Earnings call transcript: Nexans Q3 2025 shows robust growth in electrification

Nexans SA reported strong financial results for the third quarter of 2025, driven by significant growth in its electrification and transmission segments. The company’s nine-month standard sales reached 5.3 billion euros, marking a 5.8% organic growth year-to-date. The stock has shown impressive momentum, with a 53.33% gain over the past six months and a 39.08% increase year-to-date, according to InvestingPro data. Currently trading at $258.78, the stock sits comfortably above its 52-week low of $147.52.

Key Takeaways

• Nexans achieved 5.8% organic growth year-to-date.
• Electrification segment sales surged by 9.4% organically.
• The company’s transmission backlog increased by 27% year-over-year.
• Nexans reaffirmed its 2025 guidance with an adjusted EBITDA target of 810 million to 860 million euros.

Company Performance

Nexans reported a strong performance in Q3 2025, with significant growth in its core segments. The electrification segment experienced a 9.4% organic increase, while the transmission segment saw a 25% rise in sales. The company’s strategic focus on electrification infrastructure and innovative product offerings have positioned it well in the industry. Nexans’ acquisition of ElectroCable in Canada further strengthens its market presence.

Financial Highlights

• Nine-month standard sales: 5.3 billion euros (5.8% organic growth)
• Electrification segment growth: 9.4% organically
• Transmission segment sales increase: 25% organically
• Power grid sales increase: 6.7% organically

Outlook & Guidance

Nexans reaffirmed its 2025 guidance, projecting an adjusted EBITDA between 810 million and 860 million euros and a free cash flow of 275 million to 375 million euros. The company plans to continue its focus on profitable and selective growth while accelerating its M&A strategy and expanding its AI and innovation capabilities.

Executive Commentary

• "Electrification is accelerating, and the need for secure, modern infrastructure keeps growing," said Julien Hueber, CEO.
• Guillaume, Strategy and AI Lead, highlighted the company’s innovative approach: "With Shift AI, we will move to 90% data utilization."
• Hueber emphasized Nexans’ strategic goals: "Our ambition is clear: to consolidate Nexans’ competitiveness while amplifying selective, profitable growth in electrification."

Risks and Challenges

• Supply chain disruptions could impact production and delivery timelines.
• Market saturation in certain regions may limit growth opportunities.
• Macroeconomic pressures, including fluctuating raw material prices, could affect profitability.

Nexans’ strong performance in Q3 2025 underscores its strategic focus on electrification and innovation. As the company continues to expand its capabilities and market presence, it remains well-positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for modern infrastructure. Want to dive deeper into Nexans’ financial health and growth prospects? InvestingPro offers exclusive access to 10+ additional ProTips, comprehensive valuation metrics, and expert analysis that can help inform your investment decisions.

Full transcript - Nexans SA (NEX) Q3 2025:

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Good morning and welcome to Nexans’ nine-month 2025 financial information conference call. My name is Laura, and I will be your coordinator on today’s event. Throughout today’s recorded presentation, all participants will be in the listener remote. Later, we will open up the call for questions. You may register for the questions at any time by pressing star one. We kindly ask you to limit the number of your questions to one to two questions per person. Now, I’d like to hand the call over to Mr. Julien Hueber, Nexans’ CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on the Nexans conference call. It’s a special moment for me to be speaking with you for the first time as the CEO of Nexans. With me today, I have Christine Prevolezzi, our Interim CFO, and Audrey Bourgeois, our VP of Investor Relations. I would like to begin by thanking the Board of Directors for their confidence. It’s an honor to take this role and to lead a strong, high-performing company with a clear vision for the future. I also want to express my appreciation to Christopher Guérin for his leadership and the remarkable transformation he has led, a transformation I was proud to help drive as part of the Executive Committee. Chris leaves behind a strong company built on a solid foundation that we will keep strengthening.

I spent more than two decades at Nexans, always close to operations and transformation. From my early years in manufacturing to leading our activities in China, South Korea, or globally for the industry solution projects, I’ve seen how performance is built on operational excellence, proactive execution, and a deep understanding of our customers. As a member of the Executive Committee since 2018, I helped shape the group’s strategy on the capital markets roadmap. Leading our €2.6 billion of power grid and connecting Europe business reinforces my conviction that agility, execution, and industrial excellence are the levers that will be key to Nexans’ next chapter. Our strategy remains unchanged, and the megatrends behind it have never been so strong. Electrification is accelerating, and the need for secure, modern infrastructure keeps growing. These dynamics reinforce Nexans’ positioning on long-term strategy.

As a new CEO, I want to be very clear: we will continue to execute the roadmap presented at the last Capital Markets Day, and we confirm our 2025 guidance and 2028 objectives as well. The direction is right, and the foundations are solid, and all megatrends are continuing. The environment, however, has grown more complex since our last Capital Markets Day, from geopolitics, supply chain disruption, or shifting policy environments around energy and renewables. This makes one thing clear: it is the right time to make Nexans even stronger, stronger in execution, stronger in competitiveness, and stronger in agility. I will continue to fuel our model of value creation that delivers results, combining our Shift program, complexity reduction, innovation deployment, and vertical developments.

Building on that, I will also move forward, and I will emphasize even more on further complexity reduction of the organization, efficiency optimization of our industrial operations, both in terms of productivity and cost competitiveness, further mutualization of our industrial footprint, and of course, keeping absolute discipline on cost and cash. All these priorities will further enhance the resilience of Nexans’ model. Our ambition is clear: to consolidate Nexans’ competitiveness while amplifying selective, profitable growth in electrification, powered by digital acceleration and the smart use of new technologies and artificial intelligence. Nexans is entering this new phase from a position of real strength. We have a clear roadmap, robust financial foundations, and teams that are talented, dedicated, and united, and proud of what they do. Together, we will deliver with strong discipline and focus the long-term value creation for all our stakeholders.

After this introduction, let me now turn to the group’s performance in Q3 on the first nine months of 2025, on page four. In the third quarter, the group delivered a +7.7% organic growth, including a strong 12.6% in electrification. Over the first nine months of 2025, the group’s standard sale reached €5.3 billion, representing a +5.8% organic growth compared to last year. Over the same period, electrification, which remains the core of Nexans’ growth, recorded a +9.4% organic growth, confirming our disciplined execution across our three segments, which are transmission, grid, and connect. Our transmission-adjusted backlog reached €7.9 billion at the end of September, providing for Nexans a strong visibility for the coming years.

No later than today, I am pleased to announce the acquisition of ElectroCable in Canada that will be reinforcing Nexans’ position in power connect in a highly dynamic market and with approximately €125 million current sales on a yearly basis. I will come back on that on the next slide. In short, the first nine months confirmed a solid and disciplined growth of our electrification businesses. This performance reflects our sharp focus on high-added value solutions and our selective approach to capture the strong underlying trends in electrification. Before we move to our segment in detail, I wanted to highlight something that is important to me. I will move to slide five. Our innovation summit in Toronto that took place two weeks ago was a great platform for exchange with our Platinum customers, our technology experts, and our partners. Nexans is becoming a pure player in electrification.

I believe that our role is to bring together the key stakeholders of the electrification ecosystem to imagine and to build collectively the next level of electrification that is critical to our societies, from powering homes and hospitals to supporting education and many other essential services. The choice of holding this event in Canada reflects our strong interest in North America. Canada is a powerful growth platform for Nexans, both for the grid and the robustness of its construction industry in our connect segment. Talking about Canada, I will now move to page six, where I will present the acquisition of ElectroCable that was signed today, this morning, in fact. ElectroCable is a Canadian player in low-voltage cable systems, delivering a high-performance and service-focused solution. This company represents a strong strategic complement to Nexans’ Canadian portfolio, offering an attractive growth perspective and a robust profitability profile.

This acquisition also allows Nexans to further strengthen and complement its portfolio in Canada, enhancing its position in a very dynamic market while optimizing local supply chain efficiency. It also paves the way for valuable synergy driven by Nexans’ expanded local presence and the rollout of its proven proprietary Shift program while enhancing innovation. This acquisition will be fully financed in cash, leveraging Nexans’ strong balance sheet, and is expected to be EPS accretive from day one and from year one. Now moving to page seven, let me now comment on the overall group performance over the first nine months of 2025. Standard sales reached €5.3 billion, representing a +5.8% of organic growth, confirming a solid trajectory for the group. The growth continues to be driven by the electrification business, which makes up the core of Nexans’ strategy. It delivered a +9.4% organic growth over the period.

Let me remind you that this is well above our Capital Markets Day organic growth that we announced last November, of a CAGR between +3% and +5%. This performance reflects the disciplined execution in transmission and in grid, as well as the recovery in connect during this third quarter. Other activities, mainly metallurgy, a strategic segment for Nexans, posted a +4.1% organic growth over the first nine months of this year. As you know, we observed an unusually high level of external sales in H1 that was driven by customers bringing forward orders ahead of the U.S. tariff. As expected, this overstocking subsequently led to a correction in Q3 2025. The non-electrification activity declined by -6%, as expected, given the challenging automotive market. We remain very active to make this disposal of auto electric the last remaining activity to finalize our portfolio rotation.

Overall, the group growth is at a high level and fueled by healthy growth drivers in electrification, which remains our main engine of value creation. Let’s now take a closer look at our different segments, starting with transmission on page eight. Performance was particularly strong over the first nine months of 2025, with standard sales above €1 billion, which is up by 25% organically versus last year, and with a very strong Q3, up by 33%. This strong performance reflects solid execution, a favorable production mix, and a more installation campaign carried out in Q3 compared with last year. Now, regarding the GSI project, let me confirm once again that we keep working hand in hand with our customers. We have a very collaborative approach with them on this ongoing project that is on track as per scheduled milestones.

Last but not least, the transmission pipeline of activity remains robust, supported by sustained demand for interconnection and offshore projects across our key markets. Our adjusted backlog stands at €7.9 billion, which is up by 27% compared to last year, providing a strong visibility until 2028. In short, the power transmission segment continues to deliver thanks to the quality of execution. I will now move to page nine on the following slide regarding power grid. Power grid sales reached €989 million, which represents a +6.7% organic growth for the first nine months, which also represents a +9% in Q3. This reflects solid structural trends coming from the replacement of obsolete grids and the connection of renewables to the grid, coming from electrification needs in verticals such as electrical mobility and data centers. It also comes from the high development of our low-carbon offers.

I will be able to comment or answer any of these questions regarding this element. Our accessories business continues to be very well oriented over the period. Overall, projects in Europe and North America are under the new frame agreements with major utilities. Now turning to our power connect business on page ten. Standard sales of a connect amounted to €1.7 billion for the first nine months of 2025, compared to €1.5 billion in the same period last year, representing a +1.4% organic growth. You know how contrasted this segment is. We have indeed some strong-performing regions with a double-digit organic growth. It is the case for Canada, North America, the Middle East, and Africa. Here again, our acquisition of today in Canada will further leverage this trend.

We continue to actively grow our tech product as a fire safety product with sales growth progressions which are higher than the market average. That was a key element that we communicated during our last Capital Markets Day last year in November. In contrast, as you know, some regions remain more challenging. That is the case of the Nordics in Europe or Asia-Pacific, specifically Oceania in Australia, specifically on the residential market. Countries like France, Italy, and Spain were quite resilient. Let me deep dive on Italy, where, as you know, we have started our Shift complexity reduction program on the new LTC business that we acquired last year. This Shift complexity program is completely part of the integration process. We are currently exiting from low-margin products and low-margin markets as per schedule. I can tell you that the integration process of LTC is going very well.

Moving on now to page 11. Before we move to the Q&A, let me confirm our full year 2025 guidance, which was updated in July. We continue to execute with discipline and focus and remain on track to deliver an adjusted EBITDA between €810 million and €860 million, and a free cash flow between €275 million and €375 million. Let me remind you that this annual guidance upgraded in July is confirmed and does include only six months of LinkShare. Now, entering the final quarter of 2025, we look ahead with confidence. Electrification keeps powering the group performance, and Nexans is well positioned to capture this growth with resilience, efficiency, and focus. Also, I would like to thank all our teams in Nexans for their commitment and hard work. They are the driving force behind our success on the journey that lies ahead.

I am now happy to take on the questions.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We kindly ask you to limit your questions to one to two per person. Thank you. We will now take our first question from Daniela Costa of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I want to ask one more medium term and one a bit more shorter term, so I’ll do them one at a time. Given the deal you’ve just done now in Canada, and I think in your commentary remarks on the press release, you mentioned that you’re moving from, or Nexans is moving from execution to expansion. Can you talk a little bit about how you view the balance sheet? What’s an ideal positioning? Should we see this deal have more of a start of a wave of deals in electrification, perhaps? I’ll ask the second one.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Thank you, Diana. Clearly, the capital allocation is not changing. My priority will remain the same. I will focus on accelerating the M&A as per we based on the same logic as in terms of TEDIs, basically, which is prioritizing M&As in countries where we are already located in order to reinforce our positions and in order to scale our innovations. The second TEDI is to focus on M&As in countries where we are not. Basically, we’ll be looking for bigger acquisitions in these countries. The third TEDI is also to grow adjacent to cable, could be around accessories or any other elements.

Thank you. It sounded like in Q2 the commentary was very strong regarding the outlook for Q3 connect, and I think the market in general had interpreted that maybe more like high single digits or maybe above that, and you ended up with some growth but relatively modest. Was it something in those countries that were weaker that deteriorated further, or maybe people just got overexcited with the growth rates after the Q2 call? What’s your interpretation of the deviation there?

Of course. First of all, connect is a very contrasted market. We have indeed met the double-digit growth in South America, Canada, and the Middle East. That was completely in line with our expectation. For Europe, we were expecting a recovery in the Nordic parts. That did not happen. What we have been doing is to accelerate the launch of innovation products. We are launching more than 10 innovations, both in Norway, in Finland, and Sweden, in order to compensate this. We will not have any impact in terms of profitability in this area of Europe. In the rest of Europe, we started to see some signals of recovery in Q3, specifically in France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain.

Was it as strong as you expected at Q2? Was it the same dynamics you expected at Q2?

You see the recovery in Q3 in the connect segment. It’s a +3.6% compared, so it’s better. It’s an improvement compared to Q2. I expect that Q4 will be on similar trends in connect.

Okay, thank you very much.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now take our next question from Lucas Varani of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to have a bit more information on the North America business. You say it’s about 20% of group revenues. Can you say how much it is in connect and grid specifically? Do we still have that same split between kind of Canada versus the U.S.? How would you characterize the EBITDA margins there? Would you say that they’re higher than group average? The last point on that North America business, do you see any risk related to copper tariff in the U.S. that might redirect some volumes towards Canada? Thank you.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Thank you, Lucas, for this question. I just want to remind that when we talk about North America, we are not in the U.S. We are in Canada. We are well positioned in Canada, and this acquisition will strengthen our position there. The split between connect and grid, it’s mostly a connect business. We are in both, of course, markets, but it’s mostly a connect business. This connect business in Canada is very accredited to the group. We have an extremely high level of first growth, but as well of profitability. Hence, our choice to accelerate this M&A in Canada.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Just one more regarding.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Sorry.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Sorry.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Sorry, your last part of the question with the copper tariff. Basically, we see that there is no impact for us in terms of copper tariff because we are our own ElectroCable in Canada delivering the market in Canada. We have no impact for that, and the H1 and the H2 will be as expected. There will be no specific impact there in this part of the world for the tariff.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Thank you.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now move on to our next question from Chris Leonard of UBS. Please go ahead.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Hi. Morning or thanks for taking my questions. I maybe got two if I can. Focusing on the transmission business, obviously a very good quarter in Q3. Can you update us on the contracts that you’re still looking at in terms of the pipeline and saying that there’s good growth potential here? Is there anything we should expect for 2025 so that you can reach that book-to-book level of one times? Within that, could you also help to give us some color on the UK national grid contract again and just give us a flavor for why I believe you decided not to bid and move into the tender on those contracts? Because so far, the pricing looks very strong on those contracts for Prisma and as a preferred supplier. NKT, it would be helpful to get any color there.

A second follow-up question would be on your comments for GSI saying that the contract with IPTO is going well, very collaborative and on track with schedules and milestones. Is there anything more you can give on visibility of a plan B that you spoke to or your previous management team, I suppose, spoke to at first half results? That would be super helpful. Thank you.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Okay. Thank you for your questions. I will start, and then I will hand over to Vincent Dessale with me in the room today. Basically, indeed, you’ve seen this strong performance transmission in Q3 and the year-to-date as well. In terms of backlog, you have noticed that we are booked to a bill of one in Q3, and we expect to have a similar approach during the year-end. We are active in terms of the quotation at this moment. Of course, I cannot disclose the number of projects, but we are quite active, and we are positive to do some quotation in Q3, hopefully with some award in H1 next year. That’s basically the situation. Regarding the GSI project, as I said, the project is ongoing. Extremely good relationship and collaborative work with IPTO, our customer. For us, there is no plan B.

There is only one plan A, which is keep going and working with our customer to deliver this project. I will now leave Vincent to continue.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yeah, maybe to give some color and to complement Julien’s answer regarding the backlog, indeed, we have a great improvement compared to last year, plus 27%. You know it. It has been mentioned with some press release, typically the award of the ERT frame agreement in March and more recently the Malta-Sicilia project. The pipeline remains active. We have indeed, and just to give an example, because it’s public recently, this week, TERNA has announced a new tender for a major interconnection in Italy. Just to give an example of the robustness of the pipeline, indeed, we are quite active on what I will call medium-sized projects and large projects, which are going to be awarded in the next 12 months. Quite active backlog and quite active pipeline in the coming months.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Is there any comment on the national grid contracts that you guys weren’t a part of?

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yes. Sorry, I forgot this point. I will answer to it, of course. You know the story for Nexans has not changed. We have this Shift approach in the projects, which means that we are very selective in the way we choose the projects that we want to target. We have commented this in the past. It’s a mix of technical fit, terms and conditions fit, how it fits with the other projects that we have already in the backlog. Indeed, when we look at this frame agreement, it was not answering from our perspective to these different criteria. As I said, we have other opportunities in the pipeline that we consider, from our perspective, more interesting for Nexans.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: That’s really kind. Thank you.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now take our next question from Jean-François Grenion of Audubon HR. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning. Two questions from my side. The first one concerns the acquisition of ElectroCable. Could you give us some more details regarding the current profitability of this company compared to the profitability of the connect segment, and what do you expect? You mentioned an acquisitive impact, but could you give us some more details? Could you give us the EV and the multiple for the transactions? The second question, I will come back on the GSI project. You confirmed the continuum of the operations. Could you give us the contribution expected from GSI this year in 2025 and what you expect next year? I understood that probably there will be a ramp-up, and we expect a higher contribution in 2026 compared to 2025. Could you give us some more color about that? Thank you.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Okay. First question regarding the new acquisition, ElectroCable. This business is relative to Nexans. It’s in Canada for us as well. Both our business in Canada and with ElectroCable is in the upper range of both 20% of EBITDA. It’s extremely relative to Nexans. This business is extremely well positioned in the market segments, which are for us priorities and fully in line with our Capital Markets Day. For example, the data center elements, the infrastructures, gigafactories, and so on. It’s completely aligned with what we want to do. We also see some very interesting synergies from a surplus standpoint between Nexans Canada and ElectroCable. Basically, that’s why we decided to move on and to finalize this deal. That’s the first positive element. Regarding GSI, your second question, you know that we have received €250 million of payments the past month in different parts.

This year, we will do approximately €150 million as part of that, which was what we have communicated. We will stay on this type of ratio. Maybe, Vincent, you want to comment for?

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yeah. I think, hello, Jean-François. I think we will not comment in detail, of course, the coming revenue for the GSI project. As a matter of fact, the amount of this project is $1.4 billion, basically. We have started in 2023, so a smooth ramp-up. You can consider that you have a kind of linear activity in the first year, with a kind of acceleration in the last two years of the project, 2028 and 2029, due to the installation, which is usually compact in terms of activity versus the production, which is split basically during five years. That’s basically the profile that you can expect in terms of activity.

Okay. Thank you. Just for the additional question regarding that, you expect you confirm an improvement for the EBIT margin for the transmission segment next year compared to 2025?

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: I think we will come back on you on this when we’ll publish a result in February with a new guidance. What I can tell you is that we are extremely satisfied with the execution of the different projects ongoing and very proud of what the team is doing at this moment in this transmission stream.

Okay. Thank you, Julien. Thank you, Vincent.

Thank you.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now move on to our next question from Scott Humphries of Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I just have two. The first is a very quick follow-up on the tariffs topic. One of your peers has been speaking recently about increasing their purchases of scrap in the U.S. or in North America. From a European perspective, has the reduction in the amount of scrap that China is importing from North America, is that having any impact on the cost of your scrap in Europe, or was the Chinese buying not as significant in Europe in the first place? That’s the first question. I can carry on, please. Thank you.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: No impact at all in our scrap recycling activities in Europe. No incidents, nothing.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Thank you. The second one, just a kind of a broader one on medium voltage. If you could maybe kind of remind us where you are in terms of the process of adding capacity in the medium voltage business in terms of, I guess, Morocco, and then you mentioned briefly the low-carbon production in France as well. How are you seeing that the level of capacity in medium voltage, given how strong the grid segment seems to be? How does that tie in with this additional layer of kind of a focus on production efficiency that you’ve talked about in addition to the CMD strategy?

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Thank you. This is a very interesting and important question. You can imagine when we grow your business by 9% year on year, of course, it has an impact on manufacturing. First of all, I want to remind you that what the job we have done in the past year was to increase the capacity because we anticipate this large increase in the grid to come. I just want to remind you the acquisition we did in Reka, Finland, two years ago with two civilians, the announcement of the additional CapEx in Bourg-en-Bresse, an additional civilians, as well as with Safi, which is a Morocco new plant that was going to come. In terms of capacity increase, we are completely in line with our plans to sustain this growth. Now, regarding the existing footprint as well, we are on that.

You’ve seen in terms of communication that we have done the past last week, basically, that in order to basically deliver our commitments on the objective for 2028, industrial excellence will be key. That’s why we are really accelerating today the efficiency, the productivity, and as well as the competitiveness of our plant and grid. We have a full program on that. That’s extremely important to continue on this. Maybe one word, because grid is, of course, cable, but as well as accessories. I will let Elyette comment on the accessories as well.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Thank you. Thank you, Julien. What we can say is that we are accelerating even further away in accessories. Indeed, as presented in our CMD, we mentioned that we had anticipated the investment in the plants with automation and robotization. We are basically delivering at the scale that we announced in the CMD.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Thank you.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now move on to our next question from Nabil Najib of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on GSI. I think you guys said you just said you had received €250 million of cash for GSI so far. That’s the same amount as what you indicated at the H1 stage, which you said should keep you going until early September on GSI execution. I’m just wondering if you have received any more cash recently, or are you executing on GSI while waiting for a payment? The second question, given, Julien, you’ve been in charge of the grid and connect business for Europe, I was hoping to get your thoughts on how you see the margin potential for these two divisions. I think previously, your predecessor alluded to a longer-term range of around 15% to 16.5% for grid. Is that a view you share? What about for connect?

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Okay. I will start, of course, with GSI. Indeed, you know the amount of cash we received, €250 million. We have been here completely transparent on this. Here, once again, what I can tell you is that we are working very closely with IPTO in a very, let’s say, collaborative way. We are in discussion at this moment in terms of the next steps of this project, and the milestone of payment is part of it. I cannot disclose anything, but that’s, of course, as you can imagine, a part of our discussion. There is also ongoing discussion on the political side as well regarding the GSI. On the cash payment, we are in close discussion with IPTO, and that’s where we stand today. Now, regarding your second question, indeed, the European business, there are two streams, grid and connect.

Grid, you are right with more than 15% EBITDA in terms of profitability. Here, you need to understand that in grid, there are basically three parts, three elements. First one being the long-term agreement with utilities. Here, we are extremely satisfied with the relationship with Platinum customers that we’re having. We have signed a long-term agreement with them. In the past, it used to be a two-year contract agreement. Today, we are talking about a four, five, six-year contract. It gives us a very good visibility over the long term. The second part is project-based of grid, which are renewable solar or wind. Here, it’s more, let’s say, a project for a few months. This business is extremely dynamic as well in Europe. Italy is one of them, Greece, or the other parts of the countries.

The profitability of this project is also at the right level of what we are looking for and what is in line with our Capital Markets Day. Then you have the third activity, which is accessories, managed by Elyette, which is, and we have communicated that a few times, that is extremely lucrative as a business, growing very fast because you know that the accessories part is, let’s say, the critical element of the grid. Our customers, Platinum customers, are replacing that regularly due to the climate change. That’s also giving us the reason why this business of accessories is growing even faster than the cable. That’s basically for the grid part. Now, talking about connect, connect, contrasted, as I said, businesses, let’s say the profitability in Europe is around 13% EBITDA.

We will be growing this step by step because we have growth patterns in our strategy where we will be growing in the sectors, in the verticals for us which matter the most: data centers, critical building, injecting new technology of products, injecting new innovation of products. On that point, I think just for you to understand, in the past two months, we have launched Claro, new innovation in the Italian market with LTC. We are launching in September Ultimo innovations in Benelux, MobileWay in Norway. All these innovations are comforting the profitability of this business and are providing also some resiliency because we are trying to avoid being too much exposed to residential and much more, let’s say, focused to the market segments which are growing better.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Maybe to add on Julien’s comment, just to remind that we have improved significantly over the last year the performance of the connect business, thanks exactly to what Julien commented, the Shift program deployment plus innovation, which are really the two pillars. If you remember in the last call, we have not given any guidance on the % of EBITDA for connect for very simple reasons, which is that we have an ambition in terms of acquisition. Acquisitions that we do usually are slightly below the average of Nexans. We have, after the deployment of our integration program, in order to bring them at least to the average and sometimes above the average. Indeed, we know that in the coming years, we’ll continue to do this acquisition. This is basically how we drive the evolution of the performance of connect. As mentioned by Julien, we are confident.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: One more comment. I think what is very important to understand, in the connect segment, you can grow very fast, and you can take any type of business. Remember, the strategy of Nexans is to be selective. For instance, in the Nordic region in Q3, I asked the team to be extremely selective in the type of project because we don’t want to consume cash for projects which are not accretive to our adjusted EBITDA. We always took the decision to select the type of project and choose the one that really brings both cash and profitability to Nexans.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: That is very helpful. Thank you both.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now take our next question from Akash Gupta of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yes. Hi. Good morning, and thanks for your time. My first one is on Outlook. When you released full-year guidance in July, you were guiding double-digit growth in grid and connect in Q3. We saw grid growth in Q3 was slightly below double digits, and connect was a lot below double-digit level. We also saw some losing momentum in the metallurgy business, which was pretty strong in the first half. My question is that today you are reiterating the guidance. When we look at this guidance corridor and given consensus is towards the bottom end of the range, where do you expect to end up in the year? How much confidence do you have in the midpoint, and how much confidence do you have on the upper end of the range? That’s the first one.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Okay. Thank you, Akash, for your question. Basically, the metallurgy tariff impact was known at the moment where we upgraded the guidance. I think this one is there’s no, let’s say, negative impact whatsoever in terms of the guidance for the year and 2025. Regarding the grid and connect, you know our strategy is not always to go for volume. It’s also to go for profitable growth. Typically, as I mentioned for connect parts, even though, as you said, the volume has been slightly below the expectation of the markets, I can tell you that the quality of the growth of the 3.6, based on innovation we are doing, secures our guidance for the year-end. I can tell you that’s why we will be securing our guidance by year-end. I will not now comment where we’ll be landing because we are still working on it. Of course, you can imagine.

The quality of the growth we have, both in grid and connect, secures our guidance.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Thank you. My follow-up question is on transmission growth. When we look at the comps in absolute terms, I think you will have the toughest comp in Q4. Could you comment about what sort of growth rates we expect in Q4? When we move from 2026 to 2025, is there any unutilized capacity where utilization can be a driver for growth, or will the growth in 2026 be mostly coming from project mix? Thank you.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Okay. In transmission growth, you have seen that basically, you may have some spikes from one quarter to another. You see very strong Q3 numbers, 33%. I would say that our growth for the year-end will be first very well oriented and in line with the average of what we have announced in H1, this type of growth level. Now, regarding the vision for 2026, maybe Vincent, you want to comment on this one?

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yeah. Hello, Akash. Vincent speaking. I think you know the story very well. I mean, the significant increase of this year is the result of our decision some years ago to make several investments in terms of manufacturing, testing, and installation. It’s a kind of expected, I would not say mechanic, but at least expected growth. Now, we have a backlog, as mentioned by Julien before, for the next four years. We will be in line in terms of volume with this year because now all the capacity that we have added over the last three years are now running, and they are fully loaded for the next four years. That’s basically the profile of activity for the next four years.

As mentioned by Julien, depending on the different, I will say, planning of the execution, you can have from one quarter to another one some differences in terms of volumes because you will have more installation, less installation. You know that we do more installation during summertime than during wintertime, the usual approach of this business.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Thank you.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now take our next question from Yumach Familin of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for taking my question. My first question is a follow-up on the GSI project. I was wondering if you could help us, you know, how should we think about the progress of GSI so far in relation to your full-year guidance? I think in the previous calls, you had mentioned that, you know, even if the project does not go ahead, the $250 million that you have received so far would still contribute enough for the guidance to be hit in the mid-range of the guidance. I’m just wondering if you can confirm if that still is the case. My second question is on the power grid market. I guess we’ve seen a fair share of capacity expansion there. How should we think about pricing versus capacity expansion in power grid going forward? Thank you.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Okay. GSI, I think I will repeat what I just explained. Basically, yes, indeed, when the guidance has been raised last July and confirmed today, we completely integrate the GSI elements of the milestone we have with customers. Having no change for that, I can contend this point. Now, regarding the power grid, your second question, it is also a very interesting question. The growth is there. We demonstrated 9%. The capacity in Nexans, manufacturing capacity in Nexans, is also ready to sustain the growth. We do not see any change, any pressure on price. Why? First of all, we are launching low-carbon innovations, which are extremely, let’s say, in line with the expectation of our customers, Platinum customers, because you may know that the type of medium voltage low-carbon offer that we are providing and selling to the market today, they are reducing by 50% the CO2 emissions.

You can imagine the importance it has for our customer utilities. That’s why we are able to differentiate from our competitors that are not offering the same thing. As well as the strong, let’s say, no pressure on price in grid is also linked to the growth we are making in accessories. Here again, I think you have seen last communication where we are launching innovations on new types of accessories, new joints that are also accelerating the installation phase for more electricians on the field.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: That’s super helpful. Thank you very much.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: We’ll now take our next question from Miguel Borrega of BNP Paribas Exchange. Please go ahead.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Sorry to come back to GSI, which you say is on track, and there is no plan B. It seems you’re now more at risk than where you were in the first half. If the project is really canceled, what are the remedies? How can you replace the production reserves for next year? Do you think there are other projects out there with such a margin? I’m just trying to understand if the previous 17% margin for transmission as a whole is still possible without GSI.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Okay. First of all, the project is not canceled. We are still working on it. There are extremely close discussions on the relationship with our customers. There are ongoing discussions on the political side and supported by the European Commission. I mean, we do not see that as a risk. We’ll come back on that, of course, when we’ll have some more, let’s say, information to share. This project is not canceled so far. Regarding now, we have enough pipeline of projects ongoing. Some of them are really secure. Some of them are also under quotation. Here, we have so far, we have no, let’s say, we don’t forecast any problem for next year on this part. Basically, maybe Vincent, if you want to add.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yeah, maybe to give you some colors. I mean, just keep in mind that this project is what we call a mass-imprinted project with deep water installation. Let’s be clear, on the previous projects with this type of technological content, we have been only two players to be qualified. You don’t have so many players able to deliver so far this technology. Basically, when you look to all the coming projects in the Mediterranean Sea, for example, they will all request this type of activity. Today, both players are fully loaded for the next four years. You can imagine that the other projects coming in the pipe are just waiting for the available capacity. As mentioned by Julien, there is no plan B. Today, we are working with our customers in very good collaboration. We are already working with some potential projects after GSI, which will be 2028, 2029, basically.

Okay. Thank you. Just a high-level question. As you were previously Head of Power, Connect, and Grid, what can you tell us about recent performance in terms of growth and profitability? Maybe some insights on what will be the number one priority from here on? Is it accelerating top-line growth, continuing to expand margins, or accelerate M&A? If I just can squeeze one more on Industry and Solutions, I think there’s only auto harnesses left to be disposed. Is that still the plan? Do you see other areas potentially up for sale? Thank you very much.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Okay. I will start by your last comments with Auto Electric. The answer is yes. There are still ongoing discussions with potential buyers, and these discussions are progressing. We will be able to come back to you as soon as something is a bit more concrete on that. That’s something that is part of our strategy to dispose and to become 100% electrical pure-player electrifications. Now, regarding the, let’s say, what would be the priorities, basically, capital allocation is clear because we want to accelerate the M&A. That’s really my objectives. I think the announcement of today for Canada, it can demonstrate it. We have the M&A teams of Nexans also very active with different pipelines. We will review that very quickly to move on these elements. Growth, yes, but profitable growth, selective growth, like we have demonstrated since several years. I think we will continue to do this.

Also, we will be extremely, and we explained that in the Capital Markets Day in terms of innovations. We have a pipeline innovations. There was recently a big event with one of our customers, Platinum customers in France. We have seen a lot of electricians on the stand talking about innovation. There’s a big appetite for innovations. Last but not least is the shift on Shift AI that maybe we can also explain to you. That’s one of our priorities. We really want to grow in this segment. I will give the floor here to Guillaume in charge of strategy and AI for Nexans that maybe can give some color on that.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Thank you, Julien. Indeed, Shift AI is a hot topic for us. Basically, it’s the platform from which we develop the Nexans AI solutions. The choice we made is to amplify and accelerate the Shift program that has been very successful for Nexans. We focus on four axes: costing, complexity reduction, dynamic pricing, client advanced segmentation. The idea of Shift AI is that when a normal manager uses 5% of the data available, we move to 20% with Shift. With Shift AI, we will move to 90%. At the moment, we are really in the topic of building up this platform, and we will tell you more in 2026.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: To finish on your question, maybe one of my other priorities, which is for me extremely important, is to work on the industrial excellence, generate mutualization of industrial footprints, both in grid and connect, because we have here a room of improvement, productivity, and competitiveness. That will be also a key element of my priorities in the coming weeks with the team.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now take our next question from Eric LeMury of CIC. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I’ve got two. The first one on GSI. I appreciate your various comments on this project, but could you confirm maybe that you’re on time with the initial schedule on GSI and that the project has not been somewhat delayed as it is sometimes mentioned by the press? Could you maybe say when you expect to receive the final notice to proceed for GSI? I got a second question on the backlog. The backlog on transmission is flatish. It’s up year on year. I can see that, but it’s flatish sequentially this year, around €8 billion. Could you perhaps remind us your strategy here? Is it to properly execute and renew the backlog in good condition, or is it more to expand the backlog to make it grow further? Thank you.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Thank you. Thank you for your question. Maybe, Vincent, you want to comment?

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yeah, but I can take the backlog if you wish, Julien. I think what we must have in mind, you have to take a kind of step back, I think. Why the backlog has increased significantly is that, if you remember, in 2023, there has been this big move on the market with the TENET Frame Agreement, which was basically the largest award in the history of the subsea business, which has basically cached a big part of the capacity on the market. As a consequence of this major move from TENET, you have seen plenty of other players placing their tender in order also to avoid the lack of capacity on the market. 2023 was indeed a peak of order intake. I think now we are more in a normal process because basically, all the key players, we have four to six years of backlog.

It’s quite logical, I will say, that you have a lower activity of tender right now, even if, as we said, it’s still very active and very robust. The different players have announced awards around this year. If you follow my logic, you should expect potentially a new peak of order when there will be much more free capacity, which means basically probably more in 2027 or 2028. That’s why we have said previously that we think the book-to-bill will be around one this year and probably next year due to this, not due to us, but due to the cycle of the business. We are focusing, to answer to your question, to two points. First, to execute properly the backlog because we have a good backlog to execute.

Indeed, we are looking to the pipeline in order to, on time, prepare the next generation of order, which will start basically from 2029 onwards. This means probably, as usual in this business, tendering two years in advance before the available capacity.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Thank you, Vincent. To answer your first question regarding the GSI project, yes, I do confirm we are in time with the initial schedule, and we are in close discussion with our customers about the next steps. That’s where we are standing today.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Right. Thank you very much, indeed. Thank you.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. We’ll now take our next question from Xin Wang of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Hi there. Thank you for taking my questions. A quick follow-up on the GSI project, given we can’t see your financial statements. Can you confirm for the volumes produced since September, are these sitting as contract assets or trade receivables on your balance sheets, please?

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Just maybe a clarification because you speak a lot about production. I think just as a reminder, a project is not only production. I will not give in details the detail of the scheduling of the project, but all what we have done since the beginning of this project is, of course, engineering, testing, production, and so on. When we say that we are on track, as mentioned by Julien, it means that we are on track not only with manufacturing, but also with jointing activities, with testing activities, with engineering activities. This is basically what we are doing. We have produced, I think, probably around 240 kilometers, more or less. Indeed, we are continuing with both production and jointing and testing. That’s the normal life of a project, to give some color on what does it mean from an operational perspective. It’s not only production.

If not, the project will not progress as planned.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Okay. Thanks for the additional color. I think my question was more on for the work you did since September. Are you able to invoice them?

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yes, we have been invoicing the customer as per normal, as per the ongoing project, as per the milestone. There’s nothing exceptional to report. It’s as usual, yes.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Exposure is limited so far. All we can.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: Yeah.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Is that right? I didn’t quite get the last bit.

Vincent Dessale, Senior Executive, Nexans: No, it’s Christine, our Interim CFO, which was saying that our exposure is completely aligned with theirs. There’s nothing special to report, yes.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Great. My second one is, do you think there is a temporary regional oversupply in Canada since the introduction of U.S. tariffs? In H1, it was very obvious that you were exporting a lot more copper to the U.S., which was reflected in very high other activity numbers. As you also commented in Q3, this was negative 6.3% year on year.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: I don’t think so. For Canada, we have a very strong growth in Canada, you know, close to 20% growth year on year, extremely dynamic. You know that we have two types of business: grid and connect. The grid, it’s fueled by long-term projects, long-term agreements with customers, utilities. Here, we are very well secured on the visibility. In terms of connect, you know, what the team is doing is to really focus the activity on the specific verticals, data centers, critical buildings. Here again, we don’t see any specific additional competition from outside Canada or from any other country. We are very well secured in this market, very dynamic, with very long capability to grow in terms of construction infrastructure.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Okay. Good to know. The final one is the 9% grid growth margin diluting because I think previously management commented on the sensitivity table between organic growth and margin. Is there a shift on how you think about the market?

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: I can tell you that it’s not diluted. This grid business is extremely profitable, so no dilution at all. We are completely aligned. Once again, we are aligned with the target we have communicated in Capital Markets Day, both in terms of profitability and in terms of growth.

Christine Prevolezzi, Interim CFO, Nexans: Okay, thank you very much.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. There are no further questions in queue. I will now hand it back to Julien for final remarks.

Julien Hueber, CEO, Nexans: Thank you, operator. Let me just finish by saying that I believe the solid performance delivered in our training update today confirms the robustness of Nexans’ model and the discipline with which we execute it. Now we enter into the final quarter with confidence, and we reiterate, you have seen and you understood today, our 2025 guidance. I’m very pleased to go now on the roadshows and to meet investors in the coming weeks. Thank you again for joining today.

Laura, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. This concludes today’s call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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