Engie SA Aktie

Thank you for holding, and welcome to AMG's First Quarter 2026 Financial Information Presentation. For your information, this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. I will now hand you over to Mr. Delphine Deshayes, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome you to Engie's Q1 conference call. Shortly, Catherine and Pierre-Francois will present our first quarter performance, following which we will open the lines to Q&A. And with my polite request of limiting your questions to one or two only, please. And with that, over to Catherine.

Thank you, Delphine, and good morning, everyone. Engie has started 2026 as it ended 2025 in fast forward mode. Especially as we have just closed an hour ago the acquisition of U.K. power networks, which is allowing us to transform are scale in the critical and growing power grid sector. We have also entered into negotiations towards a full transfer of our nuclear assets and liabilities to the Belgian government. If this process is successful, the Belgian government will be taking responsibility for its countries, long-term nuclear future, and Engie will have no remaining nuclear operations there.

In terms of results, I can report a solid Q1 EBIT, indeed, slightly below the 2025 level that was benefiting from various tailwinds. The group continues to perform well with strong momentum in renewables and [ BEST ] and relentless rollout of our performance plan. Of course, the conflict in the Middle East has taken up much of our focus. Over all, I am pleased and relieved that steps that are staff in the region are safe. And, of course, very grateful for the professionalism of our teams who have done a fantastic job in managing to keep critical energy and water assets operational under difficult circumstances with limited business impact.

We are, of course, very closely monitoring what is a highly fluid situation. As things stand when it comes to the energy markets, we are observing disruption mainly to oil, oil products and LNG supply. LNG represents about 6% of gas transport volumes around 1/5 of those volumes are transported through the strength of our moves. This has so far allowed the gas market beyond Asia to demonstrate some degree of resiliency, helped somewhat by new LNG capacity. In terms of power prices, we can see that those countries that have most heavily invested in renewables and nuclear are experiencing the least sensitivity to the current disruption such as France and Spain.

This, in our mind, fully justified the case for electrification through the combination of renewables flexibility via storage and molecules and grid strengthening. This is not the same type of energy crisis as 2022, and Engie is a completely different company with a different and more robust business model. We have built a diverse gas sourcing portfolio and we've shorted exposure to open market power prices. Indeed, our only significant European exposure is in France where gas prices have less influence on the power price. So although we're certainly not going to benefit from the high volatility levels of 2022, our earnings are far more resilient based on more solid foundations.

And as a result, filed sensitive to geopolitics. I mentioned in our February presentation that energy is at the top of country's agenda. By now, it should, if anything, the even more paramount. Security of energy for national government and affordability for end users of energy at customers. We have recently seen more demand for fixed offers in B2C, while in B2B small- and medium-sized customers, the trend towards longer-term contracts have been established for some time. Ample land resources and connection have become indispensable for supplying the required additional power to renew demand. It's highly a coincidence that tics is such a center of data center development.

I strongly believe that having quality physical assets, attractively located matters more than ever in today's energy word. And with our renewable and flexible generation portfolio of around 100 gigawatt of capacity, our EUR 47 billion of rabequivalent in networks, 28% of which is power related, we have a fantastic presence in the physical asset world. This is crucially complemented by our 500 gigawatt hours of energy sales and our unrivaled energy market expertise to partner with our customers in meeting the challenges ahead.

Moving on to this next slide, an excellent illustration of energy security being top of government agenda comes with the opening of discussions to transfer our Belgian nuclear assets to the Belgian government. We have signed a letter of intent covering the full scope of our nuclear activities in Belgium, i.e., the 7 reactors as well as all associated assets and liabilities, including decommissioning and dismantling obligations. The latest stipulates that the transaction should not unduly affect our overall financial position, neither adversely nor positively. This margin works are being suspended obviously, from those critical elements that require constant attention. The aim is to conclude head of terms by the start of October this year. This is the start of what will be a complex project and negotiation.

In the meantime, our teams remain focused on continuing safe and efficient operations. and on advancing the planned SEO work programs. Turning to this next slide, some headline numbers. EBIT, excluding Nuclear was down 7% organically at EUR 3.4 billion compared to the high Q1 2025. Performance improvement amounted to EUR 120 million, up strongly from last year and well on track with our '26 to '28 targets of EUR 0.81 billion Economic net debt fell mainly to the capital increase of late February, which will fund the part of the U.K. Power Networks acquisitions, ending the quarter at EUR 41 billion equivalent to 2.9x EBITDA, well below our tailing of 4x.

With a strong start and despite the turbulent geopolitical context, I can confidently confirm our guidance for the full year with net recurring income group share between EUR 4.6 billion and EUR 5.2 billion. Very pleased to report indeed the completion of our acquisition of UK Power Networks, just an hour ago, having raised through an advanced building at the end of February and a further EUR 2.1 billion to hybrids in mid FO. We have now completed the acquisition 2 months ahead of schedule and less than 10 weeks since we first announced it. U.K. powered networks will be fully consolidated as of May, and we expect it to contribute a range of EUR 600 million to EUR 800 million to 2026 EBIT.

I am delighted that [indiscernible] is 6,500 colleagues are now part of our group and we are thoroughly looking forward to a long and fruitful collaboration in the years to come. We've also achieved further expansion in our Latin America power network business organically via the award of 143-kilometer transmission line project in Brazil and by acquisition of 122 kilometers of lines in Peru. Truly, we can say that we have achieved our aim of being a key player in the critical infrastructure activity of power networks, which now accounts for over a culture of our network regulated asset base and 1/3 of our network EBIT over the full year.

With all the focus on networks and nuclear, I want to emphasize that momentum remains strong in renewal and best backed by a robust and balanced pipeline of projects, unchanged targets to 2030 and labor light focus on execution. Over the first quarter, we added renewables and best capacity in India, in Chile, in Italy and in France, taking a total to 5.7 gigawatts. We signed a PPA for a 900-megawatt onshore wind farm in Egypt, our largest yet. And in Brazil, our largest solar farm as we saw, which full commercial operation. At the end of Q1, we had 6.6 gigawatts under construction with 93 ongoing projects and continuing a track record of very efficient execution.

Turning now on beds. The U.S. and Chile have tended to dominate attention with over 90% of our 4.7 gigawatt capacity at the end of last year, but in early 2026, we are making strides in Europe. In particular, we started construction of our first best unit in France at 110 megawatts, and we are acquiring two stand-alone projects in Southern Spain, to selling 278 megawatts of capacity. With this new project and 700 megawatts already in operation or under construction, we have achieved a milestone of 1 gigawatt of best capacity in Europe. So Engie on fast forward in a rapidly changing energy work. And now I will pass it over to Pierre-Francois.

Thank you very much, Catherine, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm very pleased to present our financial results for the first quarter excluding reached EUR 3.4 billion, down 7% year-on-year organically. Cash generation remained solid with CFF at EUR 3 billion. And economic net debt decreased by EUR 4 billion, including, of course, the impact of the EUR 3 billion capital increase that was completed early March. Our leverage is bottoming, with economic net debt to EBITDA down to 2.9 in compared to 3.1% in December 25. With that, the balance sheet is fully prepared to cope with the acquisition of U.K. Power Networks. Overall, this good start of the year allows us to confirm confidently of 2026 guidance despite all the uncertainties in the current market.

Let me now walk you through the evolution of EBIT first and EBIT extent amounts to EUR 3.4 billion. down versus a high comparison base that benefited from high in spark spreads in France and also positive timing effect on B2B activities in Q1 '25 for about EUR 200 million. The key takeaway is the strength of our business execution, which cushioned the impact of external headwinds. In more detail, ForEx and scope had a minus EUR 75 million effect with negative impact from the U.S. dollar and the disposals of several cash generation assets in AMEA. Further external headwinds affected our organic performance, price and volatility. First, accounted for minus EUR 393 million with expected market normalization. Two activities are mostly impacted FlexPower and energy management.

I will provide more color on that in the next slide. Volumes had a negative impact of about EUR 200 million, driven mainly by miter climate conditions weighing on our midstream and downstream activities. These effects were partly offset by the effective execution of our operational levels. First, commissioning, contributing EUR 102 million. This reflects disciplined investment execution with new renewable capacity coming on stream, additional regulated assets entering the network regulated asset base and for projects in Brazil. Second, our performance plan delivered EUR 120 million with solid execution across all businesses. Lastly, other items contributed EUR 135 million was a positive one-off on a settlement related to gas contracts in Q1 '26 for a net impact a bit more of EUR 100 million.

Nuclear is down EUR 295 million as expected with a further phaseout of units in Belgium and lower power prices in France. All in all, quite a resilient Q1. Let's move on to EBIT evolution by reporting segments and starting with Renewable and FlexPower. EBIT declined year-on-year, reflecting disposals of cash generation assets in A and the negative ForEx impact on U.S. dollar. Cash generation EBIT was impacted in Europe by the expected pricing normalization with lower capture spreads, notably in France and in Peru, with the unplanned outage of a third-party gas pipeline beginning of March.

Payables and Best delivered a resilient performance posting a slightly positive organic growth despite the lower capture prices in Europe. These ones have been more than offset first, by the decrease of the hydro tax in France, but more importantly, by the contribution of newly commissioned assets by a solid operational execution and by favorable pricing effects in Latin America. Turning to infrastructure. EBIT increased slightly year-on-year. Networks benefited from tariff increases in Europe implemented after Q1 '25 and from our performance plan largely offset by warmer temperatures in France.

Local energy infrastructures delivered strong growth, driven by the continued development of dissecting and cooling networks, and also operational performance despite an unfavorable weather effect. Finally, in Supply & Energy Management, EBIT declined as expected compared to last year's high base. B2C activities have performed well, supported by effective portfolio management and strong operational execution, partly offset by mid weather and slightly lower commercial margins. This performance should be read in the context of the strong seasonality of our B2C activities with close to 70% of full year EBIT typically generated in Q1 a limited contribution in Q2 and Q3 and the remaining balance being delivered in Q4.

B2B activities were impacted by less pronounced timing effect than and the gradual normalization of margins on contracts, which were locked during the tenant crisis. Commercial momentum remained solid. Finally, after energy management, electricity market conditions have remained challenging, both in Europe and in the U.S. with limited opportunities to capture value from but the business was supported by strong performance in gas activities on top of the settlement I previously mentioned and gas contracts. Overall, the segmental evolution illustrates solid operational execution across the group alongside the market normalization in Q1.

We are now in a good shape to deliver growth over the coming quarters. Turning to cash generation. CFFO reached 3 billion, a EUR 1 billion decrease versus Q1 '25, reflecting lower EBITDA. Within working cap, inventories raised on cash flow due to lower withdraws on gas storage as a result of miler weather, offset by lower operating working capital requirements linked to lower power prices and also the warm weather. One point which is worth to mention, margin costs had only a limited impact on CFFO this quarter despite significant market movements in March.

Indeed, since 2022, we have significantly centered our framework with tighter controls, anticipation mechanism and active management, allowing us to contain volatility-driven effects on our cash flow. Overall, changes in working cap were broadly stable and cash flow generation is in line with expectations. Economic net debt decreased from fourth 4.2 billion at end December '25 to EUR 41.2 billion at the end of March '26. Looking at the bridge, you can easily see the EUR 3 billion impact from CFFO and the same from the capital increase well above the EUR 1.3 billion CapEx. Other movements include ForEx effects on net debt, notably the impact of the Brazilian real. As a result, leverage ratios improved, with net financial debt to EBITDA at 2.5 and economic net debt to EBITDA at 2.9%.

This reflects a temporary reduction of thesis will, of course, increase upon the completion of the U.K. Power Networks acquisition. So as of today. Overall, Engie continues to benefit from a solid and well-managed balance sheet, preserving a strong investment grade credit profile, which remains a key pillar of our financial strategy. A few words now on new [indiscernible] networks. We just closed the acquisition this morning, and the financing has also progressed well over the last couple of months with the derisking of a significant part of the funding plan.

The EUR 3 billion capital increase was successfully completed on February '27, with 107 million new shares issued at EUR 28 per share. We also completed the hybrid issuance on for EUR 2.1 billion equivalent across 3 tranches, further reinforcing our credit metrics and financial flexibility. You have the details of each tranche indicated on the slide. It is fair to say that the bulk of the execution risk on the capital markets part of the deal is now behind us. As a reminder, the rest of the equity check is covered by committed bridge loans. These loans will be repaid in the next couple of years through debt refinancing and disposal of assets.

With regard to the latter, we are initiating all key processes on top of ongoing projects related to normal portfolio management. We prioritize valuation as we have no pressure on timing, not to mention the material flexibility provided by the uncommitted part of our global CapEx plan. We expect U.K. power network to start to contribute from May with EUR 0.9 billion to EUR 1.1 billion of EBITDA and EUR 0.6 billion to EUR 0.8 billion of which are, of course, included in our full year 2016 guidance. These ranges reflect remaining uncertainties, notably around elements such as purchase price allocation and the fact that we are just closing today, which means that some detailed information was not fully available so far.

Finally, looking at the broader funding equation for '26, disposals are expected to remain modest in the range of our usual disposal contribution and should be assessed alongside a lower CapEx profile this year than the EUR 12 billion annual average guidance of EUR 22 million excluding, of course, the acquisition itself. This mainly reflects the fact that U.K. peer networks will contribute for only 8 months as well as a slow start in investments in renewable and bath. In the context of time marked by geopolitical, regulatory and market uncertainties, we are confidently confirming our full year 2016 guidance with EBITDA excluding UC in the range of EUR 1.8 billion to EUR 14.8 billion, EBIT excluding NUC between EUR 8.7 million, EUR 9.7 billion, and net recurring income between EUR 4.6 billion and EUR 5.2 billion.

And this exposure to the current Middle East situation remains limited, reflecting the group's derisking strategy with market sensitivity now materially lower, albeit we have been able to capture incremental upside with our power outright hedging policies, no material upside nor any downside should be expected from the current situation. Despite the uncertainties of the impact of the crisis on the economy and on our customers and on the fiscal environment the good start of the year across our operation and the early closing of U.K. Power Networks acquisition give us a clear line of sight to another year of strong delivery.

We continue to be fully committed to maintaining the strong investment-grade credit rating with the firm a long-term objective of keeping our comic net debt-to-EBITDA at or below 4x. The ratio will temporarily go above 4% in '26 because of U.K. power networks that will only contribute to 8 months of EBITDA. It will immediately reduce below 4 in '27. The dividend policy remains unchanged.

With that, I will now hand over to Catherine for the conclusion.

Thank you, Pierre-Francois. So indeed, we delivered a robust first quarter, both financially and operationally. We completed -- we announced and now completed the transformative acquisition of UK Power Networks, boosting our infrastructure DBU into a second pillar of growth to accompany the established momentum in renewable and best. We've entered into negotiation with the begin government towards a complete exit from nuclear in the country. And we are moving forward rapidly towards the ideal business mix and operational dynamism to adapt to this highly unpredictable environment and provide our customers and shareholders with reliable, robust and efficient energy and returns over the remainder of 2016 and beyond.

Now back to Delphine for the Q&A.

Thank you, Catherine. Operator, can you please open the Q&A session and remind our participants how the process for asking questions, please.

[Operator Instructions]. First question comes from Ajay Patel of Goldman Sachs.

My question is around the nuclear discussions. Is there any more granularity you can give in terms of just what's under discussion. So it's the -- you have the back end the financing and nuclear facilities I kind of understand that. But just something on the asset side, are there any particular assets that are in scope over and beyond the nuclear assets that you have? Just trying to get a sense of what the earnings implication of such a transfer or I know it's very early stages, but even just getting a sense of what's in the discussion would help just with some calculations.

Okay. And maybe, Ajay, I think it may be worth also giving a little bit of the context to this negotiation. Because really, the whole world is putting energy security in the forefront of the agenda. And we've always thought that Engie that nuclear is much more of a sovereign matter than a private company. And I think with this circumstances, the government of Belgium and Engie are pretty much aligned on this, let's say, assessment. And while we've been at Engie very constructively focused on the implementation of the agreement that was signed last year, the so-called [ Fenics ] agreement.

As you know, we've been focused on the work, the LTO, the restart last year, now you're back to work, by the way, our 2 clients have been delivering 100% in availability, which is quite amazing. Now they are going and they are undergoing further work. So we've been very focused on that. The new government has been actually very constructive as well, allowing the closing of the agreement that they had not been negotiating because there was a change in government in the middle. But a very focused supportive by asking us though is there a chance that we could extend the 2 plants further beyond 10 years.

Also asking us questions about could there be further expansion beyond the 2 plants that you guys are working on these discussions were in the background, where frankly, the new -- the current government is establishing itself as wanting to put the nuclear future on Belgium into the future. And I would say for us, looking at existing plants, expansion was often not making economic rationality, which is why we were a little bit in a difficult spot when it came to expanding the older nuclear plants which is giving you a little bit of the context of the transfer. And that request came from the Belgium government.

And I have to say it was a little bit of a surprise because we didn't think that the government would engage in such a complex project. But the discussions, frankly, have been moving at pace. We have been able to sign this LOI. The scope clearly is the 7 nuclear reactors. So as you know, 5 of them have started dismantling some of them have just been stopped. And [indiscernible], of course, 2 are being worked on in the context of the LTO. This is the scope. By the way, very important to note as well that the CPN has obviously acknowledged that the industrial situation or the industrial scenarios that are different from what they were before since they were looking at a dismantling provision with this Phoenix agreement in mind.

And so they are now suspending their work and looking at the new industrial scenario. So the revision of provision that we were waiting is going to be delayed until the scenarios that are restabilized. That's the context very -- that's the context I wanted to share with you on the situation in U.K. The scope is indeed the 7 reactors. And as you say, it's early on the LOI has established a few key principles. That I've reminded in my script, which obviously will be more detailed in the coming weeks, coming months with established a project team and the aim is to sign a heads of agreement by October 1. So moving on swiftly on what is going to be a rich negotiation with the Belgium government.

Maybe a couple of words on the earnings impact since you asked the question, I think that you got the message that the idea of [indiscernible] it should have a neutral finance impact. What does that mean in our view is that the transfer should be done close to the net book value of the assets as of end of '25, that's what we would see as neutral, which would entail an earnings for the one-off earnings would be insignificant. So you should not expect a significant capital gain or significant capital loss.

Going forward, there would be -- would be losing the contribution of the LTO and everything which is related to that. But that contribution was actually minimum in the guidance that we shared because you may remember that it is a flexible LTO, which means that the work is done over 3 or 4 years. with significant downtime 6 months downtime per year, which means that the contribution in the first 3 years was actually very low. So it's immaterial in the guidance and will not change anything in our numbers going forward.

And maybe worth also to complement that Belgium would remain a very important country for we have around 6 gig of generation in the country. [indiscernible]. We have home storage assets with [indiscernible]. We have some renewables. We obviously have [indiscernible]. We just put in line. And last year, we have similar assets. So obviously, these are not in the scope of the discussion. We are really, really talking about nuclear activities.

The next question is from Arthur Sitbon of Morgan Stanley.

The first one is actually a follow-up on the Belgian nuclear letter of intent. I imagine if you reach a final agreement, I imagine this will lead to the removal of restrictions on the nonnuclear European assets of [indiscernible]. Well, I was wondering, first, if you could confirm that. And if that's correct, if that could ultimately lead to a lower tax rate for Engie Group, the same way that it did when the restrictions were removed on the non-European assets of of [indiscernible] or maybe all the work on tax efficiency has already been done.

So any color on that would be helpful. And the second question is about your guidance assumption, it seems a few assumptions of guidance at EBIT level, have changed a little bit and have a little bit improved since the full year results. But you haven't changed your guidance at EBIT level. So I was wondering if you didn't change it, but are you maybe a little bit more comfortable than before with it? And I see it didn't change at net income level because of net financial result being slightly worse than expected. I was wondering if you could explain the moving parts here.

Yes. At -- so it is clear that when we set all assets and liabilities, it does mean that it would be the end of the security package. So no more guarantees from Engie, and that's both the conditions for us to enter in such a year and a condition that is understood by the other party. And maybe you want to comment on tax rate.

Yes, we don't expect a further change in assumption on tax rate that would not trigger any further efficiency. And on the guidance, yes, we are confident with our guidance. We mentioned that. I think that still you have uncertainties around -- and our guidance is coping for these uncertainties, especially any change in regulation, tax or fiscal environment in various countries that we are working on. We need to be careful, and that's why we stick to our guidance.

The next question is from Harry Wyburd of BNP Pariba.

[indiscernible] here. So could you just clarify what the value of the provisions and backing assets that would be in scope because I know there's a very good disclosure in your annual report, but I just wanted to be fully clear in billions, how much liabilities and assets would be transferred as part of this deal? And then presumably, it would be the same as the last I mean that those liabilities would just turn into sort of a debt liability. If you could just help us a bit with the numbers on that. And then more widely on nuclear, you still got the French drawing rights.

So you sort of pretty much out of our meta from the French doing like, does the join rights have any role in your portfolio, I guess, contribute a bit of power price out of power price exposure. So is there a sort of -- is that -- is it rational to hold on for those? Will you completely at [indiscernible], I guess have cited nuclear and renewables as a kind of sort of magic mix. I guess, the produced flat power prices in Spain and France. Would you rule out ever looking at [indiscernible], I mean I get what you say the sovereign point. But if you look at bench they've done uniquely under wrap model, which at least from my perspective is a pretty attractive way of doing it. So would you ever look at net at all? Or is this sort of energy saying that we're going to focus on renewables and that.

Look, in terms of maybe -- starting with your last question, we do think that the risk associated with nuclear and of course, we have a first-hand experience of that is indeed more suited to a national actor than a private company. That goes true for us as far as we are concerned for a while. Maybe in the future when nuclear technology will allow to have a much more manageable rate or projects which people have better control and execution it could change. But in the short to midterm, I don't see us doing nuclear again, certainly not in an investment point of view. And that we really have a fantastic opportunity sets with renewable with battery and also now with our second leg of powered network.

So we think we have enough great opportunities to go after and that nuclear is not for Engie at least in a short to midterm. And I don't see that changing anytime soon. I think we also have to think about economic rationality. Again, what we're trying to do as MD utility to develop projects that makes sense from an economic standpoint. And we do think that renewables, especially with the development in batteries, the cost of batteries and that technology curve is still moving. And so we think we can do a lot with the right mix of assets both renewables, batteries and some of our, obviously, gas thermal plants that we have a good enough portfolio to provide both baseload or as consume profile, which is what our customers need while remaining low carbon.

Yes. And Harry, maybe to give you some data points. So if you take the numbers at the end of '25, when it comes to Belgium only, the provisions are about EUR 8.6 billion at the liability side. And on the face of that, we have assets in [indiscernible] which is our subsidiary in charge of managing the asset of EUR 5.6 billion. And then there is a few hundred million of cash also, which is available. So that would be -- that gives you an idea of, say, about EUR 3 billion of funding of provision.

Of course, in the rationale of the transaction, Engie is liable to fund the provision that goes without saying and we would transfer the assets with the liabilities that are recorded. And of course, we are not getting away from that. Now you know that today in the law, you have a provision that allows to fund that up to 2030, we'll have to discuss that will be part of the discussion. When is it that we fund this that we will be, of course, accountable to fund it. On the drawing on the factoring right, I think that you need also to give a bit of time to the discussion.

As Catherine mentioned, the government is willing to take over the nuclear activities and their ask is to come with a stand-alone business that can work -- so there are some scope discussions that we need to finalize with them. And I think that it is true for several assets that we need to look at. I would not comment further on that. But anything which is transferred will come, of course, with the value.

That's what I understand that is the drawing rate could possibly be part of the package in which case you'll residual European power exposure would just basically be right?

That's your judgment.

Next question is from Wanda Serwinowska of UBS.

Two questions for me. The first one is on the U.K. Power Networks deal, which was closed today and congratulations for closing 2 months ahead of the target. Can you -- can you disclose the net debt that you're acquiring? Because I think the deal was under the lockbox transaction. So can you just disclose the total debt or net debt figure that is going into your balance sheet? And the second question is about the trading environment. In the press release, you talked about more challenging conditions in the electricity market. You also said that the impact from Miosis remitted on activities. Can you just explain what makes this volatility different from '22, '23, why Engie is not printing hundreds of millions of euros on trading that will be appreciated.

On the U.K. Power Networks net debt, you should account for about EUR 119 billion that is the equity check plus the debt in the target. I think that's a fair item. On trading, the situation, as you know, is very different from the one in '22. In '22, we had a gas crisis in Europe with about 40% of gas coming to Europe, at least. And at the same time, we had a major downtime in MDF production in nuclear. So we had both gas stimulation and a power shortage that explain why we've seen a massive volatility and also spikes in prices, which were very high for the gas-only level well above 100.

And even they came, you remember maybe 2 above 300 in pets. We have today a crisis, which is a neocrisis worldwide, and the gas impact is much lower. I mean, we have shared already that at the end of the day, it's only 3% of the gas in the world, which is at stake due to the limited share of LNG today. So you don't have at all the same market conditions. That's very important to understand. That's the first point. The second point is that our profile today is very different I mean we have been derisking. We have been decreasing our merchant exposure. This is the part of our story. And of course, it means also that we lose some upside because our merchant position on outright power, for example, is much lower than it was a few years ago, if you take on the bar side with the nuclear phaseout.

But if you look at trading only, the price is different, not the same volatility at all, pretty stable in power, it's only gas and on gas or much lower. And it's also fair to say and we mentioned that in the past, that in 2022, we have massive optionalities embedded in our long-term contracts. We have less of that, in particular -- we do not have the Gazprom contract active anymore. So we have also less upside to get from these optionalities. And you have also noted finally, and the market is not fragmented and the geographical spread are not at all the same that what we had seen. So that's why we say no material upside expected, certainly the downside, given the current profile of the company and also the current profile of the crisis.

Would you be also able to disclose the RAP of U.K. power networks as of the closing date?

As of the closing debt, I don't know. I mean we have only estimate, I would say, anywhere between 9 million and 10 million of goods.

The next question is from James Brand of Deutsche Bank.

A couple of questions from me. The first one is also on the Belgium [indiscernible], and you've obviously covered a lot of ground and been asked a lot of questions on that already. But I was just interested, there was obviously this report earlier this year that your provisions could be increased by, I think it was GBP 3 billion. And I was just wondering kind of what the status was on that. I know that was only a kind of initial estimate or [indiscernible] consultation of some kind. But is that review due to conclude soon? Or has that also been put on hold as part of this new negotiation process? That's the first question.

And then secondly, I don't know whether I missed I missed your commenting on it, but I thought it was interesting. You haven't commented at all in data centers in the presentation, which is obviously kind of high focus for the market at the moment. What are you -- what are you seeing there? Are you still seeing that there's very high levels of interest? Or are things kind of slowing down a bit?

All right. So in terms of the provisions and indeed, there has been a report at the end of last year, stating that overnight cost for this margin should increase by GBP 3 billion from the [indiscernible] point of view. This is not provision. This is overnight cost. So if that has been translated into provisions, it would be less, but still it was a significant increase.

And indeed, what is happening now with this new deal on the table under negotiation is that the CPA has suspended its work reflecting the fact that there was a new industrial scenario on the table and they would resume their estimation or their report or their study. Once the new industrial scenario is stabilized. So that's obviously, part of the conditions for us to be able to enter in this negotiation is to recognize the fact that there is going to be potentially a new industrial reality, especially as we are spending the demanding operations in an orderly manner, and we don't just drop everything in mind, but we are managing the fact that the government is asking us to pause the dismanting operation to give the time for the process of transfer to progress and potentially to be completed in the weeks, months to come.

So that's the situation, James, on the provision. On data centers, data centers, we continue to see, frankly, a very buoyant environment. I mean, you've heard the hyperscaler last week publishing their numbers of CapEx. It's just actually record high again announcements. That is translating into a significant power demand and power land specifically. We see that in our projects. As you know, we've established very structural approach to that with an objective of 3 to 4 gigawatt of cost-siding specifically where we would be providing power land, supply agreement, energy management, services and PTA and combination of all these. So we see that moving ahead. Obviously, there are a little bit of noise. There is a little bit of noise around acceptability of data center Also, connection is a big topic and load permits, et cetera. So that's obviously some of the constraints that these guys are facing.

But we are moving ahead with the pipeline as I have discussed with you back in February. We have a number of opportunities. Some of them, they take time because of what I've just mentioned, there is some hurdles around connections, acceptability, permitting, et cetera. But the appetite is very, very strong. And we see both appetites in the U.S. but also in Europe, and we're using our physical assets that I mentioned and highlighted in both places, indeed to try and accelerate some of these developments. So U.S. and Europe are being concerned. We also have some opportunities potentially in Latin America. Different scale, we have a small, medium scale 300 megawatts up to 1 gigawatt type of campus size opportunities.

And obviously, in the U.S., it's much more focused for us on renewables assets, while in Europe, we are benefiting also from a legacy asset base using the thermal specifically on turmoil footprint?

Can I just ask a quick follow-up on the provision point then that's a super-interesting answer. If the plan of the government -- Belgian government is to try and bring some of the units back. Is that an opportunity then potentially to get the level of provisions reduced? And is that potentially the big price from this deal? Or maybe a special to comment on that.

No. But I think that, of course, there will be the assumption of the Belgian government that they will change the profile. And if they do that, it probably because they believe they can do something different. For sure, we are not going to benefit or we should not be penalized on that. Today, we have a plan and the idea that we would transfer the provision, I think, in line with the existing plant. So -- and that's the same idea. So I think we should not speculate on the potential changes of the plan and then therefore, potential changes of provision because that would be with a different ownership.

I think maybe just on the Belgium topic. I think what is very important is what is -- what's the need for Engie. And what if we manage to get this process through the finish line, what that would mean is that we would be fully derisked from the Belgium nuclear operation. And that's important. Why is it important? Because you see that governments can change their mind on a matter that has a lot of impact on a private operator. whether it comes to dis managing scenario, whether it comes to what reactor, you want to expand, you can extend, et cetera.

So obviously, even though we personally were very, very pleased with Phenix and really having divested the net operations significantly with the JV, with the CFD with a waste management liability that has been transferred last year we still have some remaining exposure to political change of mind in terms of energy policy. And so from that standpoint, we see this deal if we manage to put it to the finish line. We see this deal as friendly very positive for.

And the point here is that we are not trying to be smart or get a good bargain. We are keeping a big business in Belgium that we want to protect, Super important. We keep a good relationship. We just want to be fair. And I think the transfer will be fair, and we like the approach. I said no advantage, no disadvantage. I think this is the right thing to do. Clearly, not again the bargain for NG or being smart, but just being fair in the transfer.

With a very constructive counterpart in a counterparty that acknowledge the fact that for us, changes of trajectory is indeed a big disruption. And therefore, constructive and alignment, I think, on the respective interest to bring this project to finish line.

Next question is from Alex Roncier of Bank of America.

Thanks for the question. The first one, please, would be on gas network. I think on your CapEx plan across the strategic plan, you had a budget of around 3 billion for CapEx in gas network in 2028 compared to around 2 billion. So I was wondering a couple of things. One, if that setup was from 2026 onwards or if there was a gradual phasing Two, why or where are you spending more in gas network; and three, what kind of remuneration or returns should we expect on that extra EUR 1 billion of CapEx in gas network.

The second question, please, on just I'm coming back and a little bit of a follow-up on Energy Management and trading and the form of Gen. I think you have a soft guidance for 26 of around EUR 1.5 billion with in B2B. So wanted first to confirm those numbers, that implies EUR 600 million for energy management, which means the business should be broadly flat year-over-year. And on my follow-up is on your comments about the conditions today being very different than in 2022.

But if I come back to 2025, I think you highlighted poor conditions for the business given geopolitical volatility. And I would argue that this has been actually higher this year than it has been in early 2025. So for this in mind, is that EUR 600 million actually not being slightly at risk perhaps from higher provision. And last, just a very quick 1 and a clarification on numbers. Could you perhaps quantify the impact from the one-offs in Peru? And it would seem [indiscernible] nuclear would have been flat or even growing on an organic basis if we exclude that one-off and perhaps the timing in B2B as well.

That's a lot of questions. You're doing extremely well to taking a lot of questions on -- so I will try to be short on the various topics. So first, on gas network, well spotted indeed, and we have a bit more CapEx expected on the trajectory, '26, '28. And this is linked to our gas transportation operation, mainly in France. So that means that would go into indeed, the regulatory asset base and binding the remuneration that you are used to see in that kind of business. It's not 100% share yet, but it is indeed a direction of travel, and part of it will come through that's for sure.

So we are working on it. So you may expect indeed a bit more than expected earlier. The EUR 1.5 billion on GM, I think at some point, we have to stop talking about GM, but I don't want to move away from that. Yes. I guess I guess it's fair to say that the energy management plus B2B in 2026. Should be a bit higher than that, indeed, given the strong performance of B2B, which is up for a good year. I mean, we are probably talking of a year which is probably above last year and need to be. And same should happen within Energy Management, be mindful that there are some pros like indeed a bit more volatility on gas that we can capture but there are also some negatives. I mentioned that the electricity market was not variant in the first quarter. Let's see how it unfolds in the following quarter. But yes, we are indeed, I think the 0.6% would be a low that's for share for EM. And then flex power. Now the Peru one-off is a negative it's about EUR 30 million that we had in Q1, it's not changing the overall direction.

The next question is from Luis Boujard of ODDO BHS.

Thank you for the presentation. Just maybe two questions on my side regarding firstly, the deal that you reached on the unwind and with the U.S. Department of exterior can may consider that indeed at this point in time, there is a number of risk embedded into these assets and into the offshore wind in the U.S. And on top of I would appreciate if you can comment eventually on the risk that you witnessed on the onshore in the U.S. and the onshore wind, if you think that still rising at the moment and how it could be tackled eventually in the future in our portfolio.

And maybe a second question regarding the network division. You've won some interesting concession, do you think that you are still in the front of you some opportunities to keep growing into the region and regarding the potential option into the network in Latin America and Italy [indiscernible].

Yes. So in terms of maybe renewable development in the U.S., we have obviously readjusted a view of the pace at which we would be putting some of these projects in service or developing them and putting them in service. particularly between technologies and we know wins and renew on that wind was going to be more complicated, including obviously, offshore wind, it was very clear. Onshore wind was a little bit more -- we were a bit more hopeful and there has been a little bit of discussions and publicities around the risk in wind permitting.

But so far, we have seen some projects and countering difficulties and others have actually received some positive notes. So it's not all stop. We're continuing our development we had integrated and included quite a bit of the preference of the administration or the -- just the more easy path for the solar and battery projects and our pipeline and our plans have been pretty much adjusted to reflect that. So that's on the onshore. So no further change of view basically based on those statements that were made I think last year. In terms of offshore, remember, we had 3 projects and the deal that we struck with the DOI concerns 2 of these 3 projects. We have not yet with a cost wind, which is the one in Massachusetts where we don't have a partner. That project has not been in scope of this agreement. So this is a project that we have actually out of this that was the more advanced where we have both lease and some development expenses that have been spent against that project and new partners.

So that's the situation on Ocean Wind. In terms of -- and you will give the remaining exposure Pierre-Francois on Ocean Wind in the U.S. And in terms of networks, I mean, continuous optimistic on the views of our ability to develop organically in Latin America and network principally in Latin America, Brazil, Chile, Peru and the main focus when it comes to network opportunities, transmission and many organic.

Thank you. And indeed, Catherine. So the residual exposure, which is linked to [indiscernible], the deal will be completed, should be for Engie share around 150 million. So it will be indeed quite limited, but again, to be followed up. And I just want to come back on my previous question on James and [ Sam ] just in the sake of clarity. Because on the -- if you add up Engie Management and on B2B, which is today the way we look at James we would expect the full year to be more or less in line with last year. Remember that there was a big one-off in B2B last year in Q1. And of course, if you take that one-off out, then we are in a better place than we were last year. So I think that I just wanted to mention that.

Operator, we have time for very one last and only short question, please.

The final question is from Arnaud Palliez of CICC.

It's about the disposal program, the EUR 4 billion disposal program. I would like to have an update on the progress that are being made on these disposals. And out there also take into account into -- in your guidance for 2026..

Thank you very much. So on the disposal program, we are in 2026, we should be delivering a wind in my mic, sorry about that. but we should be delivering a year, which is more in line with the usual run rate that we have because the more significant part of disposal has been on this figure -- at the time, we had a security and the execution of the acquisition. So for 2026, you should be in the usual range using to 1,500.

Last year it was 1,400. There are areas which have been lower. It depends also on the cutter date and some closings. So we want to be a bit careful. You remember, we said on the disposal plan that there were 3 buckets: The first bucket is the continued pruning of our portfolio and the geographic refocus strategic alignment. And that's the one that you are going to see at work in 2026, again, in the usual range. And then there are two other buckets assets where we have minority stakes into businesses with limited influence and no path to control, but we probably are going to tap in there; And the second -- the third bucket is assets, which are highly capital intense, but for which we would welcome service sharing with a cheap cost of fund and trying to capture some minority partners.

And these two last buckets, whether it is our own minority stakes for us farming in minority partners, it is likely that they will peak in H2 '27 and H1 '28 as expected. Super important. We are value driven in our decision and execution. We don't need that over months. we have time and we want to maximize the value. So we'll be a bit picky and choosing. We have different IDs, and we will choose the ideas which are coming with a nice value. It's good to say that for the vast majority of the value of the asset, we have no impact of the crisis on the valuation. So it's very important that you realize that we are not at risk with the crisis.

And the second point, which is important to keep in mind is that we -- these assets for sale, there will be also -- there to support our financial trajectory. It is depending also on our ability to deploy capital. And we have flexibility, of course, again, in our CapEx. So really a value-driven approach, both in timing and selection of assets to execute limited impact. And the impact of the disposals are fully baked in the guidance either for '26 or even for 2028.

So this is the end of the Q&A session. Thank you for joining the call today. And of course, if you have any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to call the IR Team. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in the Engie call today. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.

So good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to welcome you to ENGIE's 2025 Full Year Results and the medium-term outlook presentation. And of course, we'll have the pleasure to present in detail the acquisition of UKPN. We have two speakers today: our CEO, Catherine MacGregor; and our CFO, Pierre-Francois Riolacci.

A quick view of the agenda for this morning. In the first part, Catherine and Pierre-Francois will review our results and the main events of 2025. In the second part, Catherine will lead us through UKPN's acquisition and Pierre-Francois through the valuation and the financing of the transaction. Then Catherine will present our medium-term outlook, and Pierre-Francois, our capital allocation strategy before some concluding remarks from Catherine. Finally, there will be a Q&A session. We'll take questions from the floor and online.

With that, over to you, Catherine, for the review of 2025.

Thank you very much, Delphine. And good morning, everyone. I am super pleased to address you here from London in what are truly exciting times for ENGIE. We have a packed agenda for you this morning. So I'm going to get started, kicking off with a very brief summary of our 2025 results.

2025 proved another highly active year. We have continued to establish ourselves as a utility, we like this word, at ENGIE, which means that we are both derisked and growing, balanced both operationally and geographically, agile in seizing opportunities to have flexible and green power portfolio, a trusted partner and supporting our customers to achieve their decarbonization targets and on track to meeting this goal that we have to become the best energy transition utility.

Performance in 2025 were, in an unpredictable geopolitical, political environment and with normalizing energy prices, ENGIE was able to extend its track record of robust financial performance with 2025 net income at the top end of the guidance range. We moved a big step forward in renewables with record new capacity and big ticket projects around the world. We ranked once again as the global leader in corporate PPAs. And in Belgium, we entered both merchant nuclear production and our exposure to nuclear waste liabilities.

At our upcoming AGM on 29th of April, we will be proposing a dividend of EUR 1.35 per share, corresponding to a payout of 67% based on the current number of shares outstanding today.

Summary of our highlights number. EBIT excluding Nuclear was virtually flat at EUR 8.8 billion. Infrastructure was up significantly, driven by the positive impact of new tariffs in France and Europe as well as performance. Renewables and flexible generation was almost stable with the contribution from newly commissioned plants offsetting headwinds such as lower hydro volumes. Supply and Energy Management performed excellently on a commercial level but was negatively impacted as market conditions normalize.

And across our businesses, we have delivered on our performance goals, which we are very pleased with. Net recurring income group share amounted to EUR 4.9 billion versus EUR 5.5 billion in 2024. Cash flow from operations was up year-on-year to EUR 13.6 billion with substantial free cash flow from our networks and downstream activities. I'm really pleased with the resilience of our results, which show that our integrated model is able to deliver pretty much whatever the underlying conditions.

Moving on to the next slide. 2025 was also a record year for new renewables and BESS with over 6 gigawatts of additional capacity opened around the world. We commissioned 2.4 gigawatts in the U.S., and that was led by batteries as we successfully rolled out the pipeline that was taken on when we acquired BRP back in 2023, but we also added 1.6 gigawatts both in Europe and LATAM and 600 megawatts in AMEA.

A truly global and balanced footprint in terms of operational capacity, plants under construction and pipeline is a unique attribute and provides us with the optionality and the agility to react to or even to anticipate headwinds or tailwinds in particular countries. We raised our Renewable & BESS portfolio to 57 gigawatts by the end of 2025, at which time almost 8 gigawatts was under construction, continuing to execute on budget and very close to schedule. We maintained a leading position in PPAs, signing 4.8 gigawatt in 2025, of which 3.6 gigawatt of corporate clean PPAs.

2025 was a pivotal year for ENGIE in Belgium. When you look at 2025, we started the year with almost 4 gigawatts of consolidated nuclear capacity, selling output at open market prices, almost 3 gigawatts of gas-fired capacity at around 90% merchant and EUR 11 billion of waste management liabilities on our balance sheet. And we ended the year with quasi-regulated nuclear production at 2 extended reactors now co-owned with the Belgian government, no nuclear merchant output, no nuclear waste management liabilities, plus a new gas-fired plant at Flemalle and major new base units at Vilvoorde, both benefiting from capacity payment.

The 2 reactors were reconnected to the grid on or ahead of schedule and Vilvoorde was opened 2 months ahead. We have delivered and we stand ready to remain a strong contributor to the energy system in Belgium for years to come.

With that, I'm going to hand it over to Pierre-Francois, who will summarize our 2025 financial performance.

Thank you very much, Catherine, and thank you for those joining us here physically, also in the webcast in a quite eventful release, of course. And 2025 was indeed a pivotal year for Belgium in ENGIE. But it is also pivotal for EBIT, EBIT excluding Nuc that starts growing again after more than 2 years of energy market normalization and with very strong cash generation. So EBIT excluding Nuc reached EUR 8.8 billion, which is a 2% organic growth, supported by a strong second half performance as expected, while net recurring income group share was EUR 4.9 billion, reaching the top end of our guidance.

Turning to cash. We delivered cash flow from operations of EUR 13.6 billion, which is up EUR 0.6 billion compared to last year. That is a total of EUR 40 billion of CFFO generated over the last 3 years, which highlights the quality of earnings. CapEx decreased compared to last year due to some slowdown in the U.S. and as we have been also raising ourselves for the announcement of today.

Net financial debt is up, driven by the nuclear agreement in Belgium and, at the same time, economic net debt decreased by EUR 2.7 billion, benefiting from our strong cash generation and some lower investment level. Importantly, our leverage remains firmly low with economic net debt to EBITDA at 3.1, well below our 4 threshold, which offers meaningful headroom and which is supporting also a strong investment-grade credit profile.

Finally, as part of our commitment to attractive and sustainable shareholder returns, we will propose a dividend of EUR 1.35 per share to be paid in 2026. This proposal is aligned with our dividend framework and corresponds to a payout ratio of 67% based on the current number of shares outstanding to date. Payout is up from last year to soften the dividend decrease versus EPS. It is a clear and strong signal that the group is willing to step away from the minimum range when conditions are met. We believe this level is compatible with a sustainable dividend trajectory based on expected earnings growth.

Let's now turn to the EBIT evolution. EBIT excluding Nuc is broadly stable with some negatives and positive. On the negative side, ForEx and scope effects weighed, driven by the impact of the Brazilian real and the U.S. dollar as well as some portfolio rationalization. We also recorded a sizable negative impact from prices and volatility, notably within supply and energy management, with the normalization of energy markets. But those impacts were partly compensated by the tariff increases in networks. Volumes were down, impacting mostly Renewable & BESS with lower hydro and wind conditions in Europe.

These headwinds were, however, offset by the continued execution of our strategy. Commissioning contributed to EUR 507 million, reflecting the ramp-up of new assets across renewables, Networks and LEI, and this illustrates the strength of ENGIE's growth engines. Our performance program delivered an exceptional EUR 823 million driven by operational excellence and competitiveness initiatives across all GBUs. In that amount, we have fixed some legacy issues with underperforming assets for EUR 368 million.

In summary, despite the headwinds of market normalization and weaker volumes, ENGIE's investment-led growth, combined with strong performance delivery, has allowed us to maintain EBIT at a robust level.

Let's now turn to Renewable & Flex Power with a 3% organic growth. Scope and FX is a headwind with negative impact again from U.S. dollar and Brazilian real, combined with the coal exit and portfolio reshaping. Renewable & BESS delivered a 7% organic EBIT growth with momentum building in Q4. The uplift was driven first by our investments, contributing for EUR 395 million, a clear proof point of execution, quality and financial discipline.

We are hitting our development objectives with a large organic component, keeping execution tight and CapEx overruns below 1%. Performance added a bit more than EUR 100 million. These positives were partly offset by the normalization of volumes in Europe with hydrology returning to more typical levels after an exceptionally favorable situation last year. Cash generation EBIT decreased due to continued and expected drop in capture spreads in Europe, but this headwind was partly balanced by favorable international price effects in LATAM and in Australia, alongside ongoing performance levers and some positive one-offs in '25 of about EUR 140 million.

Moving on to Infrastructure, which delivered a strong organic growth of 2%, clearly underpinned by Networks. Scope and FX had a negative impact driven by the Brazilian real. Organic growth in Networks reflect the outcome of [indiscernible], solid execution of our performance plan and organic development. Our power transmission network has grown by 450 kilometers, and biomethane production capacity connected to French networks increased by 12%, supporting decarbonization and the long-term relevance of our gas infrastructure.

EBIT was broadly stable with a strong Q4 contribution. Performance actions and development helped offset expected lower spreads for cogeneration, especially in France. For '26, we anticipate strong double-digit growth driven by performance and continued development. Overall, Infrastructure is again a strong and predictable contributor to the group, supported by robust regulatory frameworks, selective investments and continuous performance improvement.

Turning to Supply and Energy Management. The picture is consistent with market normalization but resilient commercial dynamics. B2C EBIT stands in line with expectations. The organic decrease is due to last year's tailwind and one-off not repeating in '25. That said, commercial performance in Europe is good and the market still allows a full valuation of risks. So we are leaving '25 with a good momentum.

In B2B, full year '25 EBIT includes about EUR 200 million of positive one-offs and about EUR 100 million coming from high commercial margins that were locked during the crisis, which will normalize this year in '26. So we expect an EBIT in '26 around EUR 900 million as a starting point for future growth.

Energy Management EBIT reflected market normalization and lower market reserve releases than last year. Results were also weighed by minus EUR 95 million transport tariff one-off in H1, whereas last year benefited from a positive one-off linked to gas contract negotiation.

Big picture, SEM delivered on target. As we look ahead, '26 EBIT for SEM should land a bit north of EUR 2 billion. Energy Management is expected to revert towards normal year in '26 with lower provision release than '25. The combined Energy Management plus B2B EBIT should be slightly above EUR 1.5 billion in '26, a number we mentioned a couple of years ago. In summary, all as expected.

Let's turn now to our performance program -- sorry, I'm going a bit fast. I'm missing Nuclear. It would be a pity. Moving on to nuclear activities. Little surprise. The decrease in EBIT is mostly due to lower volumes with the phaseout of certain units and the long-term operation outages, which started, of course, in '25.

Now quickly on dismantling provisions. The group submitted its fine to the Nuclear Provision Commission, CPN, recommending a decrease in provisions of about EUR 1 billion linked to lower uncertainties and higher interest rates. In December, ONDRAF, the national agency for radioactive waste, issued an nonbinding report suggesting a significant increase of the estimated overnight costs.

ENGIE considers this opinion overly conservative and, in some respect, inconsistent. Discussions are progressing and the CPN's final opinion is expected no earlier than early April, which is, of course, a bit later than the usual calendar you are used to. The Belgian government is quite adamant to develop further nuclear energy and the regulation that provides a stable and trustworthy environment is a prerequisite. We are, therefore, confident reasonable outcome will be found in the end.

Let's turn to our performance program. In 2025, performance initiatives delivered an outstanding EUR 823 million of EBIT. Operational excellence contributed through concrete and recurring actions across all GBUs. Some examples, PPA renegotiation and asset optimization in renewables, contract portfolio cleaning and pricing improvements in LEI, lifetime extensions in Flex Power and, of course, procurement gains across the organization.

Under our culture and competitiveness plan, we are simplifying the organization with [ ADI ], removing management in France while frugality actions, cap spend on travel, consulting, events and digital and support function efficiency is ramping up with some somewhat significant plans.

Contribution from loss-making activities is driven by stopping losses of EVBox but also improvement in some supply activities. Now in that field, most of the heavy lifting is behind us, has been executed, which means incremental effects on loss-making activities will be more limited in '26-'28 as you could expect. Key takeaway, 2025 marked a standout performance year. We expect additional gains going forward but at a more normalized pace.

Let's take a look at the main items driving net income. Recurring financial cost at EUR 2 billion are in line with expectations. Lower average cost of gross debt was offset by lower cash remuneration resulting from the decrease in short-term rates. Recurring income tax amount to EUR 1.6 billion with an effective tax rate of 25.5%, which notably includes the special tax in France.

Nonrecurring items include restructuring costs for about EUR 0.3 billion and impairment costs for EUR 0.8 billion, a collection of midsized items driven by commodity prices decrease in France, disposals of some nonstrategic assets and U.S. regulatory reforms, leading to reported net income group share at EUR 3.8 billion.

Moving to cash flows. Cash generation is once again very strong this year with CFFO of EUR 13.6 billion. It is worth highlighting the positive cash impact from the gradual phase down of our nuclear activities, which reduced working capital requirement by EUR 600 million. Across the last 3 years, ENGIE generated about EUR 40 billion in CFFO, providing the financial capacity to invest for growth and continue to reward shareholders with healthy dividends while retaining strong balance sheet headroom and our investment-grade credit.

Let's finish with net debt. Our leverage ratios remain well within our target with net financial debt to EBITDA at 2.6 and economic net debt to EBITDA at 3.1. Net financial debt increased reflecting the cash out related to the Belgian nuclear transaction, but CFFO more than covered maintenance and growth CapEx while also funding dividends. Other items include EUR 1.4 billion of proceeds from disposals. You know our track record in that matter.

CapEx came in low this year, reflecting a temporary one-off effect in the U.S., whereas the sell-down structure allowed us to monetize a large volume of assets developed in previous years. Those sell-downs came as a reduction of our gross CapEx. In addition, investment levels in the U.S. were reduced due to regulatory and tariff uncertainties in H1 and then with the government shutdown in H2 that delayed some permitting. Also, we have been preparing ourselves for our move on UK Power Networks that we have been working now for a while.

Balance sheet continues to strengthen with a decrease in economic net debt supported by working capital improvement and strong cash generation.

This is it for 2025. And now back to Catherine to present the reason why we are here today, the move toward power network that has been weighted for why with the acquisition of UK Power Networks.

Indeed, super excited now to cover the acquisition of UK Power Networks, which is truly the best-in-class power distribution network operator here in the U.K. This acquisition represents indeed a perfect strategic fit for us at ENGIE. In a nutshell, it fundamentally rebalances our group to be much more of an electrician. And what that means is that we will be from now on in a position to maximize our exposure to all the growth opportunities offered by the energy transition.

Perhaps to start with a bit of context. In today's climate of political and geopolitical turbulence, energy is more than ever top of mind. It's about decarbonization still, but it's also about affordability, it's about security, it's about sovereignty. And in many places, it's actually a combination of the above. Our ambition at ENGIE, with our balanced geographical and operational mix, with our integrated structure, is to be the best energy transition utility.

And frankly, in the context I've just mentioned, I'm convinced that this goal is more relevant than ever. With the base load coal, nuclear closures, aging infrastructures, economic growth, technology explosion, the energy transition is actually accelerating. And it requires fast electrification. It requires the need for flexibility but also support for development of green gas because, remember, molecules are here to stay. Gas will be important in this energy transition.

But it will also require massive grid reinforcement and deployment, a domain in which, frankly, it's fair to say, ENGIE has not been so far very influential participant, which is what we are here to address.

With the acquisition of UK Power Networks, we are seizing this unique opportunity to participate in the tremendous growth journey in the field of power networks. And we are going to do so by raising the predictability of our earnings and cash flow, by bolstering our presence here in the U.K., which now becomes our second largest country, a country where we do have a long-standing presence across the whole value chain with renewables, offshore and offshore production, green biomethane gas, pump storage with our first hydro asset, notably, and also gas storage as well as supply and energy management for business customers.

And with this transaction, we will deliver a transaction that we expect to be earnings accretive from the first year while keeping our commitment with an unchanged 65% to 75% payout dividend policy and maintain credit rating. UK Power Networks is truly the best-in-class regulated power distribution in the U.K. I have to say my team and I, we have been so impressed by the quality of the people we have met. And I would like to salute UKPN's 6,500 employees who are represented with us this morning by Basil Scarsella, the CEO, who I'm delighted to have joining ENGIE. Thank you, Basil, and welcome. We share with your employees the high standards that you hold for safety, for performance, for decarbonation and for providing top-ranked service to your customers with a leading rank also for innovation. As the regulator recognizes, you guys are the best in the business.

We are really delighted to have you onboard and are thoroughly looking forward to working with you. You can count on us to approach the integration with a great deal of humility and respect as well as to bring a long-term industrial view of operating critical energy infrastructures.

So for those who don't know UKPN, it operates 3 adjacent networks in London, in the Southeast and the East of England, being 1 of 5 power distribution operators, or DNOs. UKPN's regulated asset value amounted to GBP 9.2 billion in March 2025. Its network length is 192,000 kilometers, about 3/4 of which are underground. And in terms of connection, it ranks #1 at 8.5 million. UKPN RAV is expected to grow by an average of 4% per year in the final 3 years of the current ED2 price control to GBP 10.5 billion in March 2028 with growth rates accelerating in the upcoming ED3 price control period and beyond, on the back of sharply higher Totex, to the need to prepare what is generally what is generally aging grid to the challenges of high demand, but also accelerating renewable connection given the U.K. net zero commitment for 2050.

And you can see from these charts, I think it speaks for itself, that UK Power Networks is a top-performing company, and that's been consistent over a number of years, the result of 15 years of very hard work under Basil's leadership. Among its peers, it realizes the highest return on regulated equity over the ED1 price control, which ended in March 2023, and continued after that as a best-in-class over the 2 initial years of the 5-year ED2 period ending in March 2028. Also, UKPN is the only DNO expecting Totex outperformance during ED2 as a whole, a testament to the engineering, quality and professionalism of its people.

Now why are we making such a move in the U.K.? Well, we can see strong momentum for the energy transition in the U.K., where the 2050 net zero objective is actually bound in law and more generally for electrification. The numbers in the slide, they speak for themselves. I'm sure many of you know them already. I'll just call a few. U.K. power demand is expected to double by 2050. The U.K. government targets 95% clean generation by 2030, which implies a 2/3 reduction of carbon intensity as compared with 2024. This requires stronger, longer transmission grid to connect offshore to demand centers, and it also requires distribution to connect solar, in particular, with the end user.

The National Infrastructure Commission stated last year that allowances for load-related U.K. distribution networks CapEx, which means new miles, could reach GBP 45 billion to GBP 60 billion by 2050, and that is on top of business as usual investment. Recent renewable auctions show that these aims are actually being met with actions, with actually a doubling in approval to a record 45 gigawatt of projects in 2025 with almost 15 gigawatts so far in 2026, in particular, the largest ever award of solar capacity. All impressive numbers to be sure. But above all, dedicated teams to serving the customer, which are the DNA of the DNO, Basil.

The U.K. is a place with an energy regulation that we consider one of the best. We believe it is a mature, sophisticated regulation that aims at balancing the needs of the investors who need visibility, risk protection, adequate return on their investment and the customers who need reliability, good customer service and overall system affordability. It achieves this to a range of mechanisms, including inflation and volume protection, an incentive mechanism to encourage Totex outperformance, connections delivery, reliability and customer metrics with some rewards being shared with customers.

Ofgem's current regulatory price control period, which is ED2, is a little bit more than halfway through. And we've now in the preliminary stages of determining the regulatory parameters for ED3, which will start in April 2028. There are a few themes that are emerging. Energy transition, electrification, rising power demand provide once in a generation opportunity, which is triggering a significant OpEx acceleration expected into ED3 versus ED2. And then ED3 Totex is viewed today by Ofgem as strategic versus ED2, which is viewed more as just in time, which means there is a sense that anticipation will be needed, anticipating rather than leaving it to the last moment using a longer-term outlook, avoiding bottlenecks. And then meter connections such as solar, EV, heat pumps connected to distribution networks will also be a new and significant part of ED3.

So in short, we are super excited today. We're looking forward with our new colleagues at UK Power Networks to fully supporting the U.K. in its energy transition journey. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Pierre-Francois to talk about funding and valuation.

Yes. Let me take you briefly at the heart of this transaction and, first, starting with the valuation. Can get to the slide. Thank you. We are acquiring UKPN for an enterprise value of GBP 15.8 billion which, for the sole regulated business, represents a multiple of 1.5x the estimated regulatory asset value at March '26. Many of you know these assets. And this level of premium, of course, reflects both its exceptional quality and its strong long-term fundamentals, as Catherine just alluded to.

It is also fully in line with the most recent transactions observed in the regulated power distribution sector, confirming the robustness of our valuation approach. I'm sure you all remember, we have been bidding on a similar asset, albeit smaller, a bit more than a year ago. And we are not in any shape or form more complacent this time. At this price, the implied 2027 EBITDA, '27 will be the first full year of consolidation, this implied '27 EBITDA multiple is 10, including the contribution of unregulated activities, which is about GBP 100 million.

As part of the transaction, ENGIE will acquire 100% of UKPN and, therefore, will fully consolidate it. We expect closing around mid-'26, subject to the customary regulatory approvals and shareholders' approval of the seller. Based on legal analysis and based on precedents, we consider the nonexecution risk as remote.

For those who are not familiar with UKPN, a few data points. UKPN is a serial outperformer in all dimensions of the U.K. regulation. And it is reflected in consistently solid results, even if the yearly contribution in EBITDA, EBIT or net income can be impacted by the 2 years adjustment cycle of the regulation. Cash generation is another [ figure ]. UKPN maintains a high level of CFFO at GBP 1.4 billion in year ending March '25 that funds all the investments.

Total CapEx rose to GBP 1.3 billion in the year ending March '25, supporting network modernization and growth. Importantly, this continued investment underpinning the TotEx growth translates directly into the expansion of the regulatory asset value.

Looking forward, the trajectory is equally solid. Over '26-'28, the company will deploy about GBP 2.2 billion of CapEx. And as a result, the RAV is set to reach GBP 10.5 billion by 2028. UK Power Networks is therefore expected to deliver GBP 0.8 billion EBIT in year ending March '26 with significant growth over '26-'28 despite the depreciation gap triggered from 2015 by the longer halid depreciation profile. Overall, UK Power Networks combines a proven financial performance, robust cash generation and clear medium-term growth with a bottom line profit expected to increase at the mid-single-digit pace in the long run.

Let me briefly walk you through how we plan to finance the acquisition. Given the existing debt in UK Power Networks for EUR 6 billion, which is intended to stay, we need to finance an equity check of around EUR 1.2 billion, which is fully covered by committed bridge loans. In the end, we will rely on a balanced mix of instruments, starting with around EUR 5 million of debt and hybrid new issuance. In parallel, we intend to execute an additional EUR 4 billion disposal program by 2028, fully consistent with our disciplined portfolio rotation strategy. You know ENGIE's track record in executing disposals.

To complement this, the group plans to raise up to EUR 3 billion of equity through an accelerated book building. This is a targeted action designed to reinforce our capital structure and support our long-term commitment to a strong investment-grade rating. We plan to execute swiftly subject to market conditions with a very clear focus on protecting shareholder value. The plan is defined, one, to optimize shareholders' value creation measured by EPS accretion, supported by UK Power Networks contribution net of disposals and net of financing costs; and two, to achieve credit metrics in line with our strong investment grade in the long run.

Importantly, post acquisition, we will retain significant financial flexibility both in capital spending and in the management of our asset portfolio. This means we can continue to roll out our organic growth plans, notably in renewables and networks, and deliver solid returns to shareholders without requiring further equity in the years to come. This point is, of course, critical.

From a value creation perspective, the acquisition of UK Power Networks gives us further long-term growth opportunities in deploying capital in a diversified and friendly risk environment, improves our credit risk profile and decrease significantly weighted average cost of capital.

Now back to Catherine for the presentation of our medium-term outlook.

Okay. So now that we have discussed the strategic rational valuation and funding of the UKPN, what does that mean for our medium-term outlook? So for the next slides and next numbers, we have assumed the integration of UKPN from July 1.

So let me start with a quick strategic overview. Last year, we introduced you to the new ENGIE looking like this. It was the result of a fast-paced transformation that we've conducted over the past 5 years resulting in setting and establishing a leading energy transition player with a market strength in renewable generation, a strong downstream customer business and infrastructures, which historically have relied on gas with an emerging position in power transmission. In parallel, we have, as you know, a deep cultural transformation underway around performance, efficiency, focus, financial disciplines and results at good proof points of our progress on this front. We have now a strong delivery machine. And with this transition, we have no intention of slowing down.

Adding a major power networks business through UK Power Networks means that we no longer have a single growth pillar via renewable generation and battery. We actually now have two. As can be seen on this chart, showing our total CapEx increasing in the next 2 years to EUR 34 billion to EUR 38 billion versus around EUR 31 billion in the previous plan with around 90% of that, that will be allocated on one side into Renewable & BESS and, on the other side, to Infrastructures in pretty much equal proportion. So this means that while Renewable & BESS will continue to grow pretty much at the same pace as before, power networks expansion will now show growth in Infrastructure.

Zooming on Networks, we will have a combination of gas and power, gas and power infrastructure. That gives us actually the best of the two worlds. We're going to have growth and we're going to have cash flow. To unpack this, '25-'28 will see an increase of more than 1/3 in network RAV. And within this RAV, the weight of power should jump from single digit to around 1/3. That, of course, will support Networks EBIT, which should rise by more than half over the period and the share of power within Networks EBIT quadrupling to around 35%.

Finally, and this is quite unique amongst our main peers, the cash flow generated by our Networks businesses will cover the total CapEx in '26-'28. This is a great advantage, and it will allow us indeed to maintain the pace of our expansion in renewables and battery as you will see from this slide, which shows that, first, we have a renewable pipeline that is both robust and balanced; second, that the proportion of our pipeline that is secured in execution or in advanced development has risen by 21 gigawatts in absolute terms, which boosts the achievability of our 95 gigawatt target for 2030, and all the while maintaining a strict financial discipline in our renewable projects. Remember, we do not chase gigawatt for growth sake at ENGIE if the quality is not there.

In addition, Renewable & BESS cash flow from operation will rise steadily as new capacity opens, which means that they will require actually less contribution from free cash flow of other businesses. Finally, and this is really important, our integrated model continuously enhances and maximizes the value creation of our Renewable & BESS to a very attractive degree. We can put an extensive list of levers to squeeze the very most out of our Renewable & BESS assets over the long term as now we tend to keep them for the long run.

Now on to the hot topic of data centers and to add some color to what I had mentioned back in November, In a nutshell, we do have quite a bit of what data centers want. We have an asset base and local presence to speed access to energy. We have the power to quickly deliver additional capacity through our renewables and battery pipeline, and we have an unmatched expertise in supply and energy management to optimize the tech and the data centers' energy competitiveness. We are building on these big advantages.

And today, we have set a dedicated multidisciplinary data center team a few goals to 2030. We've told them, you have to achieve 3 to 4 gigawatt of IT data centers, which are today supported by a truly global 6 gigawatt pipeline, as you can see on the bottom left of the chart. We asked them to enable directly 5 gigawatts of renewables and battery projects and, in direct supply business, 50 terawatt hours of power delivered to the tech and data center sector.

Co-siting represents a significant value-creating opportunity for through a certain number of levers. They include land. They include margin uplift for ENGIE's co-sited assets, for instance, through reducing urban load risk exposure or providing redundancy from thermal assets in Europe, also, of course, PPA power supply volumes as well as energy management services. We have built a partnership with tech companies over up to a decade in the supply of reliable, green and effective power, which now results in long-term partnerships, for example, such as the one we have with Google in Germany.

So this all sounds great. We're maintaining an impressive growth in Renewable & BESS. We are adding the new layer of growth in power and networks. We have turbocharging our position as a major supplier of energy to data centers. We are leveraging the value derived from our integrated model and our industrial structure. What does it all add up to? It adds up to stronger foundations and consistent earnings improvement.

We are targeting a CAGR of 7% in EBIT excluding Nuc over '25 to '28. And our guidance range for '28 implies no less than about EUR 3 billion of additional EBIT versus 2025 for new investments, of course, including UK Power Networks, but also from performance. You will always hear us talking about investment and performance. Here, we expect a substantial EUR 800 million to EUR 1 billion of EBIT impact from performance improvement in '26 to '28 from a variety of sources. We will continue to focus on operational excellence from our assets, driving this culture of performance, tackling structural cost inefficiencies that we continue to have to chase.

Balance is a critical component of the new profile of ENGIE. Geographical presence is very much part of this, especially given the geopolitical context. We're present in 30 countries, but actually 10 account for over 90% of our gross CapEx, with our top 5 countries being France, the U.K., Belgium, Brazil and the U.S. The U.K., as I mentioned, will become a second country at around 17% of '28 EBIT from 4% in 2025 with a presence across the value chain and now genuine critical mass. It really fits very nicely with our stated intent to make sure that we reach a sufficient size in our key countries. We want in our key countries to deploy an integrated model, to have a sufficient size and to have a seat at the table.

In the transformation towards our utility profile, we've always emphasized the need to improve our risk profile with greater predictability. And our plan is going to deliver just that. As you can see from this chart, with the EBIT share of regulated networks and long-term contracted business will rise from 42% in 2024 to 2/3 in 2028. The majority of the improvement will come from our own actions, notably the UKPN acquisition, the [indiscernible] nuclear in Belgium and new essentially contracted renewable capacity.

And as we move to fast forward mode, what will ENGIE look like by 2030? With the added directions and accelerated investment that I've just mentioned, our new plan allows us not only to reiterate our key operational targets in Renewables & Flex Power and in Supply and Energy Management, but also to completely transform high-exposure and our ambition in infrastructure with a substantial EUR 60 billion of RAV and capital employed in Networks. I'm really excited that the new potential that this brings not just in terms of the additional growth, but also in terms of the nature of this growth.

This gives you a perspective of the growth potential that we are going to carry over beyond our guidance overview, which today is 2028. This guidance look like that. We have a solid plan to grow earnings and cash flow, which is a prerequisite to our capital allocation framework, which remains unchanged. It will be covered by Pierre-Francois. We expect a range of EUR 4.6 billion to EUR 5.2 billion for 2026, the midpoint of which corresponds to the level we achieved in 2025 with steady upper mid-single-digit increase in '27 and '28.

Our dividend policy remains at 65% to 75% of net recurring income group share. And we maintain our policy of maintaining a strong investment-grade credit rating with an economic net debt-to-EBITDA ceiling at 4x.

Thank you for your attention. And now back to Pierre-Francois for the continuing ballet.

And you still have some energy left because the [ upload ] is not completely over. We met a year ago in the same room actually for the market update. I'm very pleased to tell you that our revised 3-year projections are very consistent actually with what we discussed a year ago, boosted, of course, by the acquisition of UK Power Networks.

First, let me highlight the key metric driving this outlook. I think Catherine just mentioned it, we are targeting a 7% CAGR in EBIT excluding Nuc over '25-'28, and this trajectory reflects both the solidity of the existing portfolio and the contribution from UKPN. EBIT will rise from EUR 8.8 billion in '25 to EUR 11.3 billion, as you can see on the waterfall, FX and energy price volatility of negative, but at the end of the day, limited impact in the period.

For the record, these headwinds are stronger than a year ago due to the U.S. dollar depreciation and also some lower power prices in France. But we can offset all of them in '26 and half of it in '27 at EBIT level, showing the resilience of our portfolio and hedging strategy. These headwinds are fully offset at the bottom line.

Disposals include the program to finance the acquisition of UKPN, Performance initiatives will contribute positively, reflecting continuous progress in operational excellence and cost discipline. A significant uplift will come from investments, adding between EUR 2.7 billion and EUR 3.1 billion of EBIT, excluding UK Power Networks, and CapEx cuts related to the acquisition. Contribution from investments would amount to EUR 1.6 billion to EUR 2 billion, which is back in line with last year's market update.

Investments are concentrated in our key growth platforms, power networks, renewable generation and batteries. Catherine has already flagged our continued efforts in performance that will bring close to EUR 1 billion yearly EBIT contribution in 3 years. Overall, this trajectory demonstrates our strong capacity to combine growth, resilience and disciplined execution, also to leverage our integrated model.

Moving on now to the cash equation, you are familiar with this format, and we have split this time in three blocks: 2025, which is a strong year of excess cash generation, plus EUR 2.8 billion, which is not accidental; UK Power Networks financing that I have detailed earlier; and then the usual 3 years' projections, including the new cash flows and the new investments of UK Power Networks. You can add that up as you wish. I tend to look as a whole.

To a limited extent, we have decided to reprofile our assets portfolio and CapEx plans to allow, as it was the case before, for a moderate increase of the debt on top of the acquisition in such a way that our credit ratios stay within our targets. Sustainability of our financial profile is part of our utility status, both for credit requirements and shareholder returns. Looking to '26-'28, sources of funding include EUR 37 billion to EUR 41 billion of CFFO and an additional EUR 2 billion from disposals. So there will be EUR 6 billion in total disposals, EUR 4 billion, which are linked to the acquisition, EUR 2 billion which are in the 3 years plan.

This will finance our growth and maintenance investments for EUR 34 billion to EUR 38 billion and dividends and other commitments for EUR 12 million to EUR 14 billion. As a result, net debt will increase slightly. This is not substantially different from the cash trajectory that was presented during last year's market update. In other terms, the acquisition supports our strategic trajectory without altering the strength of our cash profile.

Let me now walk you through how we are rebalancing the group further towards regulated infrastructure and, more specifically, power networks. Over the coming years, we expect a substantial step-up in Networks capital employed, moving from EUR 25 billion today to around EUR 45 billion by 2028. In that same year, power networks will represent half of the group's networks capital employed. This reinforces our strategic focus on electricity infrastructures.

On the right-hand side of the slide, you have details on the group's capital employed. We expect it to grow from EUR 69 billion end of '25 to around EUR 100 billion by 2028 with the largest contribution coming from Networks. This rebalancing increases the share of regulated and long-term contracted activities, further derisking the group's earnings profile. Overall, this strategic shift enhances visibility, supports our investment-grade positioning and creates the conditions for sustained profitable growth.

This is not something to be missed when you are assessing the WACC of ENGIE in your investment case, which is a good segue to turn to ENGIE's risk profile, credit metrics and net debt position. As Catherine alluded to, risk profile is improving structurally, thus, reducing our cost of financing and also making credit metrics requirements less demanding. Target structure of our financial debt post acquisition, as it is displayed on the screen, includes ENGIE's financial debt as of December '25 plus the senior debt linked to UK Power Networks acquisition for approximately EUR 2 billion and then UK Power Networks financial debt as reported in its 2025 financial statements. On that basis, bonds represent 2/3 of borrowings with a smooth maturity profile and no concentration peaks. With 91% of net financial debt fixed rate, we are largely immune against interest rate fluctuations. Net debt is predominantly euro-denominated, complemented by GBP, U.S. dollar and Brazilian reals, exposures that naturally hedge the group's operating cash flows in these currencies.

Finally, on the right, you can see our economic net debt-to-EBITDA ratio. The ratio goes above 4 in '26 because UK Power Networks only contributes to 6 months of EBITDA, but it immediately reduces below our 4 ceiling in '27. Despite the enhanced risk profile of the group, we keep this 4 ratio referenced unchanged. We have significant financial flexibility to manage this ratio going forward, if needed. First, we have flexibility on our EUR 34 billion to EUR 48 billion CapEx program with around 60% which is uncommitted as we speak. And secondly, we can go a bit further when it comes to portfolio rationalization. Overall, our improving business mix, disciplined funding strategy and strong balance sheet provide ENGIE with a solid and resilient financial foundation for the years to come.

Turning now to EBIT drivers by activity. This slide shows a balanced and diversified foundation of our growth over '26-'28. Starting from EBIT excluding Nuc of EUR 8.8 billion in '25, we expect to reach EUR 10.3 billion to EUR 11.3 billion by '28, more than twice our EBIT in 2021.

Beginning with Renewable & Flex Power. EBIT is expected to reach between EUR 2.8 billion and EUR 3.2 billion by '28 for renewables and batteries. Growth here is primarily driven by investments in renewable assets and battery storage, complemented by performance actions. Conversely, gas generation should decrease from EUR 1.1 billion in '25 to roughly EUR 0.6 billion in 2028, driven by prices and disposals linked to the streamlining of our international gas generation portfolio.

In Infrastructure, we see a solid EBIT uplift for all activities. Power Networks is expected to reach EUR 1.6 billion to EUR 1.8 billion in '28 with the acquisition of UKPN, but also organic development that goes along with it as well as our development in LATAM. Gas networks should benefit from investments, performance actions, inflated RAV and tariff indexations to land between EUR 3 billion and EUR 3.2 billion in '28. And finally, Local Energy Infrastructure should grow and reach now EUR 0.6 billion of EBIT coming from performance and investment in long-term constructed district heating and cooling networks.

Last but not least, in Supply and Energy Management, EBIT should benefit from continued growth and performance initiatives. On the other hand, we'll face some headwinds in '26 in B2B with a progressive phaseout of legacy contracts locking in at high margins, I mentioned that for the '25 results, and positive one-offs in '25, same. This results in expected EBIT ranges of EUR 0.5 billion to EUR 0.7 billion for B2C, EUR 1 billion to EUR 1.2 billion for B2B and EUR 0.5 billion to EUR 0.9 billion for Energy Management in '28.

Let me now remind you how our capital allocation choices underpin both our growth ambition and our financial commitments. Our framework is built to deliver predictability and long-term value creation for our shareholders. Everything starts with strong cash generation, everything. Over the last 3 years, we generated EUR 40 billion of CFFO and we plan to repeat that performance of close to in the next 3 years. Two activities stand out. Supply and Energy Management with the CFFO net of CapEx, all CapEx, of about EUR 2 billion per year and growing. Gas in France with, again, strong cash generation and limited growth CapEx delivering on average about EUR 2 billion of cash flows after all CapEx.

This consistent and predictable excess cash generation of about EUR 4 billion a year is a distinctive strength of ENGIE and clearly set us apart from the competition. One point worth of attention is that Renewables and Flexible cash generation is growing consistently, funding an increasing share of its investment plan. The acquisition of UK Power Networks reinforces our ability to deploy capital based on risk-adjusted returns, where we can capture the most value and it is enhancing also our portfolio of investment opportunities.

In parallel, we continue, of course, to optimize our existing asset base and drive operational performance across the group. Our performance plan ensures that value comes not only from new investment, but also from better management of existing assets. So this translates into an improved risk profile, more flexibility in credit requirements and a reduced cost of capital. Combined with a broader set of investment opportunities and strong cash generation profile, it supports balanced long-term growth, and therefore, sustainable, predictable and increasing shareholder returns.

Let's finish with our '26-'28 financial outlook, which provides, I think, a clear line of sight on the group's earnings trajectory. Starting with '26. We expect EBIT excluding Nuc between EUR 8.7 billion and EUR 9.7 billion. This reflects continued operational momentum, early contribution from our investment program and the ramp-up of performance actions. EBIT also includes 6 months of UK Power Networks contribution. Those tailwinds are partly offset by FX and the phaseout of high-margin B2B legacy contracts.

By 2028, the rise in EBIT will mostly come from organic developments stemming from investments and also, of course, performance, while disposals impact will peak at year-end. EBIT excluding Nuc should be in the range of EUR 10.3 billion to EUR 11.3 billion. Over the period, net recurring income will rise from EUR 4.9 million in '25 to EUR 5.8 billion in '28. Recurring net financial costs are expected to increase from EUR 2.2 billion, EUR 2.4 billion in '26 to EUR 2.6 billion, EUR 2.9 billion in '28, reflecting the acquisition of UK Power Networks.

Recurring effective tax rate should land between 20% and 23%, a decrease versus 25% as the Belgian nuclear transaction allow us to retire long-standing taxations and also as our profits are growing in geographies with no material tax impact on P&L. This segment is consistent with our ambition to deliver a sustainable growth of EPS year after year. Excluding the UK Power Networks perimeter, the outlook is broadly unchanged compared with the guidance we presented last year. This is important. The underlying performance of our existing business is fully in line with expectations, and the acquisition simply adds incremental value on top of it.

At the bottom of the slide, we reaffirm our dividend policy alongside a strong investment-grade rating.

With that, back to Catherine for wrap-up.

I just wanted to go back to the capital allocation framework that Pierre-Francois just presented. As we have been strictly adhering to that over the last 5 years, it's very important at ENGIE. It's actually the cornerstone of our management practices. It's well embedded throughout our organization. We are maximizing our cash generation. We are prioritizing our commitment to our shareholders. We're maintaining the strength of our balance sheet. And that allows us to seize a net investment, including growth CapEx and disposal program.

And with the funding plan that we've laid out to you today with this acquisition, we are going to be able to maintain our investment in the rest of our businesses. which, by the way, will not be much impacted nor disrupted by the integration efforts that we expect, somehow limited especially when you consider the size of this transaction. So you can think of the acquisition of UK Power Networks as even more opportunity within the framework: more opportunity for capital deployment, more earnings, all this with a better risk profile and a lower WACC.

Last words. You may have seen an announcement regarding our governance yesterday. I just wanted to bring it up because it is a sign of both continuity and well-planned transition. I think it's important because it highlights the quality of the governance at ENGIE, which is an asset in itself and does contribute to the performance of the group. For this but also for their general support to ENGIE and to me personally, I would like to thank the Board of Directors and its Chairman, jean-Pierre Clamadieu. .

Whatever the challenges ahead, with incredible talented teams that we have at ENGIE and, soon to be joined by the 6,500 UK Power Networks employees, let me tell you that at ENGIE, today, we look to the future with great excitement and confidence.

Thank you very much. And now I will pass it on to Delphine for the Q&A. Thank you.

Thank you, Catherine. We'll now have the Q&A session. We'll start by taking questions from the room and then we'll take questions from online. Operator, could you please remind our online participants the process for asking questions?

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you. So we'll start by the room. Wanda?

Wanda from UBS. Congratulations on the deal. Amazing deal, I must say. Two questions from me. The first one is on the ABB. Do you need the agreement from the French government? Will the French government participate? Is it a must? Can they block the deal? Any comment on that one would be appreciated.

And the second question is about the disposals. I mean what are you going to sell? Do you have any preferences, any businesses, any regions that you want to sell? And I do appreciate you show EBIT, but what EBITDA do you expect basically drop?

So all the financing plan that we have laid out to you obviously has been approved by our Board of Directors. As for the participation of the state to the operation, I think you will have to ask them. I can't really comment on their behalf.

In terms of the disposals, maybe just, first of all, we do have a long history at ENGIE of disposals. First of all, in terms of execution, we have, I think, shown a good track record. Last year alone was EUR 1.5 billion worth of disposals. So in terms of track record, we feel confident with the plan that we've laid out, even though it's a little bit more in terms of run rate at EUR 6 billion.

In terms of details, obviously, you will understand that we're not going to give much color because we don't want to jeopardize the sale conditions under which we'll conduct these disposals. But we do have still at ENGIE quite a bit of flexibility. We have, for example, a number of -- so frankly, three themes that we have in mind. One theme, which is a number of assets where we are participating but we don't have necessarily the full operating control. These assets, when you look at our strategy to be much more of an industrial operator, are a little bit more on the edge of our core strategy. So that could be something that we consider.

Another option, another theme is we do sometimes have assets where we could be opening up to a minority. And so that will be also another theme under this disposal list. And then thirdly, which is the work that we've been doing now for years at ENGIE, which is a little bit of a housekeeping of our portfolio when we have entities or activities that are not core to our strategy and then typically will fall under that. And we've done actually a number of that last year. So that's really the three themes that we are considering in our disposal plan over the years to come.

And to your question about the EBITDA impact, I mean, we don't disclose that. But I think if you use a proxy of the usual EBITDA to EBIT conversion of the group, you will be on the high side of EBITDA.

And just to confirm on the French government, you discussed this acquisition with French government. There's no way they can block it.

The French government is represented on the Board of Directors.

Okay. Arthur, second row.

The first one are on the financial targets to 2028. Given you are now quite used to overdeliver, I was wondering, I would like to understand if there is any area of conservatism in your targets. So there are three questions that I have on the bridge between '26 and '28 on EBIT. One is on the disposal dilution. I think you assumed EUR 0.7 billion which, for the proceeds that you intend to have, it seems to imply quite a low multiple. The performance contribution seems also quite lower to what you've been doing so far in the plan. And then there is the last block of EUR 300 million negative which is called other, which is not really clear what it is. If you could give some information on that.

And the second question is just on the indications you gave in the press release on the contribution of UK Power Networks to the net income. As far as I understand, that contribution is before the impact of the cost of hybrid and potentially before the potential PPA as well of the deal. So I was wondering if you could just give some information on that as well.

That's a very precise question, Arthur. I can see that you're already working on your model, which is, of course, the right thing to do. Yes, there is -- so first, with the '28 target and the bridge from '25. Of course, there is a whole set of assumptions behind the EUR 700 million negative impact on disposals. Catherine mentioned there were different buckets. Indeed, in these buckets, there are a few which are minority stakes that we own in some assets. And therefore, you can get a very high multiple on the valuation because what we are recording in EBIT is only the net income that we can consolidate, and therefore, that will drive a significant multiple when it comes to valuation.

So part of it is there. And that's also, we are -- we don't want to be too granular on this multiple. But we want to retain flexibility on the asset we put in there. And we will, of course, along the way, give you more colors and the impact as we make our decision. We will be value driven for this disposal. We know that we have done already a lot of cleaning in our portfolio. So we have already a set that we are pleased with. And it's really a valuation arbitrage that will come. So please give us a bit of flex. But clearly, this multiple is reflecting these high multiples for some of the disposal.

Performance is low, I'm not sure this is the opinion of everyone in the organization. But EUR 0.8 billion to EUR 1 billion is still a big number coming in the year. Of course, it's low compared to what we have achieved in '25. But remember, the loss-making activities, once you have fixed them, you cannot fix them again. And so it's much more difficult to address it. Now can we do more than EUR 0.8 billion to EUR 1 billion? Let's first try to get at the top end of the number, and then let's see if we can do better. I mean, clearly, the push for performance is not stopped. And you've seen, I mentioned that briefly on '25, when you look at the guidance, I mean, we have been able to close some of the headwinds that we have in FX and energy prices. We did it through performance. So I think that's important.

And then in other, there is minus EUR 0.3 billion. There are various topics and it's a small number, EUR 0.3 billion now for ENGIE. And again, you need to leave us a bit of intimacy in our numbers. And if we want to put something to make sure that we deliver, it's also, I think, a decent right of ENGIE to put some numbers in there. Now it's funny, what you say about overperforming. This is a discussion that we have with UK Power Networks. And I think they say that it's underpromise, overdeliver, I like that a lot. So I think that the a culture fit is there. And we will do everything we can, of course, to achieve. But if we can, of course, overdeliver.

Contribution, no, indeed, hybrids are not in there. So hybrid, I mean, you can work it out by yourself. I mean, you know if we issue hybrids, You know the cost of hybrids. You know the market today is pretty lenient and it's very, very competitive. Our last issuance on hybrid was extremely strong with no new issue premium. So clearly, it's today a buoyant market, so decrease of cost. And then there is, let's say, a tentative PPA embedded in this number. So we've done our work, of course, to try to assess what would be the impact of the PPA, and that is factored in the numbers. Please give us also a bit of flex because the PPA is a big thing and we will have to go much further into details, but we've tried to give you an indication.

James Brand from Deutsche Bank. Congratulations from me on the deal. I have three questions. Firstly, your ambition to have more power networks, is that now satisfied with this deal? Or if another deal came up that was very attractive, would you attempt do even more, particularly the market reaction seems to be since like this kind of move from you?

Secondly, on the performance plan impact. It did actually seem like quite a good number to me. I was wondering whether you could give some more details because the companies often throw around kind of big numbers for cost cutting and things like that or performance improvement. So within that, if you could give us some kind of indication how much is kind of cost cutting, how much is loss-making businesses, if there are any left. How much of it is kind of running your equipment better because of best-in-class performance and things like that, that would be super interesting just to get an idea of what's driving that.

And then thirdly and finally, if we do see all this demand growth that everyone's talking about coming through in Europe and globally because of data centers and electrification, we're going to need new gas-fired generation. And you don't seem to have any -- or certainly not much capital going towards the new gas build, if any, in the plan. So just kind of wondering, is that because you don't want to invest in that area because you think renewables is the future? Or would you need more regulatory visibility? What could push you into investing more in new gas?

Okay. I'll start with one and three, and you can comment a bit more on performance plan. Maybe on the power networks, we have a few years now to digest what we're doing with the UK Power Networks, I think, frankly, 1 of the really exciting things about the operation today is that it's of a large size, which means that in another scenario, we would have had to do quite a few of small deals, which means a lot of things and disruptions, and you have to do it in several places and this.

And by doing it at once, it's sizable, but it really will allow us to have our work done for a few years at least in the distribution world in power networks with the superb asset that we're acquiring today or that we will acquire at closing with quite a lot of challenges to accompany the growth. The ED3 plans are very ambitious. So UK Power has a lot of work to do, a lot of investment. And so we feel that it's going to be, from a power distribution point of view, nice. And I don't expect that we have to do something anytime soon in power distribution.

On the transmission side, the plan that we have, which is to continue to do organic development in Latin America, that will probably continue as long as we can continue to win auctions. The auction is sometimes quite competitive. So we remain very disciplined in the way we participate in these auctions. And that should continue as expected. But I want to highlight the fact that this transaction is really of a good size. It's actually for me a great benefit because it allows us to do a one-off, and now we can get on and do the growth with UKPN and the growth in the rest of the business with that two levels, which I think is a great position to be in, frankly.

On demand growth and what we do with the gas-fired generation. I know it's not very fashionable, but we continue to be set to be net zero to 2045. And so we're going to be very careful with our CO2 budget. And we will do -- so we're really very focused in [ modelizing ] the CO2 to EBIT ratio at ENGIE. So we are pragmatic about energy transition and about CO2, but we are committed to decrease our trajectory. And we believe that today when you look at the requirement on power, there is a lot that we can do with smart renewables, with the right technology, with the right battery, with the right integration, with the right energy management expertise, which is very -- we didn't talk too much about energy management today, but we have a differentiation at ENGIE with top notch energy management capabilities. And these people are able to integrate the renewable and really green assets in order to provide customers what they want to do to the most part.

Now it doesn't mean that -- every so often, if there is an opportunistic investment opportunity, we would be looking probably at the right CRM. We would like to have a capacity remuneration mechanism because today everybody loves gas. I don't know that in 5 years everybody will love gas again. So we would need to have a fairly low risk investment proposition as well, of course, has the right return. And then we might look at it from one project to a project, but it's not going to be a big chunk of our CapEx going to those assets.

But the Flemalle is a good example of that, right? In Belgium, we're just opening up 850, 870 megawatts. So it's a very large asset that we built from scratch. So we've been able to do that. We're happy. It's a CRM-based remuneration. So we might do a few of that, but it's not going to be a big indeed investment proposition. We think we can do much more with renewables, batteries and also speed to market, as you know, for this in terms of delivery and just execution with renewables and batteries are just unbeatable today, especially with the supply chain situation on gas plan that you know very well. So performance plan, Pierre-Francois?

Yes. performance plan. First, you may notice that our performance number, you can track them into the waterfall of EBIT. And that is critical for us because we are not buying huge performance actions which are not translated into your variation of EBIT. So we need to be -- and that's a discussion that we have internally as well. It is demanding, but it is also key if we want to be credible when we put these numbers in front of you. So there are real contribution to EBIT, whether they are cost-cutting efficiency, whatever. They need to convert into P&L, and we need to be able to track it and you are able to track it.

Now if you look at the big number. You have about still 10% which are related to loss-making activities. This is going to come in '26, maybe early '27. So that would come quite early. And of course, we have action plans, which are already launched and the execution risk is very limited. And then you have about 40% which are the usual operational efficiencies that you have seen many times now in ENGIE for years, and they are coming through. And there is still a lot of room because, of course, we got a lot of traction when the GBUs, the global business units, were created because there was standardization, professionalism, some common tools we have been able to leverage to deliver efficiencies.

But it is by far not done. And we are also investing a lot. And when you invest a lot, you create new opportunities to, of course, improve your efficiency because you get more scale effect. You enter new operations which are not at the same level. You have maturing projects which are getting not at the top and they need more time to get at the top. So for example, when you see the commissioning contribution, you have the commissioning of year 1. Then year 2, you don't see it. But in year 1, you're not at the top of your efficiency. So you get more coming from the improved performance and growth. So growth helps actually to fuel further performance.

And then we have half of the amount, which is what we call our C-squared, competitiveness and culture, where we are addressing some other pockets. So we mentioned agility, we mentioned some frugality. But the big topic is about efficiency and efficiency especially in the G&A, in the support function, where there is still a lot to be done in ENGIE. Catherine would say, we just started to scratch the surface, maybe...

I say that.

We've been a bit. But we are not at the end, even not at the beginning of the end. We are maybe at the end of the beginning and that's already generous. So there is more to come in there. I mean, some basics. I mean, we started, I mentioned that already, our big SAP project to have basically one ERP in the company except for regulated assets. And that was started in '22. And today, we are holding out at pace, by the way, project on budget, on time, so which is not always the case of that kind of project. So very, very pleased with the outcome. But we are in the middle of rolling it.

So there is more to come. And of course, it's paving the way to a new G&A approach. And we have now launched a big global business support project with significant moves. I mean, it is happening in ENGIE, that we are actually revisiting our existing GBS operations in some countries like in France and Belgium and moving some of the activities towards Romania. So this is happening as we speak. And of course, there will be delivery coming throughout the year. That's why it's a plan that needs to be carefully managed. It has to be done in a proper way progressively. And maybe some of you would love to see more coming at once. But for us, it's very important that we commit to this delivery year after year. And we prefer to take our time, but launch something which is solid and which is going to deliver for years.

And to that note, this is not ended in '28. I mean, we had that conversation last year in '27, there will be more in 28. Of course, year 3 is always lower than you year 1 and 2 because people tend to be a bit conservative. And then you need to fuel more projects and then you find new ideas. And then, of course, it's an ongoing revisiting. So very optimistic about performance. This is an engine which is going to be there for a long time.

And we bring along our social partners. That's the particularity of our footprint, is that we have very rich union representation. And so the key for us is to add this transformation and the performance actions is to bring along our social partners, which the team is really working very well to do so.

So we'll now take some questions online and then we'll come back to the room. So operator, could you please start with the first question?

First question is from Ajay Patel, Goldman Sachs. Mr. Patel's line got disconnected. So the next question is from Louis Boujard, ODDO.

Congratulations on the operation. Maybe two on my side to focus a little bit on UK Power Networks and what we can expect going forward. Looking at the historic earnings contribution, it has been quite volatile, most likely because of the current situation in the energy market which has been relatively tough and also because of some catch-up effect that could be expected. How shall we forecast going forward the EBITDA and EBIT contribution of this business?

Is it going to be a bit more steady growth pace going forward? Or do you have also a lot of catch-up to be expected in the EBIT line for this contribution going forward by 2028? And could you maybe give us a bit more granularity on the geographic scope of your power network contribution in EBIT by 2028 with regards to the Latin America contribution as well?

And maybe if you could also elaborate regarding the potential synergies that could be expected with this operation. Do you think that eventually there is room for more business to be developed, notably with energy transition-related activities and other business that could be used from this operation going forward?

Maybe I'll start with your last question, and then Pierre-Francois can comment a little bit about the first part of the question. So in terms of synergy, given the regulated nature of the business, obviously, in our business plan and assumptions, we have a very, very small number. That makes sense. Now, obviously, we expect to drive a few synergies around IT, insurance and procurement, of course, in these areas, which are as expected. By the way, the fact that we have not priced that much synergies is also a nice illustration of what we expect in terms of complication of integration. And we don't expect any difficulty and that's, I think, reflected in that number.

And then there is -- apart from the regulated activity, Louis, there is indeed a nonregulated activity with a very long-term contract which can span over 50, 90 years. And these contracts are interesting. Right now, we have not -- we valued them at 10x EBITDA. So we'll have to see as we work with the team of UKPN if there is indeed a potential for more growth. But right now we have taken, let's say, a moderate view of the potential of this business. It will have to be looked at.

And then in terms of other synergies, not in the numbers, but really for us, it's about making ENGIE much more of an electrician. And what that means is that we expect over time to be able to learn from UKPN and to develop a culture and understanding of the distribution activity, expertise competency that eventually maybe we will be able to be use in other places. Again, I'm putting my arms there because I stayed true to what I said earlier. Short term, we're very happy and we'll be content with this acquisition. But to develop a distribution expertise is obviously something that we look forward through with this acquisition as an outcome. You want to talk about UKPN?

Yes. Thank you. Good question, Louis. Yes, you're right. I mean, there is volatility in EBITDA, EBIT and net income in UKPN. We are familiar with that because you know that we have also regulated gas assets and feel the same way. Of course, regulation is different. There is some kind of catch-up in France which is yearly, but then you may actually go for a catch-up which is in the following revision period. So it's even more than that. This is something that we have discussed.

Yes, they are regulated business. They are very stable. But there is some predictability indeed in the fine-tuning of the results in any one year. It can happen. So we're going to have to put you head around this. We are prepared for that. We need to also create a bit of space to manage these uncertainties. Hopefully, in a few years' time, there will be this new standard, which is long awaited, which is a regulated business. And that will allow to smooth this catch-up effect. And that will be welcome. And clearly, again, we have a lot at stake at our existing gas operation today.

But to your point, there is not a big clawback sitting that is going to reverse in the next couple of years. It's just a normal course of business that we expect.

And then on your point about LATAM contribution, I mean, today, you know that the contribution of power today is in LATAM. So you have a good proxy where we stand today. This will be growing. And it's fair to say in '28, there will be growth compared to where we stand today, and I would expect this to be north of EUR 300 million contribution in '28 for the LATAM assets.

And it will be mainly Brazil and to, a lesser extent, Chile and Peru.

Brazil, by far, being the first one.

The next question is from Bartek Kubicki of Bernstein.

Congratulations on the acquisition. Just on that one, maybe the first question. First of all, what has changed in terms of your risk appetite? Because I remember in the past, you used to say much smaller transactions would be a perfect fit for ENGIE. Now you are aiming at something way bigger than previously indicated. And also on that one, if we think about some kind of return, IRR-to-WACC spread, what kind of threshold or minimum threshold is it meeting given the valuation of the transaction?

And now maybe just a little bit of clarification on the FY '28 and FY '27 guidance. And I would point here to three very small items, if you can explain. First of all, last year, you were saying that in FY '27, 63% of EBIT will be regulated or long-term contracted. Now you are mentioning -- sorry, you said 63% last year. You were mentioning 67% for '28. So I just wondered why is the increase so small given the fact that you are doing a pivotal acquisition?

And also on that, if we think about the renewables guidance for '27 and '28, it hasn't increased much. Actually, the bottom end is at the same level. Does it mean you're expecting some, I don't know, asset rotation in the renewable space as well? Or it simply means there's a negative FX and power prices effect?

Maybe I'll start by the first one. In terms of this is a bit bigger than maybe what we had envisaged, when we discussed our willingness to develop our presence in distribution. And we talked about a long list of criteria when you remember, we said we wanted high-quality, we wanted performance, we wanted a single country with a distribution, we wanted a place where there is a good quality regulation and something that we would be able to integrate easily and, indeed, I think we did say a size that we can digest, and probably that did imply a bit of a smaller size than what UKPN represents.

But with UKPN today, we check a vast majority of this list. So we feel very, very confident. And again, today, ENGIE is a bit of a different places. First of all, we've been very lucky to be able to engage in the process because, as you know, it's a long process. So UKPN was not for sale. So it was really for us an opportunity that we decided that we could seize because despite the size, we didn't feel that it actually represented additional risk for us from an execution point of view and from an integration point of view. So all the criteria that we had set were met. A bit bigger than what was envisaged originally, but the process or the non process, the opportunity, the quality of the assets really made us very, very excited about the opportunity.

And then, of course, the financing plan that we've presented, which makes us very confident that we can continue to deliver ENGIE's road map and, at the same time, made the structural move a one-off. That's it. It's done. We've done that. We've pivoted at least for a few years. For us, it's really a bit of the best of the two worlds. So we are actually very, very excited by the size as well of UKPN and the size of this transaction. Maybe, Pierre-Francois?

Yes. On IR and WACC, first, we are very committed to deliver on our total investment a premium of about 200 bps above WACC. That's very important. But we take it as a whole, of course. And we invest based on risk-adjusted return, which means that some projects are coming with a spread above WACC, which is different from others. And when it comes to assets which have a WACC which is significantly lower than average, it's nearly impossible to deliver 200 bps on top of it. And in that kind of business, it is very difficult to achieve that kind of return.

So to be very candid, we are below the 200 that you would expect in general for ENGIE and we fully recognize that. Still, this investment is fitting criterias which are adapted to its specific profile, and we are delivering, of course, IRR significantly above WACC with, of course, all kind of assumptions surrounding this calculation.

When it comes to '27 versus '28 and the speed of regulated assets, I think it's a good peak. And the reason why it's growing but not growing that much is that the rest of the business is growing. And it's not only that we have UK Power Networks, but we do have other businesses. You mentioned Renewable & BESS, rightfully so. But you could also mention SEM, Supply and Energy Management, which is growing as well over the period significantly. And therefore, we have a bit of a dilution of our regulated assets if, even of course, they are growing. Now it's really the story of ENGIE. And we have different growth engines and they are all going up, which is not again a coincidence, something that which is architected. And therefore, it's not that easy.

And the last point is that ENGIE starts to be a big thing. So to move the needle. I mean, for you, it's nothing to move from 63% to 67%. But it's actually a lot to move because it's a big business which is growing in all its components. And I think we are pretty pleased with that.

Coming back to the room. Peter?

Peter Crampton here from Barclays. And congratulations on the great deal. Three questions, if I may. The first one relates to your longer-term net recurring income group share trajectory, which has obviously been a big question of investors in the past.

Looking at your guidance, getting a 6% CAGR and kind of '27 '26 and '28 and '27, is a 6% CAGR, a realistic number that to use longer term as well for net recurring income group share? And does this UK Power Networks deal help with that delivery as you added a very visible kind of part where you can grow the business?

The second question was you're referencing a decline in kind of group WACC on back of this acquisition. Any numbers around how much you see kind of group WACC reduced?

And then thirdly, it's great to get that 6 gigawatt number on your data center kind of pipeline. How many projects does this relate to? And obviously, UK Power Networks is a great part of the U.K. Do you feel that maybe that number grows further after that deal completes?

Okay. We have a number of projects. It's several tens of projects that are feeding this pipeline on co-siting on data center, just starting with that latest part of questions. And indeed, we have not really started to discuss in great level of details with UKPN how potentially there could be opportunities that could be pursued together. But that's potentially indeed an exciting avenue. So that's the third question.

I think in terms of the profile of growth, you want to not mention numbers beyond '28.

No. Thank you, of course, it is an important question. I think that you see that we are building a platform which is definitely fit for growth, more balanced. We are achieving this 6% in the next 3 years. Is it something that you can extrapolate. I think you definitely see growth engines. I'm not going to elaborate again. The platform is designed for that. We need also to recognize that there might be volatility from one year to the other, We mentioned, rightfully so, the point about clawback when it comes to regulated assets, which are significant. So there might be years which are above and years which are lower.

We still have some energy exposure. I mean, clearly, we have been, I think, pretty convincing in showing that we can resist to lower energy prices, but we still keep some upside especially on the volatility side. So definitely, there will be good years, there will be less good years. But still, I believe that this strong middle-digit profile is coming nicely with this platform. And that's what we are trying to build definitely. Now not committing to 2030 or whatever, but clearly, we are building on power, which is significant and which is higher, of course, than what we had in the past.

UKPN, I mentioned it briefly. In the long run, this is a business which can deliver a mid-single-digit growth, and that, we believe. But again, there will be periods we need to manage a depreciation gap period. We need to manage clawbacks. There will be, of course, trajectory, but we believe definitely that we can get there.

And then on the decline of WACC, it depends how you look at it. If you look forward, if you look at the portfolio of CapEx and investment which is coming through, the impact is significant. It's more than 50 bps in terms of WACC in the to come investment. If you look at the existing ENGIE, the whole thing, there is of course a lot of inertia. But still, it's a few tens of bps of decrease in the WACC of ENGIE as a whole, and you can work your calculation by yourself. But we see that as, of course, a very important component of the value creation.

Is there a question at the back?

Deepa from Bernstein. I had a couple of questions on UKPN. So if you look at the RAV growth of the companies in E2, for some reason, UKPN is at the bottom. I think overall RAV is 5%. For the next few years, you mentioned 4%. So I was wondering, is there anything structural in ED2 which will be rectified into ED3 on catching up on the growth?

And second question, again, on valuation. I mean this is a higher premium than what Iberdrola paid for Electricity Northwest. So how would you justify. Has anything changed? Is it U.K. regulation? Or is it the outperformance of UKPN? If you could just reconcile your statements at that point versus...

On the valuation, you know that we have been very close to the E&W transaction because we were the second bidder and we were indeed outbid by our competitor with, we believe, a fair valuation. So we know pretty well the multiples. Maybe something you can look at is the reference date of the RAV which is used at the time of the transaction. You may notice that we are using the reference date which is 3 months before an anticipated closing.

Maybe in the other transaction, it was something like 4 months after the closing. With the RAV which is growing, it can make a difference very quickly in a few digits. And I would also highlight that we have a ticking fee in line with market practice, 4%. So I think if you work on the numbers, you will find out that our multiple is actually very much in line, which is what you would expect for an asset of this quality, which is definitely at least as good as the previous asset that we had been looking at.

Okay. On the first question, comparatively, ED2 UKPN growth, I don't want to comment and stretch myself, but what is for sure is that we are expecting a significant increase in Totex spend -- sorry, in ED3 in line with the very ambitious Ofgem plan that we have for these licenses. So that's the main thing. And that increases of the order of 40%, 45% from ED2 and ED3. Now what the other ones will do, I have to say we'll have to check. But there is definitely growth expected in ED3.

And each license has a slightly different profile. Obviously, London is a little bit less about new energy transition staff. The other two license have a little bit more of that growth, in particular with the solar development in the South of England, which is significant. Although I know it does rain a lot here.

Harry, the second row.

7

It's Harry Wyburd from BNP Exane. So we covered a lot of ground, so these are kind of questions on the questions. But I'll try and still keep them interesting. So Catherine, if I've interpreted all this right, this is a big acquisition that's covered a lot of ground. So you're very likely to do more in the next couple of years. But you're not ruling out further distribution expansion, and you sort of alluded to this as a kind of platform deal.

So when you get to 2028 and you're 67% contracted, what is the kind of group objective after that? Should we assume that this you maybe want to continue to build in distribution? Or do you want to look at other parts of the business? One thing that sticks out for me is your outright power exposure, say, in France or the nuclear drawing rights or the hydro. What is the philosophy after you get 67% on how you want to change the business mix? So that's the first question.

And then on the second one to Pierre-Francois, it's a little bit of a challenge. So you sort of alluded that you could continue with the performance plan for a long time but at EUR 300 million or so a year is sort of 5% earnings growth, which is obviously fantastic. But probably, there's a point at which it gets quite hard to deliver that amount of incremental cost savings every single year. So how long would you be able to go at EUR 300 million a year of performance savings? And if there is a law of diminishing returns, how do you sort of pivot towards other sources of growth? Is it a continuation of M&A that we just discussed? Or is it something else?

Yes. Maybe, Harry, we think in general at ENGIE, we create more value organically than inorganically. We, today, are doing something which is structural for us. Developing a presence in distribution is a very important move for us. It gives us the profile of growth that we've commented in length during the presentation. And I'm not expecting to do any big M&A in distribution anytime soon. I think it's very important for ENGIE to digest what we've done and to indeed establish and learn from UKPN from an electricity distribution culture. It doesn't mean that in '28, we're going to do another one, not at all. That's not what I meant.

I think we're very excited about the growth opportunity that UKPN is bringing in itself. And that's really the whole beauty of the transaction, is that we're not just doing that thing and then we have a presence in distribution. We have now a presence in distribution. And we are able to grow in distribution through UKPN, and that is really going to be in the short term and midterm, our priority. So in terms of profile, I expect continuing investment in generation, continuing investment in infrastructures with the power networks organic development in Latin America. Organic, now, it's so nice to be able to say that. From July 1, we're going to say that we are growing organically also in distribution, which is fantastic.

And then the third thing, which is going to accompany our customers through our B2B franchise, which we didn't talk too much today about, but we are also very excited about. And there will be also growth there. And this is really going to be the three key growth avenues that we propose to explore. And I don't see any reason why this will stop in '27 or '28. Frankly, we think that is going to carry us along for quite a while.

And on your point about performance, I'm very optimistic that we can maintain that rate for a long time. First, the starting point gives opportunities for sure. And for those who know a bit ENGIE, I mean, you know that there is still room for improvement in many ways and that's very common.

Second, what we are doing, I mentioned the ERP project, but I could mention a few other IT projects. I mean, we are really breaking new grounds in terms of data management. The legacy of ENGIE was these 24 business units which were spread all over with no common language, no common tools. This has moved. And now we are moving at pace, building some data access, which is really impressive. This is going to create a new layer for further savings which are significant. It's not necessarily cost savings, but efficiencies. Definitely, we see a lot for better maintenance.

We see a lot in procurement, not because we would be adding new procurement savings as such, but because our ability to challenge the consumption to manage the demand and procurement is going to be boosted by what we are rolling out as we speak. And I'm not here in these numbers incorporating any significant contribution from AI. But this is coming on top of it. And this is coming through. And if you look at '28, you may argue, okay, but this amount are not going to be significant. But if you look deeper in time and if you look to 2030, 2035, I have no doubt there will be a very significant contribution in efficiencies and also cost cutting coming from AI, so on this part, and more about the competitiveness and the structural cost, I think there is still a lot of potential.

On the business part, I mean, we are talking about EUR 100 million to EUR 200 million a year, that's what we are talking. I mean, given the size of this business, to me, it looks like infinite. I mean, you can't always find EUR 100 million or EUR 200 million because of new technology, because of fixing issues. And that's our daily job. So I'm very, very convinced that we can have this EUR 300 million contribution for a very long time.

And the CEO confirms as well.

CEO thinks it's shy. That's another story.

So we'll now take some questions online. Operator, could you please take another question, please?

Yes. The next question is from Ajay Patel, Goldman Sachs.

Congratulations. My question was to sort of expand on one of the points that was made during the presentation. As you look at this, you're improving your risk profile. You're becoming more regulated contract in nature. You're effectively showing solid growth beyond even the '28 period from what we can tell. And I'm just thinking that we have that 4x net debt-to-EBITDA debt metric.

And as time and as you execute on your plan, is there an opportunity for that number to go up, and therefore, you have more balance sheet capacity to add to growth as you go further down the line?

And then on the data center strategy that you highlighted this morning, could you maybe spend a few minutes just to go through how you crystallize the value from that as in? Is it ultimately to co-develop and then to sell out? Is it just to provide an avenue for renewable and for the provision of energy? I'm just thinking of how are you thinking about the value you extract from that type of activity.

Okay. So should I start with data center? So there are really three buckets, just quickly. So we have the company-siting. And then we have the enablement of our renewables, so this is more traditional PPAs that come and enables us to decide the investment on new renewables generation. So this is quite typical in that. And then there is a third bucket, which is supply deals, which tend to be a bit more sophisticated, a bit more higher value for ENGIE because the tech centers and the data center tend to be very demanding when it comes to green electron to the type of product. And this is why you see this acronym, the CFE, carbon-free energy, is something that they value and that we can provide. So that's the last two.

The first one, which is the co-siting is indeed a bit of a new word for us. We are not taking participation in data center. I just want to be very clear. We remain who we are. We are an energy provider. And where it's a little bit difficult to talk generically about these things is that every project is different. So the question was asked earlier, how many projects we have.

We have about 30, 40 in a very probablized pipeline today when we have either already a project under development or we have even existing assets and then we work with a data center developer to see how we can help them access the land, so sometimes it can be just sales of the land to them, and then use existing renewables to provide them directly -- existing sorry, generations, so it can be renewable, it can be battery or a mix of, it can be grid access to help them with their power requirements.

So either we have existing projects and then you need to think of margin uplift on existing projects. I talked about derisking. As you know, in the United States, some of our projects get curtailed. Some of these projects, they get exposed to hub or node risk. And so the ability to co-site a data center where we have this project helps us through the risk management brick, and removing some of this risk actually creates value for ENGIE. And then there is all of the things in between, energy management services, when you have colocation, managing grid, renewable production battery is also a service that we're able to value with our counterpart.

So that's really what we're talking about. It's value creation as an energy management provider, as a renewable and green electron provider. But obviously, we are not looking at investing in data center or co-develop at all. So it's really about partnership and making sure that we bring to our partners our strength. So we have a number of projects, and that's what makes the 6 gigawatt. And you noticed on the 6 gigawatt, it's quite U.S., but not just U.S. We obviously have a strong asset base in Europe, and they will also contribute to some of these developments.

Thank you, Ajay, for a great question on the leverage. Maybe it's a busy morning. So maybe you have not seen. But the three rating agencies have released their confirmation of rating with a stable outlook. And the three of them, they have actually revised a bit their guidance in terms of ratios that we need to comply to be a bit relaxed. And I think it is exactly to your point, that the credit profile is improving and create a bit of space in the balance sheet. So we are very committed to our strong investment grade because we believe that is part of the story.

So definitely, we want to stay in there. But we will also use the flexibility, which is given not necessarily right away, but this is part of clearly the new flex that we have. Very pleased with that. That was also part of the purpose. You remember when we had the discussion, we wanted more regulated because regulated is also the ticket to ride to get an efficient balance sheet. So I think that it does make sense. So it's coming naturally. And clearly, we will use a bit of flex.

Now this is not today enough to they visit the 4. We are still pretty far away from 4. Of course, we'll be above 4 in '26, but we will be back. You remember, we said that we were -- yes, it's 4. But we are guiding, and we believe we should be steering the group slightly above 3.5. Clearly, we have a bit more flex, and that definitely helps the balance sheet to make sure we capture growth opportunities. Nothing crazy, very much in line with what we discussed, but very pleased to have a bit of flex.

Juan Rodriguez, Kepler Cheuvreux.

Two questions from my side, if I may. The first one is on Belgian nuclear, around the discussions on possible nuclear extensions. And looking at the guidance, you do not include any provisions or additional provisions on Belgium nuclear. Any quantification of possible revisions in your discussions could be helpful.

And the second is on the dividend and the credit rating metrics that you were addressing because we know that the EUR 1.1 floor is kind of indicative. Can we see EUR 1.35 as a floor for the dividend looking forward as some of the dilutive effects as well could be offset with a better payout ratio given the structure of the group and the credit rating keeping your 65% to 75% payout?

Okay. Maybe I'll give a bit more color on what the discussions we're having with the Belgium government. So here, we're really talking about the dismantling provisions. So these are the provisions that we are obviously much more in control of in the sense that they are being used as we speak, as we have started to dismantle those nuclear reactors. So it's not something that will happen to us in 50 years' time. And indeed, we have had an intermediate report from the process that indicated an increase of provisions, which is very odd and at odds with at least our provisions and our understanding of the work that we need to carry out to this matter.

So the discussion is ongoing. And I think Pierre-Francois, you mentioned ago the ONDRAF and then CPN, and we expect now a settlement at the end of April. The key thing is that the government, with whom we are engaged on a very regular basis, understands the need for an investor like ENGIE and an operator for ENGIE to have stability in the framework, including the way the provisions are set. So we're having from that standpoint very constructive discussions, especially indeed that the government has questions on security of supply beyond 2035, and therefore, is very interested in the operator ENGIE to look at extending the current 2 units that we have left operating beyond 10 years.

And of course, this extension is something that we have said all along that we were not super excited about considering, but that we could potentially indeed enter in a study to understand the economic operational safety, feasibility of such an extension. But of course, we can only do that if we have a stable, clear, predictable dismantling provision framework. So that gives you a little bit of some of the nuggets without going into all the details of the discussion. But these are some of the things that are on the table. Again, very constructive Belgium government, I have to say. So I am cautiously positive that there will be a good settlement, good landing on the discussion both on the provision topic, but also looking at potentially extending the 2 units that are currently in operations.

I'll stop here. Maybe you want to talk about the EUR 1.35.

The EUR 1.35 was not chosen by chance. So there is a clear signal with the EUR 1.35, which is it's a payout with the current number of shares of 67%. So it's stepping out from the low end of the range, so clearly signals that we are, of course, flexible within our payout range The second point is that there is a case the capital increase could be happening before the general meeting, and therefore, that the new shares would get the dividend. If the new shares were getting the dividend, the payout would be mid-range, so something like 70%, depends, of course, on the price, but 70%, 71%, which I give you an idea of what we are ready to do to smoothen the impact of the earnings decline.

The second point, which is very important, the new profile of our earnings is different from what it was and especially the low point in earnings that was expected to be in '26. Today, actually, earnings in '26 are expected to be broadly in line with '25. So we are not committing to anything and certainly not creating a new floor at EUR 1.35 because we are already have a floor and only one EUR 1.10. But clearly, the EUR 1.35 is commensurate with our expectations on earnings, and we are acutely aware of the expectation of shareholders not to see the dividend to decrease. And that's why the EUR 1.35 is, we believe, a right amount to set the tone for what is coming in terms of trajectory.

Okay. So maybe the very last question from the room, Alexander?

Alexandre Roncier, Bank of America. Just one, the last one as well. It's just regarding GEM and SEM in general. And you did mention that we didn't touch too much on Energy Management. So here we go. I think the results for 2025 came at EUR 1.85 billion for the former GEMS, which is a little bit below the initial EUR 2 billion guidance that you had given like a year ago. So maybe a bit of color on the reasons for that. Is that higher provision, lower operational performance? And if you have an early view on 2026?

And I also thought that the 2026-2028 guidance was perhaps a tad more prudent than what we've heard last year regarding B2B in particular, which I think is a little bit perhaps at odds with some of the messages we're getting on partnerships with data center, ongoing growth in that business. So just wondering how all of this fits in.

Thank you. 2025 was not a great year in terms of Energy Management. When it comes to Energy Management, there is a lot about hedging positions and making money out of this hedging position, EM is managing significant portfolio which are related also to sourcing from other businesses. EM isn't really in the middle of everything we do, the heart of the integrated model. So when you have all this position that you can manage, you can make -- you're long volatility and you can make a lot of money in some circumstances.

'25 was not a good year, and I'm sure that it can echo what you've heard in the market, the main reason being that there was volatility but it was politically driven. And when you want to make money out of energy management, you need patterns. You need a pattern that you can build some proxies around, and therefore, hedge your position. Here, the volatility was not in control. And clearly, the volumes have come down because when you are in that business, you need to be careful not to enter into a transaction that you may regret.

So for us, it was very important to be prudent. And definitely, the level of activities, the volumes were lower in Energy Management than expected. Not a great year in '25. So we've seen some normalization at the end of the year. We see some normalization now. So we are very confident that we will stay in the bandwidth of Energy Management, as we said, during the market update and as we confirm this year. So not a great year in '25, but we expect that we will improve a bit further in '26.

Now on B2B, no, we are not stepping down in any shape or form on our ambition on B2B. Clearly, '26 will be lower. And I mentioned very explicitly this EUR 300 million coming from the former contracts and the one-off that we have in '25. But this EUR 900 million is a solid base on which there will be growth from B2B, fueled in particular as a shift from gas to power, from power to green power and from green power to 24/7. So we are really moving the needle towards added-value product. And of course, behind that, data centers are critical because they are the ones who are also pulling this added-value move. So very confident that we'll deliver

Okay. This was our last question. Thank you for joining the event today. And of course, if you have any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to call the IR team. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome you to ENGIE's 9 months conference call. Shortly, Catherine and Pierre-Francois will present our 9 months performance, following which we will open the lines to Q&A. [Operator Instructions]

And with that, over to Catherine.

Thank you very much, Delphine. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the presentation for our 9 months 2025 results when we can report a resilient set of numbers in what we could perhaps say is the new norm of a choppy economic, political and geopolitical environment. We have continued to grow in renewables and flexible power, and we've done it as always, by executing with efficiency. We are dynamizing our performance, and we are further simplifying our asset portfolio. With our ideal combination of green and flexible energy plus expertise in energy management, we are putting ourselves in pole position to meet the challenges and opportunities of booming data center demand and in general electrification.

In Nuclear, we embark on a new chapter with the restart of both reactors in our new joint venture with the Belgian government, triggering the transfer of the remaining waste liability off our balance sheet, a big step for ENGIE delivered at last. Finally, on the basis of our 9 months results and final quarter outlook, we are on track to achieve the upper end of our net recurring income group share guidance range of EUR 4.4 billion to EUR 5 billion.

Before moving on, I want to take a moment to remind ourselves what we are at ENGIE. We are, first and foremost, a utility, which means that we are here to bring people something useful, something that they really need. And as a utility, we are focused on the energy transition, which means affordable, greener energy in a new environment of rising demand fueled by electrification and data center. Green Power is often quickest to market, the more so given procurement bottlenecks for new gas plants. Component costs have fallen drastically. But that alone doesn't automatically imply that greener output is cheaper than what we have today as there are negative prices, there is curtailment, which are undoubtedly a challenge, which shows that the system needs further optimization. And how are we doing this? We are moving faster to combining green output with batteries, pump storage and flexible gas. And also being pragmatic about what can be electrified, gas will remain an indispensable part of the energy system and gas in turn will need to be decarbonized.

As a utility focused on the energy transition, we have an ideal combination of assets and market know-how that is making greener energy more affordable and more attractive, which is why I am more excited than ever about the ambition we have at ENGIE to become the best energy transition utility.

Moving on to this next slide, some headline numbers. EBIT excluding nuclear was down 7.3% on an organic basis at EUR 6.3 billion, with a rising contribution from networks and recording a high basis of comparison in terms of energy pricing in SEM and hydro volumes in our Renewables and Flex Power GBU. Our performance actions achieved a tripling of boost to the EBIT over the first 9 months of 2025 versus last year to an unprecedented amount of EUR 477 million. You remember that we are targeting EUR 1 billion minimum of performance improvement over the '25 to '27 period, which represents an increase versus the previous years. In particular, a Culture & Competitiveness plan, also known as a C2 plan, is taking on a real momentum. The initial top-down approach is now complemented by a bottom-up approach, meaning that every manager is responsible for developing and implementing the most relevant action plan covering the key areas we have identified, bringing efficiencies in procurement, improving span and layer, reducing general and administrative expenses to name a few. I am really pleased to see the level of ownership from our management team on this topic and the promising results.

Moving on. Cash flow from operations stand at a strong level of EUR 11.4 billion. The structure of our balance sheet remains solid with economic net debt equating to 3.2x of EBITDA at the end of September, well below the ceiling of 4x. In conclusion, we approach the final part of 2025 with confidence, and I can confirm our guidance for the full year with net recurring income group share at the upper end of the range.

Turning to this next slide. We added over 2 gigawatts of renewables and BESS in Q3 alone, making 4 gigawatts for the first 9 months. Two major projects to mention, the Dieppe Le Tréport offshore wind farm, which in September installed its first turbine foundation. Also the signing of the 1.5 gigawatt solar project in Abu Dhabi a few weeks ago, our largest renewables project that demonstrates our global reach and ability to compete successfully for the biggest ticket project within our investment criteria.

In terms of green PPAs, we saw a big acceleration in Q3 with 3.1 gigawatts signed to date. In the U.S., we are moving forward with 1.7 gigawatts under construction, supported by demand for PPAs where buyers are anticipating scarcity and are looking to secure their supply. An example of that is our recently announced PPA with Meta covering the entire output of our 600-megawatt Swenson project in Texas, which is due on stream in 2027. Some uncertainty in that market remains still with, for example, the risk of delays in permitting from the impact of the U.S. government shutdown.

As with renewables, I want to stress a similar breadth of geographical presence and optionality in ENGIE's flexible power assets. This slide shows that we are expanding our portfolio in several European countries where we enjoy an integrated business presence. We've been actively contributing to Belgium security and flexibility of supply. Our 875-megawatt Flémalle CCGT is now operational. It achieved full power at the end of October and is currently undergoing final test to fine-tune processes. And at the start of October, we connected the first phase of our 200-megawatt BESS at Vilvoorde ahead of schedule. And early next year, we'll be starting construction of an 80-megawatt BESS at Drogenbos.

In Italy, we acquired 2 BESS projects of 200 megawatts combined in the Puglia region in July, enhancing our 4.2 gigawatts of generation portfolio and our supply business in that country. In Romania, where we have 240 megawatts of wind and solar as well as a regulated gas distribution business, we are launching the Sibiu BESS project with 80-megawatt capacity due on stream late 2026.

Moving on to this next slide, I want to share with you quickly how we are leveraging our key strengths in order to capture the opportunities presented by the data center boom, a boom that leads me to state with conviction that in the U.S., particularly, even those who don't believe in the energy transition believe in energy additions. What are these key strengths and how do they fit the needs of data center developers? First, we have a massive portfolio of over 1,000 generation and flexibility sites while data centers need land as well as grid access. So we can help. We aim to co-locate a substantial data center capacity with our production plan. Second, we will leverage our pipeline of over 100 gigawatts of renewables and BESS as well as our recognized capability to provide anything from basic as-produced PPA to sophisticated 24/7 as-consumed products. How? By stepping up the pace of new tech and data center PPAs and providing the quick-to-market additional energy that tech so badly needs. Worth mentioning here that ENGIE has so far signed a cumulative volume of over 505 gigawatts -- sorry, 5 gigawatts of renewable PPAs with tech and hyperscalers.

And third, we have best-in-class B2B supply and energy management while data center developers want to maximize their energy competitiveness. So here, we can help as well. Finally, it's a pivotal year for our business in Belgium, one of our 2 home markets. I already mentioned the opening of our flexible Flémalle gas-fired power plant plus 2 further BESS projects to add to the Kallo project, which is already underway, bringing us to 380 megawatts of storage capacity. Since then, we won significant volumes in the recent Belgian CRM auctions with around 2 gigawatts in each of these 3 auctions, thereby giving long-term visibility to the operations of our existing fleet while contributing to Belgium security of supply.

Last but not least, in nuclear, we are delighted at the success of the first stage extension work of the Tihange 3 and Doel 4 reactors and their timely reconnection to the grid with full availability for the winter season. This is the final milestone for our Belgian agreement, which is now fully in force, meaning that the transfer of nuclear waste liabilities has now been completed. Our liabilities are now limited to dismantling and low category nuclear waste. And for nuclear operation in Belgium, our exposure to merchant will end from the start of December. It is really a new chapter that kicks off for ENGIE in Belgium, nuclear, which encompassed relatively modest, but more importantly, derisked earnings and a derisked balance sheet.

With that, I will pass it over to Pierre-Francois.

Thank you, Catherine, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here with back-to-back calls. So apologies for this busy day. I'm pleased to present, of course, ENGIE's 9 months financial results for '25, a period which is marked by resilient earnings and also robust cash flow. EBITDA, excluding nuclear, reached EUR 9.8 billion; and EBIT, excluding nuclear, came in at EUR 6.3 billion. Both metrics reflect the normalization in our markets, lower hydro volumes and also some FX headwinds. Organic variance stand at minus 4% and minus 7%, respectively, after several years of exceptional performance. Against these headwinds, growth and performance, our growing momentum and our quality of earnings is evident in our cash flow from operations, which stands at EUR 11.4 billion. Net financial debt increased by EUR 2.7 billion only due to the Belgian nuclear agreement, while economic net debt decreased by EUR 1.4 billion, highlighting our disciplined approach to managing our balance sheet with credit ratios that leave us with significant headroom.

Importantly, our 2025 guidance is confirmed. And based on Q3 performance, we actually expect to reach the upper half of the range for EBIT excluding nuclear and the upper end for net recurring income. ENGIE continues to demonstrate resilience and agility, positioning us well for the remainder of the year. Consequently, we foresee sustained growth in our fourth quarter, outperforming last year's Q4 and taking H2 '25 above H2 '24 as expected. This reflects our confidence in ENGIE's ability to deliver consistent and predictable growth over the coming years with a low point expected in 2026 net recurring income following the phase down of our nuclear activity.

Let's now turn to the evolution of ENGIE's EBIT over the first 9 months. As you can see, EBIT excluding nuclear stands at 6.3%. The headline story is very simple. It's one of investments and performance initiatives offsetting the impact of market normalization and lower volumes. On the negative side, indeed, we faced significant headwinds from FX and scope as well as from price and volatility, particularly within our supply and energy management activities, where market normalization led to lower reserve reversals and also reduced results on gas and LNG. One-off items such as positive impact of renegotiated gas contracts in 2024 and increase in 2025 for gas transport tariff also weighed on the results. Those impacts were partly compensated by the tariff increase in our French gas networks. Volumes were another challenge, especially in renewables, where lower resources in Europe, most notably hydro in France, but not only drove a substantial decline.

Networks also saw reduced consumption, particularly in Germany and France, contributing to the overall volume effect. However, these pressures were partly offset by strong commissioning activities, plus EUR 327 million with new assets in renewables, networks and local energy infrastructure coming online and contributing positively to EBIT. Performance improvements across all segments, a striking plus EUR 477 million, as Catherine was alluding to, added further support, demonstrating the effectiveness of our operational excellence and competitiveness programs as well as the successful upturn of some loss-making activities.

Other effects include notably the cost of our employee shareholding plan for a bit more than EUR 50 million. Nuclear EBIT is down EUR 577 million with negative volume effect linked to the permanent shutdown of Doel 1 in February '25 as well as conformity outages of Tihange 3 and Doel 4. This decrease is also explained by some lower prices captured in Europe.

In summary, while market normalization and lower volumes presented clear challenges, ENGIE's disciplined investment and performance initiatives are enabling us to land our EBIT trajectory at a much higher level than precrisis. If we review now ENGIE's EBIT evolution by reporting segments for the first 9 months, you should note that Renewable and Flex Power EBIT is negatively impacted by FX, minus EUR 75 million and by scope, minus EUR 97 million with exposure to Brazilian real and U.S. dollar for FX and also with disposal of cash generation assets in Singapore and Pakistan as well as the deconsolidation in Morocco.

Renewables and BESS activities decreased organically by EUR 136 million. This was due to the normalization of volumes in Europe as hydrology in France returned to more typical levels after exceptionally favorable conditions last year. Overall volume impact in Europe, net of the hydro tax amounts to EUR 419 million. This was partially offset by the very strong contribution of new commission assets, plus EUR 255 million and improved operational performance, plus EUR 55 million. Q4 should benefit from a softer base effect, also supporting a more positive outlook, significantly more positive outlook. We are also pleased to report that we have resolved all pending disputes with Nordex U.S.A. and ENGIE Renewables and the parties anticipate continuing their strong commercial relationship.

Turning to gas generation. EBIT declined by EUR 126 million organically. The main driver here was a continued drop in capture spreads in Europe, minus EUR 260 million, mostly in H1 and the high comparison base, however, this was partly balanced by favorable price effects internationally, especially in Chile and in Australia and the end, of course, of the inframarginal tax in France.

In Infra, the picture is positive. EBIT from networks increased by an impressive EUR 705 million, driven by tariff increases implemented last year and related to the new regulatory period. Strong performance in French activities and the annual revision of distribution tariff in France further supported results in Q3.

In Latin America, EBIT grew, thanks to new power line construction in Brazil and tariff indexation in both Brazil and Mexico. While the bulk of the profit increase was secured in H1 with the full impact of tariff increase in Europe, Q3 was a good quarter. Local Energy Infrastructure saw an organic EBIT decrease at EUR 36 million, which is actually an improvement versus the first half. The anticipated normalization of market prices impacted spread captured by cogeneration facilities, but this was mitigated by improved performance and selective development of new urban heating and cooling networks.

Moving to supply and Energy Management now. EBIT in B2C activities declined by EUR 131 million organically, mainly due to a strong and atypical year in 2024. Still, good margins in Europe and a market environment that allows for full valuation of risk helped cushion the impact and are supporting a full year ambition close to EUR 0.5 billion. B2B EBIT decreased organically by EUR 129 million, reflecting a drop in timing effect that had positively impacted the 9 months '24. But again, commercial performance remains solid with margins in line with expectations, and we are all set for a strong year.

Finally, Energy Management EBIT decreased by EUR 75 million organically, reflecting continued market normalization, softer activity due to geopolitical and economic uncertainties and lower market reserve releases compared to last year. A negative one-off related to gas transport tariff updates in Austria and the Netherlands also weighed on results in H1, whereas last year's third quarter benefited from a positive one-off linked to gas contract renegotiations.

Overall, SEM performance is on track, and we expect B2B plus Energy Management to land the year slightly below EUR 2 billion as we tailor our offerings to evolving client needs and adjust our contract time lines accordingly. So as we look across our segment, it's clear that '25 has kept us on our toes, whether it's the weather, the geopolitical uncertainty or energy market evolution. But beyond the granular explanation of each business and taking some steps back, despite persistent soft trading in EM, you can see in Q3 the first tangible signs of some parts of the business going back to growth. For R&D, volumes and prices headwinds are stalling. For generation in Europe and for ADI, the decrease of clean spark spreads, including hedging is now largely behind us. And throughout the organization, our performance efforts are gaining momentum. With our team's agility and the portfolio built for all seasons, we are ready to keep moving forward.

Let's now focus on ENGIE's cash flow from operations for the first 9 months. Again, our ability to generate cash remains exceptionally strong, supported by disciplined working capital management and a solid operational performance. One thing to mention is the positive cash impact from the phase down of our nuclear activities, which has contributed to a reduction in working cap for about EUR 700 million. This effect, combined with stable operating cash flow and the positive impact of lower gas prices on storage has enabled us to sustain cash generation at a very high level. For the period, cash flow from operations stands at EUR 11.4 billion, confirming ENGIE's robust fundamentals and our capacity to navigate changing market conditions. The strong cash generation and that we expect to continue is a key enabler of our strategy. It does fund our performance efforts in digital and restructuring, our investment program in generation, flexibility and infra and last but not least, healthy dividend to our shareholders.

Let's now turn to ENGIE's credit ratios and debt profile as of September '25. Our leverage ratios remained stable and well within our targets with net financial debt to EBITDA at 2.5x and economic net debt to EBITDA at 3.2x. Over the period, net financial debt increased to EUR 36 billion, driven by the cash out impact of the nuclear deal in Belgium. Our cash flow from operation has more than financed maintenance and growth investments in addition to supporting dividend payments. It is worth noting that other impacts amounting to a decrease of EUR 0.3 billion debt includes the effect of disposals for EUR 0.7 billion. Economic net debt stands at EUR 46.4 billion, down from EUR 47.9 billion at the end of 2024. The group balance sheet continues to improve, driven by disciplined working cap management and the powerful cash machines at our gas networks and downstream operations. In short, ENGIE's financial structure is rock solid, providing us with the flexibility to invest, reward our shareholders and meet our long-term commitment even as we navigate the complexities of the energy transition.

Now let's wrap up with ENGIE's full year '25 guidance. Guidance remains unchanged. However, we expect now to reach the upper half of the range for EBIT excluding nuclear, and the upper end for net recurring income group share. This reflects the group's strong operational performance and well-controlled financial expenses due to strong cash generation. Our dividend policy remains attractive with a payout ratio of 65%, 75% based on net recurring income and a floor set at EUR 1.10 per share. Our strong investment-grade rating is maintained, and we continue to target an economic net debt-to-EBITDA ratio below 4 over the long term. Key assumptions for the year include updated market commodity prices and foreign exchange rates, average weather condition and recurring net financial costs between EUR 1.9 billion and EUR 2.1 billion. The recurring effective tax rate is expected to be in the 24%, 26% range, including the special tax in France.

Looking ahead, we expect Renewables and Flex to deliver healthy EBIT growth in Q4, and we anticipate a very solid Q4 in B2B, continuing the momentum established in Q3 for the quarters that are not fully representative of the longer-term trend as the tail of market normalization for B2B will still impact 2026. We expect Energy Management to deliver growth in the fourth quarter versus Q4 '24 with results stabilizing in the middle of our midterm guidance in the years ahead, of course, subject to the usual ups and downs and market volatility. Q1 2025 benefited from unusually high market volatility, which set a strong benchmark. While Q1 '26 may not reach the same level, we expect solid fundamentals to continue supporting performance throughout the year.

In summary, ENGIE is well positioned to deliver on its commitments with robust earnings, disciplined financial management, strong balance sheet and a clear strategy for shareholder returns.

With that, I pass it back to Catherine.

All right. Thank you, Pierre-Francois. So to conclude, the first 9 months have seen excellent execution of our growth and performance strategy. And looking forward, we will continue to build on our track record of strong delivery. We will continue to push through our cultural transformation, make fullest use of our portfolio, which is built for all seasons, and we will continue to develop and engage our top-class teams for the benefit of all our stakeholders.

Now back to Delphine for the Q&A.

Thank you, Catherine. Operator, can you please open the lines to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Alex Roncier of Bank of America.

I have three, if I may. The first one is on operational performance. And I think we've seen good and/or improving results in flexible generation and commodity trading at some of your peers and within the wider energy sector actually. So I'm surprised a bit by the guidance upgrade today that is not necessarily supported by that. But equally, I wanted to check with you that perhaps given the more volatile than expected power markets this year, you had to book more market provisions this year perhaps than expected. You did talk, I think, about lower release, which is somehow equivalent, which could explain some of the upper end conservatism in the guidance there for those specific drivers, but would support earnings into next year, I would assume.

Second question, if I'm not mistaken, your guidance to 2027 does include some not -- insignificant M&A, in particular in networks. And given that opportunities are not easily seen today, at least on my side, and given the increased focus on storage at the European level, the pipeline you had acquired in U.S. and your overall strategy of 24/7 green energy, why would you not take the route of active power networks investment instead of passive ones and really boost your CapEx allocation to batteries?

Last question. If I'm not mistaken, you said the 22% to 25% recurring effective tax rate for the '25, '27 guidance was excluding potentially new French taxes. So wondering if you could give some more number around that. I think you guided previously to around EUR 150 million perhaps of extra taxes in France for 2025. Any view on the current budget and potential impact, being mindful, of course, that everything could collapse in the coming weeks.

Okay. I will start maybe with one and three. And Catherine, you will pick the number two. So yes, there is indeed some volatility in power markets. But when you double down on the numbers, you see, for example, that the intraday volatility has been reducing. You see also that the bid-ask is not what it was. And that does explain why indeed, we have a lower -- also reversal of reserves. It's also because we had a lot in '24. So you always need to look when we explain year-on-year to what was the reference. And in 2024, we had to release significant reserves. So I would not say that we have been booking more. Actually, again, the volatility -- some KPIs on the volatilities are rather going down, and we had actually less to book even if compared to '24, of course, we released less. And we are not that pleased with the current market in EM and Q3 is still soft as it was in Q2. That's not a surprise, and you may have seen that in the market everywhere. And that we have seen as well, not that much on power, but more on gas.

On the tax rate, yes, the rate is -- our guidance is 24%, 26%. It does include the French [indiscernible] tax or extra tax, whatever for about 1.3%. I think it does account in these numbers. One thing which is important is that -- we -- you know that we have -- indeed, with the Belgian transaction, we are in a situation where holdings now are potentially more efficient in terms of tax, and that is supporting a lower tax rate in the long run. But we have not taken any consequence of that in 2025, and we do not plan to. That's the reason why you see that kind of guidance. It doesn't mean that we will not do it in the years to come. And our long-term view on tax is more lenient than what you see in 2025. That doesn't mean, of course, that there won't be an extra tax in '26 in France and maybe some other countries because you may have noticed that many countries are running for money. So we are on our toes and defending, of course, our position. But so far, we have not identified anything that would jeopardize our global view and also our ability to manage our tax rate in the long run.

And maybe just to add to the noise that we are hearing from Parliament as a lot of quite exotic measures are being voted by the current parliamentary sessions, the probability or the likelihood that all this noise gets materialized into the real budget at the end is actually quite low at this stage. So obviously, we're monitoring the situation. But as you guys know, there is a difference between all the noise and what will actually happen eventually.

And then maybe a point on our investment strategy. Just to remind that we have obviously 2 levers we want to action to deploy the growth and the strategy of ENGIE to further the utility and the energy transition. It's generation, green power, green electrons and indeed, in the network arena, it's about power networks. And we believe that we have a very clear capital allocation policy along these 2 levers. What is for sure is that -- on the generation, we are probably more excited than before on the opportunity set on batteries and in general storage, but battery for sure. We were very U.S. focused. And when you look at our numbers, most of our operating batteries today are in the U.S. But lately, you will see, and I showed that in my prepared remarks that there is an acceleration finally in Europe. There is also opportunities, obviously, that we are seizing in the markets where we are present in Latin America. Chile is a good example of that. But Europe is really behind. Europe has been very ahead on renewables.

Also distributed solar is proving its limitation in some markets with a lot of negative hours. And here, batteries are very, very urgent. So in our key markets in Europe, we are accelerating on batteries, and that was obviously, the purpose of the examples I gave you. So remember, when we said to 2030 and 95 gigawatt, that used to be 80 gigawatt on renewables. So now it allows for quite a big envelope on battery and energy storage for sure.

And on Power Networks, as you guys know, we're very focused on what we can do organically in Latin America. Inorganic, we are looking at it. We said that we would take some time. We'll be patient because, obviously, we want to do the right thing. But we do believe that is the right path to go on, and we will deliver on that strategy. Timing, obviously, will depend on a lot of things.

The next question is from Harry Wyburd of BNP Paribas Exane.

So two for me. So first, it's probably one for Catherine. On gas, just thinking about the overall group strategy here. I think the strategy over the last few years has mainly been on, as you said, the green electrons. And for a while now, you've had a target or a long-term target to reduce gas capacity. But I'm wondering in Europe, given all of the newfound excitement again over data centers, I mean, I'd say my observation would be that in Europe, your biggest issue around that topic or indeed any other -- of the many other drivers of demand is around the peaks and particularly around the sort of [indiscernible] times when you don't have any winds. And given you have one of the biggest gas fleets in Europe, is there scope perhaps for a rethink on that? I mean the way I see it, you're going to be building tons of batteries and you alluded to that seeing an uptick in Europe, that's going to dilute the daily evening spark spreads. And really, the end game here, if you look at the sort of resource adequacy reports from ENTSO-E is that probably you're going to have to move to a capacity market system everywhere in Europe and capacity payments are going to go up to make sure these gas plants all stay open.

So is there anything you can say to us to maybe make us a bit more interested or even excited about how much you could earn from your gas fleet in Europe, which I think we all value at a pretty low multiple. So that's the first point. And the second one is the next time you speak to us early next year, you're probably going to come out with maybe some new longer-term targets and thoughts. Has there been any advance on your thinking about how you might grow the dividend from next year? And indeed, the earnings because, of course, as you mentioned, earnings are going to trough next year. Any views on what we could think about as a sustainable long-term EPS CAGR from ENGIE once earnings trough next year?

All right. I think -- Harry, I think you did the question, but also the answer because I mean, you're totally right. We are obviously super excited about the value that is carried by our CCGT fleet in Europe. And you're very right that batteries are really, really important, but they tend to be a fantastic complement to solar. When you don't have wind in Europe, it generally typically lasts for a few more than -- a little bit more than just a few hours. And here, the gas plants play a critical, critical role, plus the gas can be stored. So you really have a very important power insurance in these gas fleets. And you can see that the CRMs indeed, which we saw first deployed in Belgium actually pioneering a little bit the scheme, but now is being deployed at a varied degree of speed in many, many other countries in Europe, and that's obviously a positive for Gas fleet.

So we are excited. In fact, if you look at the load factor in Europe recently, you have seen that -- we have seen that the load factors have increased. If you remember, last year, we were at about 15%, and now we are above 20%. So they are actually being called more, which is exactly reflecting the reality that you are describing. So Yes, overall, we are really -- I mean, we like our gas fleet. We have just put Flémalle online under the CRM scheme in Belgium. And Flémalle is for sure going to contribute to the security of supply and play that role. So that's for sure. And of course, eventually, we'll have to make sure that we can decarbonize the gas. But frankly, we see that the CCGT play a role for years to come and a nice complement to a battery. And so that's great asset for us.

In terms of the dividend, we're very, very attached to the consistency of our dividend policy. And as you know, it has this 65% to 75% of net recurring income formula that has not changed, and we like that. Obviously, the way we have shaped ENGIE and our aim is really to make sure that we deliver this predictable gentle earnings trajectory, which will turn and should turn into a gently growing dividend for our shareholders. That's our intention. Obviously, a bit early to talk about next year's dividends, and we'll come back to you in February. We're hearing from the market this eagerness to see this trajectory materialize. But let's talk about it again in February.

Just an add on EPS CAGR. Going forward, I think that -- I mean, clearly, we are pleased with the development of operation in Q3. And of course, we see some headwinds. I mean, clearly, the regulations are unstable in some countries. FX is not pointing into the right direction. I mentioned that the volatility for EM was lower in Q2, Q3, but this is a short-term point. On the other side, again, we see that Renewables are still going at pace in some significant geographies for us like India, like in Middle East. Power demand, clearly, we see that it's going in the right direction. Expectations are rising actually in the U.S. and in Europe. And also the interest rates, I mean, clearly, we had a peak and now it looks like we are going back to a normal level, and we are very pleased with the way we have been handling that in the future. So there are pros and cons. I think that today, what we see in the business -- at the end of the day, our growth is delivering EBIT. Our performance plan is getting momentum at pace. So yes, we see the good drivers of a sound EPS CAGR from 2026. And the story that we shared in the market update is absolutely the good one, and we stick to it.

The next question is from Ajay Patel of Goldman Sachs.

I guess mine is around Slide 7, where you highlight the booming data center demand slide and your capabilities to take advantage of it. I'm thinking, well, look, at the moment, your current CapEx program didn't really have that much demand growth put into it. And it feels by this presentation like your confidence on leveraging ENGIE's portfolio to take advantage of this demand is effectively pointing to more CapEx, more opportunity, more growth. So I'm trying to think, well, as your targets roll, are we going to see ENGIE demonstrate that leveraging in the form of CapEx, i.e., you'll start to see the benefits of it in CapEx programs?

And then the other thing is just on also capital allocation. As you see it, as this has developed, has this maybe changed the emphasis in the geographies? Any insight, any sort of high-level things here would be really helpful.

And then more of a just specific numbers question. Just wanted to check if there are any one-offs that I need to take into account for Q4 when modeling the full year results, just make sure that I've got everything in the bridge.

Yes. So Ajay, just to -- the price and the opportunity that we see in data centers for ENGIE today is threefold. It's speed to power, and this is really about leveraging our existing footprint to co-site, co-locate data center near existing energy assets and taking advantage of the fact that we have connection, we have land, we have acceptability levers. We are in an ecosystem that we know very much, and we can partner with specific data centers to allow them to develop their data centers faster, including helping them on the energy side. Then we have decarbonization on energy addition depending on what your driver is, and this is about PPAs. This is about 24/7. And this is really about supporting our renewable developments.

So the reason why we don't see today any need to have dedicated additional CapEx allocated to that is that this is in our underlying CapEx plan to get to the 95 gigawatts. But think of it as very supportive about -- of the quality of those gigawatts. Because obviously, when you provide energy to data center, you are providing something. And as you guys know, the cost sharing of operating a data center, the energy part is actually quite significant. And so we are an important supplier to them. There is scarcity. And so this is supportive to obviously the quality of the gigawatts that we have in our portfolio developing our renewables assets.

One point here, which is really important is as you -- I'm sure you know, data centers, the acceptability topic is gaining importance. And why is that? Because if data center is only a load and doesn't contribute to energy addition, then will turn into increase cost inflation for the people, for the consumers and the acceptability is going to be a problem. We see signs of that already in a few places, particularly in the United States. So this whole notion that data centers need to contribute to the energy transition, the energy addition is obviously supportive for us in terms of having renewable projects an impact on PPA. But again, not necessarily additional CapEx for us, at least not that we see today.

And then the last point, which is, in general, it's more plain vanilla B2B. So here, it's supportive to our B2B business. This is more traditional energy contracts. Again, here, there's not much CapEx associated with that, which is why you don't see these numbers. Then the question about the capital allocation. Obviously, U.S. -- I mean, as you guys know, we have a good plan on capital allocation in the U.S.. Data center is a big driver for quick energy addition in the United States. Caveating this, the fact that there is this uncertainty on permitting, for example, tariffs and that we are working around, we're managing quite well. But we have decreased a little bit our capital allocation in the U.S., not because we don't like the data center, not because we don't have customers that want what we can provide, but really because there is a bit too much uncertainty to our liking to deploy as much as we thought we would. Maybe that will change. That's a nice thing about the U.S., things change quickly. But right now, we are a little bit less -- shy in the U.S. We are excited about other places.

Europe, obviously, even though the scale in Europe is not significant, but we are seeing data, digital sovereignty big topics in Europe where people want to have data center in their country. So that's one opportunity. And then the other opportunity somehow related to data center is in the Middle East and India. In these regions, it's very interesting what's happening because here, again, it's not so much about ideology, but obviously, the need to have power, fast power and a lot of power, competitive power. And here, obviously, depending on the resources, renewables are very attractive, which is why we are able to do big projects. The one that we signed in Abu Dhabi is obviously fitting well on this criteria.

May I just add [indiscernible] just on the [indiscernible] securing land [indiscernible] what degree does that [indiscernible] this proposition of basically maybe signing a contract with a data center, developing a site. Can you give us any order of magnitude what kind of value it creates because it's quite a number of sites.

Sorry, I'm just silent because I'm trying to understand the question. I mean it creates -- it's the value that you can derive from having something someone wants. It creates the value that you can derive from having a partnership with a data center. And obviously, it's supportive. Now to be honest, these projects, they take a long time to develop because obviously, they are quite complicated. So today, we have numbers. It's a single-digit number of projects of that kind that we are working through. and it takes some time to develop because they are quite complex. But eventually, obviously, these will be good deals because we have something quite unique that these guys need and want. And so these are good partnerships. But in terms of numbers and time, it takes a bit of time to develop.

Maybe just to cover your third question, which is not allowed, but still -- any one-off in Q4. By design, one-offs are not supposed to be known in advance. That being said, what we know is that Q4, there was, last year, quite a chunky number of negative one-offs. Part of it also being -- we are very keen to make sure that when we close our books, we prepare for the future, and we also discuss with our customers so we can actually help them to manage the energy transition. And you can expect that in Q4, to a certain extent, there will be also the same kind of deals that we can structure. You remember in H1, we said that we are a bit under pressure, [indiscernible], I mean maybe you should indicate that you are going to land above mid point and say, no, we want to make sure that we can deliver a good 2025, but also taking in account the request of our customers. So we are in that situation. So I think that we will deliver a strong Q4 that we are pretty confident in and that will still allow some room to accommodate the request of our customers and our views on the market.

The next question is from Louis Boujard from ODDO.

I will stick to two questions then. And maybe the first one would be related to the performance of the plan. Your performance plan has contributed to more or less EUR 500 million in the first 9 months, which is, I think, quite strong. Can you elaborate on the key levers that enable this performance in terms of cost base, procurement, generation efficiency or other elements that could have sustained it? And to which extent it could be sustainable going forward according to you and if it could enlarge in the future?

And the second topic would be -- maybe more related to current uncertain environment, I would say. I appreciate that you already provided some indication regarding the Supply & Trading future business performance. But considering the evolution of the lower volatility in the energy markets and potentially lower gas prices that could come in the future, do you continue to see that it's going to remain in the same level that you initially anticipated for '26 to '27? Or do you foresee eventually some headwinds to adjust this target on the Supply & Trading business?

Maybe I'll start to talk a little bit about the performance plan because, yes, indeed, we are really happy with the progress. And we have 3 key big buckets. We have the operational excellence. We have what we call a C2, the Competitiveness & Culture. And then there is the loss-making entities. The loss-making entities has been quite strongly contributing because unfortunately, we did have a few loss-making entities. So the reversal and the correction of these entities is contributing to the plan. So this contribution of the loss-making entities is a bit front-loaded. That is expecting to come down, while the other pieces of the plan obviously will take on momentum, which is why we are following very closely the C2 and its impact on the performance result. And that's why I pointed out to the fact that it is indeed gaining momentum, and we're expecting it to gain more momentum towards the end of the plan, towards the end of the period in relation. So we have said about between EUR 1 billion and EUR 1.3 billion over the period of contribution to performance plan. And given these good results in 2025, obviously, we're comfortable that we will deliver on this with a bit of a different mix.

And in terms of example, I gave a few, the span and layer. And these are really important because they contribute to the numbers, but they also help us be more efficient, change the culture, increase transparency. It has agility, the speed, the digital systems deployment are faster. So it has a lot of other benefits than obviously just contributing to the EBIT. So that's really very exciting. And of course, procurement continues to be a big lever as well that was fairly untapped at the group scale a few years ago. And now we are really working through making sure that every business benefits from these procurement gains also helped by the deployment of our ERP system, which is in early phase, but also allows us to further our procurement gains.

And then customer environment. So for sure, the margins that we have embarked in our deals in general have a little bit correlated with the absolute value of the energy price. On the other hand, as we are driving our business to be more power and within power, to be more green power, we see that we are able to support good margins by shifting our business in that sense. And the other thing that we are seeing with our customers today is that they tend to want to strike longer-term deals. So the longevity of our contract or the tenure of our contract is increasing, and this is really good because it gives us obviously more visibility on the earnings of the supply business specifically. I'm not talking about energy management, but supply the B2B, where we are seeing more predictability. We have more visibility on this business than ever because of this trend to have longer tenure in terms of contracts.

And we -- I think that we did indeed socialize some numbers on the contribution of the former GEMS, you remember, I'm sure, before and saying that after normalization, the contribution should come north of EUR 1.5 billion. And to your question, we are still comfortable with this view, even if you're right. I mean, today, we have rather at the low end of the volatility in the market. But -- so therefore, lower EM contribution, which -- that we had in 2025. But again, the point that Catherine made about B2B and the commercial margins, the longer duration of contract is a clear support to that, and that gives us confidence that we can indeed confirm what we said about the contribution of these businesses.

And with regard to B2C also, we are for, again, a more normal year. And I had the opportunity to mention in H1 that today, our hedging, our sourcing process in B2C has been drastically improved during the crisis. It gives us more comfort and more visibility and our capabilities to stick to this good contribution and grow it actually in the future throughout the years.

The next question is from James Brand of Deutsche Bank.

Just a couple of questions on data centers, surprise, surprise. First question, could you give us any details around how we should be thinking about pricing when you're signing a PPA? You obviously highlighted you signed a lot of PPAs in the last quarter and in general. Are you broadly pricing in line with the forward curve? Or is there a premium? And if there is a premium, is there anything you can say about how material it is? I obviously accept that this is quite commercially sensitive. But anything you can say on that would be super interesting.

And then you mentioned the scale in Europe is -- I think you said not significant. I don't know if you meant not as significant as the U.S. But I guess my question is, obviously, European markets are not particularly tight at the moment, and you're seeing the margins coming down rather than up for the gas fleet. And obviously, in the last few years, we've seen overall demand come down quite materially in the major European countries. So the question is kind of if we do start to see demand picking up meaningfully over the next few years, like how long do you think it will take before we start to actually see some tightness before the volatility picks up again for the gas fleet? Obviously, it depends a bit on the market, but are there any kind of general comments that you can make that kind of help us conceptualize when demand growth will start to drive market tightness in Europe?

Okay. So PPA dynamics. So we signed 3.1 to date. So we are pretty much in line with what we did last year with a bit of a contrasted market between the United States and Europe. Europe is a little bit more -- it's a bit softer PPA market, and that obviously translates into less premium over market price. In the U.S., there is indeed a premium for PPAs over market price, and it is sizable without going too specific, but it is -- indeed PPA prices are higher than what you can see in the forward. So this dynamic explains why we are pleased with what we've done, but we are not seeing 2025 much higher. We don't expect 2025 to be higher than 2024 just on the basis of the first 3 months on the basis of Europe being a little bit more -- less busy, let's say, as the United States. In terms of the demand dynamic in Europe, and again, you have to be careful when we talk about volatility because we do see intraday volatility in Europe today, even though that the demand has not been super strong. And this is, frankly, the reflection of the asset mix, which is why we are so excited about batteries and the CCGTs in terms of load factor and the start-stop and et cetera, which play fully their role today.

The demand in 2025 on power in Europe today is increasing a little bit year-on-year. I think it's about 1%. So we're starting to see a little bit of demand pick up. And expectation is that it will continue, obviously, on the basis of the electrification. You've seen that European commitment to climate targets is still strong. Even though there are questions about, for example, electrification of vehicles, 2035 might allow for hybrid vehicles. Still, we do think -- and there is still the heat pump demand that is being pushed by quite a few member states. So we do think that demand for power will pick up. I don't know for how long it will take to get to the same level as the U.S., but we do expect power demand to increase in the coming years. Remember also that there is the demand, but there is also supply. And on the supply side, there is quite a few assets that are being retired in Europe. So we don't need a much demand increase to see tightness on the supply side. If we don't continue to develop the right renewables, the right storage and all that stuff, that needs to continue in order to just replace what is being retired in various countries, not to mention, obviously, the one in Belgium, the 5 reactors that we are stopping, but Germany is also stopping quite a few assets.

The next question is from Arthur Sitbon of Morgan Stanley.

I have two. The first one is a follow-up question on the performance plan. So you did very well in the first 9 months of the year and you seem quite ahead of your target for the plan. I was wondering if we should understand from that, that this is one of the key pillars you will develop on at full year results when I imagine you would provide 2028 targets? And how important is it going to be as a vehicle -- driver for your earnings growth post trough in 2026. And I was wondering as well if you could just tell us in the EUR 477 million, if all of that is a cash improvement on EBIT or if part of that is noncash?

And the second question is, as you were flagging lots of different amendments and taxes were proposed in France as part of the budget discussion. I think several of them could apply to you. There is one on power margin cap, one on a change on the corporate tax calculation methodology. I was wondering if you could just flag to us maybe the ones that even if we're not sure that they will, at the end of the day, be adopted, the ones that could be the most material to you and if you have a rough sense of how material they would be if ever they were to get implemented?

Thank you very much, Arthur. So we are not going to comment the full year results ahead of the full year results on the performance plan. Very pleased indeed with the strong start. Of course, performance plan will be a solid and sustainable pillar of our growth in earnings for many years, and that goes beyond '27. You're right, there will be some coming in '28, of course. Now it's important to mention and you know, I'm the CFO, so I'm the guy who is always looking at the half empty glass. It's important that we deliver on performance. This year, it was important for us because we had headwind in FX and the performance plan start was coming nicely to match what we were missing in translating some of the earnings abroad. So I think it's also -- be careful that we do manage globally our results. So yes, performance plan, a strong pillar that will stay. And I'm pleased to report that most of it indeed is cash. It doesn't mean necessarily in EBIT because there might be some costs which have been last year booked elsewhere. But really, it's cash which is moving in big time.

And then on French taxes, I mean, we -- again, we see a lot of fireworks going everywhere. So far, we have not seen -- first, as Catherine said, I mean we need to stay calm and look at what is going to come through at the very end of it, and we don't know yet. There are sometimes even some provisions which contradict each other. So when our experts try to figure out what does that mean, just cannot make it. So I think that so far -- but we have not identified a catastrophe that I can tell you. But now we need to go through the full process, and we will see what comes out of it. But so far, we are reasonably confident that should land in something which is manageable for us.

Operator, can we take one last question, please?

And the final question is from Bartek Kubicki of Bernstein.

Two questions. First of all, I would like to discuss your PPA book in the U.S. If you could maybe tell us a little bit what is the duration of this PPA book and what is the size? And consequently, where I'm going to is, when those PPAs expire, do you see a potential for margins improvement in the U.S. or to the contrary? That's in the light of the increasing power demand. So consequently, can your existing renewables portfolio in the U.S. increase in profitability in the future or rather decrease given the power demand?

Second of all, if we can go for your B2B book. I just wonder if we translate whatever you are saying into an absolute margin per megawatt hour of power sold, do you currently see those margins on new contracts increasing or decreasing versus the prior contracts? And this lower volatility or normalization of volatility, what specifically it impacts in your B2B portfolio? Because I guess, on one hand, you have increasing power demand. But on the other hand, you also have, for instance, decreasing gas prices and decreasing volatility. So I just wonder how to understand it better what exactly moves up and down in your B2B portfolio.

Maybe just in the U.S., our PPAs, obviously, they tend to be quite long term. And our renewable portfolio in the U.S. is actually quite young. So right now, the PPAs are ongoing. And so we don't have a lot of expiration, at least not in the short term. In theory, you're right to point out that existing assets in the current environment and hopefully, that environment is here to stay, they have the value of the PPA today, but they will have the value of future green power, existing green power at the right place for future customers. So we see that value. But today, the PPAs are still quite young in the U.S. So we'll have to be a little bit patient to value that. Do you want to say a few comments on...

Yes, sure. It's a very good one, Bartek. So if we take B2B, so you remember, and we have been pretty open about that. We have about 75%, 3/4 of the business, which is pure B2B market where we are selling and you're right to point to the commercial margin. What we have seen in our portfolio is that the commercial margin over the last 2, 3 years, has been actually pretty stable, maybe slightly down. And of course, part of it is coming from the prices, which are coming down. You cannot book the same absolute numbers margin depending on the absolute price of energy. But the mix has been actually going in the right direction because, again, more power rather than on gas, more green power rather than gray power. Also lengthening the duration, lengthening the duration helped to keep margins at a decent level because, of course, there is a risk management. So all in all, I mean, we have been pretty good actually in defending the absolute margin level of the portfolio, again, with a limited decrease. And to be very candid, that's one of the reasons why we have been able to keep our former gen business at a very strong level for more than expected because clearly, the market is today pricing the quality in these margin.

And then there is a second part of the business, which is more limited, where we do book quantities and volumes with some customers, but then we have risk management. And the margins on this category of customers, which are significant customers, they are slightly small, but then we have risk management, and we can make money out of the portfolio out of managing the risk for these same customers, and that is more exposed to volatility. So I would not say there is none in B2B, but much less -- and because we have, again, this big bulk of contribution coming from now a duration of contract, which is above 3 years. So it's a big change also compared to where we were a few years ago. So that's why we are very happy with this business with much stronger visibility.

So this is the end of the Q&A session. Thank you for joining the call today. And of course, if you have any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to reach out the IR team. Wishing you a very good day. Thank you.

It's my pleasure to welcome you to ENGIE's H1 conference call. Shortly, Catherine and Pierre-Francois will present on our half year results, following which we will open the lines to Q&A. And with my polite request of limiting your questions to 1 or 2 only please. And with that, over to Catherine.

Thank you very much, Delphine, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation for our first half 2025 results. I can report a robust set of numbers within an economic, political and geopolitical context of some turbulence. Once again, we are able to demonstrate the relevance and resilience of our integrated mix of flexible and renewable generation, our extensive downstream customer portfolio, our unrivaled expertise in energy management and our defensive and highly cash-generative network business. We remain laser-focused on driving forward the energy transition by carefully targeted expansion in renewables, batteries and power networks, embedding a performance culture into everything we do, further streamlining our business portfolio, motivating our talented and engaged staff, winning and retaining the trust of our customers and rewarding our shareholders.

Two particular confirmation of recent weeks. First, we successfully completed the initial extension works of the Tihange 3 nuclear reactor following on from the completion of the deal with the Belgian government and transfer of the bulk of our nuclear waste liabilities. And second, something that perhaps isn't that widely recognized, we have become very much a big-ticket renewables operator with the completion of the largest wind farm in Egypt, final negotiation of a PPA for a 1.5 gigawatt solar project awarded in the UAE. In fact, as we speak, we have 37 wind, solar and BESS plants of 250-megawatt capacity or more either operational or under construction. I will also provide an update on the situation in the U.S.

Moving on to the next slide, some headline numbers. EBIT excluding nuclear was down 6% on an organic basis at EUR 5.1 billion. I am pleased at the strength and resiliency of our H1 numbers and our activities, both completely in line with our expectations. A couple of highlights. First, a strong contribution from newly commissioned assets at EUR 220 million; second, a notable rise in our Networks business supported by new gas tariffs in France, benefiting from the regulatory clawback mechanism as well as by the construction of new power lines in Brazil. Net recurring income group share comes to EUR 3.1 billion, down from EUR 3.9 billion (sic) [ 3.8 billion ].

Cash flow from operations stands at a strong level of EUR 8.4 billion, benefiting once again from substantial free cash flow that is generated by our networks and downstream activities. The structure of our balance sheet is solid. Economic net debt was down by EUR 1.1 billion over the first half to EUR 46.8 billion, equating to 3.1x EBITDA, the same as the end of last year and below our ceiling of 4x. In view of these good results, despite the macro uncertainties and ForEx headwinds, we approach the coming months with confidence. And I can confirm our guidance for the full year with net recurring income group share between EUR 4.4 billion and EUR 5 billion. As we anticipated, EBIT excluding nuclear is reaching its low point in 2025 as a whole, although within 2025, we are expecting a year-on-year rebound in the second half.

In this slide, I would like to talk about how we are dealing with the situation in the U.S., which I would summarize as follows: we have 8.6 gigawatts of operational onshore wind, solar and BESS, all unaffected by new legislation on our proposed measures. We have 2.4 gigawatts under construction, of which 2/3 in batteries, which are largely protected against tariff as we were very quick to move to derisk and safe harbor. For projects under development yet to reach FID, we have more visibility with the OBB bill having been signed into law, with residual uncertainty on tariff and precise definition of safe harbor. In this context, we are ready for FID on 3 projects with combined capacity of over 1 gigawatt, providing adequate risk profiles with tailored safeguards that reflect well the context.

I am convinced that onshore renewables enjoy an attractive future in much of the U.S., with, for instance runaway load demand in Texas forecast by the ERCOT regulator, to rise from 85 gigawatts this year to 218 gigawatts by 2031. Renewables backed up by batteries have every prospect of being part of the solution to meet this demand growth. If I am wrong about this, well, we have built a truly global business in Renewables & BESS that adds optionality and cuts the need to be tied to any one country, as I will illustrate in the next slide, which shows that we continue our inexorable rollout of our Renewables & BESS platform with 1.9 gigawatts of additions over the first half to almost 53 gigawatts of capacity.

And what I really want to stress here is our growing scale. First, in terms of the sheer extent of what we are building, it's consistently close to 8 gigawatts, close to 100 projects under construction. And second, the nature of the projects completed under construction are one, and the location of these projects. We are capable of building the biggest ticket solar and onshore wind farms in all of our key regions, which is a testament to our efficiency of execution, purchasing, longstanding presence, and stakeholder relationships in these countries that we have built over many years. And as I mentioned quickly, we delivered Africa's largest wind farm in Egypt ahead of schedule by 4 months.

And in the UAE, we are in final negotiations of a PPA for a 1.5 gigawatts solar project that we have been awarded, as well as an ongoing bid for a 1.4 gigawatt OCGT project. Finally, in offshore, we recently generated first power at our Îles d'Yeu Noirmoutier offshore wind farm in France, and we expect to have it fully on stream by the end of this year. You can see that our global pipeline in Renewables & BESS is now 118 gigawatts, well split between the regions, but with AMEA more than doubling since the end of 2022, as countries such as India and the UAE embrace energy transition as a response to rising demand.

This all sounds really impressive, but of course, it doesn't work unless we find a project that match or exceed our IRR minus WACC spread criteria, which is at least 150 to 250 basis points, that we deliver the project in timely fashion and on budget, and that we use our energy management expertise to maximize the revenue potential of the project. And just to finish on this slide, a word on the volume of PPA signed, 1.2 gigawatts over the first half. Given the U.S. project that I already mentioned and are ready for FID, we are optimistic of a strong H2, despite appetite for PPAs in Europe being somehow subdued.

In the next slide, I am pleased to announce good progress in the cleaning of our portfolio, aimed at improving our regional and strategic focus, exiting coal, recentring our local energy infrastructure business onto its 5 European core markets, as well as Singapore and Tabreed. We are on track to deliver EUR 4 billion of debt reduction via divestment for the period '25 to '27. And as our markets normalize, we are doubling down on our efforts to optimize not only our business portfolio, but also on our performance. Running parallel to what we're doing on the portfolio is indeed a big effort to bolster our performance with an EBIT boost of at least EUR 1 billion by 2027 versus 2024. In other words, almost double the pace of previous years.

I am determined to instill a culture of performance throughout ENGIE via numerous measures that have been identified. As -- if we want to be the best energy transition utility, we must make the most of our integrated and flexible asset mix with a constant striving for efficiency and affordability. We're making good progress with a EUR 246 million impact in the first half, on track for our EUR 300 million to EUR 500 million target for the full year. Almost half of the improvement comes from elimination of loss-making sources, in particular, EV Box, together with operational excellence initiatives in areas such as networks, flex power, PPA renegotiations, cleaning and local energy infrastructure contract portfolio in France. What we expect to accelerate as ongoing measures take hold are in what we term -- we call culture and competitiveness, where we are seeing initial contributions from actions such as travel, events and consulting as well as efficiency in IT and digital. Headcount efficiency measures that we expect to kick in from next year.

Finally, in Belgian nuclear, focus has switched to the first stage extension work of the 2 reactors that will belong to the joint venture between us and the Belgian government. Works on the first reactor, Tihange 3, were completed successfully. The plant was reconnected to the grid slightly ahead of schedule. Now works on the second unit Doel 4 have been underway since the start of July and should be completed by the start of November, at which point the remaining sum of around EUR 3.6 billion will be paid. So gradually, in H2, our exposure to merchant will fade away to be replaced by our Flex LTO structure for Tihange 3 and Doel 4 with output at a quasi-regulated price. At that point, it is a new chapter that kicks off for ENGIE in Belgian nuclear with our earnings set to be relatively modest, but very importantly, derisked and stable, with our balance sheet free from the millstone of nuclear waste liabilities.

And with that, I will pass over to Pierre-Francois.

Thank you very much, Catherine, and good morning, all. Let's go through our first half '25 results, which reflect a continued solid performance in what are the last quarters of normalization across our markets. After a very strong Q1, Q2 is coming exactly as expected. EBITDA and EBIT, excluding nuke, stand at EUR 7.4 billion and EUR 5.1 billion, respectively, both slightly down compared to last year, reflecting a high comparison base and some foreign exchange headwinds. Organically, the decline is contained at minus 3% for EBITDA, minus 6% for EBIT after more than 2 years of continued decline in energy prices.

We continue to generate strong cash flows with CFFO at EUR 8.4 billion, confirming the healthy fundamentals of our operation and the high quality of earnings. Net financial debt stands at EUR 35.7 billion, up EUR 2.4 billion due to the EUR 2.6 billion payment in cash related to the closing of the Belgian nuclear agreement in Q1 that Catherine was just mentioning. Economic net debt is down by EUR 1.1 billion, and our credit ratios remained stable at 3.1, well below our 4 target. We are getting closer to the awaited inflection point for EBIT, excluding nuke, and we anticipate year-on-year growth in the coming quarters, namely in Q4. In this context, we are confirming, of course, our 2025 guidance.

Let's now turn to the EBIT evolution in more details. We closed H1 '25 with EBIT excluding nuke at EUR 5.1 billion, down organically by EUR 349 million compared to last year. This evolution reflects a mix of external headwinds and internal drivers. Starting with 4 negative impacts, all expected. First, ForEx had a minus EUR 98 million impact, mainly due to the depreciation of the Brazilian real. We expect the BRL impact to fade a bit in H2, but the effect of the U.S. dollar will be more visible in the second half. Secondly, scope effect amount to minus EUR 80 million, primarily driven by the disposal of Senoko in Singapore and Uch in Pakistan and the deconsolidation of Safi in Morocco.

Thirdly, price and volatility contributed to minus EUR 258 million, mostly within our Supply & Energy Management activities. This reflects normalizing market conditions and increased transportation costs in Energy Management and a high comparison base in B2B and B2C, which included positive price-related nonrepeat and timing items last year. Those headwinds were significantly mitigated by tariff increases in our network activities. Fourthly, volumes were down minus EUR 392 million, largely due to lower hydro volumes, following exceptionally high levels in H1 '24. On the positive side, 2 long-term trends relentlessly supporting earnings growth. Commissioning added EUR 221 million. This includes around EUR 150 million for Renewables & BESS and EUR 70 million for Infra, highlighting the relevance of our development strategy and our very disciplined execution.

Performance contributed to EUR 246 million, reflecting operational improvements across all our segments, and I will provide more details later on. Other impacts amount to minus EUR 166 million, and it includes notably the cost of our employee shareholding plan for a bit more than EUR 50 million, along with various one-offs. Finally, nuclear EBIT stands at EUR 500 million, down EUR 267 million with lower captured prices, the shutdown of Doel 1 in February and the conformity outage of Tihange 3 in the second quarter. Overall, while market normalization and lower volumes weigh on EBIT, our investments and performance initiatives are delivering at pace and secure further our trajectory for the year, and I should say, beyond.

Let's start the review of our reporting segment's performance with Renewables & Flex Power. EBIT was impacted by scope and FX, minus EUR 111 million, split almost evenly between both ForEx and scope. Organically, EBIT was down minus 9%, of which minus EUR 104 million on Renewable & BESS and minus EUR 91 million on Gas Generation. The decline on Renewables & BESS is driven by lower volumes, which had a minus EUR 340 million impact, reflecting a return to more normal hydrological conditions in Europe after an exceptionally strong H1 '24. This was partly offset by high level of commissioning, plus EUR 155 million and by lower hydro taxes, plus EUR 66 million.

We added 1.9 gigawatt of capacity over the period, and we achieved prices for hydro in France basically stable at EUR 110 per megawatt. Turning to Gas Generation. EBIT decreased organically by EUR 91 million. The main driver was a minus EUR 243 million impact from lower captured spark spreads in Europe, reflecting a hedging strategy under normalizing market conditions. However, this was partially offset by the absence of inframarginal taxes in H1 '25, which had a positive plus EUR 108 million effect and also by a positive one-off in Chile and a favorable price effect in Australia. So while market conditions were less supportive in Europe, our balanced portfolio, our investments and disciplined operations helped mitigate the impact with a compelling H1, and we continue to build momentum in our growth platforms.

Let's move to Infrastructure, which delivered an outstanding performance in the first half with plus 43% organic growth. Scope and FX had a slightly negative impact with the depreciation of the BRL. Networks EBIT increased by EUR 633 million organically, supported by new tariffs in both Europe and LATAM. This was partially offset by lower spreads in gas storage in the U.K. and Germany, reflecting again, market normalization after a persistently strong 2024. Importantly, our investment efforts are paying off with a plus EUR 52 million contribution to EBIT from newly commissioned assets. Connected biomethane capacity in France increased to 13.8 terawatt-hours per year at the end of June '25. Looking at local energy infrastructures, performance improvements helped mitigate the impact of lower spreads on cogeneration assets, notably in France, which drives EBIT margin down compared to last year.

All in all, infrastructure is now back in being a strong and stable contributor to the group's results with further growth driven by both regulatory frameworks and our disciplined investment strategy. Moving on to SEM, Supply & Energy Management. As anticipated, EBIT for the segment was impacted by the market normalization, resulting in a minus 32% organic decrease compared to H1 '24. B2C activities are in line with expectations. The decrease versus last year is largely due to a high comparison base, which included then a positive nonrepeat and timing items in '24. That said, we maintained sound commercial margins in H1 '25 and benefited from performance actions, which helped cushion the impact and are supporting a full-year ambition close to EUR 0.5 billion.

In B2B, EBIT was down to EUR 220 million, mainly due to a reduction in seasonality spreads, which led to a lower positive timing effect. This effect has no impact on full year as it reverses over H2. Moreover, we are in a good commercial momentum with a Q2 stable compared to last year, excluding a positive one-off that should translate into a stronger H2 than previous year. Energy Management was more significantly affected by market normalization, leading to, first, lower market reserve reversals that was something we commented already in Q1; two, a negative one-off related to the revaluation of loss-making gas transportation contracts following tariff increases in Austria and in the Netherlands. And three, softer activity in Q2 due to geopolitical and economic uncertainty.

Volatility is there, but it is driven by unpredictable geopolitics. Therefore, we remain cautious with the hedging strategies in Q1 '25, and we decided to reduce volumes, which led to lower margins. Overall, SEM performance is on track, and we expect former GEMS, B2B plus Energy Management, to land the year close to EUR 2 billion EBIT. A few words on our nuclear activities. As expected, EBIT came in at EUR 503 million, down from EUR 770 million in H1 '24, reflecting a 35% year-on-year decrease. This evolution is explained by price, by volumes and higher depreciation. First, we recorded lower capture price from EUR 104 to EUR 97 per megawatt hour, which is a 6% drop. This was partly offset by the absence of the inframarginal tax in France in H1 '25 and also a lower G2 tax in Belgium, which helped cushion the decline.

Net year-on-year impact is a negative EUR 149 million on EBIT. Second, volumes went down from 16 to 13.8 terawatt hours with the phaseout of Doel 1 in February and a drop in availability in Belgium from 88% to 81%, driven by the conformity outage of Tihange 3 in Q2. It translated into a minus EUR 71 million year-on-year impact on EBIT. And then depreciation and other effects had a minus EUR 47 million impact due to higher depreciation on investments in Belgian assets, which were commissioned in '24, '25, and these are being depreciated now over a very short remaining lifetime of the asset. So while the year-on-year comparison is negative, the performance is in line with expectation, and we continue to manage the nuclear fleet with discipline as we transition through the end-of-life phase of several units.

Let's now turn to our performance program. In the first half of 2025, performance initiatives contributed EUR 246 million to EBIT, putting us firmly on track to deliver our full year target by year-end. As you can see, all 3 performance drivers are now contributing. Operational excellence delivered EUR 96 million. This includes tangible actions such as PPA renegotiation, asset and contract portfolio optimization, procurement efficiencies are not one-offs. They reflect a strong and sustainable momentum across the group, and we have delivered that now for a few years. We also made our first gains on culture and competitiveness, our new plan with EUR 38 million of EBIT contribution. Good example is the LEI business, which is leading the way by simplifying its structure, such as removing a management layer in France. Expect this effort to continue in H2.

On loss-making activities, we saw a EUR 112 million contribution driven by the closure of EV Box activities, but also the positive impact from performance action in the supply activities. While some one-off impacts in a few entities slightly weighed on the net result, we expect a stronger contribution in the second half. All in all, we are well on track to deliver our performance target, and we remain focused on embedding these improvements structurally across the organization.

Let's take a look at the main items driving net income, EBIT we discussed. Net financial expenses is stable at EUR 1 billion as lower average cost of gross debt was offset by lower cash remuneration resulting from the decrease in the short-term rates. Recurring income tax decreased slightly to EUR 1.1 billion with an effective tax rate at 25.8%, which notably includes the special tax in France. As a result, net recurring income group share stands at EUR 3.1 billion compared to EUR 3.8 billion last year. The reported net income group share amounts to EUR 2.9 billion after accounting for nonrecurring items, including minus EUR 0.2 billion from mark-to-market on energy derivatives and minus EUR 0.1 billion in restructuring costs.

Let's look at the cash flows. CFFO reached EUR 8.4 billion in H1, a high amount, demonstrating the group's ability to generate cash flow on a sustainable basis. Please remember that we do not have tailwind anymore from prices decrease in our working cap variation, which was still substantial in H1 last year. Operating cash flow remained strong despite normalizing market condition again and the EUR 0.3 billion negative year-on-year impact on variance in net working capital comes from margin calls, which are higher following the decrease in commodity prices. Taxes and interest paid were largely stable. As you can see, not much to report in this item, except for our confirmed ability to generate cash.

Let's now move on net debt. Net financial debt increased from EUR 33.2 billion to EUR 35.7 billion due to the funding of our nuclear obligation in Q1. CapEx and dividends were largely covered by strong cash generation in H1. You may have noticed that our net growth CapEx were down compared to last year. This is mainly due to timing of acquisitions and also higher sell-downs in the U.S. Economic net debt is down EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 46.8 billion, and our leverage ratios remained solid with net financial debt-to-EBITDA at 2.4, economic net debt-to-EBITDA stable at 3.1, well below our 4 threshold. We are very pleased to see our credit ratios remain stable and well within target despite a significant payout made in Q1 as part of the closing of the Belgian nuclear agreement.

To wrap up, we delivered a robust financial performance with a good start of the year. Q2 came in as expected, supported by strong cash generation. We confirm our 2025 guidance with EBIT excluding nuke in between EUR 8 billion and EUR 9 billion and net recurring income between EUR 4.4 billion and EUR 5 billion. We are confident in achieving these targets. It's a strong start to the year. Just keep in mind the expected FX headwinds ahead, particularly from the U.S. dollar. We are a utility, and our priority is not to upgrade or beat our guidance each other quarter, but to deliver consistent, predictable, durable growth of earnings. On that note, we are now at an inflection point for EBIT, excluding nuke, and we expect year-on-year growth to gently resume in the second half of the year, especially in Q4, leaving most of the consequences of the energy crisis of 2022 behind us. We are entering normalized quarters. And going forward, we expect momentum to build with the contribution of new investments and performance. This sets the stage for the confirmed growth trajectory in '26, '27, which we remain very confident about.

With that, I hand over to Catherine for the conclusion.

Thank you, Pierre-Francois. So to conclude, we delivered indeed good results in what has been an unpredictable macro environment. Very importantly, and this has been truly a guiding principle for the whole management team at ENGIE for now a few years, we are very focused on delivery and execution. So we are implementing the plan that we shared with you earlier this year. We are confident about our earnings guidance for 2025 and indeed looking forward to delivering on our growth strategy from next year onwards.

Thank you for your attention, and I am turning it back to Delphine for the Q&A.

Thank you, Catherine. Operator, can you please open the lines to Q&A?

[Operator Instructions] First question is from Harry Wyburd, BNP Exane.

So 2 numbers-focused questions from me, please. So firstly, Catherine, I think in your opening remarks, you mentioned that EBIT ex nuclear in the second half is expected to be up versus last year. So if I've done the math right, that would be a floor, I think, of EUR 8.37 billion for the full year, which is obviously not far off your midpoint guidance of EUR 8.5 billion. So would it be fair to extrapolate that floor to being quite close to the EUR 4.7 billion midpoint for net income? Are you effectively saying that you can still achieve the net income midpoint?

And given the number of one-offs and effects -- scenario effects in 1H, if we were to normalize the 1H '25 net income to construct the base for 1H '26, could you help us on what will we be adding or subtracting? So what's the overall effect from one-offs and scenario in 1H of this year? And then the second one is on the dividends. I think you've alluded in the first quarter call to an ambition to raise the dividend from a floor in 2025, so started growing a year earlier than earnings. I guess if I was -- sort of look through that, it gives you a bit of an incentive to make next year's earnings grow rather than this year. So I'm interested to know, are there any levers you can pull to kind of move earnings into next year, which should make it easier for you to raise the dividend given the payout ratio dynamics next year?

Yes. I'll maybe just talk a little bit about our dividend. And just a reminder, a few key principles that we obviously reaffirmed our profile as a utility company. So we understand the importance of dividend to our shareholders. We also are very attached, as you know, to the consistency in our dividend policy, reminded you that back in February. We are also obviously listening to the market. We understand the appetite to have a gently growing dividend trajectory. We heard that. On the other hand, we have a dividend policy, which is a proportion of our net recurring income, which we will stick to. And obviously, being a decision that will be taken with the Board, it will be taken next year. And so it's really early to comment more than that, Harry. On the other hand, obviously, we are listening, and we understand the importance of trying to get to that trajectory. You want to...

Yes. On the one-off, I think that it's globally a wash. They are actually slightly negative in SEM for, let's say, EUR 50 million to EUR 100 million, and they are slightly positive in R&F, let's say, same kind of amount. So you can say that H1 is globally a wash in terms of one-off. So it's a fair representation where we are. And then, yes, you're right. I mean, if we -- we do expect EBIT excluding nuke in H2 to go slightly up indeed compared to last year, which is at the end of the day, very expected because it means it's pointing to the midpoint.

It is true that it would take something that we struggle to see today, to miss the midpoint on the guidance. And this is achieved despite significant FX impact bearing in mind that we have about EUR 100 million in H1. We expect even a bit more than that in H2. So we are over EUR 200 million of negative headwind on FX. But with that, we are indeed comfortable to target our midpoint. And then just -- I'm not going to elaborate on the dividend, but we are not moving results from 1 year to the other. We are managing, of course, our business and driving our business. We are steering risk management, of course, to prepare the future, and that's for sure, and that we are doing intensely in 2025.

Next question is from Arthur Sitbon, Morgan Stanley.

The first one is a follow-up to the question on EBIT evolution for H2. I was wondering if you could provide a little bit of granularity on which divisions will drive the rebound in EBIT in H2 basically. And the other question that I have is on the situation in the U.S. I think we're waiting clarity on the implications of the recent executive order on renewables. I was wondering if you could provide some thoughts on that? And what would be to you an outcome that would be particularly challenging and would require you to revise your ambitions?

Yes. Okay. Let me maybe start with the U.S. Indeed, the situation has been super fluid. But maybe one general statement is that the fundamentals on the market -- of the market remain very strong and customers' appetite is present. And I mean, you just listened to some of the announcements that you've heard from hyperscaler on their CapEx spend in the coming weeks, coming months, it's just spectacular and everything will need to have energy. And as you guys know, this power will have to come from renewables because it's just a plain queue in terms of nat gas, all nuclear will not be able to meet all this additional demand in the United States.

So fundamentals remain very strong on renewables. Now when you go into the details, it's -- you really have to follow it on a week by week, which is what our teams have done, I think, with frankly great success. I'm very pleased on where we sit. So just to de-zoom a little bit, as you know, we have 8.6 gigawatts under operation. So these assets are great. They're doing well. And in fact, if anything, their value in my mind is only going to increase given the power demand situation that we are going to experience. For the projects under construction or the ones who are advanced development, they're moving along. They're largely nonaffected because we took some supply chain actions. Remember, there was already some tariffs looming.

And so what we did is that we accelerated some deliveries. We also had obviously, project contingencies and a strong execution. So all this is going well, no issue. And then what we did is that we used the clarity that came with the new bill to be able to indeed FID 3 projects for the total sum of 1.1 gigawatts. And so if I look at what this IRA or the OBB bill gave us in terms of more clarity on the IRA is the fact that wind and solar that starting construction by end of 2025, they are completely okay. They will get the ITC, PTC, so there is no issue. Then you have the ones starting in H1 2026.

And then there is this little qualifier of FEOC, which is really do you have too much Chinese content and there are different thresholds. So this is something that we are obviously reviewing. And then battery and energy storage will benefit from IRA, but only there will be qualifier again on Chinese content. So all of this now is clarified, and we can really manage with confidence the 3 projects that we have just FID-ed. The nice thing about these 3 projects that they will contribute EBIT to '26, '28 too. So really largely what we see for the current period '25, '27, our U.S. plan is quite solid and robust based on these projects that we have -- that we are moving along.

Now there remains one uncertainty, which has been well commented. And again, not to go into too many gory details, but it's really about what we can call start of construction. We're awaiting clarification on August 21 on this. The current definition, which exists today is obviously a low threshold. So there is definitely room for us for this threshold to be worsened. So we don't really see a scenario where FID projects would be in trouble. But if they were, then obviously, we would have not taken too much commitment.

So we will not be in a too dire situation, but it would be a welcome clarification for sure that we will wait sometimes in August. And then if I look beyond this, it's really -- we're taking it project by project. It depends on the technology, the permit risk. Obviously, the offtaker risk appetite, and I should have commented maybe the fact that the projects that we are moving along, they are of a different nature in terms of the, I would say, Ts and Cs that we have with our offtakers, which is, by the way, a reflection of the need for these off-takers to secure the power.

And so we are managing to balance much better the risk distribution in order for us to move this project under confidence. So that's a little bit the view on the project. And again, we'll be looking at beyond these 3 projects, depending on all of the aspects, whether we are able to move some more forward. I very much look forward to that. I hope that it will happen. And if not, then Arthur, as you guys know, we have choices. We have options. We've created an incredible situation at ENGIE, where we have a geographical footprint, which is not huge. It's not all over the place, but we have a few countries where we have depth where we can actually develop and reallocate some capital, which we have shown a little bit examples of today. And if we need to, we will continue. But big picture in the U.S., the power demand being such that we think that our renewable projects are going to be contributing to this demand for the coming months and years, and we will find a way.

Thank you, Arthur, for giving me the opportunity to talk a bit about the phasing. And clearly, that's a place where we can improve a bit also in the way we share you the information. So in H2, what do we expect? So for Renewable & Flex, the 2 big tickets is that the hydro normalization will come. So we expect much less adverse trend in there. And also, we are done now with the bulk of the spread decline in Gas Generation in Europe. So this is behind us. That was more a Q1 event. So going forward, we expect more stability. And then, of course, we have the benefit of CODs. We have the benefit of performance. So we do expect indeed R&F to be positive in H2.

Networks, we are also done with the big impact of tariff increase in France, but we still have some good wins coming from other places. It will depend, of course, on climate. But we will, again, expect network to be in good shape for H2. And then, of course, the big ticket is SEM, where there is a lot of seasonality and moving parts. Here, we need to [ speak it. ] On Energy Management, remember that H2 last year, especially Q4, was not that strong. So we do expect indeed to see normalization kicking in, in H2, probably negative still in Q3, but much better in Q4.

On one B2B, you see that Q2 was actually improving compared to last year, and we expect this to keep going in Q3 and Q4, especially Q4. You remember that in ENGIE, Q1 and Q4 are important and more important than summer. And that's even more true for B2C, which is highly seasonal. A lot of our business is done in Q1 and Q4 for B2C. And here again, of course, we do not expect to be as strong in Q4 than we were last year, but we expect indeed H2 to be positive and especially in Q4 again.

So you see that cycle coming through. And clearly, the key topic is that in H2, we start to have the benefit of the normalization of market. It took a while. It took more than 2 years. It started, you remember, in the first half of 2023. But given our hedging policy in 3 years, I mean, crisis has been actually spread over some time. But now in H2 '25, we are getting close to the point where we are more normal in terms of pricing. And that's why we expect indeed EBIT excluding nuke to start picking up towards the end of the year. I hope it helps.

Next question is from Ajay Patel, Goldman Sachs.

I guess I wanted to focus on a strategy question. So like over the years, if I look at the success of your strategy, it's been amazing what you've achieved. And clearly, you have a lot of opportunities in renewables, batteries, quite a large scope around the portfolio. I would say, if I was being critical, the area that hasn't delivered to the same speed has been that full old definition of energy solutions. And even though we have a reduced scope this year, it seems that, that business hasn't really taken huge steps going forward. And I'm just wondering, when does it become -- it's a small amount of the portfolio. You have a lot of opportunity in other parts of your portfolio. Does it make sense to have this business as in what are the merits of having this within the portfolio, I guess, is the better question? And when do we sort of really hold you accountable to its delivery going forward so that we have a better understanding of that longer-term trajectory of it?

All right. Thank you -- thanks for the direct question. We appreciate. And maybe a couple of points. I think we've shown as a management team that we are not shy to rationalize the portfolio. And so this is something that we have and almost no emotions to do. So when we think that something doesn't belong to ENGIE, we tackle and we address the problem. In the case of LEI, we do think that LEI today has a very unique positioning to deliver the energy transition with our customers and in a decentralized manner. And we believe strategically that being able to have this decentralized position among our customers, among industrial is going to give us a unique position on the flex side of the energy transition.

And if you look at flexibility, which we talk a lot about on the production side, at some point, it's going to have an emerging value on the demand side. I think you see that in some businesses on the B2C side, some companies actually have a very strong positioning there to leverage the flexibility of the demand side. And we believe that LEI being a very successful business in decarbonizing customers will have a special value within ENGIE being able to provide flexible service. So I know this sounds a little bit conceptual, and we agree today, we are not able to show that value. So right now, the focus for LEI and here, the accountability is there. I can tell you, Ajay, it is there, and I can tell you that the LEI team really feels it, is to focus, to perform, to industrialize, to digitalize as well and to be good at what they do.

And I really believe that this recovery that is taking a bit longer maybe than what we would have liked is today taking place and that we will be with the market able to show indeed trajectory that are free from the one-offs because we have a bit suffered from one-offs here and there, which have blurred this trajectory curve that we would like to show -- we would have liked to show quicker. But I'm pretty confident with what's happening and recentering on 5 key European markets, barring Singapore and Tabreed, collapsing the layers and actually, the LEI team having done that are really at the forefront at ENGIE of doing a lot of the simplification, span and layer, et cetera.

So they are all doing the right thing. So we will show soon, hopefully, those curves and give you and share with you the confidence and excitement that we have with the market. And then in the coming years, being able to have more proof points about indeed how strategically it does fit into a portfolio, particularly providing flexibility services to the whole energy transition and to our portfolio. Finally, I would also add in terms of synergies, the fact that there are synergies also with energy management that we are actually already today materializing, but obviously not yet to be reported to the market.

May I ask one more question? Hello?

Sure. Yes. Yes, please.

I was just thinking -- it's just also really been nice to hear sort of from clearly like data centers increasingly get more and more attention as the months go by. From your perspective, what have you seen over the last 12 months? And how is that picture evolving for you going forward? And do you think you could communicate on a more frequent basis how that opportunity is materializing for you so that we can sort of gauge the value that potentially can present to you?

Yes. No, look, the data center, obviously, you guys know that a lot of the PPAs, a lot of the renewable projects that we do are actually for data center operator or hyperscalers. So it is definitely a big driver of our business. And so we are obviously working because data center is obviously a massive opportunity as a supplier because data center, they want PPAs, they want green electrons. There is also quite a lot of excitement about having at ENGIE very specific positioning, for example, having connections to the grid. And that obviously in itself can make a completely different conversation with data center where we can bring something to developers that they don't have. So it's not just about PPA, it's also about our quite unique positioning. And so we're definitely working on a lot of things around those topics. And so when we're ready, we will indeed communicate more Ajay, on the topic. But we are very, very excited about what we are doing with data center.

Operator, next question please.

Next question is from Zach Ho, Jefferies.

Two questions from me. Firstly, on earnings. I think on hydro, you mentioned in your slides that there's a minus EUR 340 million year-on-year impact in the first half. I'd just like to know how much did you budget for 2025 in terms of lower volumes? I remember that in your February presentation, I think that the earnings bridge showed minus EUR 300 million to EUR 500 million. So I'm trying to figure out basically what needs to come through in the second half for -- in terms of hydro volumes for us to kind of gauge whether or not it's above or below your expectations? And then quickly on GEMS. I think Pierre-Francois, you mentioned that in second half, you expect B2B to be higher year-on-year.

I just want to know if you can provide a second half 2024 figure for B2B because I don't believe that -- I think that, that isn't disclosed. So I just want to know what the starting base is for second half 2024 for us to see an earnings increase. And then my second question would be just a quick follow-up on Ajay's question and asking about data centers and more specifically, your aim to offer 24/7 green power to customers, which you briefly talked about in your February presentation. I just want to know what the progress is like or what you're seeing on the ground with regards to that offering? What needs to come through for you to get closer to that goal of, I think, 20% of your PPAs being 24/7 green power? Is it just a technology thing? Or are there more developments that need to come through for you to kind of realize that ambition?

Yes. I mean I'll start with the last question, and I can sense the excitement around data center. So point well taken. In terms of '27 ambition, it is progressing quite well. We have a few customers where we have advanced discussions that are also a bit pioneering the concept and helping pushing us towards being able to offer this type of product. The key behind this ambition for us, it's really to have the right portfolio. It really is a portfolio play, the 24/7, which is why we think we have quite a good position and a unique position because you need -- obviously, you need renewables, but you also need battery. You need to be able to integrate a lot of different profiles in order to fit that customer profile. So these deals take some time. They are quite complicated to put together, but our teams are working on it, and we are seeing quite a few customers indeed very, very interested in those products. So again, we'll make sure that we follow up and give more data as we progress on the topic.

And maybe a couple of answer on your very good technical question, Zach. One on hydro, we budget -- for whatever is climate-related, we budget on P50, as you can imagine. So we -- compared to budget, what we have seen in H1 was not a big surprise. So no significant impact. We knew that was coming. So it was embedded in our guidance. And same goes for H2. We don't know yet what's going to happen in H2, but our budget, which is, as you can imagine, underpinning our guidance is based on midpoint in terms of forecast. So again, we are already covered for that.

And then when it comes to B2B, last year, you remember that H1 -- you should have the numbers, but I just can share the numbers with you. H1 last year was [ EUR 1,108 million and H2 was minus EUR 29 million. ] But the seasonality was very strong, and we have been working hard on the seasonality to make sure that our contracts are better shaped. So clearly, we expect H2 to be higher, significantly higher than the reference that you have to 2024. And we expect B2B to come with a very nice year, and I mentioned that during Q1, and this is confirmed with a very good commercial activity in B2B, very pleased with that. Not only we are indeed selling well, but we are locking margins and we are even locking margins for longer maturity. So it's really a business we are very pleased with.

Next question is from James Brand, Deutsche Bank.

Just one question for me, and that was on the outlook for batteries or storage in the U.S. You talked a little bit about the U.S. and how your investment was kind of coming down a bit. And obviously, it's understandable that the outlook is a little bit more mixed on the renewable side given some of the changes. But I was wondering whether you could just talk to batteries specifically because you've been very positive about batteries in the past. And as I understand it, the subsidies have largely remained in place. So do you still see the outlook as being very positive there? Or have there been some changes that make you feel a bit more moderately positive?

No, we are very positive about, in general -- about battery prospects in the -- I would say, in general, in all of our key markets. They are very positive also in the United States, underpinned by the acquisition that we did from BRP a couple of years ago. And what's really important today for us on batteries is that we're really delivering on the pipeline that we purchased from BRP. So when you look at the pipeline that we purchased from BRP, they had 2-something gigawatts. We had 800 megawatts in advanced development. And we are today in 2025, executing on all of this pipeline, putting these batteries in services -- in service, and that's going really well.

We have a little bit of bottleneck, which is very punctual and has nothing to do with the IRA or regulation, which is in ERCOT, where testing when -- at the time when you commission battery, you have to do some tests, and these tests are taking a bit longer. So within intra-year 2025, we are seeing a little bit of slippage. But apart from that, the delivery on battery is going very well. Now obviously, going forward, batteries, as you know, is -- will continue to enjoy IRA tax credit benefit. So that's the good news. So we have now that anchored.

The remaining issue for us is this famous FEOC, F-E-O-C, which is basically putting a threshold or a maximum amount of Chinese content on those batteries. And so this is really going to be now a supply chain play, whether or not we can be below this threshold because if you are above this threshold, then the tax credit don't apply. And so then it's going to be a matter of whether the battery is economical or not. So that's really for us the question. But in terms of already delivering the value of BRP, we are pretty much there, so no problem.

And then again, taking a step back, what we are seeing today is that batteries, opportunities across all of our key markets outside in the U.S. So we were, as you know, very quick and very ambitious in the U.S. But we were -- there was not really -- I mean, the international non-U.S. markets were lagging behind the U.S. And now what we are seeing is that international markets are catching up. And so we have really good performance, good development opportunities in Europe, in Chile, in Australia. And so that's really the good news because, obviously, we feel that we have a very, very strong position in batteries in general.

Operator, can we take last question, please?

Last question is from Juan Rodriguez, Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have 2, if I may. The first one is on CapEx and related to the U.S. growth CapEx that you are now signaling around the EUR 2 billion level for 2025, '27. Looking back, it represented around 1/3 of your renewables portfolio. And looking now, how can we see the EUR 21 billion, EUR 24 billion growth CapEx that you signaled at your CMD? Can you expect lower growth CapEx or that it would be mostly compensated by other regions as you signaled or maybe some M&A angle on it? So that would be the first question. And the second one is on the economic net debt and mainly on the leverage ratio. We know you're going to fall well below the 4x economic net debt to EBITDA. But where do you expect the year to end given the current CapEx trends and so on?

Maybe on your CapEx question, and if I understood properly the question, it was about the U.S. contribution to this growth CapEx. And I think a good proxy for renewable CapEx is to look at the pipeline, and we gave you the geographical split. And you can see that it's moving a little bit, and you will see that our share of pipeline from North America is actually decreasing to the benefit of AMEA. So you can use that as a proxy for CapEx. And so you might see a bit less U.S. CapEx and a bit more in AMEA in terms of renewables. But all in all, we don't expect to change our growth CapEx. As we mentioned, we have optionality, and that's really, really important for us.

Yes. On that note, indeed, we have identified a couple of potential acquisitions in renewables, which are, as you know, a midsized acquisition, you know the story. And clearly, the market has opened a bit of opportunities here and there. So sometimes you can buy good assets. We are very pleased to secure this acquisition in the U.K., but that was very small in H1. We have a couple of leads. If we were able to close this acquisition at year-end, it would, of course, help a bit of our CapEx for this year. As Catherine said, I mean, there is a good year, there is less good year in terms of rolling out, but no worries about the global envelope.

And then on the net debt to EBITDA, yes, we expect it to rise. Clearly, if you compare to a couple of years ago, we are expecting this ratio to rise much quicker. The hard fact is that we have been able to harvest longer and higher the benefits of the crisis. So we are now exiting with a ratio, which is a bit lower indeed than what we expected. However, for year-end, we do expect a further rise. It may -- yes, it would be below 3.5, that's for sure. So below the level that we want to steer the group. So it will still leave significant room for more. So indeed, somewhere between 3.1, 3.4, that's where we are trying to get at year-end, depending again on the pace where we can roll out of CapEx and what is done in H2 '25 will be done in H1 '26.

So this is the end of the Q&A session. Thank you all for joining the call. Of course, if you have any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to call the IR team. Thank you.

Thank you.