Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Nexans 9-month 2026 financial information call. I'm here today with Vincent Piquet, our CFO, and together we will take you through our performance for the third quarter and the first 9 months of the year 2026.

Today's update demonstrates that Nexans' business model continue to deliver, supported by strong momentum across strategic verticals, the disciplined execution of our investment road map, and the progressive integration of our recent acquisition keep us firmly on track to achieve our mid-term objectives. As usual, I would like to draw your attention to our disclaimer.

This presentation contains forward-looking statements which are subject to the usual risk and uncertainties. Let me now walk you through the key highlights of our first 9 months of 2026.

Slide 4, Nexans maintained a high-growth momentum during the quarter with electrification remaining the core drivers of our group performance. Group standard sales reached €4,947 million in the first 9 months of 2026, which is up by +3.9% year-on-year organically.

In Q3, standard sales reached €1,698 million, which is up by +21.4%, including a strong organic growth of +9%, and even more linked to the contribution of our recently acquired companies of +9.6%. Electrification remained the main growth engine with organic growth of +5.3% over 9 months and +7.1% in Q3, supported by high demand in strategic verticals across Power Grid and Power Connect, with a favorable seasonality in Power Grid with Q2 and Q3 typically being the strongest quarter, and the successful execution of large-scale projects while we continued to see the normalization of organic growth in transmission as planned.

The integration of Republic Wire is progressing in line with our road map and is already delivering good results. We are also launching a multi-year brownfield investment at the Republic Wire facility in the US for medium-voltage accessories production to capture growing demand for data center and grid application, while at the same time expanding our accessories manufacturing capacity in Europe to expand our saturated production line.

The third quarter was also marked by another step in strengthening our financial structure. In September, we successfully completed a €500 million 5-year bond issuance, and Vincent in a moment will get back on this in the presentation.

Moving to slide 5. Before turning to the segment performance, I would like to highlight how our previously announced investments are progressively translating into additional industrial capacity and future value creation.

First, in power transmission, we have opened and we have inaugurated in October our new 525 HVDC, high-voltage tower, in Charleroi, Belgium. This investment strengthen our capacity in the next generation of 525 kV land cable, with an entry into service expected next year in 2027.

In Power Grid, our new medium-voltage greenfield site in Safi, Morocco, will reinforce our ability to support electrification across Africa, with a progressive ramp-up expected through 2027 and 2028. Finally, in Lens, France, our strategic rod facility dedicated to recycled copper will provide an additional 80,000 tons of processing capacity per year, with a progressive ramp-up expected through 2027.

This investment provides a competitive advantage and enhance our ability to offer low-carbon product to customers increasingly focus on sustainability. Together, these projects illustrate our disciplined approach to scale value creation through industrial and operational excellence.

Moving to slide 6. Alongside organic investments, M&A remains a key pillar of our strategy.

Our focus is not simply on adding capacity in key geographies, but on actively reallocating and mutualizing that capacity towards the most attractive strategic verticals. In North America, both Electro-Cables and Republic Wire are accelerating output with a clear focus on attractive markets, including grid and data center verticals.

Synergies are progressing in line with our road map and demonstrating the value of combining acquired assets with Nexans' commercial reach and industrial standards. In Europe and Latin America, both Cabelerias Cortao and Centelsa respectively are allocating capacity to data center and critical billing, while Reka Cables is supporting data center growth in both in Finland and Norway.

Our recent acquisition have significantly strengthened our exposure to strategic verticals. Given their attractive growth profile and high-value-added positioning, these markets will be important drivers of both growth and margin expansion over our coming years.

Looking ahead, we'll continue to pursue M&A opportunities selectively within a disciplined strategic and financial framework. Let me now break down our performance between electrification and other activities.

The group delivered strong growth in the third quarter of +21.4%, of which +9% organically, but also +9.6% linked to scope with integration of both Republic Wire in the US and Electro-Cables in Canada. The exceptional organic growth performance was driven mainly by both Power Grid and Power Connect, while power transmission continued to the expected normalization of its top line.

Other activities declined by -5.2% organically over 9 months as planned, and grew +24.7% in Q3 on a favorable comparison basis linked to the phasing of US copper orders ahead of tariff in 2025. While the group organic growth was exceptionally high in Q3, it's also benefiting from seasonal effects.

We therefore expect organic growth for the group in Q4 to be slightly lower than in Q3. Let's now move to our segments.

Slide 8, starting with power transmission. As expected, the segment organic growth was in negative territory due to normalization after two consecutive years of high double-digit growth on an exceptionally high comparison basis.

This effect is expected to be stronger in Q4 2026 as transmission grew at +40% organically in Q4 2025. Let me highlight that despite the normalization of top-line growth, we continue to improve our margin.

We expect further margin improvement for full-year 2026, keeping us on track to deliver our '28 guidance. Standard sales reached €1,155 million in the first 9 months, which is up by +3.6% on a reported basis and down -1.4% organically, with a +5.1% positive foreign exchange effect related to the appreciation of the currency, Norwegian krone.

In Q3, standard sales were €378 million, which is up by +2.9%, including organic growth at -4% against an exceptionally high comparison basis of +33% in Q3 2025. Operationally, our priority in power transmission remains very clear: disciplined execution and continued profitability improvement while securing the right projects.

Our adjusted backlog stands at a solid €7.8 billion and provides good visibility through the end of 2028. Looking ahead, we remain confident in the prospect of power transmission, supported by a structurally growing market and a strong pipeline of opportunities.

Slide 9, moving to Power Grid. Power Grid delivered a high organic growth above our mid-term guidelines.

Standard sales reached €1,066 million in the first 9 months, which is up by 7.5%, including 8.1% organically. In Q3, standard sales reached €364 million, up by 15.8%, mainly through organic growth at +14.8%.

Performance was supported by seasonality, stronger activity in Europe in Q2 and Q3, the ramp-up of additional production capacity, and continued operational efficiencies initiatives. If we look at our different region, we saw strong demand from framework agreement with utilities and data centers in North America, as well as a large-scale solar project in South America and Middle East and Africa.

Once again, accessories maintain a strong momentum, fueled by customer demand for advance offers. This performance is consistent with the structural strength of the market.

Grid need to be modernized, reinforced, and expanded, while industry capacity remain constraints worldwide. Nexans also continued to benefit from its strong position in medium-voltage cable on a high-value service accessories.

Commenting on this strong performance, this is the right opportunity for me to give you color on our new capacity expansion ambitions in medium-voltage accessories in the US and in Europe. Moving to slide 10.

As part of our '28 guidance will be achieved with the increase of our mixed to nearly 40% of advance offer in Power Grid, which include accessories. In order to achieve these targets, we are increasing our exposure to the highly profitable and dynamic medium-voltage accessory market, with the objective of raising production capacity by around 39%, +39%, between '26 to '28.

Over the next few years, we plan to invest approximately €62 million to the accessories capacity, both in US and Europe. In the US, we plan to invest in a brownfield expansion at the Republic Wire facility.

This will build a more resilient local supply chain, reduce the lead time to our customer by up to 60%, and position us to capture growing demand from data center and grid application. Let me highlight that lead times are our customer top priority today, including in this business of accessories.

The expansion in US will be deployed progressively from '27 to '28. In parallel, we're also investing in Europe from '26 to '28 to expand the current saturated manufacturing capacity in order to scale up our advance offers.

Now moving to slide 11. Let us finish the business review with Power Connect.

Power Connect delivered an exceptionally high quarter with a growth supported by both strong organic momentum and the contribution from recent acquisition. Standard sales reached €2,125 million over the 9 months, which is up by 21.9%, including a 8.3% percent organic growth and a +14.5% scope effect.

In Q3, standard sales were €750 million, up by 36%, with a 10.5% organic growth and a 24.4% scope contribution from Republic and Electro-Cables. Organic growth was driven by positive dynamics across our key geographies.

First, Europe showed sign of recovery in several countries, but still with an effect on the profitable mixed. North America benefit notably from data center demands.

We'll come back, I'm sure, on that in the discussion. On South America, was supported by solar activities and higher residential demand.

Middle East and Africa remain a strong momentum. The integration of Republic Wire is progressing in line with our road map, with synergies starting to materialize and cross-selling underway.

Our priority remains to progressively mutualize our industrial footprint, accelerate synergies, and allocate capacity towards the most value-accretive opportunities. With that, I will now hand over to Vincent, who will take you through the key financial development.

Thank you, Julien, and good morning, everyone. On slide 13, let me start with the standard sales bridge from €4,492 million in the first 9 months of 2025 to €4,947 million in 2026, representing a total growth of 10.1%.

Organic growth contributed 3.9%, reflecting 5.3% growth in electrification, partly offset by a negative 5.2% decline in other activities, mainly linked to metallurgy. Scope added 5.6% with the Republic Wire, Electro-Cables, and Cables RCT acquisitions, including about €140 million of standard sales for Republic Wire on the period.

Foreign exchange contributed for further 0.6%, mainly reflecting a positive effect from the Norwegian krone, partly offset by the US and Canadian dollars. Let me talk about the Republic Wire integration.

The integration of Republic Wire is progressing in line with our road map. The planned 30% capacity extension is being delivered on schedule, and operations now running 7 days a week, and two new production lines installed as planned.

Since July 1st, Republic Wire's product portfolio has been integrated into Nexans' data center offering. Procurement synergies are being delivered in line with plan, most notably through internalized sourcing of compounds.

In parallel, further synergies are being captured through product design optimization. We're also seeing channel-to-market benefits, with Republic Wire's established network of more than 250 sales agents across the US now selling the Nexans portfolio.

Nexans also gave Republic access to its established relationships with its key distributors. Overall progress to date reinforces our confidence in the integration and in Republic Wire's ability to create long-term value for the group.

On slide 15, turning now to an important financial milestone for the group. In September, we successfully completed a €500 million senior unsecured bond issuance with a 5-year maturity to September 2031 and a fixed annual coupon of 4.25%.

The proceeds were used to refinance the bridge term loan put in place for the acquisition of Republic Wire. Strong investor demand confirms market confidence in Nexans' credit quality.

S&P also confirmed Nexans' BB+ rating with a stable outlook. This attractive fixed-rate funding preserves our financial flexibility and capacity to continue investing in organic growth and targeted M&A with a disciplined leverage framework.

With that, I will hand the call back to Julien.

Thank you, Vincent. Let me take you through our 2026 outlook.

Slide 17, we reiterate our full-year 2026 guidance, including an adjusted EBITDA expected between €770 million and €840 million, as well as a free cash flow between €235 to €325 million. As previously communicated, this guidance does not assume execution of the Great Sea Interconnector project in '26, but include the load of MI line at the end of 2026.

It also includes the contribution of Republic Wire from June 1st, 2026, and exclude any contribution from future acquisition. Overall, this strategy is on track while we navigate in a highly unpredictable geopolitical environment.

As we enter the final quarter of the year, we remain confident in the underlying strength of our businesses and in our ability to deliver our mid-term outlook. Our priority remains to translate positive market trends into sustainable, profitable growth through consistent execution and financial discipline, while continuing to create the long-term value for our shareholder.

With that, thank you all for your attention, and Vincent and I will now be happy to take your questions.

Yes, hi. Good morning, Julien and Vincent.

I got three questions if I may. The first one is on this new MI order.

I think you still have in your guidance that you might get a bit in end of Q4, but we are now in end of October. Maybe if you can provide an update on what's the likelihood of that happening and also if there will be any risk to 2027 if there will be order delay.

The second one is on grid business. You announced this new investment of €62 million today, which looks on top of the plan that was announced at the Capital Markets Day in 2024.

Shall we expect some sort of upside on grid numbers compared to your original plan presented at Capital Markets Day for 2028? The last question that I have is more on the mix side.

You're not giving margins for Q3, but when we look at your Connect revenues and Grid revenues, is there anything that we need to be aware of when we look at H2 margins? Thank you.

Thank you, Akash. I will start by your first question on the MI.

Indeed, late July, we have announced a preferred bidder for the MI project. As it is a public tender and we respect and we have to respect, of course, the administrative process from our customers.

We are very confident that this award will be announced, I would say, soon. We are very confident that we will start to manufacture this project by end of 2026.

No change for us. Do we have to respect the admin process?

It takes the time that it needs to take, but we are confident that it will occur in the coming period and we'll start production by end 2026. There will be no change as what we have said late July regarding 2027.

For your second question for the grid accessories, so that's first of all, I think it's a very good news for Nexans because we do have a great business in accessories, as for medium voltage. We are extremely happy to see the growth.

Remember it was a double-digit growth the last 3 years at a high margin level. That's why we decided to add capacity.

We have seen some very strong sales also recently from our teams of accessories in the US. That's why we decide to increase capacity and use the platform of Republic for this activity of accessories.

That will be part of the envelope of the overall CapEx that we have announced for the full Capital Markets Day numbers until 2028. We will see that this business will be growing because it's extremely lucrative business.

Then regarding your third question, maybe you want to talk about it?

Sure. Hi, Akash.

On the mix side on your question on the H2 margins, we remained aligned with what we've communicated before. We are pushing hard to make the grid business above 15% and that's what we're working towards.

Then on Connect, we've seen strong growth, as you saw in the numbers. The mix of where this growth is happening is still not perfect, I would say.

We continue to work to drive the mix above 12%. That's where we want to get that business.

That's why we're not changing our guideline, and the margins in H2 should be on track with what we've announced before.

Thank you.

Hi. Good morning.

Thanks for taking my question. Just on organic growth for Grid and Connect, how should we think about growth in Q4?

In Grid, you've obviously got a very strong acceleration in Q3, and I get that Q4 is seasonally weaker, but you should still be able to capture some growth from that new capacity ramp-up, correct? Also in Connect, the comps do get tougher, but you have some underlying improvement in several markets, and if you can just get some color around which markets have improved, that would be great as well.

Okay. For both Grid and Connect, we of course still expect some organic growth in Q4.

As we have said in this presentation, the Q3 was exceptionally high due to seasonality, due to large projects in data center, but also in solar activities that we had in this period Q3. We still do expect some growth in the Q4 coming from the capacity, coming from our positioning now in the US.

That's will trigger also this organic growth. For Connect, in term of dynamics, well, we start really to take the benefit of North America, Republic Wire, and Electro in this part of the world.

That's driving the both growth and the improved margin. That we have said from day one that Republic and Electro will be accretive to our margin level.

We will see that also happening in Q4.

All right. Secondly, on Grid, I get that you're expanding capacity, and you said you're increasing European capacity by about 40% by 2028.

Just trying to figure out the cadence there. How much incremental capacity would you see in H2 and going into 2027?

How should we think about the trajectory there?

The organic growth we are doing in Grid, it's a mix of different things. The first one is indeed coming from additional capacity, but it's not only this.

The second element is, if you remember, I've explained during the year a few times that we are mutualizing our capacity worldwide. We are now using any capacity we do have in some regions to fulfill a market at the regional level.

It's a combination of mutualizing our footprint plus additional capacity. That's why it's difficult to explain specifically what comes from only capacity increase.

That will continue to happen in the next few years because as you say and as you've noticed, we will increase and we're on the way to increase capacity up to 40% from '25 to '28.

All right. Got it.

Thanks, Julien.

Thank you.

Hello. Good morning.

Thanks for taking my question. It was just on North America, and specifically on Republic Wire.

Just I think when you did the deal, you talked about 30% increase in capacity that was already kind of funded and was going to happen. Is that already materializing there, and does that 30% include kind of new lines and also moving to more shifts?

Thank you.

You're right. This is what we said at the moment of the acquisition of Republic, and this is currently happening.

The new line has been installed, and now we are ramping up this additional capacity. It takes a few months, but we are on the good way.

In fact, we are even in advance compared to what we thought in the initial plan. The ramping-up is happening currently.

You see some of it in the numbers that we published today. At the same time, we also increase the number of production days.

This business used to run on a 5-days basis. We are now moving progressively to 6 days and 7 days manufacturing.

We really want to maximize the output of this new acquisition.

Perfect. Thank you.

Then when we think about the margin at Republic Wire, obviously, you have some best-in-class, like Canada, for example, or the Nordic, on a certain level, and then the group level. Can you tell us where is it closer to kind of group, or is it closer to these kind of best-in-class, and how much kind of improvement could we see on the margin at Republic Wire?

Republic Wire is accretive to our margin from day one, huh? It's not yet at the level of Canada, but it's already a very good level compared to the average of Nexans, it's really accretive.

We don't precise, and you can imagine why, the margin per country, but this is a positive element. With the additional capacity that we are opening currently, that will also drive the margin up.

Very strong positive element on the value creation in Republic, let's say it's only 3 to 4 months that we did the acquisition. We are extremely positive about this business and this market of the US.

Overall Connect, as it's a very contrasted segment markets. Nordics are indeed best-in-class in term of margin, such as Canada.

That I've mentioned several times that this year the Nordics are, I would say, volume-wise not at the level that we expect. The local economy is not that strong.

What we see in Q3 is that two countries out of the three start to really pick up. It's basically Norway and Finland, partly due to data center activities.

There's plenty of activity of data center in Finland currently, and we are well-positioned thanks to the Reka acquisition we did in 2023. Sweden remains still not there, and that's for us our biggest business in term of size, it's still flattish, has not yet restarted.

That's why I'm saying that's a contrasted market segment.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hi. Thanks for taking the question.

I've got a couple if I may, and I'll ask them one at a time. Just on data centers in North America, you've talked about how you saw remarkable performance in Connect in North America, and that's supported by hyperscale data centers.

Could you help us understand to what extent this is associated with the legacy Nexans business in Canada versus the Republic Wire business in the US? It feels like this would be more the former given this is only the first full quarter since you've completed the acquisition, but I'd be interested to know if you're seeing some pretty immediate benefits in delivering for data center projects in the US.

Thanks. That's the first one.

Okay. First, just a reminder.

Data center for Nexans today is only 5% of our total sales, 95% of our sales are not data center-oriented. We are very diverse: solar, critical building, and so on.

That's also true still today in North America. We are growing data center.

This is a strong growth, but it's still representing 5% of our total sales. Specifically now in North America, the fundamental of Republic, you remember, they were not exposed to data center.

We're on the way to push them to open their portfolio of product towards data center, and that's just starting. They are just at the early beginning.

That means that the rest of the business, which are construction, commercials, is also dynamic, huh? There is the level of service of Republic, the reputation, the strength of the agent network, as we said, 250 agents across let's say the attractive states in the US, drives also the good results of Republic, which are not only related to data center.

Data center is coming for Republic. We are enlarging the portfolio, we are connecting them with our traditional platinum customers, but that's only the beginning.

We are extremely enthusiastic about what it will generate for the years to come, specifically from 2027.

Great. Thank you.

Then just in terms of customer behavior in Grid and Connect, you mentioned at H1 that you'd saw strong backlog for Grid and Connect in the second half, and we've obviously seen that come through into the sales numbers here. Some of your peers have talked about some data center customers starting to sign long-term supply agreements in the low-voltage space as well.

Could you describe what you're seeing in terms of changing customer behavior in Grid and Connect outside of the sort of traditional utilities business, and does there begin to be a trade-off between visibility and margins here, or are you still very much focused on profitability over just growth at all costs?

Our strategy remains the same, huh? It's selectivity of customers and products.

It's about profitable growth only, we're not aiming to go volume for a low margin. We are extremely disciplined on price, that's a big priority for us.

You are right. We see on the discussion we're having with customer, both Grid and Connect, is about long term, it's about partnership, it's about allocating capacity to specific segments, specific verticals.

We have this type of discussion with some of our key customers, key partners, supporting them in their growth. That's coming.

It's getting very let's say concrete in the US, thanks to the undercapacity, structural undercapacity for some segment of some portfolio of products. That's really mature, but we are also engaging our customer in the other part of the world to have a similar approach, huh?

I believe that when we'll be looking from let's say in 1 year, 2 years from now, we will allocate progressively more capacity to long-term customers, even in the Connect business, which used to be more a short-cycle market. That market is also moving.

That's the direction, and that will not be at the cost of the margin. Margin will remain for us a critical driver of performance.

Perfect. Really helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning.

My first question is just around the unchanged EBITDA range, which obviously implies a pretty broad range of outcomes for the second half. Just thinking about your confidence around the midpoint, the upper half of that range.

You talked about a measured approach in the release around Q4. I'm just wondering how much let's say this MI line is weighing.

Is there anything else in the mix that you want to flag particularly as we look into Q4 and we think about margins later in the year? Thank you.

I would start, and maybe Vincent will continue. As recently, just 3 months ago, we have increased our guidance for the year 2026.

That was late of July, was not that long ago, and we knew at that time already how Q3 was going to look like, what the numbers you see today. Historically, Q3 is always a seasonal high level of demand, because specifically in some market like Grid, this is a time where it's easier to bury cable on the underground, so that drives higher activities in the grid aspect specifically.

We knew also that in Q3 we were going to deliver the large project, both solar, but as well hyperscale. If you remember, I mentioned in late Q1 that we won an hyperscale large project in the US.

It has been delivered, of course, on time in Q3. Also, I'm also careful on the geopolitical uncertainties that we are facing.

The world is uncertain. The oil price is still moving up and on, I am taking all these elements into account.

That's why we consider that this guidance is the right guidance to have. We are working very hard to be better than the midpoint.

That's our target. This is our engagement.

This is where we are today. Maybe, Vincent, you want to add a few points?

No,

not much to add. I think you've summarized it.

Uncertain times, a lot of volatility. We talked about the impact of tariffs in our initial guidance at the beginning of the year, and as we've seen this summer, it's been volatile.

We have to take into account the current geopolitical volatility and the impact it could have on our business, which is why we decided not to change the guidance. As Julien said, we're confident, the teams are working, and the goal for us is to get to better than midpoint.

That's the ambition, that's what we're driving to.

Specifically on your question regarding the MI line, so that does not trigger any change, huh? We are still confident to have this project to start by end of the year.

We've said it will be by end of the year. We still consider that we are on the plan that we thought initially.

That's helpful. Thank you.

If I can just maybe follow on the point about the MI line. Should we also assume that this project covers you for MI capacity for 2027 as well?

The project will start at the end of the year and will fill the MI capacity completely next year and until 2028.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Mid-year 2028, yeah. Thank you, Sean.

Yes, thank you. Good morning.

Two questions from my side. Could you just come back on the accessories you mentioned strong growth.

Could you more quantify that? What is the growth for the accessories business currently for the 9 months?

Do you expect also double-digit growth for the accessories for the coming years? Could you give us the amount of the sales made with the accessories business?

The second question concerned more 2028. Sure, I don't ask you, for sure, guidance for next year, but could you give us some trend expected for the three main business for 2027?

Thank you.

Jean-François. Accessories, what I can tell you is that it's 20% of our Grid business, so that you should be able to reconcile the numbers.

20% plus, huh, because this is growing faster than the cable parts. It's a double-digit growth year-on-year the last 3 years.

It's the same, we do see the trend in a very regular manner. The reason why we have decided to really invest in this business is because we see more opportunities.

It's a technical product. That our customer, when they invest massively into renew a grid, electrical grid, the part of accessories is a small part in the cost, but at the same time, even though it's a small part of the total cost of the grid, it is the most, let's say, fragile part.

This is the part where you start to have breakdowns, they don't wants to purchase low-quality product. They go for a high-premium product, and this is exactly the segment where Nexans is: high technology, high reputation, high quality.

For me, it's important that this additional capacity will give me the opportunity to also offer a high service in term of lead time reduction, because today the market overall is saturated as well, you have long lead times. Important to be present, important to really position ourselves in the best-in-class in the accessories world.

We'll continue. The fact that we take the benefit of Republic Wire, we said it will be a platform for growth in the US, and that's the first example.

We'll come back with other projects we have in our ambitions, but the first example of platform is using this platform, their network of agents, to grow this accessories business in the US. There's plenty of opportunities there.

Maybe I take the second question. On the 2027 trends for growth, we're not going to communicate obviously detailed numbers now, but generally, the Grid and Connect businesses will continue to follow on the same trends.

The big question will be restart, a more frank restart of the key markets for us globally. Then on transmission, as we've communicated before, we're seeing the normalizing of the business, the growth of the business after 2 years of extremely high growth.

We should be single-digit positive next year for transmission.

Just on Connect, this Q3 is an exceptional level of organic growth, huh? Remember that what we have as a strategy is to be between the level of +3% to +5%.

That's our commitment overall. When we do have opportunities to grow faster, we take these opportunities, but not at the cost of margin.

Selectivity remains our strategy in the bandwidth of organic growth that we have set and we have explained during the last Capital Markets Day.

Okay. Just perhaps a last question for my side.

Recently, Prysmian announced a new acquisition in the US with Encore, and they mentioned the fact that they are more positioned more global solutions, not only cable. What do you think, and do you have the same strategy to be a more global supplier, not only on the cable?

You mentioned for sure the growth expected for the accessories, but do you expect a more also solutions strategy as mentioned by Prysmian?

Our strategy for acquisitions, we got three levels. The first one is acquisition into geographies where we do see let's say dynamic in term of vertical, in term of market, and typically North America is one of this focus for acquisition in this first play of our acquisition.

Second play is really to reinforce our position into country where we're already present to have industrial synergies, procurement synergies, but also synergies in the markets. The third one is what we call adjacent to cable, this is accessories, but we are also open to other type of products.

The action you just mentioned could reflect the third play of our strategy. Today, we like the accessories business because we do know the margin, we do know the level of the percentage of EBITDA.

We will not go for adjacent to cable where they low margin, typically metal parts, because we have seen that sometimes this margin could be lower. We will remain selective in the adjacent to cable part, but it's part of the plan number three.

Perfect. Very clear.

Thank you, Julien and Vincent.

Thank you, Jean-Francois.

Hi. Good morning, everyone.

Thank you very much for taking my question. My first questions on the transmission side.

You announced a new interconnection project today for the Menorca and Mallorca project. Would you be able to perhaps comment what is the size of the project, and also what are the tendering lines that you have in the coming months for transmission?

That's my first one. Thank you.

I will start. Indeed, we are pleased to announce today the preferred bidder for this project.

It's a customer we know very well. We had in the past some good projects with this customer.

It's a small- to medium-sized project for us in term of size, we don't display the numbers, but we qualify it as small to medium. It's a HVAC project and we will be able to really work on it, engineering first, but also manufacturing second phase, by mid-year 2027.

That's why and this is how we will proceed. Regarding the pipeline of project, as 2026 doesn't provide large projects.

Where there's no billion of euro large project in 2026. That will come in 2027, late the second part of 2027, and there will plenty of large projects also to occur in 2028.

The phasing of large billion-euro project will be more second part 2027, 2028. In the meantime, we do participate to tenders to this small-, medium-sized project, and this one we announce today is one of them.

There will be others, but this one is one of them.

That's super clear. Thank you very much.

Just follow-up on that. If the tendering activities will pick up more towards the end of next year, and I think you've said in the slides that your backlog is fully booked until end of 2028, is there any risk of any air pocket in terms of utilization between project that you can take by the end of next year and what you can do in the plant?

No, we do not see any concern or problem. We do have today, when we say we are loaded until 2028, this is in general, because the project, for example, TenneT that we have started and we have announced, LanWin2, will load some of our machines in '29 as well.

Just not all projects will stop in '28. There is already projects which are also using our capacity in '29.

We do flag to the market that we have some part of our capacity available from '29 onwards. We are confident that the amount of pipeline of project coming will be able to fulfill our lines from '29 onwards.

That's super helpful. Thank you very much.

My second question is on the Grid and Connect side. You had obviously a very, very strong Q3.

It sounds like you see that as more of an exceptional quarter due to the seasonality and the larger project. What would you say was a more sort of normal or underlying growth for these two segments in Q3?

Just trying to understand how should we think about the medium terms of growth expectation you have, especially into 2027, where you say both Grid and Connect are following the same trends as this year.

Our commitment remains the one in Capital Markets Day. We want to grow in a selective manner, 3% to 5%.

This is what we've said, and this is the direction we have. Some quarters, specifically this one in Q3, there are some additional projects that we consider as attractive, accretive to margin, important for us to also position the brand of Nexans, work with our key customers, also anticipation, and typically here, I have in mind a large project data center in the US, what is important for us to position ourselves in order to prepare also the business for the wave of data center to come in Europe.

Also there is some very large and very interesting project in solar. We do see the activities in battery storage growing very fast in some parts of the world, specifically Australia.

Looking forward, we are realigning the company to the verticals we consider the most attractive to us. These verticals have let's say a dynamic organic growth to come.

That's why you've seen these numbers in Q3. Overall, I would say long term, '27, '28, we're still committing on 3% to 5% organic growth year-on-year.

That's super helpful. My last one is just a follow-up on your comments earlier that the transmission business should the growth should be positive into next year.

Would you be able to help us like to give us a bit more of a building block of that comments, how much is from the MI deal, how much is from the increase in utilization of the new vessels, and how should we think about, that growth that you mentioned?

I'll take that one. It's a mix of everything, Uma.

That business drives its revenues from its manufacturing, from its installation campaigns with the boats, from the timing of the execution of the backlog depending on each project and how they fall into the calendar. It's a mix of everything, unfortunately, and I can't really give you the specific details.

All three factors, building on the back of the 2 years of significant capacity expansion overall for the business, lead us to guide you to something that will be single-digit positive next year.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, it's actually Daniela here. Good morning.

Just wanted to ask two things, but the first one, I think originally you have mentioned in prior calls earlier in the year, then some of your peers as well, that expected another cycle of large tenders in transmission to maybe come in '27 and '28. I was wondering if on the back of the recent changes in Germany where seem to be prioritizing now overhead lines instead of underground cables for the next set of awards, if anything changes in your view in terms of that likelihood that we will get another big tendering season in '27, '28, and how do you see the size of the market in high voltage going forward?

It's my first question, then I'll ask a follow-up.

Specifically for the case of Germany, we do have good discussion with customers in Germany for land high voltage and underground high voltage, huh? We do not see a massive change from land high voltage, grounded high voltage, to OHL.

We do see that in the land high voltage, there're still an intensive discussion about the volumes for the years to come. That's not a concern for us.

We do also see that in this activity of large project in transmission, there are also let's say new market coming up, and typically what we do see in the US, exactly the opposite. It used to be a market very much overhead line-oriented.

That they start now to progressively move to underground high-voltage project as well. No concern about that.

We expect a reacceleration of large orders in high voltage next year?

Yes. As I said, and there are public information, you know that there will be some large project in Germany is one of them, but also in France.

There is some MI large project to also start in Italy. There is a project between Morocco to France.

There is plenty of large project to come. As I said, I believe it will be more in second half of 2027 and 2028, but we do see the pipeline of large project to come.

Got it. Then just a follow-up in terms of there's so much news flow constantly on the GSI, and I think there's been news flow about the seabed survey potentially starting the end of this month.

I think yesterday there were talks about a €25 million payment potentially. Wondering how this relates to you?

Would you start to receive cash from them again once the seabed survey restarts, or what implications would that have for you in terms if that actively happens on profit recognition and utilization?

Regarding GSI, I want to be very careful about that because I don't wants to repeat the problem that we faced, if you remember, a year ago or by 2025. I will be very careful.

Today, there are ongoing discussion on the political side, diplomatic side, and I will let these politics to work on it. When it will be time for Nexans to position and to communicate, we will communicate.

At this moment, discussion is at political and diplomatic level.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, guys.

Thanks for taking the question. Could I maybe look at the grid outlook and the capacity growth that you spoke on today, and as you know and you said, industrial capacity worldwide is very strong, looking to add capacity organically here.

Can you speak through how material the Morocco expansion is looking next year and maybe even, is it a 2-year ramp, does it also impact 2028? Then could you also speak to obviously the €62 million for accessories, how much we should sort of be seeing in terms of what that can mean for volume growth into the next 2 years?

That'd be super helpful. Thank you.

Okay. Sorry, the line was not that easy to understand, but basically, if I understand correctly, your question is about the consequences of the additional CapEx for both Grid and accessories.

What I could say, Chris, on this is what I said is '25 to '28 is a 40%+ additional capacity, 39% for accessories. That will trigger year after years.

You've seen the impact, the positive impact it has on Q3. The additional volume we could generate both in Grid and accessories is a combination of additional capacity and we have some of our capacity to come in 2027.

That's why in one of the first slides of the presentation, I highlighted Safi, Morocco, plant to start to produce from mid-year 2027 progressively. There will be 4 CV lines, there will be 2 to start in 2027, then the rest will come late in 2027.

That's will be a progressive ramp-up. This is a greenfield, so that it will ramp up, but it will have a full impact on 2028.

For the specifically accessories, we have started in '26 to today to increase our capacity in our European plants, specifically in Belgium. That's why we're able to continue to have a double-digit growth in 20 in 2026.

The main volume increase for accessories will be some part in '27, the big part will be in 2028. That's the best I can tell you in terms of how we will split and how we will benefit from this additional capacity.

Thank you, and sorry if the line wasn't clear, hopefully, it's a bit clearer now. Also to a follow-up on the Connect business and what you were speaking to earlier in terms of the organic growth and how data centers have contributed here.

Maybe there was a one-off big hyperscaler contract, but could you also just drill into that US geography and whether or not Republic Wire has yet seen any sort of step-up in their exposure in data centers that would land in the Connect business, and if not, do you expect that then to come in Q4? Could you speak to how they're doing in that US geography transitioning more towards data center customers for Republic, which I think were underexposed previously?

Thank you.

We have a very strong integration team for Republic. We have weekly reviews, we have 10 work streams, we have a real strong team, a strong dynamic also from the Republic management team really embarked in this.

We have also a strong sales agent network that are eager to sell not only Republic, but other type of products. That drives extremely the synergies and we're very satisfied with the first 4 months of this activities.

Specifically about data centers, so that was one of our let's say ambition is to transform progressively this business from a more I would say residential, industrial, and commercial focus to progressively to more data centers. This is what is happening today.

With this business, with this sales network, we are now in the quoting phase of allocating some of capacity, and we have additional capacity of Republic to the data center. We did have already some gains in Q3, but the majority will really come in Q4 and in 2027, because it needs to adapt some manufacturing capacity, capabilities towards data centers, towards the type of product portfolio that are needed and expected in data centers.

That will have some impact, positive impact in Q4, but I would say the real synergies relating data center from Republic will happen in 2027.

It's really helpful. Thank you for the color.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you, Chris.

morning. Thanks for taking my question.

I got three if I may. The first one, could you remind us your exposure to France today and how do you see your businesses in that country, what kind of risk do you see for Nexans in France?

A second question, you mentioned some signs of recovery in Europe for Connect, and you already mentioned Finland and Norway, but I don't know, is there any region worth mentioning beyond these two countries? A last question on data center, I was wondering whether superconductivity cables could be a good solution for data center, especially in the future with very high-density data center.

Could it be a good opportunity for you?

Okay. First question regarding France, exposure to Nexans, it's below 10%, more or less, of our total sales.

Very confident about the business. That for the grid parts, we have a long-term, 7-years frame agreement with Enedis for the grid parts, with a strong, let's say, committed increase from our customers.

We are currently finishing Bourg-en-Bresse additional capacity extension for the grid part, no concern at all. Regarding the Connect part, there are plenty of project in the healthcare, in industrial application, but as well in data center.

There's a strong pipeline of hyperscale, some of them are public, the Cloudscene and so on. We do not see any impact of France volume today.

The business is growing. It's the same for us.

I'm sure you will see some of our peers in this market, no concern about that. The recovery of Connect in Europe, I mentioned the Nordics, which is for me half-half, and indeed Finland, Norway improving, Sweden still not.

The rest of the European countries is relatively the same as what I said late July. France, the southern countries in Europe, France, Spain, Italy, has recovered, we do see that happening.

We do not see a major change in this market configuration. We do not see specific risk on that.

Then your third question regarding superconductivity for data center, this is a very good question, and this is a very good focus for us. The more we talk with customers exposed to data centers, the more we see attractions.

As Nexans has 20 years of experience in superconductivity, initially in other segments like grid applications in the US, both in US and in Europe. We have allocated R&D team to this project because we really do see opportunities for this new technology.

Customer in data center are customer which are ready to pay for this technology. This is what we're doing today, it will not have an impact in Q4, huh?

It's a medium-, long-term technology, but extremely positive with the key players of the data center world.

Thank you very much. Okay.

Thank you. Thanks.

Hello, everybody, and thank you for taking my questions. The first one actually is still on Connect.

You had a very strong growth in the third quarter, +10%. Last year, in the fourth quarter, you had a very strong acceleration, +10% roughly speaking.

Just if you can elaborate a little bit more which are your expectation for organic growth for Connect in the fourth quarter, considering this tougher comparison, but also the messages that you are providing on improving trends in Europe. This is my first question.

My second question is instead about M&A contribution. You had close to €140 million of sales in the third quarter from M&A in the Connect.

Just wondering if we need to assume some seasonality or some elements just to plot, to estimate M&A contribution for the last quarter of the year. Thank you.

Your first question regarding the organic growth of Connect, I think different way to answer to this question. First one is the reason that we have reduced our exposure to more traditional construction, residential activities to reallocate our sales force, our marketing offers, our advanced service to verticals we believe are strategic for us, typically solar activities, typically battery storage, critical building for fire safety, but as well data centers, is one of the reason why we have this type of growth in Connect.

In this verticals, it's also mainly driven by large project. That's why you have seen this 10% organic growth in Q3.

We do have other project in Q4, but we don't see at the same level of amplitude at this moment for Connect. Normally, there is not such a seasonality effect in Connect.

Seasonality is much more in the Grid part. The more we reallocate our business, the more we will also drive to large projects in the Connect in this four four strategic segments.

Keep in mind that Connect is a contrasting segment. The dynamic in the markets from around Mediterranean to South America to North America or to Europe, countries are very different, huh?

It's for us, how do we allocate capacity, how do we let's say develop have a push of our marketing offers to the right segment, that will drive the growth. Some markets remain, let's say, still in our 3% to 5% bandwidth of Capital Markets Day expectation.

M&A contribution for Republic, you've seen the numbers. Vincent has said the numbers, just to give you a little bit the insight about how that, let's say, took part in the Q3 numbers.

We do not see such a seasonality element in the US in Connect business. This is more a regular flow business.

Today, we do not see that much of, let's say, seasonality element.

Okay. Thank you.

My final question is about, sorry to ask you again on GSI, but just to have an overall picture. You are with the new coming project in Mediterranean to fully load the MI line until 2028.

Just to understand, if things for the GSI are recovering, I don't know when, basically GSI could restart to contribute starting from 2028, 2029, just to understand given your capacity allocation to MI technology? Thank you.

Okay. First message regarding the MI technology that we have de-risked the GSI project, because we are on the way and we respect the customer administrative process to start production of this new MI project by end of the year.

That will load our plant until mid of 2028. Then that give us time for two things.

One is to keep working with other project on MI that are under preparations in the Mediterranean Sea to let's say load the plant after 20 mid-2028, because there are several project under discussion. Or give us the time for the GSI, if the GSI will restart, to first do this survey bed, because there's several months of survey plus re-engineering plus financing of the project in order to restart the project by '28.

I think what matters the most is that we have de-risked this project of MI. With GSI or without, that will not change the picture of our financial projection by 2028, and we have now two options.

On the MI, things are at the diplomatic discussion, but we are also in parallel to this working on other alternatives in case.

Okay. Pretty clear.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

No more questions?

Okay. Very very good.

Thank you all for your question and for attending this webcast today. As we enter the final quarter of the year, our priority remains very clear: execution our backlog with discipline, ramping up our new industrial capacity, and capturing the full potential of our recent acquisitions.

We remain focused on delivering our '26 objective and preparing Nexans for its next phase of development. Thank you all for joining us today.

Thank you.

Thank you.