DEME’s Q4 2025 Earnings Surpass Expectations

DEME Group NV reported impressive financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025, with earnings per share (EPS) reaching 6.63, surpassing forecasts. Revenue for the quarter was 2.04 billion euros. Following the earnings announcement, DEME’s stock price increased by 1.96% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor optimism. The company’s robust performance was driven by strong operational execution and strategic acquisitions.

Key Takeaways

• DEME’s Q4 2025 EPS of 6.63 exceeded expectations.
• Revenue reached 2.04 billion euros, showcasing continued growth.
• Stock price rose by 1.96% in pre-market trading following the earnings release.
• Strategic acquisitions and operational efficiency contributed to financial success.
• Positive outlook for future growth with strategic investments in offshore wind energy.

Company Performance

DEME Group NV demonstrated strong financial performance in 2025, achieving record results despite challenging market conditions. The company’s revenue increased by 1% to 4.20 billion euros compared to the previous year, marking the second consecutive year of surpassing the 4 billion euro milestone. The company’s strategic focus on expanding its offshore wind energy sector and enhancing operational efficiency played a significant role in its success.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue for Q4 2025: 2.04 billion euros
• Full-year revenue: 4.20 billion euros (1% increase YoY)
• EPS for Q4 2025: 6.63
• EBITDA: 931 million euros (22% increase YoY)
• Net profit: 346 million euros (20% increase YoY)

Earnings vs. Forecast

DEME’s Q4 2025 EPS of 6.63 exceeded analyst expectations, contributing to a positive market reaction. The revenue of 2.04 billion euros also surpassed forecasts, highlighting the company’s ability to deliver strong financial results. The earnings surprise reflects effective project execution and strategic investments.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, DEME’s stock price increased by 1.96% in pre-market trading, reaching 197.2 euros. This positive movement reflects investor confidence in the company’s financial health and future prospects. The stock’s performance is notable given its position near the 52-week high of 204.5 euros, indicating strong market sentiment.

The company’s shares have delivered impressive returns, with a 53% gain over the past six months and a 34% year-to-date increase. According to InvestingPro analysis, DEME appears undervalued at current levels, suggesting potential upside for investors. The platform’s Fair Value assessment indicates the stock may have room to run, placing it among compelling opportunities in the most undervalued stocks.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, DEME has set ambitious targets for future growth, with EPS forecasts of 15.47 euros for 2026 and 16.95 euros for 2027. The company plans to continue investing in its offshore wind energy projects and expanding its global footprint. Strategic acquisitions, such as the Havfram transaction, are expected to drive further growth and enhance the company’s competitive position.

An InvestingPro tip highlights that DEME is trading at a low P/E ratio relative to near-term earnings growth, with a PEG ratio of just 0.67. The company has also raised its dividend for four consecutive years, with dividend growth of 114% in the last twelve months. These are just 2 of the 7+ exclusive ProTips available to subscribers, offering deeper insights into DEME’s investment potential.

Executive Commentary

DEME’s CEO emphasized the company’s commitment to sustainable growth and innovation, stating, “Our strategic investments in offshore wind energy and operational efficiency have positioned us well for future success.” The CFO highlighted the importance of effective financial risk management, noting, “Despite currency fluctuations and market volatility, our hedging strategies have minimized financial impact.”

Risks and Challenges

• Currency fluctuations, particularly the weaker U.S. dollar, could impact financial results.
• Interest charges from recent acquisitions may affect profitability.
• Regulatory changes in key markets could pose challenges to project execution.
• Supply chain disruptions and market volatility remain potential risks.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about DEME’s strategic plans for expanding its offshore wind energy portfolio. The management team reiterated their focus on innovation and sustainability, highlighting upcoming projects and collaborations. Analysts also questioned the impact of recent acquisitions on the company’s financial position, to which executives responded with confidence in their strategic value.

DEME’s strong financial performance and positive market reaction underscore its resilience and strategic focus on growth and innovation. The company’s ability to exceed earnings expectations and maintain investor confidence bodes well for its future prospects. For investors seeking comprehensive analysis, DEME is among the 1,400+ US equities covered by InvestingPro’s detailed Pro Research Reports, which transform complex financial data into clear, actionable intelligence.

Full transcript – DEME Group NV (DEME) Q4 2025:

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations at DEME. It is my pleasure to welcome you to DEME’s full year 2025 earnings call and webcast. Joining me today are DEME’s Chief Executive Officer, Luc Vandenbulcke, and our Chief Financial Officer, Stijn Gaytant. Both Luc and Stijn will take you through the presentation, which will be visible on screen during the webcast and also accessible on DEME’s investor portal. Slide 2 briefly outlines the agenda.

Luc will kick it off with the executive summary, after which both Stijn and Luc will further elaborate on the group’s financial results for the year, the performance of our segments, and highlighting some of the major projects. DEME’s progress in the ESG domain, to then conclude with the outlook. After the presentation, we will open the floor for Q&A. Without further delay, I’ll hand it over to Luc for the executive summary.

Luc Vandenbulcke, Chief Executive Officer, DEME: Thank you, Carl, and good morning to everyone, also from my side. As you can see, in 2025, DEME’s people have once again delivered excellent results, and that even in the context of pretty turbulent market conditions. They’ve helped DEME to achieve the record results that we are announcing today. Let me give you a couple of key figures. The group turnover of EUR 4.20 billion in 2025, climbing from EUR 2.7 billion in 2022. A very meaningful step up in profitability. EBITDA for the year was good for more than EUR 930 million, and that is almost double if you count from 2022 to 2025. EBITDA margin for the year was 22.4% and a 380 basis point improvement over the last year’s 18.6%.

The group’s net profit reached EUR 346 million, rising from EUR 288 million in 2024. Our order book stood at EUR 7.6 billion, down from EUR 8.2 billion in 2024, but above both the mid-year and the Q3 2025 level, and reflecting the addition of new follow-on and maintenance contracts, and also including the integration of the Havfram order book. Regarding Havfram, as you know, we have made this important strategic acquisition in 2025, whereby we acquired two world-class vessels, the Norse Wind and the Norse Energi, and we did that to further expand in the offshore wind energy sector. We have taken delivery of both vessels now, and they are set to commence their initial project work in the course of this year.

In line with our policy, we will this year propose a dividend of EUR 4.5 per share, that marks an 18% increase on last year. Looking ahead in 2026, which is already a special milestone year, as we will be celebrating DEME’s 150 years anniversary, we believe again to be well-positioned to navigate this dynamic market environment, and we are guiding for a turnover and an EBITDA margin to be in line with the 2025 level. Now I will hand over to Stijn, who will walk you through the financial highlights in more detail.

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: Thank you, Luc, and also good morning on my behalf, as well. The table presented here not only displays DEME’s performance during our record year of 2025, it also demonstrates a sustained multi-year trajectory of growth and also an improvement across all key financial metrics. In 2025, we delivered a turnover of EUR 4.15 billion. It marks the second consecutive year with revenues firmly above the EUR 4 billion milestone. The more significant development is also the substantial improvement in profitability. Our EBITDA reached EUR 931 million, translating into an exceptional EBITDA margin of 22.4%, and showing a 22% increase versus 2024. I really want to use the opportunity to stress very clearly that this EBITDA performance reflects an effective operational execution throughout our project portfolio, and it also underscores the quality of our earnings.

The non-recurring items recorded with half-year results, such as the U.S. project cancellation fee, the gain on the Sea Challenger, and the negative impact of the Energy Island project, were largely offset one another and are combined immaterial to the group’s EBITDA for the year. On depreciation and impairments, there was an increase to EUR 498 million, mainly due to previously announced accelerated depreciation on one of the offshore energy assets, which gives a figure of EUR 64 million impact for the whole year. There were additional contributions, some project-specific assets, like the Fehmarnbelt project, the Yellowstone rock dumping vessels, several vessel lifetime extensions, and also the first depreciation related to the Norse Wind, which joined the fleet in the fourth quarter of 2025.

As mentioned by Luc already, Norse Wind, Norse Energi, were part of the Havfram deal, which we signed in the second quarter of the year. In relationship to this transaction, the PPA has been concluded as an asset deal, as a result, there is no goodwill that you will find in our figures. That means that nearly the entire transaction value is allocated to the vessels, with only EUR 3.9 million booked as an intangible asset, representing a favorable order book terms relative to the market. After accounting for these depreciations, the EBIT lands at EUR 433 million, which is representing a strong 10.4% margin.

Financial results amounted to -EUR 21.5 million, with the difference, as you can imagine, compared to last year, mainly due to currency fluctuations, a weaker U.S. dollar, and also the interest charges on our EUR 700 million bilateral term loan, which was used for the Havfram acquisition. Taking into account our significant U.S. activity in 2025, and also the volatility of the U.S. dollar, I believe this limited FX impact demonstrates also an effective hedging and a robust management approach towards financial risks. Taxes totaled EUR 100 million, which is a tax rate of 24.2%, which is an improvement compared to 2016 before.

Our share in results from joint ventures and associates remained quite stable at EUR 40 million, supported by contributions from the operational offshore wind parks in Belgium, port developments, and also especially the continued strong performance of our Taiwanese joint venture. Taking this all together, DEME delivered a record net profit of EUR 346 million, 8.3% margin, and 20% growth year-over-year. Let’s see how these PNL figures are reflecting into our main balance sheet, and we are presenting a comparative analysis over the last 3 years. Working capital remains strongly negative at -EUR 742 million, which is pretty consistent with our long-term historical average of around, let’s say, 90% on turnover over the past 12 years.

It reflects also continued disciplined contract and cash management, with, for example, also increased advance payments compared to last year. EUR 71 million deduction compared to 2024 is mainly linked to the Belgium Energy Island project. The CapEx reached EUR 445 million, which includes 3 current project investments, vessel lifetime extensions, capitalized maintenance, and also in addition, we booked roughly EUR 200 million of shipyard payments for the Norse Wind and the Norse Energi. This combining with the EUR 537 million, which we paid to the sellers in the 2Q 2024 on the Havfram deal, a total of EUR 736 million, out of the EUR 900 million that we announced for the Havfram acquisition, has been spent in 2025.

Despite a significantly higher operating cash flow before working capital movement, being EUR 818 million in 2025 compared to EUR 707 million in 2024, the combination of a lower working capital, a higher CapEx, and the Havfram acquisition results in a free cash flow of -EUR 394 million. I would like to highlight that excluding the Havfram transaction, the free cash flow would have been good for EUR 342 million. Considering the EUR 700 million bilateral loans we raised for Havfram, EUR 205 million of loan repayments we have done during the year, the net financial debt now stands at -EUR 391 million, compared to -EUR 418 million mid-year and +EUR 91 million end of 2024.

As a result, the net financial debt over EBITDA ratio stands at only 0.4, compared to -0.1 previous year, which I believe further demonstrates the robustness of our balance sheet and cash, and cash equivalents ended the year at EUR 846 million. In summary, even after having absorbed most of the Havfram transaction already in 2025, DEME upholds a very strong, a very resilient balance sheet, and I believe we have demonstrated that within one year, DEME’s capacity to absorb such large-scale transaction is present, and it is very well positioned to also pursue further value-creating investments. Having a look at the order book, on the left graph, you will see that the order book remains healthy at EUR 7.6 billion and slightly higher than the EUR 7.5 billion we reported mid-year.

Mid-year included Havfram order book. That means that in the second half of the year, we have added follow-on contracts, a broad range of smaller awards across all contracting segments and several new larger contracts. Looking at the geographical breakdown in the middle, we notice that Europe continues to be our anchor market. It presents 78% of the total order book, up from 71 last year, underscoring our strength and also our strategic importance of our home region. Asia and Africa remain stable year-on-year, reflecting steady tender activity. Finally, as you can anticipate, we do see a decline in the Americas.

We went from 12% to 7%, and that’s the direct result of an effective project execution on our US offshore projects, and of course, the absence of new US offshore wind additions, given the current market circumstances. On the right graph, you will see the order book run-off over the coming years. For 2026, we have EUR 3.6 billion already well secured, which is a consistent level compared to previous years, and is also supporting our guidance that we’ve provided. Looking further on, we have EUR 4 billion lined up for 2027 and beyond, which we consider to be a healthy position.

In summary, I believe in the second half of the year, our order book grew from EUR seven and a half to EUR 7.6, with new orders exceeding as such, the EUR 2 billion of turnover that we have delivered during the same period, which is a clear sign of sustained demand and also a very disciplined contract acquisition. Now, looking at the group turnover, there are really three key messages I would like to emphasize. First of all, we delivered a 1% year-on-year growth on the turnover. For the second consecutive year, DEME has surpassed EUR 4 billion in turnover, demonstrating the company’s structural scale. Looking at the bigger picture, our progress is remarkable. In just 5 years, turnover increased from EUR two and a half billion to EUR 4.15 billion, reflecting a compounded annual growth rate at nearly 12%.

If you look at the segment breakdown in the middle of the slide, we see that the drivers behind this performance in 2025 are a 4% increase year-on-year in the offshore energy segment, which is supported by high activity levels and solid execution. The team clearly navigated the challenging situation in the Americas remarkably well, contributed positively to the overall growth in 2025. Now, dredging and infra delivered essentially stable revenues, with a noticeable stronger second half, supported by higher vessel occupancy, especially for the cutter suction dredgers. In environmental, revenues were down 90% versus last year, and this is mainly linked to project phasing. As a result, the segment contributed around 6% of turnover this year, slightly below its historical range of, let’s say, 8%-10%.

Looking at the geographical breakdown, Europe remains our main market, representing 54% of group turnover in 2025, which is a slight decrease from last year. This change is mainly due to, on the one hand, increased turnover for the Americas, which was already reflected in the order book reduction, and also strong growth for the Asia region, supported by several dredging projects across the region and strong offshore activities in Taiwan. Overall, the main takeaway here is that we have a consistently expanding turnover base that is well diversified and supported by our key markets. If we look briefly at the four segments, we start with offshore energy, where you see that the order book has remained healthy at EUR 4.20 billion year-on-year.

After the Havfram addition in the first half, that means that the second half brought another EUR 1.2 billion on new intake, exceeding EUR 1 billion of turnover for the same period. The growth trajectory of the segment here is clearly visible. Over the past 5 years, turnover has steadily increased, reaching EUR 2.1 billion in 2025, and a 4% improvement on a year-on-year basis. Interesting to mention that 92% of that turnover of the year is linked to renewable energy activities, which underscores the strategic focus that we have and the market leadership in the global energy transition. If we turn at profitability, segment maintained its very strong momentum from the first half, delivering a full-year EBITDA of EUR 633 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 30.7%, and this compared to 21% of the last year.

That means that in absolute value, that is an outstanding 52% increase in figures. On the right-hand graph, you can clearly see what underpins this profitability. It’s a high fleet capacity, solid utilization of it across the year, and also excellent project execution. The slightly lower average of occupancy that you might notice of 44 weeks is partly explained by the Norse Wind, because this one is already included since Q4, but is currently transitioning to Europe and therefore is not yet accounted as operating weeks. I think all in all, it’s very fair to say that offshore energy delivered another outstanding performance throughout 2025, combining commercial strength, operational excellence, and record profitability. For dredging and infra, the order book remained healthy at nearly EUR 3 billion, down compared to a strong 2024 comparison basis.

This order book combines dredging and infra projects combined, and we are seeing a steady progress on turning backlog into turnover for the main infra works in 2025, such as the Energy Islands, Fehmarnbelt, and the Oosterweel connection works, without currently any material intake of new large infra works in the order book during the year. For the dredging part, we continue to see healthy tender activity, which is supported by an order book intake surpassing the turnover in the second half of 2025. The turnover of the segment is nearing EUR 2 billion and remains essentially stable year-over-year. Relating to the EBITDA, we closed 2025 at EUR 302 million, which represents 15.5% EBITDA margin. This outcome reflects two things.

On the one hand, the 12.3% EBITDA margin, which we reported in the first half, and an 18.5% EBITDA margin in the second half of 2025. This rebound is consistent with the segment’s average EBITDA margin in prior years, also confirms that the non-recurring item mentioned in the first half under IAS 37 did not require further adjustments. In relation to the fleet utilization on the right, you notice a lower overall occupancy, which is mainly the cutter suction, due to temporarily reduced amounts in the first half of 2025, but it picked up in the second half.

For environmental, the order book of our environmental segment increased with 16% to EUR 408 million, demonstrating the team’s strengths and their successful efforts in targeting opportunities, mainly in Belgium and the Netherlands, with further reach to other European countries as well in the pipeline. Continued progress on remediation and high water protection works in Belgium and the Netherlands delivered EUR 272 million and an EBITDA of EUR 40 million. The EBITDA margin increased to 14.7%, up from 12.9% in the same period last year. As such, the higher EBITDA margin in 2025 offset partly the reduction in turnover of 19%, caused mainly due to project phasing. If you have a look at the concessions, on the concession segment, the net result from associates contributed EUR 14.4 million.

As in prior year, the wind production was on the soft side, impacting the upside in the operational wind farms. Nevertheless, this was partly offset this year by a stronger port concessions activity. Concessions also streamlined the ScotWind concession portfolio, exiting the Ayre project and strengthening the stake in Buchan. The financial impact of this transaction was really minimal. Concessions also continued to manage and further develop Port La Nouvelle and Port of Duqm in Oman, and we were also very pleased with the auction win for a 25-year concession for the Port of Paranagua, for which preparations are ongoing. That’s it for my part, for the time being, and I gladly hand over to Luc again.

Luc Vandenbulcke, Chief Executive Officer, DEME: Thank you. Thank you, Stijn, for the comprehensive overview of the financials. In the next part of the presentation, I will go now more into depth into some of the key projects that we have executed in 2025. Let’s start with offshore energy. We will see a map here, as Stijn mentioned, offshore energy has had an outstanding year. You can see here we have on the map, there’s a lot of countries.

Of course, the Mercator projection doesn’t help us, but we have been active across 3 continents, and if we start from the west, in the U.S., our teams have maintained their momentum in 2025 and had a strong installation year, and that despite, as you have seen, some stop-and-go cycles, and that was, let’s say, due to the regulatory headwinds that we have seen over there. We’ve been working on 3 offshore wind projects, and all 3 of them on the East Coast: Empire Wind, where we did cable laying works, Vineyard Wind, mainly turbine installation works, and those are 2 projects that will be completed already now in the first half of 2026. The third one is Coastal Virginia, which I will come back in a bit more detail in a second.

Europe also remains a very important offshore wind market for us, with major projects underway in the UK, in France, in the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea. Our Asian activities are mainly focused on Taiwan for the moment being, where Hailong and Fengmiao are already our 4th and 5th offshore wind projects since we started there in 2023. To our opinion, Asia is expected to remain an important market in the upcoming years, and we are also taking positions to start works in other countries now, such as Japan. Most of our activities, as you see, were focused on offshore wind projects, but we also delivered work for non-offshore wind projects, and that in each of these country, these continents, again.

We, including some decommissioning project in the North Sea, a pipeline duplication project in Australia, and a dredging campaign for the Offshore West White Rose project for the Cenovus Energy in Canada. That’s a little bit a global overview, but I would like to take the opportunity to focus on a few of these key projects. Let’s start, you see here, the Orion working on the Virginia offshore wind project. It’s called the Dominion Energy Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, with a capacity of 2.6 gigawatt of clean energy. It’s the largest wind farm and construction in the U.S. We are responsible for a very large scope, being the installation of the monopiles, as well of the offshore as the offshore substations, the cable installation, and the scour protection.

The Orion has brought the floating installation concept to the US, that for the first time, we introduced an approach, including a fully customized logistics chain, adapted to this quite specific US market. All monopiles were installed, that in 2 summer campaigns in 2024 and 2025, we continue to make steady progress. We are installing the rest, about 50 last transition pieces. The 3 substations have been installed, the Orion remains engaged, of course, to complete this project and will then return to Europe to initiate new projects in the spring of this year. On the next slide, we see also quite a representative slide on the projects of Îles d’Yeu and Noirmoutier, which are both located on the French Atlantic coast.

On these projects, we face challenging rocky seabed conditions, as we previously had on the Saint-Nazaire projects, the Îles d’Yeu and Noirmoutier project scope included the engineering, transport, and installation of the monopiles foundations, as well as, again, the installation of a substation. We optimized and deployed, again, our offshore foundation drill and the so-called MODIGA, which is a special tool, which encapsulates the drilling, installation, and grouting in operation, and protects them from, especially here, the very harsh Atlantic conditions. Seabed preparation at the projects began in 2023. The final monopile was installed on schedule in June 2025.

I think these French wind farms are good showcases to highlight our capabilities and expertise as a one-stop shop for any packages of wind farm developers’ requirements, and even dealing with very difficult, like here, rocky seabed conditions and difficult oceanic conditions. Now, on the next continent, you can see here a beautiful picture of the Green Jade, which is our joint venture CDWE vessel that completed all of the jacket foundations for the 1-gigawatt Hailong wind farm in Taiwan. Hailong, as was mentioned before in the presentation, one of the six offshore wind farm projects in Taiwan, which we are involved in. The oceanic challenges are very significant over there in the Taiwan Strait, known for harsh marine conditions, very strong currents, large water depths, and frequent typhoons, but we delivered.

The team deployed the Green Jade, as you can see, to install 73 jacket foundations, and again, here, they implemented innovative solutions, including an optimization of the pin pile fastening and lifting tools, and completed the installation phase even ahead of schedule. Today, we are progressing with the last part, which is a turbine installation activities. The Sea Challenger will start over there in April to continue those turbine installations. Let’s go now to the dredging and infra segment. As you can see on the slide, our dredging and infra segment demonstrates strong global coverage. It features a blend of capital dredging and maintenance dredging, and that’s around the world. We are also, as you know, doing a number of marine infrastructure activities, but that’s more focused on Europe.

The dredging team handled projects in a large number of countries, in the U.K., France, Belgium, and Germany. We launched a number of new ones in Spain. More in Southern Europe here, Spain, Greece, and Italy. Ongoing efforts continued in the Middle East in West Africa, including a special quite flagship coastal protection program in Ivory Coast. The teams also kept a solid presence in India. We started working in Indonesia. We performed a maintenance dredging campaign in Australia. The infra team, they make substantial progress on major multi-year projects. That in Belgium, in France, and in Denmark. Again, here, a couple of exemplary projects. We start with the Ardersier Energy Transition Facility in Scotland, where we completed the dredging and the reclamation works.

This project is located in the Moray Firth in Scotland, and it was previously. It’s a site which was previously dedicated to the oil and gas industry, and it’s been completely reshaped into a hub for offshore renewable energy, which offers direct access to the North Sea wind farm zones, and which will, for the Scottish government, be an important enabler in the Scottish energy transition plan. DEME was here tasked with deepening and widening the harbor and the harbor and access channel to accommodate for heavy-lift vessels transporting those big offshore wind components. We deployed the cutter suction dredger d’Artagnan, which we see on the picture. The channel depth was increased here to about 12.4 meters. We created a width of 160 meters.

All works, of course, complied with, as you know, Scotland’s very strict environmental standards, using special coastal modeling and assessments studies, to reduce further the ecological impact of what we are doing. DEME’s involvement in the Ardersier project also builds on our strong track record that we have already in Scotland, including, as you know, in the previous years, major roles in the construction of the Moray East and Moray West offshore wind farms. Next project we want to highlight is the Princess Elisabeth project. Really a world-first, the world’s first energy island. We are in a joint venture with which is called TM Edison. We completed the first 2025 offshore campaign season last year, installing 11 caissons.

They are at their final location, which is about 45 km off the Belgian coast. These massive structures each weigh up to 22,000 tons, and they form the outer walls of the future island, creating a safe harbor for the future electrical infrastructure. Our offshore teams made sure that the structures were installed but also secured during the winter. At the same time, the remaining 12 caissons were completed onshore in Flushing, the offshore activities will resume in the coming weeks in spring, focusing on completing the whole island’s interior. Developed by the Belgian transmission system operator, as you know, this artificial island will connect offshore wind farm and serves as an energy hub, connecting directly to the Belgian electricity grid.

Next project is the Abu Qir project in Egypt, which is a project that really stands out for me. It’s one of the largest dredging and land reclamation projects in our history, in our history today, I would say. Several of our dredgers were again occupied on this project last year. This multi-year project will eventually see an entire new city quarter and a greenfield port constructed near, as you know, Alexandria. This port will be one of the biggest and deepest port in the whole of the Mediterranean Sea. I remember flying over the area in 2025. It’s already possible to see where DEME has created this 1,000 hectares of new land, deploying different vessels with careful management of the many interfaces, as you know, of this complex and multifaceted project.

It’s impressive. We are, again, making very good progress on this project. We go on to the third contracting segment, which is our environmental segment. In 2025, the environmental segment completed the in Norway, the Bergen remediation project, and at the same time, we made steady progress on our key projects, both in Belgium and the Netherlands. This segment also continued to expand capacity by upgrading our soil treatment centers, and we are scaling up our Cargen active carbon solution, which I will give a bit more detail in the following slides. Again, taking a couple of key projects, let’s start with Feluy. DEME’s environmental segment is focusing, as you know, on remediating brownfield sites and redeveloping them to give them a valuable future purpose.

I think this site formerly owned by the chemical giant BASF is a prime example of such a project. Here, our environmental team, that is in a PPP, in a public-private partnership, is responsible for the purchase, remediation, and redevelopment of this 65-hectare site. Polluted soils, contaminated groundwater, and obsolete infrastructures are just some of the challenges that we encountered here, and around 150 tons of soils are being treated, most of them on-site, avoiding truck journeys and emissions. This demonstrates our focus on adopting a circular approach. Around 4 million tons of recycled clean soil from our treatment centers is also used for backfilling and creating level surfaces, preparing them already for the construction of brand-new buildings.

After the remediation, 2/3 of the site will be available for industrial activities, and 1/3, approximately 1/3, will be a biodiverse area. As I said before, I would come back to Cargen. That’s our joint venture specialized in activated carbon treatment and remediation solutions, and that’s now scaling up the volumes and scaling up the commercial capacity. Established in late 2024, Cargen manufactures its own carbon capture filters and is, as such, a valuable addition to our solutions portfolio for treating polluted soil and water, which allow us to deploy our own filters and also to deliver it to third-party customers. You can see here on the picture, it’s an example.

It’s a setup of eight large, what we call the brand Aquapure, filters, at a recycling site in the Netherlands, which, these filters are processing, contaminated, soils, highlighting really the flexibility and scalability of this solution to meet the client’s requirements. Finally, I go to our fourth, segment. That is our concession segment. The concession segment remained involved in operational wind farms in Belgium, of course, and for dredging and infrastructure, the team continues to manage and further develop the participation in its portfolio, including Port La Nouvelle in France and Port of Duqm in Oman. On both, port developments, we see good progress with year-over-year increased contribution to the group.

Following the successful opening of the tunnel, DEME Concessions entered into a provisional sales agreement in 2025 regarding our stake in the Blankenberghe tunnel project, with a final closing of that transaction expected in the first half of 2026. At the same time, we streamlined our participation in the ScotWind concession portfolio, and that in October last year. To explain that a bit, following a swap share, DEME Concessions and Aspiravi International, we increased together our stakes and are now joint owners of the Buchan offshore wind farm project. As you know, that’s a 1 gigawatt project designed as a bottom-fixed site, and we will, the two of us, hold 70% and 30% of the shares, respectively.

Result of that, Aspiravi International became the sole owner of the Ayre wind farm project, which is, in its turn, a floating foundation site. On the Buchan site, as I mentioned, it’s a bottom-fixed offshore wind farm with now financial close anticipated for 2030. On this project here, you see the Paranagua port. In October, a consortium, including DEME, won the auction for a 25-year concessions to operate, maintain, and expand the access channel to this port, to the Port of Paranagua, which is Brazil’s second-largest public port. This contract is expected to close in the coming weeks, after which it will be added to our order book.

The main works will involve deepening the channel, which will allow larger vessels to access the port, and it also involves the maintenance of the channel’s depth through regular dredging and vessel management, or vessel navigation management. The operations are here expected to start in October of this year. That were the segments, and I would like to now move on to our ESG achievements in 2025. Let’s first look at the environmental part. DEME’s eligible and aligned activities continued to grow in 2025, and I’m talking about the EU taxonomy now, of course, with 52% of group turnover categorized as eligible and 47% as aligned, and that compares to 45% and 42% in 2024 respectively.

The rise is mainly accounted for by the fact that offshore energy now represents a larger share in our turnover and more taxonomy-aligned activities across our other activities. I’m really very pleased with this result, as I see it as a measure of genuine sustainability contribution and a recognition, positioning DEME as one of the leading performers and markedly above-average scores both in Belgium and in Europe. If we look at the CapEx EU taxonomy, our eligible and aligned CapEx activities grew substantially compared to 2024, primarily due to investments in the two new Havfram vessels. Both, as you know, are intended to be deployed in the offshore wind sector and qualify as taxonomy-eligible.

For our greenhouse gas footprint and energy management, I’ll keep it quite short on greenhouse gas, as the value is measured and verified every 2 years, and this will now be reassessed in 2026 against our targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We expect to see a step-up in 2026 as we integrate Norse Wind and Norse Energi into our fleet, and these vessels are featuring installations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, DEME has further invested in shore power connection in Vlissingen to enable our vessels to switch off onboard generators in our port.

While we certainly maintain our focus on using low-carbon fuels where possible, the proportion of low-carbon fuel consumption was around 5%-6% in both 2024 and 2025, and that’s a decline from 2023, largely due to low industry take-up and limited availability of low-carbon fuels in the regions that we are operating in. Let’s go to social. As we continue to invest and attract and retain, of course, top talent, the group’s workforce further increased to nearly 6,000 employees, and that reflects a 3% increase compared to 2024. We are pleased to see that in 2025, our HR team was honored with the esteemed HR Ambassador Award, which is always encouraging to see. It’s encouraging to see that our commitments to lifelong learning and lifelong careers is received by external appraisal. We go to our safety metric.

The primary metric is the lost time injury frequency rate. It remained below our target of 0.2, and it’s at 0.18 in 2025. As you know, safety remains really as a top priority within the group, and we have a lot of ongoing initiatives, such as the Safety Week, safety success stories, and a lot of safety awareness campaigns that are really helping us to embed safety in our organization. Finally, let’s go to the last part, which is the outlook and the dividend. We start with the outlook. We expect turnover and EBITDA margin in 2026 to be in line with last year’s level, giving the existing projects in the backlog, the pipeline of new opportunities coming along, and the current fleet capacity.

CapEx is estimated to remain around EUR 450 million, this includes the upgrade, the repair, and the maintenance investments in the fleet, and the remaining payment for the completion of Norse Energi. As before, of course, as you know, potential further large capacity expansion to support our longer-term growth opportunities. Looking further ahead in the mid-term, despite current geopolitical tensions, we remain confident that DEME is well-positioned to continue delivering robust, sustainable performances. In line with our dividend policy, targeted to payout ratio of 33% of DEME’s net group profit, the board will propose this year a gross dividend of 4.5 euros per share, that represents an 18% increase compared to last year.

As I’m almost finishing off my part, a few more slides about the existing year that we have ahead of us. Exciting year that we have ahead of us. We are delighted that our two new next-generation offshore installation vessels, Norse Wind and Norse Energi will have been joining DEME fleet, but they will start their first projects now very soon. Norse Wind is expected to commence turbine installation works for Vestas in the first half of the year, while Norse Energi is scheduled to start its first project activities around summer of this year.

Another remarkable event is, as we mentioned earlier, DEME will be celebrating a remarkable milestone this year, 150 years of shaping horizons around the world. You can see a couple of pictures here, but it’s truly remarkable, and if you look back at those 150 years of history, we were there in the beginning of the century in Argentina. We have lived through two world wars, the Panama Canal, Suez Canal, so a lot of big events DEME has lived through.

Throughout the year, you will see we will be sharing 150 inspiring stories. I’ve seen many of them are already public, so it’s a really fantastic campaign, and you will see those on a dedicated anniversary website. These snapshots that we will be giving highlight our pioneering people, our projects, and the innovative breakthroughs that have been made through the history of DEME and that made the DEME to the company that it is today. I really invite everybody to go and see our fascinating history on this special website. That finalizes my presentation. I thank you, and I will now hand you back to Carl, so that he can start the Q&A session.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Thank you, Luc and Stijn. We will indeed now begin the question-and-answer session. There are different ways to ask questions. For participants in the webcast, which I believe is most of you can both use the chat forum, and we already see that people have found a way to the chat forum to submit questions. You can also raise your hand, after which we will assign you when ready for your questions or for your question. For participants on the conference call line, please dial pound key five or hashtag five, and the operator will then place you in the waiting room before you can ask the question. From our side, we will manage the flow and do our best to field questions from different angles.

For all participants on both conference call or webcast, please limit yourself to one or maximum two questions at a time. If you have additional questions, then please queue again. That will allow us to cover questions from various participants effectively. We are now ready for some first questions, and I see that we have so questions in the chat, and let’s take them first as they came in first. It’s, it’s, Luc, Stijn, it’s a question on offshore energy. It comes from our analyst at KBC Securities, Guy Sips. Offshore energy margin at 30%, actually at 31% level. The question is about the sustainability.

To what extent do you see this margin level as structurally repeatable, especially as Norse Wind and Norse Energi ramp up in 2026? What mix pricing or utilization assumptions underpin your guidance for full year 2026 margins will remain in line with full year 2025? Stijn, I think will kick it off.

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: Okay, I’ll take that one. Thank you for that question. Now, you will know that the offshore segment, as any segment within the DEME Group, remains quite a project-driven business. The margins will also always show some kind of variability that was shown in the figures of 2024, where we had an EBITDA margin of 21%, and also shows in the figure of 2025 with the EBITDA figure of 31%. The 31% driven by a disciplined execution and also quite a strong project mix and also strong contracting management as well.

It’s clear that there’s a positive trend, the figures show that. Without being too over-specific on future numbers, we are confident that the projects which are currently still in execution and also the ones which are in order book and on the near-term radar as well, can continue to deliver quite a solid profitability, all with the main element also that they need to be, of course, well-executed. For example, an addition of Havfram is helping in that aspect, and the confidence is also reflecting actually in the guidance that we’re giving for 2026.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Yeah. Thank you, Stijn. I see also a first analyst queuing up for a question live. Thijs Berkelder, you have the floor.

Thijs Berkelder, Analyst: Yeah, thanks for.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Good morning, Thijs.

Thijs Berkelder, Analyst: The floor. Do you hear me?

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: We do.

Luc Vandenbulcke, Chief Executive Officer, DEME: Yes.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: We do. Good morning.

Thijs Berkelder, Analyst: Okay. Yeah. Coming back on the previous question, I think that’s the, those are the main questions, we all have, what to expect for 2026. You are guiding a stable EBITDA and, the logical assumption is more or less flat revenues, roughly flat margins year-over-year. Your dredging margins in 2025 were well below normal levels, so assuming dredging margins more normal in 2026, let’s say 18%. Is it then logical to assume offshore energy margins, slightly lower, let’s say 25%, and then have to combine at around 22% as a starting point for 2026? Is that a logical assumption?

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Okay, thank you for your question on our guidance for 2026. I’m looking to both Stijn and Luc.

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: It’s a good mathematical possibility. The exact margins for each of the segments will, of course, depend a little bit on the phasing of the projects where we are. Some projects accelerate the other ones, but in broad line, it is one of the assumptions you can have if you follow the guidance and details that we have given, yes.

Thijs Berkelder, Analyst: Yeah.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Does that respond to question, please? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you are allowed to one more question.

Thijs Berkelder, Analyst: Yeah, related to that outlook question, do you also mean or guide for a stable net result? I think that’s the suggestion, and last year you had quite some, quite a large amount of one-off charges. Isn’t it so that we should see a further step up in the net result in 2026?

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: Well, the one-off elements referring to, I think I also touched upon it in the beginning, if you combine them all together, the impact is really immaterial on EBITDA and bottom line, maybe for one specific element, but then on the other side. We are always a bit careful with giving an indication bottom line. You’ve seen we’ve managed quite well the quite big volatility on the currency rates. Of course, these elements are not always that easy to predict, so we are always a bit more careful to also give a guidance on what was going to happen bottom line. I again use the opportunity to state that these one-offs all together really have no impact on the figure.

Thijs Berkelder, Analyst: Yeah.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Okay. Thank you, Stijn. I’ll switch to another question in the chat forum on order book dynamics, visibility. Observation that the group order book fell from EUR 8.2 billion to EUR 7.6 billion year-over-year, despite a good intake and the Hafslund integration. The question is: can you clarify how much of this decline is due to timing, major projects executed faster than replenishment, versus structural changes in tendering pipelines? How confident are you or we in replenishment in the first half or in 2026, particularly with intakes in Europe and APAC? Stijn, perhaps you’ll kick it off on this one.

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: Maybe a bit more to indicate that we should not focus too much on, I think, the exact values, and I’d like to give an example of that. If you look at, for example, the order book of 2022 that we presented, end of 2022, that was EUR 6.2 billion, and in the year n plus one, that was EUR 1.6 billion, so that reflected to the year of 2024, and at the end, we had a turnover of EUR 4.1 billion. If you look at the order book of 2023 that we declared, that was EUR 7.6 billion at that moment.

The year n plus two, at that moment, already had a EUR 2.6 billion in the order book run-off, and there, the turnover realized at the end was EUR 4.1 billion. If you look at the order book of 2024, at the end, that was the EUR 8.2 billion that was mentioned just now. In the year n plus one, that was EUR 2.3 billion, and that is reflecting to 2026. If you look at our guidance that we are giving, there we say that turnover is in line. Why do I give that example? To identify that between a EUR 1.6 billion and a EUR 2.6 billion in a run-off of an order book, at the end, we can still arrive at the same figures.

It gives an indication, but we do not always say that we want to focus too much on exact values. We do feel that this is a very healthy order book, and that’s a bit more from a bit historical background that I would like to share with that.

Luc Vandenbulcke, Chief Executive Officer, DEME: I think adding to that on, I think the question was how confident we are in replenishment. What we see today, and not giving exact figures, is that we remain having a very strong tender activity, and that is really, I must say, across activities and segment and across the geographies that we are working on, except maybe offshore wind in the U.S., which of course you are all familiar with. Based on that, we are pretty confident that in the period to come, the question was specific to H1, but I think in the period to come, we will see new orders coming in. As always, of course, we will announce them as soon as we have them.

Thijs Berkelder, Analyst: Yeah. Thank you, Luc. follow-on question that came in is related to our concessions and the share swap in the Scotland project. Question is, can you explain the rationale about the fact that you have stepped up your position in the bottom-fixed, in the Buchan wind farm, and exited actually the floating wind farm? I think, Luc, that’s probably a question for you.

Luc Vandenbulcke, Chief Executive Officer, DEME: Yes. Well, I think in general, it’s fair to say, and I think I made that point before, that we want to execute the wind farms that we are involved in. That we see the tendency that we see even before AR7, which confirms that, is that we think it’s gonna take a bit more time before the floating matures. I think for those who are not familiar with it, in the AR7 in the UK, we had GBP 91 per megawatt hour for the bottom-fixed, and GBP 216 per megawatt hour for the floating.

That, to my opinion, confirms that there’s still quite a gap to be bridged. Based on that, it was our preference to have a larger stake in the bottom-fixed project, Buchan, which we have now together with Aspiravi. That was most of the rationale for us, and maybe our partners of Qair have another view on that, are a bit more bullish on the floating. I think we found each other there in having each our own views on the future of these wind farms.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Yeah. Thank you, Luc. And we’re already nearing the end of our Q&A because we have one more question left in the chat. It’s about working capital, the working capital swing and free cash flow. The question is: How should we think about the working capital profile in 2026? Does full year 2025 represent a temporary reversal after an exceptionally strong full year 2024? Are structural factors, such as project-facing milestone timing, shifting the cash conversion pattern going forward? I think that’s a question for our CFO.

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: Yes, I’ll take that. I’ll take that one, Carl.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Yeah, I hope so.

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: Well, to put it a bit in perspective, if you look, the current negative working capital compared to turnover, it is actually not that bad. It’s around 17%. I think 2 years ago it was 14%. Last year it was 20%. The average is around 19%. And we do feel pretty confident that we would be able, probably in 2026, pending, of course, milestone payments and such on specific projects, to crawl back towards the historical average that we had in the last 12 years. We do feel that we might have a small positive upside on the working capital.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Still one more question that came in, and I think, Luc, that’s probably one for you. It is on our view, on the offshore market, on the midterm and long term. I think, yeah, that’s probably a top-of-mind question for many, investors, the overall offshore market, status, and whether you can.

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: Well.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Shed some light on.

Stijn Gaytant, Chief Financial Officer, DEME: Yes.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: On your take.

Luc Vandenbulcke, Chief Executive Officer, DEME: Of course, of course. I can give you our view on this, and it’s multifaceted, I think. Let me say, on the mid-long term, we are very confident that the market will be there and is there. We have seen now, of course, you saw the Hamburg conference, but we have had three conferences in a row where the same was being said. Now, our view is that both the people who are policy-making and the developers and the supply chain are more or less aligned on the future numbers. That is good. I’ve said before, we have a recalibration.

The there was these auctions without any support system, which failed. Now we see AR7, we see the Netherlands, we see Denmark, we see, hopefully very, very soon now, Belgium. Germany is reconsidering the to go to CFD, which really is the system, to go, to. That is happening. I think that in going to this very large, demand on which we have consensus towards the end of the decade, there may be periods in which it is a little bit calmer. Although, from a practical point of view, because I see all these studies and all these numbers, we have not seen that.

Most of the time, this is being leveled out because the demand if the demand is a little bit lower, the developers start shifting their projects. To our opinion, that will be more or less leveled out. I think at the same time, we as DEME, we are I think, cost leader, quality leader to our clients. We see a market still a growing market in which we will be able to certainly have our market share. I’m pretty confident, and, so the market will be there, and leading up to this vast demand, I think the, let’s say, the ups and the downs will be more leveled out, certainly for DEME. I don’t know whether that is.

Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations, DEME: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Luc. I think with that, we have reached the conclusion of our earnings call. Yeah, we also understand that it is an extremely busy morning with many results coming out. On the other hand, it’s a good observation that we are able to wrap it up within one hour presentation and Q&A. If you happen to have further questions or wish to provide feedback, you know where to find me. Against the backdrop of our financial calendar, now displayed, I’d like to thank you all for your participation and also, of course, Stijn and Luc, for their insightful presentation and for addressing the questions. I wish you all a great day.

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