Hello, and welcome to the SPIE Q1 2025 Revenue Call, hosted by Gauthier Louette, Chairman and CEO, and Jérôme Vanhove, Group CFO. Please note this conference is being recorded for the duration of the call, and your lines will be on listen only. However, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions after the presentation, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please contact an operator. I will now hand you over to Mr. Gauthier Louette to begin today's conference. Thank you. Yeah, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our Q1 results conference call. SPIE has made a solid start to the year with encouraging momentum across several of our key markets. In the current volatile macro environment, the underlying trends driving our business remain very much intact. We are nearly 100% European service business with no direct exposure to the tariffs currently discussed. To begin, I would like to share a few recent contract examples that reflect this positive momentum. In Germany, we were awarded three new contracts in Baden-Württemberg as part of the Netze BW grid extension program. These projects include one greenfield and two brownfield substations, including line connections, with completion expected by 2028. They are key to integrating renewable and ensuring a more stable electricity supply in the region. Once again, this illustrates our strong positioning in high-voltage infrastructure in Germany. In France, SPIE ICS has designed a new generation virtual campus for the ECAM Engineering School. It enables 4,500 students to connect to a digital workplace from any device with improved performance and accessibility. This platform combines Citrix, Nutanix, and NVIDIA technologies and reduces the carbon impact by 75% compared to the previous solution. It is a very good example of how digital solutions can actively support sustainability goals. On slide five, also in France, we operate on the Saint-Dizier Air Base 113 through a One SPIE contract that integrates electrical and automation works as well as cybersecurity. This contract showcases our strong offering to the defense sector, which is likely to benefit from increased budgets, particularly so in Germany. SPIE Global Services Energy has been selected by Van Oord for the Ecowende offshore wind project. This is offshore Netherlands. Our teams are handling cable termination and testing for a wind farm, which will supply 660 MW of green electricity, covering around 3% of the Dutch green energy consumption. This contract illustrates our successful diversification into offshore wind services. Now turning to our numbers on slide eight, SPIE delivered a solid start to the year with revenue up 8.5% in the first quarter, organic growth rates + 2.1% on top of a demanding 6.2% basis of comparison from Q1 last year. In the current macroeconomic context, our fundamentals remain unaltered. We do continue to benefit from good long-term trends in the energy transition and digitalization. In terms of bolt-on M&A, we closed two acquisitions and recently signed a new one. Integration of all 2024 acquisitions are progressing as planned. Looking into organic growth by region on slide nine, Germany continued to deliver very strong growth in Q1, both organically and from recent acquisitions. Northwestern Europe also delivered a solid performance fueled by grid expansion and energy efficiency projects. France did show resilience against a high comparison basis. Revenue was broadly stable in a more mixed environment. Central Europe was broadly stable too, with a continued sequential improvement. Global Services Energy reflected normalization following an exceptional Q1 2024, which benefited from a one-off shutdown contract. Overall, this performance underscores the strength and balance of our multilocal, multi-technical model. On slide ten, looking at Germany, Germany is showing elevated momentum as it delivered another outstanding performance in Q1 with total growth of over 27%. Organic growth remained high at 7.2%, while 2024 acquisition provided a significant contribution of nearly 20%. High-voltage activities continue to benefit from strong structural demand as the backlog remains at an all-time high. Growth in building solutions is firmly driven by data centers, defense, and transport infrastructure. In industry, Robur and Otto's integration are well advanced, strengthening our position in attractive sectors like wind and pharmaceutical. With continued strong momentum across all divisions, Germany clearly remains our most powerful growth engine. On slide 11 with France, the revenue in France was broadly stable with organic growth at -2.1% against the highest quarterly comparison basis of 2024. The overall resilience of our French business reflects its high degree of diversification, the strength of its position, and the strong selectivity. There have been more cautious client behaviors in specific markets. In building solutions, we remain very selective, prioritizing margins and focusing on higher value-added segments such as data centers and healthcare. Technical facility management performed well with new contracts kicking in and churn work holding well. In our city network activities, fiber deployment is gradually winding down in areas where rollout has been already completed. Finally, nuclear services continue to grow, supported by the Grand Carénage program in both maintenance and project activities. Slide 12, Northwestern Europe with a strong start to the year with an 8.3% growth, including 7.5% organic, driven by robust activity across all our business lines. High-voltage activities are currently very strong in the Netherlands, driven by sustained energy transition investment and grid congestion relief projects. Both building solutions and ICS performed well, benefiting from strong demand for energy efficiency retrofits and data centers. Belgium also delivered solid growth, particularly in healthcare, commercial real estate, and technical facility management. Revenue in Central Europe, I'm now on slide 13, increased slightly with organic growth still negative, but showing a continued sequential improvement quarter- after- quarter. Poland is well positioned in high-voltage and building solutions market, with production expected to ramp up in H2. Austria delivered further growth against a particularly high comparison basis from last year's transport infrastructure activity. Overall, the region continues to recover steadily, supported by strong order intake. Lastly, in global services energy, revenue declined by -10.7% this quarter due to an exceptionally high comparison basis in Q1 2024, which had benefited from a one-off shutdown maintenance operation. Underlying activities remained solid, supported by strong demand in West Africa and continued expansion in wind. SPIE continued to expand its renewable energy offering on the back of the successful integration of the Correll Group. The segment's fundamentals are robust, with long-term contracts ensuring stability. I will now hand over to Jérôme. Thank you, Gauthier, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with the revenue bridge. T he SPIE's revenue was up +8.5% in Q1 2025. Organic growth was +2.1% against a particularly strong comparison basis in Q1 last year. External growth contributed +6.7% or the equivalent of EUR 146 million, with the full year effect on one hand of the acquisitions closed in 2024, contributing for EUR 137 million, and on the other hand, the two ones which have been closed in Q1 2025, contributing for EUR 9 million in such quarter. The -0.3% disposal impact reflects the divestiture of a small subscale and low-value-added IT support activity in Belgium. This business generated circa EUR 20 million revenue last year. Currency effects were negligible this quarter. Overall, these figures reflect the strength and balance of our growth model. On the next slide, you can see the quarterly evolution of our organic growth. Our Q1 performance should be read in light of the very high comparison basis from Q1 2024, which had recorded the strongest quarterly organic growth of the year at 6.2%. This base effect is visible in France and particularly at GSE, which had recorded a very high level of activity last year with a +43.7% organic growth on that segment. As we progress into the year, comparison basis, it will become easier. Moving to M&A, in Q1, we continued to deliver on our external growth strategy. We closed two bolt-on acquisitions in the first quarter: Elektromontaż in Poland, a specialist in electrical installation services with nearly EUR 70 million revenue, and Corporate Software in Switzerland, an IT consulting and service provider with nearly EUR 4 million revenue. We recently signed and announced the acquisition of LTEC in Poland. LTEC is an integrator of building automation and management system, adding around EUR 19 million in annual revenue. These acquisitions strengthen our capabilities in building solutions and ICS in Central Europe. Meanwhile, the integrations of the 2024 acquisitions are progressing well and according to our plan. Looking ahead, we currently have 15 live M&A situations confirming a very dynamic pipeline. These include a balanced mix of opportunities across our core geographies, with a continued focus on technical capabilities, healthy development perspectives, and cultural fit, of course. This illustrates the strengths and consistency of our M&A strategy, which remains a key contributor to our long-term value creation model. This concludes my part. I'll hand it over back to Gauthier. Thank you, Jérôme. Let me now conclude by reaffirming the 2025 outlook we shared at the beginning of the year. We expect strong total growth, pushing revenue well above the EUR 10 billion mark, supported by further organic growth and active bolt-on M&A. We expect continued expansion of our EBITDA margin, and as every year, we intend to maintain a dividend payout of around 40% of adjusted net income. Thank you for your attention. In case you forget, let me repeat again, it's a good time to be a European electrical engineer. We are now happy to take your questions. Thank you, Mr. Louette. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and want to withdraw your question, please press star two. Please ensure your lines are unmuted locally as you'll be prompted when to ask your question. Again, to join the queue for questions, please hit star one. The first question comes from a line of Rémi Grenu from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Morning, Gauthier, morning, Jérôme. Three questions, if I may. First, if you could share more details on the organic growth in France, the - 2%. For example, quantifying a little bit the impact of the fiber ramp down, what was the contribution in Q1? Overall for the country, if you expect that organic growth could further deteriorate later this year. That would be the first one. The second one is, I think you previously said that you were expecting 2025 organic growth not to be miles away from the 4% you did last year. Do you still believe that this will be the case? The third one is a more housekeeping question. If you can help us understand what's your view on the effective tax rate for this year, including the French corporate tax surcharge and what we should model for 2025? Yeah, thank you, Rémi. Regarding fiber decline, it accounts for roughly EUR 10 million for this first quarter compared to last year. It is basically half of the organic decrease. We think we are going to do roughly EUR 100 million for the whole year on optic fiber. I think the comparison basis, as we said, was strong for Q1. We do not expect the gap to increase during the rest of the year. On the contrary, we think it will reduce gradually. We should not look at France as a falling knife. It is a very resilient business. We have a lot of activities which are still progressing. For instance, maintenance services for buildings, so technical facilities are in good shape. We have gained new contracts. We have a decent level of churn work. Our industry business is holding well as well. So does our ICS activity. Basically, the two areas where we have negative growth this quarter are city networks with the impact of optic fiber as well. This is an area where we have a bit more public customer, like local authorities for mid-voltage, etc. Obviously, the budgets are more constrained. Probably the main culprit is building installation where starting middle of the year last year and we can see the customers have been fairly cautious with new programs. We have the housing market, which is as good as dead at the moment. We are not in the housing market, but we have players of that market who try to find work at the fringes of what we do. The most simple things like small building offices, schools, etc. Obviously, it prevents us from entering into a price war in this small projects business. This is what has explained a weakness starting Q4 and Q1 this year. Meanwhile, we have a decent order intake for data centers, for health assets, etc. We see the situation in revenue easing up during the year, and especially it bodes well for 2026. We have another intake in building solutions, which is now improving. It was the main reason for the drop in Q1. Again, France is resilient. I've not mentioned margins. Margins are holding very well in France, and our business is extremely capable to adapt and to decrease in revenue as we saw this quarter. Again, we should not be too worried for the full- year in France. Regarding the organic growth for the whole year, we do not see any reason to say something different that we said a few weeks ago. Regarding the tax rate, maybe Jérôme, you want to. Certainly. We reported, Rémi, 32.9% of effective tax rate last year. I think for 2025, it's fair to assume a slight probability decrease, something like 31% to 31.5%, depending on the evolution of the mix of the contributing tax results in the various countries. This is excluding the exceptional contribution on large corporate that we will have to observe in 2025 in France. As already mentioned, we assume that exceptional one-off contribution, one-off is what we understand so far at circa EUR 18 million to EUR 20 million that you should add on top of that. That's P&L effect. As you have read already and understood last year, we have in our cash flow cash out for taxes slightly higher than the P&L impact we have, and this is due to a catch-up effect on the increasing cash out for prepayments on taxes and tax deferrals that we observed in the last two fiscal years, as already announced. I trust it does clarify the question. Yes, all good. Thanks very much. The next question comes from a line of Éric Lemaire from CIC. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, Éric Lemaire. CIC, I got three questions, please. The first one on the impact from acquisition you expect for this year in 2025, considering what you have announced so far, so the two deal closes and the years of pending. So far, what could be the impact on your top-line expectation? A second question on Germany. What could you say about the German stimulus plan? Do you have today maybe a better idea of the possible impact of this plan on your business in the future? The last question on phasing effect. You did not mention any phasing effects in Q1. Should we expect some phasing effects maybe later in the years, in the next quarters? Thank you. Yeah, maybe starting with Germany. The German plan is two-fold, as you will remember. There is EUR 500 billion for infrastructure. It pertains to rail, it pertains to energy transition. As Green insisted, EUR 100 billion would be dedicated to energy transition. There is obviously a part also for energy efficiency in buildings. This is the infrastructure plan. There is a second part, which is dedicated to defense. The estimate was also another EUR 500 billion, but the variety, it was mentioned, it is whatever it costs. Again, it is not only weapons and equipment, it is also infrastructure in the military, because the German government recalls that they need to improve very much the logistics and the infrastructure to, for example, allow swift transportation of material across the country. It will have an impact on infrastructure as well. As a matter of fact, it's not immediately linked with that, but we have seen for a while now, about six months, one year, more spend from the Bundeswehr, and we're already benefiting from that. We just obtained a contract for the infrastructure of a naval base in the north of Germany. This is going to kick in. Probably the coalition government is now created, they have an agreement, and they are mentioning that they want to go fast on this infrastructure step. This is positive for us. Again, part of it is dedicated to the energy transition. It moves, and the coalition agreement was achieved faster than expected. It's quite positive going forward. Obviously, our growth in Germany doesn't rely solely on this plan. We have underlying trends which were already very strong. Our high-voltage business is extremely busy. Our distribution business is also trading at very good levels, both in volumes and in price. It is a very strong growth engine that we have in Germany. We saw the impact last year, and we continue to see the impact. This is something which is going to last independently of the growth plan. Regarding phasing effect, nothing really special to mention about that, it does happen, especially regarding energy projects which are a bit more chunky. It is mainly linked with the time it takes to get the final authorization before we get the go-ahead to start. From time to time, we saw that in the past, and we've seen that midterm, it's not really a concern. Regarding contribution from acquisition, Jérôme, you want to comment on that? Yes, certainly. If we embark on the full year effect for 2024 acquisitions, that's around about EUR 175 million, plus what we have closed to date in 2025, you can add a good EUR 50 million. Let's say EUR 270 million, sorry. EUR 250 million in total is what is already secured and closed as of today. Thank you very much. It's very clear. The next question comes from a line of David Cerdan from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. I would like just to have some further comment on your performance in France and Germany. Just for France, just to understand the situation, do you think that the French market is down for the industry, or is it more just specific to SPIE? Second question is regarding the German market. Can you quantify the volume effect in this more than 7% organic growth? And third question is regarding the M&A. Do you think that it's time to have a pause on M&A because the world is maybe more unpredictable? Regarding France, I gave some credit to what Sam thinks. Again, apart from the building installations, so projects, and the drop, which is well-known and well-anticipated in optic fiber, we're looking at a business which is holding very decently. For instance, in industrial services, we're doing well. Our customers are very much into more electrification projects for the units. Nuclear sees a healthy growth, which now that the Grand Carénage activities are back on normal track, we're really benefiting from that. The information and communication systems are doing well. Again, as I said, in the building installation, we are now scoring projects which are not all going to start right now, but it means that we are building up backlog. We should not see France again as a too black picture. There are many sectors which are holding very decently. What's very important, both in terms of margin and cash generation. W e are very much in line with what we have achieved in the past. We do see some sequential improvements going forward. I don't think there's any reason to worry too much about our French business. We have shown in the past that we are very resilient, both in margins, both in cash generation, and very flexible regarding the cost base. France is a very recession-proof business where w e see signs that the organic growth for the first quarter is probably the lowest we'll have in this year. Regarding Germany, I'm not sure I really understood your question regarding volume. Volume effect. Yeah, volume effect. The volume effect, there is a strong demand in Germany for all our services, very strong. We see what I could have mentioned regarding this new plan. It has also changed the confidence level of our customers. They are more preparing now for more investments. For instance, for our efficient facility business, it helps because people have more confidence to spend on churn works, etc. Everything that pertains to energy is very strong. Obviously, there is an impact on volume because of the demand of the customers is very strong. There is an impact of price. We continue to improve our margins decently in Germany in the face of this strong demand and restrained capacity. We still benefit from a good price effect, which allows us, obviously, to pass on price increase to customers distinctly beyond inflation. Maybe I could mention also that the acquisition we did in the solar energy in Germany is doing very well. Photovoltaic is very much fostered in Germany, and this does not change. It is really also a good boost, both in terms of volume and margin. For Germany, can you remind us of the exposure to the automotive sector? Do you see some signs of difficulties for some automotive customers? The exposure to automotive is 1.6% of our volume in Germany, mainly in maintenance of plants. As a matter of fact, we just won last year a new plant, which is for trucks and for Daimler. We are doing all right. Obviously, the maintenance of these plants, it does continue. Also, again, as announced, the shutdown of two small plants were not present. In fact, the German automotive sector is facing transformation, which is not bad for us because it entails modification works, etc. We are not very much exposed, and we see a stable business regarding what we do for them. There was a question regarding our strategy for M&A and whether we would consider a pause. Obviously, no. Clearly, we have a good pipeline, as Jérôme described. We are looking at companies who are doing well in the sector. Not surprisingly, because they are not in a very different sector from where we are. Clearly, we have no infliction at all of our M&A strategy. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to join the queue for questions, please press star 1 on your keypads. The next question comes from a line of Rory Mckenzie from UBS. Please go ahead. Good morning. Just one left for me, please. Just to follow up on the Germany fiscal expansion plans. As you said, your T&D activities have already been growing strongly for years. I think you've got a three-year backlog already or something like that. Can you talk about what the current capacity constraints are and how you think policy or more funding could speed up those transformation programs? Do you think that the investment is going to be more about broadening the areas of modernization in the economy? Thank you. I think we're talking transmission and distribution. Probably the greatest impact of the plan will be towards distribution. Transmission, we have four DSO, Amprion, Transnet, GE Vernova, who are doing well and have their projects well financed. Whereas we have hundreds of Stadtwerke in distribution who now face a need for quite a bit of investment to adapt to the new grid, to the new transmission grid. These people can do with support regarding their financing. Clearly, the impact of the plan will be more in that direction, which obviously will help further growth. For this customer, we operate on framework agreements. It's three-year, five-year framework agreements. The customer chooses to spend more or less money in the frame of this agreement. It will help them to go towards the higher end of the spend. Great. That was very interesting. Thank you. The next question comes from line of Augustin Cendre from Stifel. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Apologies if I repeat some. I missed the beginning of the call, but I had a follow-up on Éric's question on the phasing. It seems like you had phasing in Central Europe last year. I did not see it mentioned in the press release this time, but I was wondering how that would impact your business going forward. I saw in the presentation that you mentioned Poland would start, or some project would start from H2 onwards. The way to interpret it, is it that from Q3 onward, you expect your organic growth to become positive again, or are you expecting an improvement of the phasing earlier than that? Obviously, we do not guide on quarterly organic growth per segment, but all I can say is that clearly, for Central Europe, the year is back in low. And so we'll see gradual, but steady improvement compared to the beginning of the year. Okay. I had a question also on GSE and the performance. First, on the Q1 performance, could you give us the organic growth, excluding the one-off, and exactly where that stands? Second question related to that is, I saw that last year you had an organic growth of 15% in Q2. Does that include a one-off for Q2 as well, and should we expect a hard or difficult comparison basis, or how should we see this? We did have an impact of this one-off was spreading out to Q2 as well. I remind you, this one-off contract pertains to the shutdown of SPIE operation in Nigeria, which accounted for roughly EUR 20 million revenue last year. This is what we had last year. Regarding the balance of the year, obviously, we have a number of new contracts ramping up, and we look at the sustained level of activity this year. I remind you that we are mostly on maintenance, and clearly, it provides for a stable business. We have, especially in West Africa, we're looking at a good perspective for the year, for the oil and gas part, and for the wind. It also pertains to a discrete number of projects where we do, on a time and material basis, connection of the grid. This can vary a bit. Clearly, for oil and gas, the higher comparison basis was H1, definitely. Okay. Thank you. My last question is on your integrations. I was wondering if you could provide more detail by acquisition, so for Robur, MBG, ICG, and Otto Life, on the different stages of the integration and what's left to do and where you are at exactly. It really depends on, for instance, Robur was closed earlier in the year, the ICG later, and Otto Life was the end of the year. Obviously, we are in different phases. As you know, we have very well-established guidelines and principles to organize this integration. We have a well-known integration process, which we are rolling out according to the various schedules. We are well on plan, with clearly Robur being the largest one and the first one. We have really well progressed, and we are very satisfied with the performance. Clearly, for the others, it happened later last year. We are at an earlier phase of integration, but everything according to this phased plan. Thank you very much. As a final reminder, if you would like to join the queue for questions, please press star 1 on your keypads. The next question comes from a line of Simona Sarli from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. One is a follow-up on organic revenue growth. You already commented that you do not expect it to be dissimilar to what we saw last year. Can you comment a little bit more precisely on the trajectory through the year? Also, as a follow-up on France, and considering the solid order intake in this country, should we expect organic revenue growth to be at least flat in Q2? Second question is related to building installations. Can you remind us what is the overall exposure in other countries to building installations? If you are experiencing similar competitive dynamics also in other countries, and if you are seeing also a change in client behavior due to the more mixed macro picture? Thank you. Regarding France, again, we do not give a guidance per segment, but as I said, we are looking at sequential improvement over the year. Regarding building installation, we do not see the same pattern country by country. For instance, if I look at the Netherlands, building installation is exactly on the same place where it was last year. No change in the trends. It is the same in Germany, where we are less exposed to this area. In Central Europe, for different reasons, it was fairly flat last year, and we had some delay in projects towards the end of last year. We see now the order intake coming. Again, if you look at Poland, at the Czech Republic, Slovakia, it is a lot of moving parts. Clearly, we have different patterns in these countries for various reasons. We are not very large in these countries. It is not just the macroeconomic that impacts, but also a number of discrete reasons. We are growing in this area in Belgium right now. Altogether, building installation, we are looking at less than EUR 1 billion for the whole group. Thank you. We now have a follow-up question from David Cerdan from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Yeah. I will be very brief. Just to understand, for GSE, is it correct that if we exclude the one-off shutdown activities last year, your business was quite positive on a like-for-like basis in Q1 and not at - 10%? Yeah. This is not a wrong assumption. Okay. So it's a right assumption. Thank you. There are no further questions, so I hand back over to you, host, to conclude today's conference. Thank you for your attention and your interest for SPIE. We have a very good start to the year. We did not mention too much margins because we do not communicate on margins on a quarterly basis, but maybe it is worth mentioning that our margins are holding very well. In fact, we see the increase that we are forecasting for the year already shaping up very well on Q1. With that, I will close this call. Thank you again for your attention. Maybe allow me to remind you that it is a very good time to be an electrical engineer in Europe. Thank you. Thank you for joining today. Soon, you may disconnect your line.