Earnings call transcript: Tecnicas Reunidas sees 8% sales growth in 2024

Tecnicas Reunidas (BME:TRE) reported a robust financial performance for the full year 2024, with sales reaching €4,500 million, marking an 8% increase from the previous year. The company also achieved an EBIT of €181 million, reflecting a 16% improvement year-over-year. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a strong financial position, holding more cash than debt on its balance sheet, while trading at an attractive revenue multiple relative to peers. Despite these positive results, the company’s stock fell by 2.94% in early trading, closing at €15.46, as investors digested the broader market trends and specific company announcements.

Key Takeaways

• Sales increased by 8% to €4,500 million in 2024.
• EBIT rose by 16%, reaching €181 million.
• Stock price declined by 2.94% post-earnings announcement.
• Strong focus on low carbon technologies and engineering capacity expansion.
• Revenue guidance for 2025 set to exceed €5,200 million.

Company Performance

Tecnicas Reunidas demonstrated strong performance in 2024, driven by successful project deliveries and a strategic focus on low carbon technologies. The company has strengthened its engineering capabilities across key regions, including Spain, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, and India, which supports its selective project approach and risk management focus. The services division reported a backlog of €300 million, with margins around 30%.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: €4,500 million (+8% YoY)
• EBIT: €181 million (+16% YoY)
• EBIT Margin: 4.1%
• Net Cash Position: €394 million
• Gross Debt Reduction: €62 million
• Equity Position: €575 million

Market Reaction

Tecnicas Reunidas’ stock experienced a decline of 2.94% following the earnings release. This movement comes amid broader market fluctuations and investor sentiment around the company’s future growth prospects. InvestingPro data shows the stock is actually trading near its 52-week high of $22.13, with a robust YTD return of 5.48%. The company’s Financial Health Score stands at 2.46, indicating FAIR overall condition. For deeper insights into the company’s valuation and growth potential, investors can access comprehensive analysis through InvestingPro’s detailed research reports, available for over 1,400 top stocks.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Tecnicas Reunidas has set ambitious revenue targets, projecting more than €5,200 million for 2025 and around €5,500 million for 2026. The company aims to achieve an EBIT margin close to 4.5% in 2025 and above 5% in 2026, with plans to resume dividend payments. InvestingPro analysis reveals 8 additional key insights about the company’s financial health and market position, including its profitability trends and return metrics, available exclusively to subscribers. The potential repayment of a PPL (NYSE:PPL) loan is under evaluation for Q3 2025.

Executive Commentary

Chairman Juan Yadavo expressed confidence in the company’s growth capacity, stating, "We do have the capacity. We have grown in Spain, we’re growing in Abu Dhabi, in Saudi Arabia, and in India." CEO Eduardo San Miguel emphasized a conservative approach to cash management, remarking, "If the cash is for the investors, I’m afraid I’m not doing the correct things."

Risks and Challenges

• Market Volatility: Fluctuations in global energy markets could impact project opportunities.
• Competitive Pressure: Maintaining a competitive edge in low carbon technologies is crucial.
• Economic Uncertainty: Macroeconomic factors may affect investment decisions and project timelines.
• Regulatory Changes: Shifts in energy policies could influence project viability and margins.
• Supply Chain Disruptions: Potential disruptions could affect project delivery schedules.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s capacity for higher order intake and its approach to margin expansion. Management confirmed alignment of working capital growth with revenue growth and reiterated a focus on services and low carbon technologies.

Full transcript - Tecnicas Reunidas (TRE) Q4 2024:

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to TR’s twenty twenty four Full Year Results Presentation. It’s going to be conducted by our Chairman, Juan Yadavo and our CEO, Eduardo San Miguel. He will last approximately twenty, twenty five minutes and he will be able to post your questions after the final remarks. I now will leave the floor to our Chairman, Juan Yaddo.

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Hi, hello, everyone. Thank you very much, Antonio, and good morning or good afternoon, I don’t know where you are to whomever are listening to us. As usual, Eduardo San Miguel, Tengi Castronella’s Group CEO and I will guide you through these presentations. And at the very beginning, first of all, I will share with you all the main highlights that we have achieved over this year 2024. Second, I’m going to give you guidance of 2025.

Usually, guidance is left to the end, but we do believe that at least presentation will flow much better if we start disclosing our targets and our ambitions for 2025 and even 2026. I will continue with an update of the most important or relevant business milestones, three important milestones that has been achieved for the 2024 and 2025. And then I will leave the floor to Eduardo, who will drive you through the relevant landmarks achieved by TR in this in its operational performance. And as always, the main financial figures for the year. And I will finally wrap up the presentations with some closing remarks.

Highlights, I mean, the highlights here are very simple, five bullets and I’m going to elaborate very much on it. You have a lot of information there. We have a number one, order intake EUR 4,800,000.0 Two, very strong and healthy, very I like to underline, healthy backlog of EUR 12,500,000,000.0. I don’t like to use it in terms of records and whatever because, well, this is not a race. Sales, EUR 4,500,000,000.0, very much within our target.

EBIT, we were talking of a year of 4%, slightly above 4%, which margin, which is EUR 181,000,000. And very important, we closed the year with a net of debt cash position of close to EUR 400,000,000, EUR 3 40 4 million to be precise. I do believe that these five figures, five achievements are very much self explanatory. And they are the first step of a very important salsa strategy that we have presented to you last May. Later on, Eduardo will give you additional details on both operations and very specifically on these financial figures.

So let’s not wait anymore and let’s move into guidance for 2025. I mean, back in May 24, during our Capital Markets Day in Abu Dhabi, we share with you Tiara’s business strategy for the upcoming years. And we assume commitments. And the reality is those commitments are being met and 2024 is the first step, as I said before. So starting 2025, we’re more than ready to start these presentations with our guidance.

With our guidance, which is slightly better than what a lot of some people had expected. We do expect and that’s our guidance to have revenues for 2025 above $5,200,000,000 and we do expect and release our guidance of having an EBIT in the neighborhood close to 4.5. And I think this is very important and this is very important because it also sets our minds for the next slide that we’re going to be talking about very important milestone in our strategy, which is 2026. But before that, let me do a quick analysis or a quick to highlight two very important happenings, so to speak, that have taken place over 2025 for the last two months. The first one is Vaca Muerta.

A lot of people think why is Vaca Muerta so important? I mean, Vaca Muerta is important. It’s very important for us. It has to do with the customer that we want to work for. It has to do with the field that we have to work for and it has to do with the customer and partners, services and technology they want to develop at stream.

And while we’ll do further development of Vaca Muerta later on. And also very important, we have been selected for a project amounting EUR 3,300,000,000.0 in The Emirates. But we cannot do further disclosure until obviously, as not always happen, the project is fully signed. And having talked about 2025 and those very important messages of those very important announcements that have taken place in 2025 in over the last few months, let’s talk about the very important year 2026. In this sense, we are, I am, we, our TR team, am personally very optimistic of the positive trend of the market and the positive trend that TR is taking the right step to achieve all the goals and objectives for the upcoming years.

Here you have the term ambition to 2026. And some of you might think ambitions is the synonym of wish. Well, it is a wish, obviously, but it’s not a wishful thinking. I mean, that ambition is becoming a reality. And it’s becoming a reality that allow us to have greater revenues through $5,500,000,000 That sends the message to you, analysts and investors that our ambitions is close to be a reality with an EBIT margin above 5%.

And very important, because this is 2026, we set it in Abu Dhabi and we set it to date again, it’s a very important milestone. It is the year that with these results, we’ll send TR back again to dividend paying policy. It is a very important year. That’s why we thought that guidance and ambition, again, of 2026, we wanted to present it to you at the very beginning of the presentation. And now let’s talk about back to day to day business, less ambitions and less guidance.

Let’s talk to back to reality, back to the business. And back to the business, I think it’s important to present to you three I mean, many things has happened this year. It has happened in Kazakhstan, in Abu Dhabi, in The United States, many things and a lot of delivery. It has been a very it has been extremely busy years. But let me first focus in three happenings, so to speak, in three accomplishments.

There are somehow inflection points on TRS’ strategy. Number one, on November 24, to be precise, I think with the November 27 when we announced I don’t know if it’s twenty seventh or twenty seventeenth, I do remember that that was November. Sonatrac decided to entrust PR as leader together with Sanopec to relaunch the very important and the very strategic refinery in Hassi Methaud, Algeria. And just a few seconds, and let’s do a bit of memory here. This job was awarded to TR at the very end of 2019.

And we had a sign in summary in January 2020. And two months and a half later, Sonata CREAM team and TR team, we were all locked in. We all forgot that COVID started. But we were brave enough and we have a strong because of relationship and it was the first job that we started from scratch teleworking. So it was a challenge for both and we did.

Unfortunately, COVID was more than teleworking in 2021, prices went crazy, 2022 were impossible and the project was put on hold. Today, together with Sanopec, our strategic partner, the three companies are customer Sonatrac, our strategic partner Tanopec and ourselves have been working together to relaunch this job very successfully. If the job is above EUR 4,000,000,000 worth, We know the job. We happen to be the leaders, but we have a very strong partner, Sanopec. And it’s and that’s because we have a strategic partner, because with them, we have done the largest refinance job we have ever done in The Middle East, in Saudi Arabia and in Kuwait.

So I have to say that I’d like to thank both Sonatrade Professionals and Sendopec Professionals because the three of them, together with my team, together with Vitinikas and Trim, have demonstrated over the last month the willingness of working together and the commitment for the Algerian market. So I’d like to leave it very clear. I’m truly thankful, and this is a very successful a very successful accomplishment. And now, power projects. The thing is I’ve already I made the whole explanation of Sonatrade, which was coming up towards, but I don’t know, better earlier than later.

So let’s I mean, don’t forget about it. What I said is important and I wanted to say it. So now let’s talk about the second inflection point, the second very important announcement. Last November, on the first nine months presentation, we already announced that we had been selected with limited numbers to proceed to three very large three extremely important combined cycles. At that point, we already mobilized the project task force together with the customer.

And right now, all the teams, TR teams, with our partners are already working under very accelerated limited notice to proceed with engineering has been fully launched together, and this is very important that TR together with the customer, we have already secured the turbines, very important to meet our targets for the Power Island. So you may remember that often we have settled in this business with the only company that is working at the same time with the three technology providers, which are GE, Anzaldo, Siemens (ETR:SIEGn) and Mitsubishi. We are committed with this project, which is huge. When we talk about this is Urea there 3.3 gigawatts, it happens to be that is this the size to give you a sense of reference, it’s about one third of the total capacity installed through combined cycles here in Spain. So this is very good.

It shows has very much to do with TR know how, TR delivery capacity and the how our customer, in this case, Aqua Power, probably the most important independent power producer for water and power in The Middle East, I think is most important by far, have entrusted TR. The second customer, again, we cannot discuss it yet. But this is very important. And finally, Vaca Muerta. Vaca Muerta is important for us, and that’s it for us.

It is important Argentina. It is important to work in the largest non conventional oil and gas reserves in the world, which is a very important it is a strategic pillar for the growth and to the community of our customer IPF in the Argentinean economy, we want to be part of that. We want to be the partner of YPF. We’re going to be working with them on services. We’re going to be working with them on procurement and we’re going to be working with them, supporting them in construction for a total amount of slightly above EUR 400,000,000.

And I’d like to thank YPS, because YPS, we have been working together for years. We know each other for years. It is important to say that this is the second job awarded to TR after COVID. At the very beginning of 2022, we started to work in the refinery to hand the Cudio with YPS and we have worked with them in full harmony and the project has been delivered. And it is a privilege now to work with YPF and its partners in such an important development.

So thank you, YPF. And now after I don’t have to talk about Hassane et al, because I’ve already talked. So I’ll leave the floor to Eduardo, who will give us insights on TR’s performance and financial numbers.

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: Okay. Thank you, Juana, and good morning, everyone. I would like to talk now about our delivery. For this purpose, I have selected four projects, most of them close to their end, in which relevant milestones have been achieved. The first project is Project one for INEOS.

This project was awarded to TIR in 2022, and it is the largest undertaken by Enelos in its history. Moreover, it is also the largest capital investment made by the European chemical sector in the last twenty years, so a big one. The plant, which is built in the Belgian port of Angworpe, will have a production capacity of 1,500,000 tons of This ethylene plant is obtained from Ethane, making the process much more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable. The scope of this contract, as you know, included project management, engineering services, procurement management and construction supervision services. And as you are aware, it is built on a modular strategy basis.

21 modules are to be made in Abu Dhabi and to be sent to Andorpe in nine shipments. While the milestone is during the last month of 2024, the first two shipments were sent and have arrived to Belgium on schedule. And finally, this project, in addition to the enormous complexity associated to the size, the logistics and the advanced technology, has also represented a milestone in the digital transformation of the company as it is the first project in which a digital twin is fully developed by Enegar Ronegas. With regard to the received upgrade project, we are executing for our client ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) in Singapore. The aim of the project is to convert fuel oil and oil crude products into higher value lube based stocks and and escalates.

Mechanical completion of the project is expected in the first quarter of twenty twenty five and currently we are supporting ongoing commissioning activities as requested by the client. We are extremely proud to announce also that to date our teams have achieved more than 30,000,000 of safe man hours. As a project I would like to talk about today is the modernization of the Talara refinery for Petroperu. This project is one of the largest investments of its kind in Latin America within the energy sector. The new refinery has 16 process units, five packages of auxiliary units and complementary services to liquid loading docks and 20 it’s a huge project.

The modernization involves the production of high quality diasal and gasoline fuels in accordance with stringent environmental requirements. And we are proud and that’s a milestone we are proud to confirm that 100% of the milestones required for the plant start up were achieved while all units were successfully delivered. And the last project I would like to highlight is the project for SASA polyester, a very good example of the massive petro investments that Turkish companies are driving ahead. This PTA project was awarded in 2021 under an EPCM service contract. Today, our engineering and procurement work is fully completed.

Only construction supervision services are to be finished. As of today, most of the facilities that integrate the plant are already in operation, and the two final units are expected to be delivered during 2025. Before leaving this operational performance section, I would like to devote some time to devote some time to elaborate about how we see Tecnica Ronidas positioning in a changing U. S. Market.

We all know that policies implemented by the new U. S. Government are very focused on the use of conventional energy with an important regulation and a fierce protection of domestic energy sources. This increased reliance on conventional energy resources will imply significant growth opportunities in sectors such as LNG, petrochemicals, upstream oil and gas and gas based power generation. In summary, those sectors were Tecnica’s Runidas has a solid track record and the recognitions of the clients and recognition of the market.

Also during the last two years, we have entered in The U. S. With a small size project and we have had the chance to show to the main players our capacities capabilities as well. We are also well known by relevant U. S.

Clients for whom we have executed projects outside The U. S. If we put all those reasons together, I think it’s not very challenging to expect a significant growth of our operation in the American conventional energy market. But also regarding investments in energy transition, we still see coming a number of potential projects since relevant European offtakers for this energy are still going ahead with their projects and many opportunities for carbon capture well aligned with The U. S.

Government policy will be awarded soon. We currently have the consequences we currently have a pipeline of opportunities in North America that amount more than $20,000,000,000 where service contracts will continue to be TR focus. Let’s now take a look to the P and L and the balance sheet. The sales of the fourth quarter amount EUR 1,200,000,000.0, bringing 2024 sales up to EUR 4,500,000,000.0. On yearly basis, sales have grown an 8% versus 2023.

Annual sales have finally reached Christian speed and will continue to increase in the coming years, thanks to the record backlog we currently have. Our EBIT for the fourth quarter is EUR 50,000,000 and the total amount for the year is EUR 181,000,000. This figure represents us a growth of 16% versus 2023. The overall margin of our sales in the year stood at 4.1, which improves slightly our guidance for 2022 sorry, for 2024. And finally, it has been a year of significant growth both in sales and margins.

And up to EUR349 million at the end up to EUR $394,000,000 at the end of twenty twenty four. You can see that in the left top chart. This improvement has also allowed us to reduce EUR 62,000,000 our gross debt. And now I know I may sound boring and repetitive when sending my next message, but regarding cash, we still believe that and I want to insist that under the actual market scenario where clients demand us to accelerate the projects, the wise way to use the cash is not to accumulate it in our balance sheet, but to pass it to our suppliers and allow them to execute projects smoothly and faster. I’m sorry, Tinsis, but I think it’s relevant.

Regarding to equity, we continue to reinforce it and we have ended 2024 with a solid position of EUR $575,000,000. We are at pre COVID levels even without considering the PPL. To summarize, I would say PPL and balance sheet figures sorry, P and L and balance sheet figures reflect the good performance of all our operations, and we expect they will keep improving in the future years as explained in our Capital Markets Day. One final slide, important one. The good health of our balance sheet allow us to go on repaying SEPI loans according to the schedule agreed.

In fact, this month of February, we have repaid almost EUR 50,000,000 corresponding to the next September, once we have closed mid year net cash figures and with a better understanding of what is the level of equity requested by our clients to go on growing. And now I’ll leave the floor back to Juan for the final remarks.

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Okay. You have here hello, everyone, again. You have here slides with messages for my closing remarks. And every time I look at it, I change my mind of what I want to tell you. So I’m going to just summarize in three messages.

There has to really that I want to send to you. The first one is a message of thank you, thank you to shareholders and thank you to our customers. The second message is a message of optimism and the optimism that our plan, our strategy, it has been accomplished and it will be accomplished. And the third message is a message of commitment. And let’s elaborate.

Why do I have to thank investors and customers? And let’s just start by 2023. ’20 ’20 ’3, mainly, we were in the market asking our shareholders to support us to strengthen our capital base, that was our capital markets our capital increase in the market in order to meet the market and what that we foresee that was coming in order to be able to deliver to our customers, for the customers who is asking us to deliver. And we needed a strong capital base. So that was a very important year.

And that year, I have to thank shareholders who backed TR that year as well as customers with that stronger capital base entrusted us on very important jobs. The year 2023, we committed to the market many things: sales, awards, backlog, delivery, everything has been done. Everything has been achieved. And with that, we have closed this 2024 as a first step. But during this 2024, it is a year of strategy.

That every year, we all start together in Abu Dhabi and said we have a very strong strategy for 2028. With the milestone in 2026, that is a 2028 strategy. We have the opportunity to grow healthier and convert TR in a much stronger company. And it is happening. It is happening.

So that is strategy 2025, ’20 ’20 ’8. It is and I think it’s it can be understood through this presentation, it is already happening. And the message of Tiara’s team is a message of optimism. That strategy has a milestone, as we said before, and that milestone is 2026. And that’s the day that’s the year that we’ll for sure repay SEBI and will be will bring TR back to dividend policy.

So it’s a message of commitment to bring value as we already are to our shareholders. So with these three messages, thank you, optimism and commitment, I’d like to finish the presentation and open the floor to questions and obviously answers the best way we can. Thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from the line of Mick Pickup with Barclays (LON:BARC). Please go ahead.

Mick Pickup, Analyst, Barclays: Good afternoon, everybody. Couple of questions, if I may. Firstly, I don’t think I saw it in the presentation, but can you just talk about the volume of services in the mix? Obviously, that’s a key element in the 2028 margin story. And secondly, just looking at your division’s low carbon tech went up to $130,000,000 that’s a phenomenal growth, well done.

Margins are now above 20% in that business. Can we just assume that our business continues to grow at this sort of rate and that the margins now that’s the type of margin we should be looking at the business?

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: Hi, Mick.

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Good morning

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: here in Madrid. I was waiting for this question. I don’t want to say I did it on purpose, but I knew I have not reflected any results regarding the Services division. And there is a reason behind. When I was in Abu Dhabi in the Capital Markets Day, I tried to convince you all that there was a clear ramp up in this activity to come in the year 2026, ’20 ’20 ’7, but I understand it’s impossible for you not to make that question.

And you need to know where we are today. Most of the services we have rendered this year has to do with the low carbon technology, so you know well what should I figure because it’s in the accounts. But there are also some other projects that have to do with more conventional energy. They are not that relevant. I think Abu Dhabi, I told you, we were really around EUR 150,000,000 each year of services, and we are not far from that.

And I suspect that the profitability, the margin is around 30% slightly below 30%, but very slightly. So we have done what we expected. But what’s relevant for this year 2024 was to construct first to open the markets. There are many clients that they still see us as an additional TPC company. So it has been tough to convince them that will allow us to participate in other kind of projects.

And I think we have been quite successful because I got the figure what is relevant for us is that we have constructed a backlog of services to be delivered in the next year and a half, give or take, of EUR 300,000,000. So I think this is the good news. We have a very solid backlog for next year. Regarding the energy transition world, I think it would Joaquin is with me and probably we can’t share the answer. But first answer from my side is, it is a part of the energy transition is not moving as fast as we expected probably a year and a half ago, but it’s still delivering good results for us and the numbers are there.

So if we talk about the world of services, feasibility studies, feeds, per feeds, the kind of services we are rendering now, I do not see reasons to believe that they cannot go on growing in the short term. What still is difficult for me to predict is when the big final investment decisions are to come. That’s my main concern. Probably, Joaquin, if you want to add something.

Joaquin, Executive, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Let me add Mick to that. Yes, I think that we are still working in very good prospects during the low carbon business, okay? Let me say, for example, that last week, we were awarded grants for several projects here in Spain, and we are more than well positioned in most of them, okay? So I think this is something those projects are going to move move ahead and we have a chances there too to work on building these low carbon projects here in Spain. But also we are working in prospects in Industrial Europe, we are working in prospects in The U.

S. We are reaching agreements with good companies to do joint business development efforts in Northwestern (NASDAQ:NWE) Europe. So I think that the mood, it seems that now everything is demonized with decarbonization. But this is not what you speak with strong and solid players. I think they are moving ahead strongly and steadily to build a position.

And that’s what we are doing. We’re working on that. And we see growth. We definitely see growth in this business.

Mick Pickup, Analyst, Barclays: Okay. And can I just follow-up on that? You mentioned in one of your slides you’re still seeing low carbon in The U. S, which is good to hear. Have you seen any low carbon in The U.

S. Disappear?

Joaquin, Executive, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Well, let me say, in the previous, the products that we are working on, okay, maybe the one that could be more threatened is the one that is related with green ammonia, okay, or green products, okay. But blue products, for example, blue products are on the way. We are still working in blue products. In fact, we are currently doubling our bet with some of the projects that we are working on in The U. S.

That are related with low carbon ammonia, with the blue ammonia. So everything that has been seen in the presentation related with carbon capture, I think it’s solid. It’s solid in The U. S, right? And in the state that we are working, even more.

Mick Pickup, Analyst, Barclays: Perfect. It’s nice to hear you saying the same as everybody else.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Kevin Roger with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.

Kevin Roger, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Yes, good afternoon. I have few questions, if I may. The first one would be on the commercial dynamic. So you have been very successful recently with already quite a few billion euro orders, which probably allow you to increase a bit the guidance in terms of top line. How do you see the commercial dynamic for the coming months?

And basically, where you think you can land for the full year 2025? Because you usually say that you were expecting kind of book to be around one with what you have secured already. It seems that it could be very easy to get those levels. So just trying to understand what you can expect in terms of what you do see in terms of proposal etcetera for the coming months. And the second one, it’s maybe early and sorry if I missed it.

I was a bit late on the call, so sorry for that. But regarding the strategy on the PPL, is there any update here on where you think that it will be the good time to reimburse it? Is it something for 2025 to be able to pay some dividends to shareholder? Or for you, there is no rush and it’s more 2026, sorry? So any comments here, please?

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: Okay. Kevin, this is Juan.

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): I’ll be the one after the other. The first answer was from Eduardo. Now, my time. It’s true that we’ve been successful in this twenty twenty five. Contract still need to be signed, but we are being successful.

And let me tell you, the feeling that we’ve got is today 2024, ’20 ’20 ’5. The TR franchise, I mean, the quality of franchise, that’s by the way customers come to see us and demand our services is much stronger than it was in 2019. I mean, I’m going as back as 2019. We’re much, much stronger and far more prestigious house. They call us for efficient energy.

They call us for very big onshore and offshore gas development. You’ve seen that we’ve been called for urgent and important traditional combined cycles, in this case, power developments. They call us for services. We’re strengthening our service division and we presented ourselves as a very strong engineer in house, which is in fact what we are. And we do believe that 2025 is going to be a good year.

It is always difficult to say by how much because this business, it is bumpy in terms of awards. If it was three years, we can tell you that we were very comfortable that we’re going to be meeting everything that we said in the Capital Market Day. But in the next ten months, it is very difficult. It is extremely difficult. My message is optimistic.

It shouldn’t be a challenge. As I said, more or less at the same time last year to add order intake to replace our sales. It shouldn’t be a great challenge. But yes, keep in mind that we are selective. We like to work with the customers that will assure us a good future and with good customers, one.

And two, we’re developing our service division. And three, we are and sometimes that reduces the volume of our revenues, sales and order intake. We are we continue putting in place risk management or risk reduction measures with partners in our awards. But the message is optimistic, okay? Very, very optimistic.

The strategy of PPL, the strategy of SEBI, I mean, that is in the schedule. The schedule is to be repaid in 2026. And that’s going to get done. I mean, that’s we have said it since last May, every single time we have met. And I think we have to stress it here three or four times in our presentation between Eduardo and I.

But listen carefully to Eduardo’s message by the third quarter of this year and we have to value it. You have to value it both commercially, what is or require as net worth for the jobs that we are bidding, our capacity to issue performance and whatever putting everything in the balance by the end of this year, third quarter, will value whether we could anticipate the repayment of the PPO. But we’re not saying a yes or a no. I mean, it has to be explored. And this business is always a moving target and we’ll take a decision then.

Sort of the message is the message of comfort. 2026 is a yes.

Kevin Roger, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Okay, understood. Thanks.

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Thank you very much, Kevin.

Conference Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Ignacio Dominique with JB Capital. Please go ahead.

Ignacio Dominique, Analyst, JB Capital: Yes. Hello, this is Varun and Eduardo. Thank you for the presentation. I have two questions. The first one is related with the commercial activity.

It seems that it will remain strong, okay, for the coming months and years. So I was wondering how do you feel about the current structure of the company in terms of pursuing all of those opportunities? Do you think the structure is appropriate to pursue all of those opportunities? Or you would require a change on the capital structure of the company. And still related with this question, I was wondering on the balance sheet, okay, it seems that it’s about gross payables and receivables remain elevated.

However, they’re actually down compared to other years now when we a percentage of revenues. So I was wondering what would be a reasonable target to assume for 2025 and 2026 in terms of the working capital? Thank you.

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Ignacio, I’ll go through the first question and Eduardo will answer the second one. If you ask me about my feeling regarding our car infrastructure company, I think we presented to you, we presented to the market a year ago and we have I mean, we’re much closer to the customers that we have ever been by far. So I think I do believe not only because of the structure, but because of the talent of the professional that we have one of the best structures, setups and professionals in Europe. And I very important, delivered, which is the three minute messages that we wanted to put through these presentations. I think we have a we’re working to be we always have to work to be better.

We always revise on the structure, but we do have the structure organized with the regional CEOs that allow us to be much, much closer to our customers for both commercial and delivery we have ever been in our

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: Okay. Regarding the balance sheet, Ignacio, you are pretty right. The accounts payable and accounts receivable have grown, but it is a fact that they have grown exactly in the same way the revenues and the procurement has grown. I mean, I think it’s around 9% growth in sales and revenues and procurement, and the account receivables and payable have grown around 8%. So there’s a direct link between both of them.

I think there are a couple of issues that have to be in mind for the forthcoming three, six months. First, we are about to close three, four big projects, and I really believe that once we close the projects, the amounts of the accounts receivable because of the final withholdings with those clients plus the money we are going to pay to the suppliers will reduce somehow the volume of accounts receivable and payables. But also simultaneously, it’s a kind of surprise because the volume of awards of the last period of the year has been huge, but the volume of down payments received has been quite small, quite small now, negative zero, because there is no down payment coming from no down payment coming in 2024 from the HACI project and for the combined cycles in Saudi Arabia. All this money is to come together with the money from Vaca Muerta in the forthcoming forty five, sixty days. I don’t know if the money will be in the balance sheet of TR by the March or will come later.

But we will see a significant change in the figures probably in this March and for sure next June. And I would believe the figures will be much better. That’s my what I anticipate.

Ignacio Dominique, Analyst, JB Capital: Okay. Thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Alvaro Lensay with Alantra. Please go

Alvaro Lensay, Analyst, Alantra: go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. The first one is on your approach to new tendering. You as colleagues have mentioned, order intake has been very strong early in 2025.

And I was just wondering whether you have the capacity to go to order intake levels like SEK 6,000,000,000 to SEK 8,000,000,000 or whether that is of the cards and you would instead opt to remain at SEK 4,000,000,000 to SEK 6,000,000,000 as a maximum and try to be more selective in terms of profitability? Or contrary, maybe if you don’t have the capacity, maybe you can invest to increase your capacity and be able to integrate order intakes to the tune of $6,000,000,000 to $8,000,000,000 And then my second question is, sorry to come back again to working capital, but I struggle to reconcile the numbers and the messages because you mentioned that you are trying to approach working capital in a way that you collect from clients and then accelerate the payments to suppliers in order to have operations running smoothly. But then you said in the previous question that the balances of accounts receivable and accounts payable is growing in line with sales. So I find that message kind of contradictory. I would expect both accounts receivable and accounts payable to fall both in relative terms to sales and also in absolute terms?

And maybe if you could quantify a little bit on those three, four clients to be closed in the coming months? Because if I go to your annual accounts, it seems that the cumulative revenue from projects that are pending delivery has climbed by EUR 4,000,000,000 now stands at some EUR 29,000,000,000, which is six times your revenue. And that seems you have a lot pending to deliver. Just trying to gauge whether there is any risk there. Thank you.

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Okay. Now that I will

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: go through the first question

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): and Eduardo will follow with the The first question is about do we have capacity? The answer is yes. But let’s have it very clear. I mean, either market will give us the opportunity to grow because we do have the capacity. We have a strength in our engineering capacity over the last three years.

We’ve been ahead of the market, strength in our engineering capacity. The important thing with launching new jobs is to have project directors, project managers and then the capacity to put together a large and diligent task force of engineers. That’s why we always announced the meaning of hours, the number of engineers. We do have the capacity. We have grown in Spain, we’re growing in Abu Dhabi, in Saudi Arabia and in India.

We do have the capacity. But let me tell you, we’ll grow if the market will allow us to grow within the limits we have imposed ourselves, limits of risk management and profitability. We haven’t got the capacity or we will not use the capacity to grow for the hell of growing. I mean, that’s not our target. Our target is to grow within the profitability and risk management that we have very much imposed and announced to the market.

And I think that’s an important message.

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: Yes. Regarding the working capital, Alvaro, I would be very pleased to meet you one day and to enter into details. Well, Antonio says that he prefers to do it okay. You can do it, Antonio. But let me I think my logic is clear.

If you have bigger sales, if the time it takes to collect the money is the same you had in the past, the immediate consequence is that you have bigger accounts receivable. And it was the same with accounts payable. So if you are bigger, it’s quite common that your account receivables grow. Saying so, more than happy to sit by your side and help you to understand all the details of how the working capital works. I think it always makes sense to revisit how we collect the money from our clients.

That’s important because there are two critical issues, especially if you work in The Middle East. The first fact is that according to the milestones or the way of collecting the money that comes for the milestones that have to do with procurement, you always develop a lot of work that cannot be invoiced to the client until the equipment arrives to the site. So that creates a massive volume of accounts receivable, which is not that common in other geographies. That’s first. And second, and I have mentioned before, it’s also common that the clients used to withhold a percentage of the total value of the contract that is released at the very end of the project.

So when you are very close to the end of the project, you have accumulated a relevant amount of these withholdings that once you recover, they go directly and they are passed to the suppliers because we also have those withholdings with our suppliers. So I know the fear is huge. I’m not happy with it, but it is the work the way the work the business works. And again, very happy to sit with you and to explain anything you may need.

Alvaro Lensay, Analyst, Alantra: Thank you. That’s helpful. And I will take your word on that. And hopefully, we can see in the future to discuss this in detail. Thanks.

Conference Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Francisco Ruiz with BNP. Please go ahead.

Francisco Ruiz, Analyst, BNP: Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I mean, some of them have already been answered. Perhaps first a follow-up on the mix. I mean, the big jump that you are expecting or the first big jump that you’re expecting in terms of EBIT margin for 2025.

Could you tell us how much is coming from the mix? I mean, higher service activity versus EPC? How much is margin expansion on the EPC business itself? The second one, if we look at those costs which are not attached to the project, it has shown a big increase in 24% more than 20% if I’m wrong. Could you tell us how do you expect this to continue in the future?

And last but not least, Eduardo, you have already commented on this working capital, so you prefer to accelerate the project at the beginning of them. But you never you haven’t said anything about what’s your cash estimate for 2025 as it used to be the case in previous years. So what’s your thought on cash flow for 2025?

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): In

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: the line, Bart. Let me answer you the first and the third question because we have missed the second one. We couldn’t do not understand it. But let’s start with the jump in the margin. I think when I was in Agora Vieira, I was clear.

There were two reasons driving the growth of the margin. The first one has to do with, yes, we have to have a bigger service division with better margins. That’s a fact. It will happen. And by 2025, I have told you, we already have a backlog of EUR 300,000,000.

The services are to be delivered in the forthcoming two years. So well, at least today, we have EUR 150,000,000 in our backlog to be delivered with next year with a good margin. But also, I think the EPCs are in a good shape. It’s a fact that we have to be conservative. We have learned a lot from the past.

And if we see contingencies to be released, we would prefer to retain them until the very end once we are pretty sure that there is no risk of any final deviation. So we will see how PPCs are delivering better margins, but we are not going to get crazy. We want to be conservative. So I would say the growth in 2025 mainly has to do with a more solid delivery of services and sustainable margin around four plus in the EPCs. Regarding the working capital, what’s my cash estimate for 2025?

For me, it’s such a tricky question because I have told you many times that if you have asked me what was going to be my cash by the end of 2024, I would probably say EUR 600,000,000 instead of EUR 400,000,000. Why? Because the down payments came in in always have a huge impact in my accounts. I know the EBITDA of the year 2025, give or take, should be converted into cash by the end of the year. That’s probably that’s the best guidance I can give you.

I don’t know if it’s going to happen in 2025 or in 2026, but what is clear to me is that the conversion should be full from EBITDA to cash because, well, our taxes since we have tax credits in Spain, we pay very little cash or taxes outside Spain. And the financial costs are there, but since we are going to reduce the burden of the loans we currently have, it will be smaller as well. So give or take, the conversion of EBITDA into cash should be the improvement of the cash by the year end, but everything will dramatically change because of when the down payments are going to be collected. And sorry, again, I insist every quarter, if I have cash, the cash is for my suppliers. It is the way to do the project.

If the cash is for the investors, I’m afraid I’m not doing the correct things. So I will try to use that cash wisely.

Francisco Ruiz, Analyst, BNP: Very clear. So my second question was on the costs, which are not assigned to the project. I mean, you have a table in your results that said in contribution margin and then cost which are not assigned to the project, which has grown more than 20%. It’s I mean, I don’t have the figure in mind, but I think it’s something like around EUR 100,000,000 something. So I don’t know, probably this has to do with central services.

So my question is, how do you see this to evolving in the coming years?

Antonio, Moderator/Operator: Again, sorry, I have to make some numbers. To say it’s 20%, probably you’re right. But the company has grown 10% and there has been an inflation of 5% or 4%. So almost everything has to do with the growth and inflation. But I would tell you something, that’s one of the areas I’m more focused in.

Every meeting with the Board of Managers here in Tecnica Ramirez sorry, with Executive Committee, one of my main messages, I don’t want this figure to go on growing because it is very easy in the actual scenario of many potential opportunities coming to spend more money than needed. So I am very focused and you are right when you talk about it. I’m on top of it.

Francisco Ruiz, Analyst, BNP: Okay. Good to know. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And I’m showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to the management for the closing remarks.

Juan Yadavo, Chairman, TR (Tecnicas Reunidas): Okay. We are done with the year end results presentations. Thank you very much to all of you attending this webcast. Thank you for your questions and have a good weekend. This is Friday.

Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

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