same period a year ago. The order book volumes spread across 2026 and beyond amount to EUR 5.6 billion similar as compared year-over-year.

Next, we'd like to highlight the trends in DEME's turnover evolution. 2 key takeaways I'd like to share. First of all, a 10% year-over-year growth in turnover, as shown on the left graph, and also DEME's half year turnover doubled over the last 5 years. The segment breakdown in the middle reveals some more insights. An increase in turnover year-over-year for the Offshore Energy segment, well surpassing EUR 1 billion turnover or specifically EUR 1.1 billion or plus 27%. This was driven by strong demand, higher fleet capacity and utilization and solid execution of projects in U.S., Taiwan and Europe.

The Dredging & Infra segment reached EUR 950 million turnover. Small decline year-over-year, mainly due to a strong comparison base in the first half of '24 and some project phasing effects. In the Environmental business achieves a turnover of EUR 142 million, also lower compared to last year and also mainly due to project phasing. When examining the geographical breakdown on a year-on-year basis on the right, we observed that Africa remains stable in their relative contribution while contribution year-on-year from the Americas as well as Asia have been markedly strong driven by effective project execution in U.S. and Asia. The turnover breakdown further reaffirms that Europe with 53% remains for DEME, a key market, which aligns with our earlier conclusion from the order book.

Our profitability is outpacing our turnover growth with EBITDA going up 35% year-on-year reaching an EBITDA margin of 21.9% from 18% year-on-year and 15% compared to half year 2023. EBIT increased by 49% to EUR 223 million. So the higher depreciations have not impacted on the EBIT margins, reconfirming that the recent additions also are driving profitability.

Net profit ends up at EUR 179 million compared to EUR 141 million year-on-year. This results in earnings per share amounting to EUR 7.08 for the first 6 months, compared to EUR 5.58 in June 2024. Now while Luc will provide more in-depth business and operational insights, I will share some financial details on the individual segments. The Offshore Energy segment leads with an EBITDA margin of 31% compared to 18% year-over-year. EBIT follows a similar trend with 20% compared to 9% year-over-year. Segment's profitability has benefited from the higher fleet capacity and utilization, and also the solid execution of projects. The main projects in U.S. and Taiwan being in the second campaign in the first half of 2025 helped boost performance levels.

In addition, Offshore Energy also recorded a onetime cancellation fee payment in U.S. and the profit on the sale of the Sea Challenger. For Dredging & Infra, we noticed a small reduction year-over-year in turnover, which can be allocated to the temporarily lower current occupation of the cutter fleet. The EBITDA for Dredging & Infra stands at 12% compared to 19% year-over-year.

Similar evolution for EBIT at 0% compared to 8% year-over-year. The decrease in margins for the first 6 months is largely due to further adverse results on a large offshore marine infrastructure project in front of the Belgium coast, the same project that was mentioned under IAS 37 at the year-end. While the impact of this project on the DEME Group results is absorbed by the other activities, it has a notable impact on the Dredging & Infra segment figures for the first half.

The Environmental segment maintained solid execution, delivering another half year of strong results in '25 with EBITDA of 15% compared to 13% year-over-year and EBIT of 11% compared to 10% year-over-year. On the Concessions segment, we see that the contracting revenue generated as well as the value of the projects mentioned indicate the overall contribution of the concessions to DEME in the last years. Until date, the own equity invested and loans granted now stands at EUR 242 million. The combination of the above initiatives, both on offshore wind farms and infrastructure generated recurring income in the first half of '25 of EUR 5 million compared to the EUR 11 million a year ago mainly due to very soft wind production in the first half of '25.

That concludes for now the main financial highlights, which I believe we can summarize as titled in the first half press release, strong with record profitability. And I now kindly hand over to Luc again.

Thank you very much for that Stijn and for this comprehensive overview of the financials. Now I would like to go together with you and outline some of the highlights of our 4 segments. I will start with offshore energy. And before we jump into more details, we have here a beautiful view of our Green Jade vessel at work during the golden hour installing jackets on one of our projects in the Taiwanese region. I think it's both the works and the picture are a real work of art.

Without a doubt, Offshore Energy was really the star performer in the first 6 months of this year. The order book reached EUR 4.1 billion, rising from EUR 4 billion. This includes the addition of Havfram's order book of EUR 530 million, includes project add-ons and the addition of new contracts. Revenue exceeded EUR 1 billion for the second consecutive semester and profitability outpaced revenue with EBITDA climbing to EUR 358 million, representing 31.4% of turnover and that up from 18.3% in the first half of 2024.

In nominal EBITDA, it's even more incredible. It is a 118% increase. A number of elements have led to this remarkable performance. First of all, effective execution of the projects, very efficient vessel utilization and strong project planning, as well as several ongoing projects now in the second installation season and some one-offs also as indicated by Stijn. Vessel occupancy reached 23 weeks in the first half year, and that is in line with last year. And as I touched on in the executive summary, in the second quarter, we completed the acquisition of Havfram. The integration is progressing smoothly. It's marked by strong team alignment, encouraging commercial contract developments and the unscheduled construction of the new -- the 2 new next-generation wind turbine installation vessels.

Additionally, although on a much smaller scale, we acquired a 50% stake in Bauer Offshore Technologies, and that in the second quarter of this year. Bauer Offshore Technologies is a supplier of offshore drilling services. This investment is intended to further expand our drilling and installation expertise for offshore wind foundations.

I'll just mention a couple of our main projects in 2025. In the U.S., Offshore Energy made steady progress at the Coastal Virginia offshore wind project and this included the installation of the first offshore substation and the second monopile installation campaign. Meanwhile, we also began the export cable installations for the same projects, and those will continue through 2026. And also, we had our fallpipe vessel carrying out rock placement activities on the project. The U.S. team continued to work on Vineyard Wind 1, including the turbine installation. We're also preparing to start the cable installation works for the Empire Wind 1 project and that in the third quarter of this year.

In nonrenewables, the segment carried out Dredging activities for the West White Rose project in Newfoundland and that leverages -- and so leveraging, I would say, DEME's dredging capabilities. In Europe, we were mainly busy in France the U.K. and Poland. We completed the installation of 61 monopile foundations and the transition pieces at the Île d'Yeu and Noirmoutier offshore wind project, demonstrating DEME's capability when it comes to successfully installing wind farms in very challenging location. Additionally, we made solid progress on the Dieppe - Le Tréport project installing there the offshore substation and the pin piles.

In the U.K., we completed the cabling works for the Nearth Na Gaoithe and the Dogger Bank A and B projects and the last one, the Dogger Bank C project is scheduled to begin in the second half of the year. The segment completed the 4 directional landfall drills for the Baltic power project in Poland with the inter-array and export cables works due to start in the second half again of this year.

The team also began preparation for cabling works for offshore wind farms in the Netherlands. Then we come to Asia. In Asia, our Taiwan team installed the pin piles for the Hai Long project and began the second installation phase for the jacket foundation installations. The first turbines and the second offshore substation was successfully installed. And I can add with our vessel Green Jade, we completed all 73 jacket foundations for this 1 gigawatt project already last week. As well as this preparatory works have now begun on the Greater Changhua project and the Fengmiao offshore wind farm in Taiwan. Elsewhere in the APAC region, the team successfully completed the Darwin pipeline duplication projects, and that is in Australia.

Now we're on to our Dredging & Infra segment. The financial results were already presented by Stijn, but my takeaways on this are that the turnover, I would say, is largely in line with last year. The order book shows a slight decrease but still at a very healthy level of more than EUR 3 billion. Also noting that we continue to see a strong tender activity and we are also tendering as always, I would say, some compelling opportunities.

Now EBITDA is indeed lower. That's right, with the EBITDA margin standing at 12%, but that is largely due to these unfavorable results on the marine infrastructure project as described by Stijn. The segment's hopper fleet had a lower utilization rate, which was mainly due to a lot of scheduled dockings. And the cutter fleets occupancy also -- that dipped, but that's, let's say, largely due to a temporary reduction in demand for specialized cutter work in the first half of the year.

Our Infra team achieved several important milestones. The Princess Elizabeth Island project in Belgium progressed, with now status of last week, 9 out of the 23 caissons being placed in their final offshore location. Additionally, in Belgium, the tunnel elements were completed. And by now, 3 out of 8 tunnel elements have successfully been emerged for the Oosterweel Connection here nearby our office.

In Denmark, the Fehmarnbelt fixed link advanced, where the first tunnel element successfully floated, at the same time, in France, civil works for Poland well project continued, including the construction of the key walls and the jetties. Our Dredging team also performed maintenance works for several multiyear contracts and started a number of new projects. In Germany, preparatory works began for the offshore terminal at the port of Cuxhaven and that following the completion of the widening of the Kiel Canal. In Le Havre, the La Chatière project kicked off with the soil investigation and uxo detection campaign. And in Italy, there was solid progress on several projects, including the modernization and extension works amongst others at the Port of Livorno.

In the U.K. Dredging and reclamation work progressed well at the Ardersier Energy Transition Facility, where we are deepening and widening the harbor and the access channel. The segment also maintained a high level of activity in the Middle East. We continue to work at Abu Qir 2 in Egypt, deploying several dredges from our fleet, and we are busy with the dryer moving activities for the Oxagon Phase 2 project in Saudi Arabia preparing for the cutter phase of the project and that will be later this year.

In Asia, Dredging & Infra strengthen its presence both through ongoing port maintenance projects and by securing new contracts as well as additional scopes for existing projects like in Taiwan, the project where the team completed dredging works in the port of Taichung and also deepened the access channel of Patimban and that is in Indonesia, and it won a new contract for maintenance dredging at ports along Australia's west-coast.

In Africa, maintenance dredging and land reclamation projects were carrying out at several locations or stay along the West African coast. In Latin America, maintenance, dredging works for the access channel and bird pockets of the Atlantic terminal in Port of Moin in Costa Rica were successfully completed and meanwhile, in Uruguay, maintenance dredging for the Canal Martin Garcia were ongoing.

And then we go to the Environmental segment. We see here the performance dashboard. The order book of our Environmental segment remained stable, standing at EUR 322 million, demonstrating the team's strength in the Benelux and their efforts to proactively target environmental opportunities in the U.K. and Italy, amongst others. Solid progress on several long-term and complex remediation and high water protection works in Belgium and the Netherlands, delivered a turnover of EUR 142 million and an EBITDA of EUR 22 million.

The EBITDA margin increased to 15%, and that is up from 13% in the same period last year. The environmental team also made good progress in expanding and upgrading capacity at our treatment centers in Belgium and in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Cargen which is DEME's environmental joint venture specializing in activated carbon treatment and remediation solutions and that was established last year. While Cargen is making steady progress and has begun deploying its innovative filter technologies at some selected projects.

I would also like to spotlight DEME Environnement, which is a cornerstone subsidiary of the Environmental segment and our pioneering soil remediation and brownfield redevelopment specialists in Wallonia and France as they recently celebrated their 35th anniversary. And here, you can see the main projects our Environmental segment has been busy with in the first 6 months of this year. The team successfully completed a complex 3-year remediation project in Bergen, and that is in Norway and in line with DEME's focus on creating a better, more livable world, the site is now fully prepared for new infrastructure.

In Belgium, we have several longer-term projects underway, including the Oosterweel in Antwerp, a remediation project for WDP in Willebroek. The complete transformation of the Blue Gate site here in Antwerp, the Feluy project and the redevelopment of the former ArcelorMittal site near Liège as well as maintenance dredging and restoring the ecosystem along the River Meuse.

In the Netherlands, the team continued to work on 2 major projects, which are part of the Netherlands flood protection program. The Gorinchem-Waardenburg dyke reinforcement project and Marken, where the dyke has been strengthened to ensure long-term protection.

And then finally, we come to our fourth segment, Concessions with here on the picture of Port-La Nouvelle in the background, showcasing a successful infrastructure concession projects. The net result of our Concession segment saw a bit of a decline to EUR 5 million but this was mainly due to much lower wind production when compared to the same period in 2024.

In offshore wind, we continue to operate wind farms in Belgium and we are making progress with the ScotWind concession and preparing for some selected upcoming tenders. For Dredging & Infrastructure, concessions focused on projects and its portfolio such as Port-La Nouvelle in France, and the Port of Duqm in Oman, and additionally the team is working on the deepwater terminal at the Port of Swinoujscie in Poland.

Then as part of DEME's long-term growth with regards to its concession activities, we continued laying the groundwork for green hydrogen projects. Currently, these efforts are primarily focused on the HYPORT Duqm project in Oman, where together with our strategic partners, we are working on a project road map targeted to develop a dedicated and suitable end market. In the deep-sea mining, the Global Sea Mineral Resources team continues to monitor the developments around deep-sea mining.

Now moving on from our segments section, I would like to highlight some of our ESG achievements in the period. Firstly, environmental. In line with our strategy, we are playing a significant role in advancing and accelerating the clean energy transition, and that particularly by contributing to offshore wind farm projects worldwide. Earlier on, I already spoke about Offshore Energy stellar performance. And with most of its activity focused on renewable offshore wind, it increased its contribution to the group's turnover and is now accounting for 51% of DEME's total turnover.

At the same time, in Dredging & Infra, we support the climate transition to major projects such as the Fehmarnbelt fixed link and the Princess Elizabeth Island. And as we continue a pace with our mission to have the most efficient fleet in the sector, we have taken again several important steps.

I highlight the acquisition of Havfram here as the addition of these 2 new offshore wind vessels will significantly boost our sustainable operations capacity. This not only directly support the energy transition in their operational purpose, they also have advanced energy management, shore power capabilities, reducing fuel consumption, and they feature hybrid power system, and they are also designed to be able to adopt future cleaner fuels such as methanol.

In addition, we are investing in shore power connections in Flushing the Netherlands to enable our vessels to switch off onboard generators, while docked and that to further reduce our emissions. And then for social and safety, we are continually investing in attracting and retaining top talent. And this commitment was also externally recognized when the HR team received the prestigious HR Ambassador Award. You can see that on the picture here on the right. And of course, we remain committed to achieving the very highest standards of safety, focusing on key safety performance indicators, incident reporting, inspections and investigations.

Our ongoing initiatives such as Safety Week, safety success stories and safety moment Day, they all help to support this, embedding safety awareness in our organization. As an example, the focus team for this year being, think before you lift.

Now you see a beautiful picture here. And I can tell you that for the third year in a row, DEME is a proud and committed partner of the Innoptus Solar team. That is the solar car team initiative of the KU Leuven. These brilliant students are taking on the challenge of defending their world title at the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge that is in Australia with their brand-new solar car.

We are very proud to be a partner as a team's commitment to promoting renewable energy, sparking interest in science and technology among young people and encouraging entrepreneurship and advanced technologies aligns perfectly with DEME's DNA. The race has just kicked off as we speak in Darwin and the team has embarked on an exciting chase to get back in contention for victory. All eyes on Australia and on the finish line in Adelaide next week. I wish them very good luck.

Now we come to the last part, important part, of course, the outlook. Despite the global macroeconomic turbulence and the current uncertainties regarding geopolitical issues, DEME's operations remain robust. We continue to deliver sustainable, profitable results while at the same time, taking timely investment decisions to support our businesses for the decades to come. Based on the solid first half year performance and taking into account the outlook for the second half, we expect full year turnover to at least be in line with that of 2024 and additionally, DEME's management now anticipates that the full year EBITDA margin will slightly exceed 20%.

Full year CapEx remains forecasted at approximately EUR 300 million, which excludes the Havfram acquisition and completion and delivery of the 2 Havfram vessels. I think with that, that concludes my part of the presentation. I thank you, and I will hand you over back to Carl so he can run through the financial calendar and start the Q&A session.

Thank you, Luc and Stijn. We will indeed now begin the question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions]

From our side, we will manage the flow and do our best to field questions from different angles. [Operator Instructions]

And I see that people are already queuing up for questions. First in line is Mr. David Kerstens from Jefferies.

Congrats on the strong results in an uncertain world. And it seems that, that uncertainty maybe is so far only limited to your order backlog and order intake, I was wondering if you can comment on the order intake and the pipeline that you see in relation to your previous medium-term guidance for revenues to be broadly in line with 2024.

And then I have a second question, which is regarding your profitability. Great to see that now 20% is no longer the maximum EBITDA margin as reflected in your previous midterm objectives. I was wondering if you could please quantify the one-offs in offshore energy and in dredging in the first half of the year. And whether you see 20% now is sustainable, I think your guidance implies you will drop below 20% again in the second half of the year. Any more color would be much appreciated.

Okay. David, I think 2 very good questions. We'll kick it off on the order book, a bit of color. Luc?

Yes. I think the first question, as I interpreted, David, was on the outlook versus 2024 and the order book. So the order book stands as you have seen, at EUR 7.5 billion compared to EUR 7.6 billion a year ago. I must say we personally, as a management, don't see that as a point of concern. There's still a healthy order book. We -- you have seen that for 2026. We have an order book which corresponds to, if you take last year's turnover for a comparison already 2/3. Of course, we acknowledge that, that includes the Havfram order book.

But still, we don't see the order book too much as a point of concern. If we look at it a bit more granular, you can also see that within Dredging & Infra. There, we see a healthy tendering activity ongoing. So there's a number of projects in tendering in the pipeline. And the same is happening within the offshore energy segment.

So that is, for me, something which I see currently and everything that is ongoing as a point of attention. But we continue to see the good tender activity, and we expect even some deals to close in the next weeks and months, I can say. And I hand over to maybe to Stijn for the second questions.

David, on your question on the profitability and the one-offs. We've identified in the Offshore Energy segment, the surplus on the sale of the Sea Challenger. You will have noticed in the half year report that the net on the sale of assets is determined at EUR 16 million, which the majority is related indeed to the Sea Challenger. On the second part, on the cancellation fee, on the reservation agreement, you will understand that on individual contracts, we never disclose the exact amount. But it is sufficient enough to have mentioned it next to the surplus value on the Sea Challenger.

I refer -- I presume you referred on your questions on the Dredging & Infra on the additional loss that we have mentioned on the large offshore infrastructure work in front of the Belgium coast. This is indeed the same project that we referred to end of 2024 under IAS 37. The difference is that we are 6 months further down the line. We have a better insight, and we have deemed it necessary to adjust the loss to completion.

Also there, unfortunately, we cannot really disclose the amount. What we can say, it is sufficient enough to visualize it in the EBITDA figures of Dredging & Infra. But I think it's also important to mention that -- it is not visible actually in the entire results of the deemed seeing the excellent results that we have had in the first 6 months. So I hope that's...

Thank you, Stijn. David, if you have follow-on questions, please get in the line again. And we'll move on to Mr. Thijs Berkelder from ABN AMRO ODDO.

Congrats with strong H1 performance. I want to start with 2 remarks. First, given the complexity of your segment reporting and the way your exceeding or falling far below analyst expectations. Can you please next time give this analyst call later in the day as we really can prepare for this. Second, can you please, next time better indicate one-off effects in the reporting as we, at this moment, all are only puzzling on what really happens underlying.

So we like -- David, I have to start with further fact finding on what we now really read in this press release. Let's say, my first question is on your full year '25 guidance. When you exclude all these one-offs, you've talked about and you see -- would you still see a lift in your margin guidance for the full year and by how much.

Then the organic backlog is down 15% from year-end. Can you maybe quantify how large contract cancellations impacted the backlog also because I see also the Havfram backlog is EUR 70 million lower than what you reported 3 months ago. So probably also there you expect to see a settlement fee?

Okay. Thank you, Thijs. We'll take your first comments on the timing of the conference call perhaps offline, but we'll switch to the questions. So first of all, on the full year guidance and the EBITDA margin full year guidance, Stijn, do you feel...

Well I think on the previous questions, we gave some further insight already on the one-off of the sale of the Sea Challenger. That being said, in the previous years, we also had minus op values as well. Yes, the guidance, first of all, we've increased the guidance for the EBITDA where we say above 20%. Taking into account, of course, the visibility we have for the second part of the year, where we still believe that the drivers that have made sure that the first half had excellent results are still there, meaning we still have the strength of the team and the fleet.

The resilience of the business model has really proven to work on the first half. And we still have a very strong financial balance sheet as a company. And our portfolio is also very diversified and has a set of activities also geographically. So with that in mind, we feel confident that we are able to increase the guidance on the EBITDA.

And as you know, we are a project-related business, and it is -- we do that based on best estimates and what we see today. And that is why we can fully defend the guidance that we have given for the remaining of 2025. Maybe briefly on your question on the drop of backlog of Havfram from EUR 600 million to EUR 530 million, can actually share that there is actually no loss of contracts compared to when we identified the EUR 600 million. Actually, it proves the very rigid rules internally we have to take elements into an order book of DEME.

So the only difference of EUR 70 million is that each contract has optional days where the vessels could be employed by the client. And we have chosen, as we have always done in the past, high-quality order book. And for the time being, we have omitted them. So that is certainly not a loss of any contracts related to the Havfram works in the last 3 months.

Thank you, Stijn. We'll move on to the next in line, which is Mr. Luuk Van Beek from Degroof Petercam.

First of all, a question about the U.S. project, where I've seen that the Trump administration also sometimes holds projects in full execution. Can you comment if you see the risk for the projects you're executing? And to what extent you're covered from a contract point of view, if the customer has to pay any compensation in case you cannot execute the work?

And second question about the customer stance. And in general, you hear lots of stories about companies being more uncertain and more hesitant to take big decisions. Do you see that in the conversion of your pipeline into actual orders as well?

Sorry, Luuk, the first question did not really come through.

I heard the first question that...

Your line was not super clear but we...

Second one, I will reply to the first question and then maybe Luuk can repeat his second one. So I understood it as the risk on our projects currently ongoing in the U.S. Now for the moment being, indeed, revolution came as a bit of a surprise to many people. We are not active on the Revolution project. Today, we are in almost finalization of the Vineyard project. We are well advanced on the Virginia, on what we call the CVO project and we are preparing for the cabling on the Empire Wind project.

We see, at this moment, no indications and neither do our clients that these projects could be hampered by any executive orders. That's, I think, was the first part of your question.

The second part is, if that would happen, of course, we have contractual arrangements in place to compensate and protect our contracts, that's sure, yes.

The second question. Luuk, if you wouldn't mind to perhaps rephrase the second question once again, please?

Yes. So the second question is basically with all the uncertainties that you hear around this, do you see any hesitance of customers to take a decision on the projects that are in the pipeline? So are they being delayed or you seeing normal progress of those?

Okay. So the -- well, of course, on the U.S., I think already the timing, I'm not 100% sure. But I think in one of the previous calls, we already indicated that we are not counting on, let's say, new lease and subsidy rounds in the short term. On the other hand, we have, of course, the 2 big bases are Europe and Asia Pacific.

In Europe, you have seen together with us a couple of experiments of tenders, which was either too low CfDs, floors or no CfDs. That is not the way to go. I think many people and also the governments agree they have been rearranging the tenders now, and we see currently a healthy pipeline of projects getting new CfD awards. And the same in Asia Pacific. I think once the projects have their awards under a healthy system, they are not so much hesitating or impacted by the transatlantic decisions.

Yes. Thank you -- thank you also. And yes, we'll move on to next in line from KBC Securities, we have Guy Sips. Guy, floor is yours.

I have 2 questions. First is on the Havfram project. Can you give us some magnitude of the project and the timing of these project, when are they expected to be executed? And the second one is on the Sea Challenger. So what's the reasoning behind the shift of this vessel?

Yes. Very, very concrete questions. Thank you, Guy. So perhaps on...

On the Havfram project, so we are -- the first ship will be delivered end of this year. Second ship is being delivered early 2026, and both of them will start being operational and contributing in '26. And then they have an order book running over '26, '27.

Until '29, 2030.

Until even into '29, 2030. But the magnitude, I think we haven't given any specific details on that sub part. But that's, let's say, the time line for contribution of the Havfram vessels. Now on the Sea Challenger, the Sea Challenger has been brought into our Japanese joint venture. We think that, first of all, Japan is one of the upcoming markets where experienced vessels will be needed.

And we also think like we saw in our model in Taiwan that having a common asset is, I would say, an asset, it's really a plus. You have a shared interest, you can develop the business together, and that's why we have brought in the vessel into the joint venture. Mind you also that Japanese regulation is complex. The vessel has to be adapted to the Japanese rules and regulation, and that supports having the vessel in a permanent situation under the joint venture.

Yes. Thank you, Luc. Thank you, Guy. Moving on to Mr. Tijs Hollestelle from ING. Thijs, you have a question?

Yes, if I, let's say, run the numbers on the Offshore Energy division, taking out the disclosed one-off and let's say, assume kind of an all-time high EBITDA margin, and I would say that the cancellation fee was above EUR 55 million. And when exactly did you learn about the positive EBITDA contribution from this cancellation fee, the day?

Well, perhaps I can take that myself. We already made reference as a subsequent event to the cancellation fee when we disclosed the full year results of '24. We did not disclose the amount of the cancellation fee, Tijs.

Yes, you can indeed -- I think you can run the numbers yourself. Okay. So then the -- let's say, the Q1 outlook statement that was basically repeating the outlook given earlier and that had to relate with the uncertainty to the Belgium infrastructure project. Is that a correct assumption?

So the question is, whether our Q1 comments on uncertainties was referring to the marine infrastructure project in Belgium. Is that the question, Tijs?

Yes. When did you learn about the loss provision on that?

Okay. Yes, that is not an exact moment that progressively. And of course, over the winter season, we had less marine activities. So on that -- I'm talking about that particular project. So as you progress, you see what the results become. So you gradually know until you then finalize the figures for the second quarter.

Yes. But the loss provision is a specific amount.

Yes. So maybe to take a step back, the project you're referring to was already a project that end of '24 was under IAS 37. So that means it was already a loss project. As Luc has mentioned, you have the phasing of these specific projects, which means that at certain moments in time in those 6 months, you have other activities.

This is a project that had a lot of activities in the second part of the year. And based on that information, unfortunately, we need to adjust our loss to completion, which means it's something that happens with the figures of end of June, if that is a bit what you are referring to.

Yes. Okay, more or less. And then one additional to that, are the other large infra projects in the dredging division, which are currently in execution, do they have positive EBIT margins?

Then you're asking us to split up the dredging and Infra segment figures. And historically, we don't do that because they are quite interlinked. A lot of these infrastructure marine works also have a component of dredging related to it. And it's -- we prefer not to artificially break them up and we look at it as one whole. So there is a combination because on these projects also, there's a lot of dredging activity as well.

Thank you, for the questions. We have one more person in the queue for questions. So if others have more questions, feel free to queue again. Christoph Greulich from Berenberg. Christoph, welcome and the floor is open for you.

Firstly, a follow-up on the loss-making project in Belgium. I'm just wondering how you see the risk that you have to further adjust that loss to completion basically over the coming quarters and if you have anything implied any buffer in your full year guidance?

And then secondly, on the D&A line, I mean, the jump was somewhat is unexpectedly high in H1, and you already mentioned some of the moving parts contributing factors. I was just wondering that the EUR 25 million impact that you mentioned from the accelerated depreciation, will that be repeated in H2?

And after that, that asset will be fully depreciated and we don't see the impact anymore next year. So if you just could provide a bit of guidance what we should expect for the D&A line in H2? And then also once the Havfram vessels have joined the fleet, yes, what will be the impact of that for the group's D&A line?

Yes. Okay. Thank you, Christoph. So we'll start with your first question. So one other question on the project with losses in the books now. Luc?

Maybe referring to that, of course, we have now had already an indication of losses on the project in the full year results '24. We have a further deterioration, we can say, [indiscernible] now in June '25. You can imagine that we have very, very, very carefully studied the results.

I can tell you that from an operational point of view, the project has now experienced, I would say, all or almost all phases of the project. So we have gone through all cycles already a number of times now, which was not the case before. We hadn't been installing [indiscernible], et cetera. So we do think that today's provisions are the correct ones, yes.

And then the question on the depreciation -- accelerated depreciation.

Yes. Thanks for that question. It is not uncommon in our line of business that at regular time, we do a reassessment of supporting tools. This has been done in this case as well, amongst others also a bit also triggered with the Havfram transactions because there are similar tools available over there. And we have come to a conclusion that the useful lifetime should be shortened, which means specifically to answer your question, the depreciation will be taken fully and will stop end of '25.

So you are right by saying we have now an impact in the first half year. You will have a similar impact in the second half of the year, after which that item is fully depreciated, and you will not see an impact anymore in '26 and '27 going forward.

Thank you, Stijn. And I see some additional...

Can I just…

Okay, Christoph, go ahead. Go ahead.

Yes. It was just also I was wondering [indiscernible] will impact the group's D&A?

Sorry, can you repeat because the line is not really clear.

Okay. The Havfram vessels, once they join the fleet, how much will that increase the group's D&A?

The impact on D&A in regards to Havfram.

Well, that's, of course, part of finalizing the PPA, which will be done by end of 2025. So we'll be able to give you a more specific figure on that at that time.

Thank you, Christoph. I'll just take a couple of questions from the chat and then move back to the people in the queue. So in the chat, a question on the order book and the runoff of the order book. So order book '26 looks to be approximately 14% down year-over-year. However, it doesn't sound like you expect a revenue decline.

Do you see significant ongoing tendering activities, which you believe can fill the gap to get the revenue growth '26 versus '25? How has the sentiment amongst clients improved? And to what extent are you concerned about the '26 revenue outlook? I think, Luc, you already gave a bit of color, but...

Yes. I think I concur with the first conclusion that you see that we don't see that very much as a point of concern for the moment being. So we have secured projects. You have seen that for around EUR 5.5 billion, and that is for 2026 and beyond. For '26, I mentioned before, we have EUR 2.5 billion turnover, so 2/3. We're further building on that. I also mentioned the strong tender activities. And of course, we have in both of them, Dredging and Infra is normally a bit shorter in lead times, but there's also opportunities in the offshore energy.

We are -- today, as I mentioned already in one of the former questions, discussing a number of tenders and contracts at various stages on which we hope to be able to come back in the coming weeks. So to conclude, I do think that the earlier forecasts remain value.

We have 2 topics on -- or 2 questions on a topic which we haven't touched upon. It's on the occupancy of both the Cutters and the Hoppers. So I'll just read the questions. The Cutters utilization saw a significant drop in the first half and follows a relatively weak H2 '24. Do you have visibility around an improvement in Cutter utilization in H2 back to the H2 '24 levels?

And I'll combine it with the follow-on question on Hoppers, although impacted by scheduled dockings, those dockings at least partially scheduled of that time, owing to lower activity levels. Do you expect the Hopper utilization in the second half of the year to rebound to last year's levels? I think, Luc, you already gave a bit of color during the presentation.

Yes. I think it's very clear that the lower utilization during the first half of '25 is a correct observation. And especially for the Cutters, we saw because it depends also a little bit in the regions that we -- that you are, a temporarily softer demand for the Cutters. I see that coming back towards rather the end of the year. We have also used the periods to do some heavy maintenance on some of the very large Cutters, which usually contribute more. And then the same on the Hoppers. On the Hoppers, of course, you saw from memory, 19 weeks versus 22 weeks. I see an ongoing quite typical second half -- or I expect a quite typical second half of the year there, yes.

Yes. Thank you, Luc. Thank you also for the questions. And we move on back to a question online from Thijs Berkelder. Thijs, welcome again and the floor is yours.

Yes. I want to come back on the initial question by David on your 2026 expectations. As David indeed mentioned, you previously expected 2026 turnover and margins to be roughly equal to 2024. Of course, that was still before Havfram. But on margins, is it logical and normal to expect margins in '26 to be at '24 levels? Or is that the other option is the 20% for now the more logical direction? Then related to that, how should we account for Havfram in '26 your PPA accounting? How will it roughly look like? Because I don't think -- many have, let's say, models already in a PPA accounting style.

And finally, a small question. I'm reading in the half year report now that you're about to sell your stake in the Blankenburg Tunnel. What kind of book profit could that give? And is that already included in your guidance?

Okay. So that's a couple of questions. Let's take them one by one. So the first question was about the EBITDA margins going forward, EBITDA margin bracket. I don't know, Stijn or Luc?

I think with your question, Thijs, you're asking me for a specific guidance on 2026. I think what I can say is that, first of all, I mentioned it a couple of times, I do not see a big concern in the order book. I see a healthy tendering activity for the period and beyond. That's my first take on it. Secondly, the order book that we have, including for '26 that we have been securing that over the past period, which has, to my opinion, healthy margins.

So I think based on that, I think we can only reiterate our guidance for this year and point you again to my general remarks for next year. And of course, the Havfram integration will slightly, in general, change a little bit the margin profile. But we have a preference, as I say, on -- because of the general situation, not to have a more concrete outlook on 2026 at this stage.

Yes. Thank you. Luc, I think I perhaps missed the second question, the last one.

How should we look at the PPA?

The Havfram accounting.

Well, we've made, of course, a significant progress already on finalizing the PPA case that is looking at the value of the order book, looking at the vessels and potential, if any, goodwill. Of course, the vessels are still being finalized and completed. And as we always do within DEME, we still keep looking if we can still find some benefits or maybe additions to be done. And that's the reason why we have not yet finalized that exercise.

So as mentioned, it's a bit difficult to give you really specific ideas on the values of the vessels. But for sure, by end of the year, also with the wrapping up then of the building of the vessels, we will be in a good position to give a very clear and decisive indication on that.

On your last question on the sale of Blankenburg, indeed, it has been mentioned as assets held for sale, which we need to do if that is foreseen within a period of 12 months. Yes, not really able to give you a specific figure, but it's not going to be a figure that will give a substantial impact on the overall figures of DEME, certainly not. I hope that gives a bit an answer to your question.

[Indiscernible] the guidance?

No, no, no.

So Thijs, I think with that, we answered your questions. Okay. Thank you. And I don't see any more questions in the queue. So I think we have reached the conclusion of our earnings call. If you happen to have further questions or wish to provide feedback, you know where to find me. And against the backdrop of our financial calendar, I'm going to display this one on slide, just a minute, on one of the last slides of the presentation.

I'd like to thank you all for your participation. And Stijn and Luc also for your insightful presentation and for addressing all these questions. We look forward to meeting many of you during our roadshows and conferences in the coming weeks. And for now, thanks again, and have a great day. You may now disconnect.