Earnings call transcript: Spie SA sees strong Q1 2025 growth, stock stable

Spie SA, with a market capitalization of $7.66 billion, reported robust growth in the first quarter of 2025, with revenue increasing by 8.5% year-over-year, driven by significant organic growth and strategic acquisitions. The company’s stock price remained relatively stable, reflecting a minor 0.05% increase. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock appears slightly undervalued based on its Fair Value model, with analysts setting price targets up to $54.50.

Key Takeaways

• Revenue grew by 8.5% in Q1 2025 with strong organic growth of 21.1%.
• The company closed two acquisitions, enhancing its market position.
• High demand in European markets, particularly in Germany, supports growth.
• The stock price showed minimal movement, indicating stable investor sentiment.
• The effective tax rate remains high, between 31-31.5%.

Company Performance

Spie SA demonstrated a strong performance in Q1 2025, with an 8.5% increase in revenue. The company achieved impressive organic growth of 21.1%, building on a 6.2% growth in the previous year. This performance was bolstered by strategic acquisitions and a strong presence in key European markets, particularly in the electrical engineering sector.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Increased by 8.5% year-over-year.
• Organic Growth: 21.1%, indicating robust internal expansion.
• External Growth: 6.7% through acquisitions, contributing 146 million euros.
• Effective Tax Rate: Expected to be between 31-31.5%.

Outlook & Guidance

Spie SA expects its revenue to exceed 10 billion euros in 2025, with continued EBITA margin expansion. The company maintains a dividend payout target of 40% of adjusted net income and anticipates organic growth similar to previous years. Currently offering a 2.5% dividend yield, Spie SA has consistently raised its dividend for four consecutive years, as noted by InvestingPro analysis.

Executive Commentary

CEO Gauthier Lwet remarked, "It’s a good time to be a European Electrical Engineer," highlighting the favorable market conditions. He also noted, "We have a good pipeline... and we’re looking at companies who are doing well in the sector," indicating a focus on strategic growth through acquisitions. Lwet emphasized the company’s strong margins, stating, "Our margins are holding very well."

Risks and Challenges

• The decline in the fiber segment in France, affecting revenue by approximately 10 million euros.
• The high effective tax rate could impact net profitability.
• Limited exposure to the automotive sector in Germany might restrict growth opportunities.
• Potential challenges in integrating newly acquired companies.
• Macroeconomic pressures in Europe could affect overall market demand.

Spie SA’s strong performance in Q1 2025, driven by organic growth and strategic acquisitions, positions the company well for future expansion. However, the stable stock price suggests that investors remain cautiously optimistic, balancing growth prospects with potential risks.

Full transcript - Spie SA (SPIE) Q1 2025:

Conference Moderator: Hello, and welcome to the SPE Q1 twenty twenty five revenue call hosted by Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO and Jerome VanOve, Group CFO. Please note this conference is being recorded for the duration of the call. 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. I will now hand you over to Mr.

Gauthier Wett to begin today’s conference. Thank you.

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our Q1 results conference call. So SPIA has made a solid start to the year with encouraging momentum across several of our key markets. And 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. So in Germany, we were awarded three new contracts in Baden Wurttemberg as part of Netze Beze 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, PEICS 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.

And on Slide five, also in France, we operate on the Saint D’Igier Air Base 113 through a one speed 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. SPEE Global Services Energy has been selected by Van Auld for the Eco Van Der offshore wind project. This is offshore Netherlands. Our teams are handling cable termination and testing for a wind farm, which will supply six sixty megawatt of green electricity, covering around 3% of the Dutch green energy consumption.

This contract illustrates our successful diversification into offshore wind services. And now turning to our numbers on Slide eight. SPEED delivered a solid start to the year with revenue up 8.5% in the first quarter. Organic growth reached plus 21.1% 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 and A, we closed two acquisitions and recently signed a new one. Integration of all twenty twenty four 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.

Northeastern 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 twenty twenty four, which benefited from a one off shutdown contract.

Overall, this performance underscores the strength and balance of our multi local, multi technical model. So on Slide 10, 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 mainly driven by data centers, defense and transport infrastructure. In Industry, Robor and OTOZ 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. So the revenue in France was broadly stable with organic growth at minus 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 health care. Technical Facility Management performed well with new contracts kicking in and churn work holding well. In our City Networks activities, fiber deployment is gradually winding down in areas where rollout has been already completed. Finally, Nuclear Services continued to grow, supported by the Grand Carinaj program in both maintenance and project activities.

Slide 12, Northwestern Europe, where the 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 efficient retrofits and data centers. Belgium also delivered solid growth, particularly in health care, commercial real estate and technical 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. And lastly, in Global Services Energy, revenue declined by minus 10.7% this quarter due to an exceptionally high comparison basis in Q1 twenty twenty four, 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. SPE continued to expand its renewable energy offering on the back of the successful integration of the Corel Group.

The segment’s fundamentals are robust with long term contracts ensuring stability. And I will now hand over to Jerome.

Jerome VanOve, Group CFO, SPEA: Thank you, Gauthier, and good morning, everyone. Let’s start with the revenue bridge. SPIES revenue was up plus 8.5% in Q1 twenty twenty five. Organic growth was plus 2.1% against a particularly strong comparison basis in Q1 last year. External growth contributed plus 6.7% or the equivalent of EUR 146,000,000, with the full year effect on one hand of the acquisitions closed in 2024, contributing for €137,000,000 and on the other hand, the two ones which have been closed in Q1 twenty twenty five contributing for €9,000,000 in such quarter.

The minus 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 20,000,000 revenue last year. Currency effects were neglectable 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 bred in light of the very high comparison basis from Q1 twenty twenty four, 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 plus 43.7% organic growth on that segment. As we progress into the year, comparison basis will become easier. Moving to M and A. In Q1, we continued to deliver on our external growth strategy.

We closed two bolt on acquisition in the first quarter, Electromontas in Poland, a specialist in Electrical Installation Services with nearly EUR70 million revenue and Corporate Software in Switzerland, an IT consulting and service provider with nearly EUR4 million revenue. We recently signed and announced the acquisition of Eltek in Poland. Eltek is an integrator of building automation and management system, adding around EUR19 million in annual revenue. These acquisitions strengthen our capabilities in Building Solutions and ICS in Central Europe. Meanwhile, the integrations of the twenty twenty four acquisitions are progressing well and according to our plan.

Looking ahead, we currently have 15 live M and 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 strength and consistency of our M and 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.

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Thank you, Jerome. 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 €10,000,000,000 mark, supported by further organic growth and active bolt on M and A. We expect continued expansion of our EBITA margin. And as every year, we intend to maintain a dividend payout of around 40% of adjusted net income.

Thank you for your attention. And in case you forget, let me repeat again, it’s a good time to be a European Electrical Engineer. And we are now happy to take your questions.

Conference Moderator: Thank you, Mr. The first question comes from the line of Remy Grenoud from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Remy Grenoud, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Good morning, Gauthier. Good morning, Jean. Three questions, if I may. So first, if you could share more details on the organic growth in France, the minus 2%, for example, quantifying a little bit the impact of the fiber ramp down, what was the contribution in Q1? And overall, for the country, if you expect that organic growth would further deteriorate later this year?

So 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 in 2020 and what you did last year. So do you still believe that this will be the case? And then 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?

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Yes. Thank you, Ruben. So regarding fiber decline, it’s roughly it accounts for roughly EUR 10,000,000 for this first quarter compared to last year. So it’s basically half of the organic decrease. And we still we think we’re going to do roughly EUR 100,000,000 for the whole year on the Optic Fibre.

I think the comparison basis, as we said, was strong for Q1. So 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’s a very resilient business.

We have a lot of activities which are still progressing. For instance, maintenance services for buildings, for technical facilities are in a good shape, and we have gained new contracts. We have a decent level of churn work. Our industry business is holding well as well. And so does our ICS activity.

So basically, the two areas where we have negative growth this quarter are city networks with the impact of the Optic Fibers as well. And this is an area where we have a bit more public customer like local authorities for mid voltage, etcetera. And we see this is the budgets are more constrained. And then the probably the main culprit is building installation. We’re starting middle of the year last year.

And obviously, the customer have been fairly cautious with new programs. We have the housing market, which is as good as debt at the moment. So we are not in the housing market, but we have players of that market. We try to find work at the fringes of what we do, so the most simple things like small building offices, schools, etcetera. And obviously, it prevents us from entering into a price war in this small projects business.

So this is what, as explained, a weakness starting Q4 and Q1 this year. Meanwhile, we have a decent order intake for data center for health assets, etcetera. So we see the situation in revenue easing up during the year, and especially it bodes well for 04/26. So we are we have an order intake in Building Solutions, which is now improving. But it was the main reason for the drop in Q1.

So again, France resilient, as I’ve mentioned, margins are holding very well in France, and our business is extremely capable to adapt and to a decrease in revenue as we saw this quarter. So again, we should not be too worried for the full year in France. Regarding the organic growth for the whole year, we don’t see any reason to say something different that we said that a few weeks ago. And regarding the tax rate, maybe Jerome, you want to

Jerome VanOve, Group CFO, SPEA: Certainly. We reported, Remy, thirty two point nine percent of effective tax rate last year. I think for 2025, it’s fair to assume a slight probably decrease, something like 31%, thirty one point five %, 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 18,000,000 to EUR 20,000,000 that you should add on top of that. That P and 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 and L impact we have, and this is due to 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.

Remy Grenoud, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Yes, all good. Thanks very much.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from the line of Eric Lemaire from CIC. Please go ahead.

Eric Lemaire, Analyst, CIC: Yes, good morning. Eric Lemaire, CIC. 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 closed and the other 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? And the last question on phasing effects. You didn’t mention any phasing effects in Q1.

Should we expect some phasing effects maybe later in the years, in the next quarters? Thank you.

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Yes. Well, maybe starting with Germany. So the German plan is twofold, as you will remember. So there’s EUR 500,000,000,000 for infrastructure. And yes, so it pertains to rail, it pertains to energy transition.

Green are interested that EUR 100,000,000,000 would be dedicated to energy transition. And then we have obviously a part also for energy efficiency in buildings. So this is the infrastructure plan. And then there is the second part, which is dedicated to defense. And then the an estimate was also another EUR 500,000,000,000, but reality, it was mentioned, it is whatever it costs.

And again, it’s not only weapons and equipment, it is also infrastructure in the military because now the German government recons that they need to improve very much the logistics and the infrastructure to, for example, to low Swiss transportation of material across the country. So it will have an impact on infrastructure as well. And as a matter of fact, we it’s not immediately linked with that, but we have have we have seen from 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. So this is going to kick in.

Probably, the coalition government is now created. They have an agreement, and mentioning that they want to go fast on this infrastructure spend. So this is positive for us. Again, a part of it is dedicated to the energy transition. So it moves and the coalition agreement was achieved faster than expected.

So it is quite positive going forward. But 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.

So it is really a very strong growth engine that we have in Germany. We saw the impact last year, and we continue to see the impact. So this is something which is going to last independently of the growth plan. Regarding phasing effects, and nothing really special to mention about that. It does happen, especially regarding energy projects, which are a bit more chunky.

And then the it’s mainly linked with the time it takes to get the final authorization before we get the go ahead to start. So from time to time, we saw that in the past, we’ve seen that midterm, it’s not really a concern. And regarding contribution from acquisitions, Jerome, you want to comment

Jerome VanOve, Group CFO, SPEA: on Yes, certainly. If we embark on the full year effect for twenty twenty four acquisitions, that’s around about EUR 175,000,000 plus what we have closed to date in 2025, you can add a good EUR 50,000,000. So let’s say EUR $270,000,000, sorry. So EUR $250,000,000 in total is what is already secured and closed as of today.

Eric Lemaire, Analyst, CIC: Thank you very much. Very clear.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from the line of David Sirdan from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.

David Sirdan, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Yes, good morning, gentlemen. I would like just to to offer some further further comment on on your performance in France and and Germany. Just for for France, to to to to understand the situation, do you think that the French market is is down for the industry? Or is it more just specific to speed? Second question is regarding German market.

Can you quantify the volume effect in this seven more than 7% organic growth? And third question is regarding the M and A. Do you think that it’s time to make a pause to have a pause on M and A because the world is maybe more unpredictable?

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Well, regarding France, I gave some color to was something. So again, apart from the building installations or projects and the drop, which is well known and well anticipated in Optic Fibre. We’re looking at a business which is holding very decently. And for instance, in Industrial Services, we are doing well. Our customers are very much into more electrification projects for the units.

Nuclear sees a healthy growth, which now that the Grand Carrenaje activities are back on normal track. We’re really benefiting from that. And the Information and Communication Systems are doing well. And again, as I said, in the building station, we are now scoring projects, which are not all going to start right now, but it means that we were building up backlog. So we should not see France again as a too black picture.

Well, there are many sectors which holding very decently. And again, what’s very important, both in terms of margin and cash generation, are very much in line with what we achieved in the past. We do see some sequential improvement going forward. So 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 margin, both in cash generation and very flexible, so regarding the cost base.

So France is a very recession proof business. And again, we see things that the organic growth for the first quarter is probably the lowest we have in this year. Regarding Germany, I’m not sure we understood your question regarding volume effect.

David Sirdan, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Yes, volume effect. Well,

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: is a strong demand in Germany in for all our services, very strong. And we see what I could have mentioned regarding this new plan, it has also changed the confidence level of our customers. So they are more preparing now to for more investments. So for instance, for our efficient facility business, it helps because people have more confidence to spend on churn works, etcetera. Everything that pertains to energy is very strong.

So obviously, there is an impact on volume because the demand of the customers is very strong, and there is an impact of price. We continue to improve our margins decently in Germany in face of the strong demand and restrained capacity. So we still benefit from a good price effect, which allows us obviously to go 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 doing very well. So photovoltaic is very much a fostered in Germany, and this doesn’t change.

So it’s really also a good boost, both in terms of volume and margin.

David Sirdan, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: And for Germany, can you remind us of the exposure the automotive sector? And do you see some signs of difficulties for some automotive customers?

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Well, the exposure to automotive is 1.6% of our volume in Germany, mainly in maintenance of plants. And as a matter of fact, we just won last year a new plant, which is for trucks and for Daimler. So we’re doing all right. Obviously, the maintenance of these plants, it does continue. First, again, as announced, the shutdown of two small plants were not present.

And in fact, the German alternative sector is facing transformation, which is not bad for us because it’s an intense works, etcetera. So we’re 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 and A and whether we would consider a pause. We see no. Clearly, we have a good pipeline, as Jerome described, And we’re looking at company who are doing well in the sector.

And not surprisingly, because they are not in very different sector from where we are. And clearly, we have no inflection at all of our M and A strategy.

David Sirdan, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from the line of Rory McKenzie from UBS. Just

Rory McKenzie, Analyst, UBS: one left for me, please. Just a follow-up on the Germany fiscal expansion plans. As you said, your T and D activities have already been growing strongly for years. I think you’ve got a three year backlog already or something like that. So can you talk about what the current capacity constraints are and how you think policy or more funding could speed up those transformation programs?

Or do you think that the investment is going to be more about broadening the areas of modernization in the economy? Thank you.

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Well, I think we’re talking transmission and distribution. And probably the greatest impact of the plan will be towards distribution. So transmission, we have four DSO, on Creon, from Seixaert, etcetera, who are doing well and have their projects well financed, we have hundreds of Stal Verke in distribution who now face a need for quite a bit of investment to adapt to the new grid and to the new transmission grid. And these people can do with support regarding their financing. So clearly, impact of the plan would be more in that direction, which is obviously will help further growth.

Now for this customer, we operate on framework agreements. It’s three years, five years framework agreements. And then the customer chooses to spend more or less money in the frame of this agreement, so it will help them to go towards the higher end of the spend.

Rory McKenzie, Analyst, UBS: Great. That’s very interesting. Thank you.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from the line of Augustin Saint from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Augustin Saint, Analyst, Stifel: 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 Eric’s question on the phasing. It seems like you had phasing in Central Europe last year. I didn’t see it mentioned in the press release this time, but I I was wondering how that would impact your business going forward.

I saw in the presentation that you you mentioned Poland would start some project would start from H two onwards. So the way to interpret it, is it that from Q3 onwards, you expect your organic growth to become positive again? Or are you expecting an improvement of the phasing earlier than that?

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Well, you see, we do not guide on quarterly organic growth per segment. But what I can say is that clearly, for Central Europe, the euro is back end loaded. And so we’ll see gradual but steady improvement compares the beginning of the year.

Augustin Saint, Analyst, Stifel: Okay. I had a question on 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? And second question related to that is, I saw that last year, had an organic growth of 15% in Q2. So 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?

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Well, we did have an impact of this one off was spreading out to Q2 as well for reminder, this one off contract patents to the shutdown of FPSO offshore Nigeria, which accounted for roughly EUR 20,000,000 revenue last year. So this is what we had last year. And then regarding the balance of the year, we see we have a number of new contracts ramping up, and we look at sustained level of activity this year. I remind that we are mostly on the maintenance. And clearly, it provides for a stable business.

So we are 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 discrete number of projects where we do on a time and material basis connection of the grid. So this can vary a bit. So clearly, the for oil and gas, the higher comparison basis was H1, definitely.

Augustin Saint, Analyst, Stifel: H1. Okay. Thank you. And my last question is on your integrations. I was wondering if you could provide more detail by acquisitions, so for Robor, MBG, ICG and OTO Life on the different stages of the integration and what’s left to do and where you are at exactly?

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: But it really depends on the for instance, Robo was the Robo deal was closed earlier in the year, the ICG later and auto towards the end of the year. So obviously, we are in different phases. But as you know, we have very well established guidelines and principle and to organize this integration. So we have a well now old integration process, which we are rolling out according to the various schedules. And we’re well on plan with clearly Robo being the largest one and the first one, we have really well progressed, and we are very satisfied with the performance.

And clearly, for the others, it’s a a it happened later last year, so we are at an earlier phase of integration, but everything according to this phased plan.

Augustin Saint, Analyst, Stifel: Thank you very much.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from the line of Simona Thali from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Simona Thali, Analyst, Bank of America: Yes, good morning and thanks for taking my question. So one is a follow-up on organic revenue growth. So you already commented that you do not expect it to be dissimilar to what we saw last year. But can you comment a little bit more precisely on the trajectory through the year? And 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? And if you are experiencing similar competitive dynamics also in other countries? And if you are seeing also change in the client behavior due to the more mixed macro picture? Thank you.

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Well, 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 in we don’t 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, so no change in the trends. It’s the same in Germany where we are less exposed to this area.

And in Central Europe, we had it was for different reasons, it was fairly flat last year, and we had some delay in projects towards the end of last year. But we see now the order intake coming. But again, if you look at Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, it’s a lot of moving parts. So clearly, we had different patterns in these countries for various reasons. We are not very large in these countries.

So it’s just the macroeconomic that impact, but also a number of discrete reasons. So and then we are growing in this area in Belgium right now. So altogether, installation in we’re looking at less than EUR 1,000,000,000 for the whole group.

Simona Thali, Analyst, Bank of America: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: We now have a follow-up question from David Sirdan from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.

David Sirdan, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Yes. I will be very brief. Just to understand, so 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 minus 10%?

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Yes. This is not a wrong assumption.

David Sirdan, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: So it’s a right assumption. There

Conference Moderator: There are no further questions. So I hand back over to you, Hoult, to conclude today’s conference.

Gauthier Lwet, Chairman and CEO, SPEA: Well, thank you for your attention and your interest for SPEA. So we have a very good start to the year. We didn’t mention too much margins because we don’t communicate on margin on a quarterly basis. But maybe it’s worth mentioning that our margins are holding very well. And in fact, we see the increase that we are forecasting for the year already shaping up very well on Q1.

And with that, I will close this call. Thank you again for your attention. And maybe allow me to remind you that it’s a very good time to be an electrical engineer in Europe. Thank you.

Conference Moderator: Thank you for joining today’s call. You may now disconnect your lines.

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