Operator
Welcome to the SPIE 2026 first quarter revenue presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to Godier-Louet, chairman and CEO, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead.
Thank you for joining us today for our first quarter revenue call. I am with Markus Olsker, the CEO of, as you know, Markus will become Group CEO as of April 30th, and I am very pleased to welcome him on this call. On the M&A front, SPI has made a strong start to 2026, underlying trends remain fully intact and are even strengthening, as the current geopolitical crisis further highlights the urgent need for Europe to transition to low-carbon electricity. Let me start with safety, which remains a core commitment for the group. Next Tuesday, on April 28th, Safety Day 2026, safety workshops will be organized over countries. Safety is a continuous trade and safety code and its ten life-saving rules applied to everyone across all trades and activities. Making sure that every employee returns home safely each day is at the very heart of the Next, I would like to share a few recent contract examples that reflect our strong positioning. In Germany, we have been mandated to install five new substations for transmission system operator Tenet, a long-standing client relationship built on sustained implementation is scheduled to begin in summer 2026, with safe commissioning continuing through to the end of 2033. This contract highlights SPI expertise as an implementation partner for complex grid infrastructure projects and demonstrates how this structural approach is helping to accelerate. SPI based on several years of successful collaboration with ALK, a Danish pharmaceutical laboratory, who completed an electrification project for their plant located in Vendeuil, in Marne, with gas equipment with electrical solutions, installing heat pumps and new electrical infrastructure, allowing the site to reduce its CO2 emissions by nearly 305 tons per year, while also improving its energy performance. This contract illustrates the ability of Speed's team to combine their skills to offer bespoke multi-technical solutions, while supporting both performance and decarbonisation objectives. We entered in a new multi-year maintenance contract for Hutchinson port ECT in the port of Rotterdam, a site where we have been leveraging our expertise over many years. The contract covers all electrical maintenance activities at the ECT Delta and the Euromax terminals, including inspection and high-voltage servicing of more than 200 cranes, as well as the installation of seven strategically located EV charging hubs to support the energy transition across the port area. With this contract, SPIN reinforces its role as a trusted partner to support the energy transition, valued for its ability to incorporate sustainability requirements into maintenance operations. On the key highlights for the quarter, on slide 8, total revenue grew by 1.7% at constant FX, including minus 0.9% in organic growth and 2.7% of M&A. We made an exceptionally strong start to the year on the M&A front with four bolt-on acquisitions in Q1, representing approximately 667 million euros of acquired and euro revenue across our core geographies. The balance sheet continued to focus on operational excellence and financial discipline. We reiterate our strong confidence in achieving our 2026 guidance. On the first quarter, organic growth was hampered by a stronger-than-usual impact from seasonality, which was more than offset by the contribution. Europe faced a very demanding comparison base, 0.2% and 7.5% respectively in Q1 2025. Central Europe, as well as Germany, were also temporarily impacted by adverse weather conditions during the first weeks of the year, but will gradually catch up over the coming quarters. During the quarter, the internal transfer of the former Robo non-German operations from Germany to Global Services Energy and Central Europe group level, once again demonstrates the resilience and balance of our multi-local, multi-technical model. In Germany, revenue grew 1.2% year-on-year and organic growth was flat against a high comparison days of 7.2%. Outdoor activities, in particular high-voltage and city networks and grid, were affected by adverse weather conditions at the beginning of the year, but we have secured operational capacity to ensure that we catch up on this over the coming quarters. Beyond the short-term seasonality effect, the underlying momentum in Germany remains very strong, driven by sustained demand for energy efficiency solutions and solid positioning in fast-growing segments such as data centers, cyber security, or cloud and managed solutions. In industry services, our strategic performance was supported by recurring maintenance operations and our pertinent exposure to attractive end markets such as automation, logistics, food and pharma. The P.E.K. and SICU acquisitions completed last year contributed plus with integration progressing well. And the internal relocation of the former Robert non-German operations to Global Services Energy and Central Europe at the minus 1.4% impact with no impact we will see at group level. The solid performance in Q1 2026 with 1.9% total growth of which 0.6% organic. As expected city networks and building solutions continue to weigh on overall growth and impacted by the slowdown in mature fiber optic rollout programs, while building solutions reflect both a degree of macro related customer caution and our discipline selective focus on high-value projects. The other four divisions, the ICS and Nuclear Services, continue to perform well, supported by long-standing client relationships and a diversified. In particular, the industry benefited from the fast-growing renewable and battery storage markets, while ICS leveraged strong positions in cloud, cybersecurity, and AI. Nuclear Services performed, notably, The Artemis acquisition, completed at the end of January 2026, contributed to Western Europe. The total growth was slightly positive at 0.3%, despite a minus 0.9% organic growth, against a demanding comparison base in Q1 2025 of plus 7.5%. Organic decrease was more contribution from the 2025 acquisition of Donkers. In the Netherlands, project-driven activity in building solutions reflected the degree of seasonality. The contracts recently launched and set to contribute more meaningfully as a ramp-up of the year delivered strong growth, capitalizing on its transparent position in data center services, and the contribution of industry services remained resilient and advanced technologies in the petrochemical. Back to the year, against a high comparison base, notably in high voltage services, while while the order group continued in Central Europe 5%, while organic growth was minus 8.2%, as adverse weather conditions in the first weeks of the year weighed on outdoor activities such as high voltage, telecommunications and transport infrastructure. Disruptions were however short-lived over the next quarters. The backlog continues to build up, supported by strong investment dynamics linked to the energy transition. Certain acquisitions contributed to growth by 13.2%, reflecting the sustained M&A activity of last year, and also the internal transfer located in Austria to an additional basis energy. It was down minus 4.4% year-on-year, including minus 4.1% organic. In an already challenging backdrop for N-gas activities, operations began to be affected in March by the outbreak of the conflict in Iran, which did lead to the suspension of certain ongoing maintenance contracts in Qatar and in Iraq. In wind activities, momentum remained expanded through the internal transfer of the International Wind Operations, formerly Robo Wind, from 600 new colleagues and approximately 14 million euros of annual revenue, bordering the offerings And adding M&A, as I said earlier, C kicked off the year with an outstanding level of M&A activity, announcing 4 acquisitions and adding 667 million. In Germany, Spies signed agreements to acquire and SGS, Marcus will write on this. Executed at a high single-digit EBITDA multiple, both acquisitions are expected to be accretive to adjusted EPS. It also expanded its footprint in Central Europe through two acquisitions, contributing a combined 57 million of annual revenue. Czech Republic is a recognized specialist in cleanroom design, engineering, procurement and construction. Inviso in Slovakia is a provider of building security systems and smart technical solutions. It is self-financed in line with peace-disciplined financial policy and commitment to maintaining a sound leverage profile. This acceleration of our M&A activity reflects the group's continued focus on high-value technical services and its proven ability to execute selective, high-written, bolt-on transactions. To Markus for a deep dive into the German.
Thank you, Gutke, and good morning, everyone. Rofa Industrial Automation Group is a leading player in industrial services in Germany with 430 million euros in revenues in 2025 and a sustained high single-digit margin. RoFarm brings leading capabilities in industrial automation, conveyor systems and intralogistics with more than 1,200 highly qualified employees. Will enable SPI to move further up the industrial value chain while adding a resilient, diversified customer base across automotive, food, healthcare, logistics and pharmaceuticals, providing significant cross-selling opportunities for SPI. At the bottom of the slide, you can see a selection of well-known blue-chip customers, SGS Industrial Services. SGS will strengthen the group's expertise in electrical and mechanical installation for power facilities and industrial plants. The company generated 180 million euros of annual revenues in 2025, with an EBITR margin slightly north of 10%. SGS employs 800 skilled employees who can be deployed flexibly to meet project-specific requirements. Together with a diversified client base, this broadens SPIE's value chain and creates additional meaningful cross-selling opportunities. ROFA and SGS will significantly reinforce SPIE's industrial services platform, building on the successful integration of ROBU and 24. And as Gautier mentioned earlier, both acquisitions are expected to be accretive to adjusted EPS from the first year of consolidation. The closing of these two acquisitions is expected before the end of June 2026. And with that, I will now hand over to Jérôme.
Thank you, Marcus, and good morning, everyone. Let's move on to the revenue bridge, which provides a breakdown of our 1.5% total revenue growth in Q1 2026. Our Bolton-MH activity contributed plus 2.7%, or the equivalent of nearly 65 million euros. This reflects, on the one hand, the contribution from the 2025 emissions, mostly, notably SD Fiber in Switzerland, Boots & Donkers, and PIK AG. And on the other hand, the two-month contribution from the 2026 acquisition, Artemis, in France, following its closing end of January 2026. The minus 0.1% disposal impact reflects the sale of the small non-core elevator service business in the Netherlands, which represented an annual revenue of circa 7 million euro. The former Robur non-German operations, previously reported within SPI Germany, were internally reallocated into two blocks. First, the international wind activities, representing approximately 40 million euro of annual revenue, were transferred to global service energy. Second, the industrial activities based on Austria, in Austria, amounting to around 10 million euros were transferred to some. This internal reallocation is, of course, and as said already, neutral on the currency effect at a marginal impact of minus 0.2%, mainly driven by the euro-US dollar exchange rate and partially mitigated by the appreciation of the Polish retention. I now hand back to Gautier.
Thank you, Jérôme. And moving on to our outlook for 2026. So we do fully confirm the 2026 outlook that we shared at the beginning of the year. We expect strong total growth, active Bolton M&A. We have no doubt that the EBITDA margin will continue to expand. And the proposed dividend payout ratio will remain at 40% of adjusted net income. It marks my 44th and last presentation of speed performance. And more than ever, it is a good time to be a European electrical engineer. Marcus, more than 13 years, to thank you for your continued interest in the quality of our exchanges. Marcus, Jerome, and I are happy to take your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue if you wish to withdraw your question please press pound key six the next question comes from remy grenu from morgan stanley please go ahead good morning and good here marcus jerome thanks for taking my question just i mean three on my side um so the first one would be on the impact of weather in q1 so if you could potentially help us a little bit quantify what was the impact so we can we can try to assess what was the underlying business momentum and maybe as part of the discussion could be helpful to uh hear a little bit about the organic growth in march and the exit rate which i guess was probably less impacted by by the weather so that would be the first topic the second one is on france it seems to be doing a bit better so uh where where are we in terms of growth within building solution is it back to kind of flattish trend or still still negative and on the fiber roll out there do you expect when when do you expect the drug to uh completely disappear um and then the third topic just taking maybe a step back um i think got here you made some comments back in 22 and 23 that higher oil and gas prices were pushing clients to invest in energy efficiency electrification and back then
you speed was benefiting from that uh so given the current context is it something that you would expect work to happen again and do you have any discussion with clients on that that would support that view basically yeah well thank you remember we're getting a weather boy to the during the first week particularly injured people told us but some impact I would just impacted but also just get delay and then we have to come to create some possible it's something that is a you you see behind us, and coming to your point, we did see a march. The important thing is that we were able to do holidays, training, so we managed to keep man-hours for delaying the beginning of the year. That's something that has been done very efficiently in countries where we operate. Regarding France, it's still less than last year, but regarding building solutions, We are in negative growth territory and we are very selective in tech and this was the case we see last year with an impact on the revenue this year. But when we are selective it means we target interesting projects, a bit more sophisticated with more and more demanding customers in terms of quality and intricacy of what they do and it means it's at better margin. So I think the important message for building solutions that we manage to protect, if not progress our margins. I think it's good that you mentioned the trend and clearly a stark reminder of how important it is to France. The government has issued a plan to the country and we still have significant usage of it. and it's a trend that we see with all our customers so it's kind of it is only events but from gas fires the furnaces to electrical ones and with regard to to heat pumps etc so it's a major conflict of point network so it is very positive trend only reinforced by the current events and that's something where which will really create a head Thank you very much, and just congratulations on the fantastic job you've done at SPI over the last few decades.
Thank you, Remy. It's always a team effort.
Operator
The next question comes from Alexander Peter from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking your question. And I'd also like to send my congratulations to you, Gauthier, for your excellent stewardship of SPI over the years. Great success here. Just a couple of things from me. The first one, I'd just like to come back to France. We had this nice surprise with the return to year-on-year growth. Was there anything outstanding in the first quarter that drove this outperformance, or should we now model growth for France at the like-for-like level more confidently in positive territory for the rest of the year? And the second question, just on the recently announced acquisitions, there's quite a lot of them. Can you tell us if they all together will have a positive contribution to group EBITDA margins this year or next year? Thank you so much.
So with regard to France, there's nothing really outstanding in terms of a peak in a project or something for the start of the year. It is a really normal course in the past which have been helping, such as the technical facilities, such as nuclear as well, which sees a positive trend. Well, the year is still young, so I will not make a guess on the year, on other areas. The year is going to shape them. With regard to acquisitions, all together they do a margin relation. We will have to see when it happens over the year, depending on the exact timing of closing. Specifically, the worldly power services, which we plan to, this one is dilutive. It's dilutive to go, but it's also oil and gas or the GSE segment. But overall, positive.
Great. Thank you very much.
Operator
The next question comes from Christophe Chaput from Otto.
Please go ahead. yes good morning everyone thank you for taking my question and again i wish you the best to go to you for the coming month and the coming years um the first question is on a bit margin so your guidance is obviously an improvement for the full year but would you say that h1 is going to improve as well because it probably depends in a certain extent on the level of catch-up in q2 you are going to to make regarding the weather condition because the high voltage let's could create a kind of negative mix on profitability in H1, I assume. So I just wanted to check that. By the way, regarding the weather condition, I'm not sure you quantify in term of million euros the impact on top line regarding the Q1. If you can help us, let's say, in that respect, it could be great. And the last one is regarding the life pipeline of M&A so obviously you sign a lot of deal year-to-date usually the life pipeline represents an amount of sales of 400 500 million euro what how much it represents let's say actually after again the fantastic deal you sign in each one thank you so much thank you Christophe, and thank you for your kind words.
With regard to EBITDA margin, we have a margin progression over the year, and as you have seen in the past, it tends to be fairly continuous over the year, so we do not expect H1 to be affected, H1 margin to be affected by the slower start to the year and definitely not. Yeah I didn't quantify weather conditions because it's not easy to do and but again I think the main thing is the rest of the year thanks to the capacity saved and that's really something we're very confident about and maybe for the pipeline of acquisitions Jerome you'll say a word?
Yeah definitely a strong start to the year as you as you noticed Christophe but not making our pipeline empty or not at all it does not pertain only to what we could do for the for the rest of the year 2026 we also have in the pipeline some very interesting targets that might generate concrete realizations for 27 and beyond so again Again, we still benefit from the heavily fragmented nature of our markets, constituting all along the year new opportunities.
Operator
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Alan Wells from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Just two quick ones from me, please. Firstly, maybe just in France, you've talked about being selective given the challenges in the building solutions business for a while. But can you remind us the negative growth seen in the first quarter, is that sequentially an improvement or is that still getting worse versus maybe what we saw in the second half of last year? I'm just trying to understand if this is getting better, if it's getting stable, or if we're still seeing headwinds in that market. And then secondly, just in the energy business, Could you just maybe just expand out what the exposure is to the Middle East Within that business and how you think about the potential impacts for the year And then maybe link to that and is there a chance of catch-up in that that that business as we move through the year Should the conflict end or are there kind of capacity limitations that may may prevent that. Thank you very much Thank you.
Well with regard to to building the organic growth for a given division as its limits in terms of compared to and again it's on the back of the work we did last year to interesting contracts and we didn't have a bad order intake at all at the end of the day last year. Gradual, it is so far an improvement compared to last year definitely. With regard to the Middle East, it's under the million, so it is in Qatar, in Saudi and a bit in Abu Dhabi. So we've demobilized fairly swiftly, we're paid on standby and then we did demobilize some of the sites. Nobody has been hurt at SPI, In Iraq we work for Total and we are preparing some work or doing some sort of maintenance right now. In other areas, like in Qatar, we did demobilize the site. So it will have an impact on the top line, obviously. And then it's only to say what's going to happen next. day-by-day basis. It will be difficult to catch up per se, I think, in this range, in this field, compared to what we had for the winter in Europe. I think what is lost is lost, because it's maintenance of people, so there might be a bit of need to change to a bit more people, but it will not be very significant. In terms of margins, this is not the best area for our Oil and gas activities, Middle East, so the margins tend to be in the mid-single-digit. The EBIT margin is not significant at all. The EBIT impact, sorry, is not significant.
Operator
The next question comes from Eric Lomari from CICCIB. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I've got four questions, if I may. The first one on weather, I was wondering if you have been over pessimistic regarding the impact from the weather, notably in Germany, the consensus expected minus 2% inorganic, and it was flat. And actually, I was wondering whether you had any positive impact from the weather for some of your activities. It was visibly the case for Vinci, as the group mentioned last night. I've got a second question on GSI. could you tell us maybe the speed between oil and gas wind and solar and the trend for this market in q1 because you mentioned notably a strong momentum in wind activities but maybe you can tell us an idea of the growth there in q1 uh third question on the german stimulus package i was wondering if you have any any any new uh comments on on the way you see potential impact of the German plant on your business and the last question on Marcus I was wondering what will be your priorities and what will be
what will you do differently compared to Gauthier in your view, thank you well I would be hard for to find the positive impact of the weather conditions It's not that we've been over-pessimistic about the catch-up at the end of the quarter, and that's an overall picture. Oil and gas and wind and renewables in the split is roughly 90-10, so 90% oil and gas, 10% renewable, which is mainly wind. We have a few for maintenance in Qatar, but it's mainly wind. And yes, the start to the year has been good in our Wind Connect activity, so the former Correl acquisition, we had a good start to the year, which is linked to the schedules of the various projects we were involved in. So I won't give an organic growth by a sub-segment, but we had a good start, definitely a good start in winter. And maybe for stimulus package, I will hand over to Markus.
Yeah, thank you, Gauthier. Well, the stimulus packages, they are supporting the sectors where we already work in. So for us, it is always hard to identify, is it an additional project or is it a regular budgeted project? The authorities, they do not necessarily tell us. But we see an increased pipeline in these sectors and also an increased number of one orders. So we already see some effects within this year. And then I take the fourth question right away regarding priorities and what am I going to do differently. First of all, I'm completely honored to be able to take this role and I have a deep respect for what Gautier has done over all these decades. Working 13 years together with Gautier, he has been a great role model to me and I am a child of this compounded model of SPI. So what I've done over the last 13 years is visible in Germany and Central Europe and Switzerland and Austria so the priorities you can see as well from this period for me to change now that is the first fact and from the priorities I got a good view on the territories on in the past and now for me it is to get a very detailed view on the geographies where I had less exposure There are no more questions at this time.
Operator
As a last reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad now. We will wait a few seconds to give you the time to participate.
If there are no further questions, thanks a lot for your attendance this morning. Thank you for your interest in speed. Do not forget, it's never been a better time to be European engineer in electricity. And the best is yet to come. Thanks a lot. Have a good day.
Operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That concludes our call.
