Tecnicas Reunidas SA

Tecnicas Reunidas SA

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Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 14, 2026

Antonio Alonso-Muñoyerro

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to TR's first-quarter results presentation of the year. It's going to be conducted and led by our Chairman, Juan Lladó, and our CEO, Eduardo San Miguel.

It's going to last about 20-25 minutes approximately, and you will be able to pose your questions after the final remarks. Now, I leave the floor to our Chairman, Juan Lladó.

Juan Lladó

Thank you very much. Thank you, Antonio.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As you can see in this slide, we have structured our presentation in a bit complex, but I think very understandable.

First, I will start giving you, as always, a glance of the key highlights of our performance this first quarter. Afterwards, Eduardo will step in explaining the ongoing Middle East situation and how TR is managing it.

He will first drive you through the very short-term commercial outlook and the very relevant expected awards. Then he will explain the disruptions suffered in some projects that are under execution in this area and how they're being managed.

To finalize this second section, I will come back to give you what we see the mid-term opportunities that we consider this current situation will bring to the sector and to TR. As always, Eduardo will go through the financial section of the quarter, and finally, I will give you the final remarks before the Q&A.

Eduardo? I don't know, it's my turn, thanks.

I thought I had finished, no. Let me start with the key highlights, which is quite important, of the quarter.

If you look at this slide, this first quarter has demonstrated a TR solid business performance. Solid business performance reflected in the growth of revenue, cash generation, and underlying EBIT.

Sales reached €1.6 billion, which implies a 21% growth versus 1 year ago. The net cash figure has significantly improved up to €360 million, or better said, a solid €112 million cash generation compared with the first quarter of 2025.

This level of sales and cash responds to the underlying EBIT. We have a strong underlying EBIT, which reflects TR's performance with a number of €76 million, implying a 36% growth year-on-year.

On the other hand, we have to be, and we are being, prudent and realistic. Our execution performance has been delivered in a context of disruption of some projects in the Middle East.

Disruptions and impacts that we have estimated in €45 million, for which we have decided to make a provision in our accounts. Again, we have to be prudent and realistic.

In this sense, after such provision taking, the first-quarter EBIT stays at €31 million. Our strong performance is also reflected in the very relevant awards expected in the very short term, and Eduardo will just bring some color to these awards, which will confirm our full confidence that we have in the short- and mid-term outlook.

Confidence and fully aligned with our strategic plan. Eduardo, your turn.

Eduardo San Miguel

Thank you, Juan, and good morning, everyone. Before proceeding to this Middle East conflict section, let me first express our solidarity and firm support to all our clients, subcontractors, and suppliers in the region.

In the actual circumstances, they all are not only our business partners, but also our friends. This section will cover both the impacts and the opportunities the conflict is generating in the Gulf countries.

Moreover, how the reshaping of the energy landscape that this conflict is likely to trigger helps to create opportunities for TR across multiple geographies. We have three topics to speak about: opportunities, project disruptions, and global impacts and opportunities.

Let's start with the positive. Let's start with the short-term opportunities.

Middle East was, is, and will be our main market. The commercial activity in the region remains solid and strong, since there is not a glimpse of doubt from our clients to continue, as planned, with their upcoming developments.

If we go to the figures, our commercial pipeline in the region is close to €40 billion, out of which we are expecting in the very short term awards in the range of €4 to €8 billion. Four to eight.

As you can understand, I cannot provide today further disclosure than what you see in the slide. We are talking about three projects in three different countries: one is an oil field project, another one is an offshore development, and the third one is a power generation facility.

These three projects, and that's very, very important, we expect will be awarded most likely before June 30th. We're talking in the forthcoming 45 days.

You may say, and you're right, the range of €4 to €8 billion is a bit too wide, but let me translate that range into words. Anything below four would be fully unexpected, and we have a very high chance of being awarded around six.

Eight billion is the perfect scenario and cannot be disregarded. Also, as you can imagine, the current conflict has tightened our relationships with our clients more than ever.

We do not only keep executing our ongoing projects strictly in coordination with them, but also we are assisting and analyzing how to restart damaged facilities. Our clients in the Middle East are strong and reliable, and the message we have received from them is clear: we want you to complete existing projects as fast as possible and to launch together a massive volume of new investments.

Let's now move to the second topic: impact in the existing projects. It is a fact that two-thirds of our current backlog is in the Middle East, and somehow all the projects in the region are being affected.

It is a fact, as well, that only a limited number of projects, and I would say just four, which are deep inside the construction phase, are significantly impacted. The amount of these four projects in our backlog is around €1.5 billion.

Main impacts, obviously, have to do with safety, logistics, and site disruptions. First, safety.

We have impacts because our own workforce in the area is close to 4,000 people, and we have implemented all available measures to protect them. Second, logistics.

Impacts come because the closure of Hormuz has blocked the arrival of equipment and bulk material and has forced us to divert the transportation to alternative routes, when possible. As of today, 1,061 shipments have already or are about to be affected, and some equipment which impacts in the critical path of the construction is not in the sites.

Third, disruptions on sites. Because the difficulties to mobilize large construction teams, to make them work efficiently under this scenario, and the delay of arrival of equipment and bulk have slowed down the rhythm of execution.

Since the conflict started, clients have been collaborative and supportive. Above all, they have insisted in the need to accelerate the execution in the future to minimize the schedule impact.

Although the conflict is not over yet, we are analyzing, together with clients, how to accelerate. I wish to remind you now this kind of acceleration plans are not so unusual, and they were widely implemented by TR last year in the region.

We have to be prudent. We have to be prudent, and we have analyzed the potential final impact of the conflict in the four projects affected.

Assuming hostilities will not resume and the strait is open within this second quarter, before June, before the end of June, we estimate the global impact will be in the range of €40 to €50 million, and we have booked a one-shot provision of €45 million in our first-quarter accounts. Now Juan will analyze how the project is giving us new opportunities for all around the world.

Juan Lladó

This current situation in the Middle East is, somehow, well, in fact, it's accelerating all the structural trends in the energy sector, in our sector. Accelerating some of the investments planned in some of the regions.

I'm going to focus on three, on three areas of business, on three and three and regions. I'm going to focus on America, Power, and Europe.

America, which you will see there are opportunities that they have to accelerate their oil and gas, LNG, power, and midstream. Everything has to be accelerated, and they're doing so.

Power, as there is a compulsory need for electrification. Europe, because Europe more than ever is focused to reduce energy dependency, sustainability of fuels, focus on electrification, and obviously focus on decarbonization.

Let's start with America. This is one of the more visible trends of pipeline.

We're seeing new opportunities in multiple countries, including Canada, the United States, Panama, Venezuela, and Argentina. All of this translates into a very significant pipeline of about €36 billion only in that region.

We focus in the United States, I think it's important to note that we just landed only 2 years ago, and today we're facing extremely important pipeline. In the United States, we have something to offer.

Talking about the United States, let me give you some more details for North America, which is, again, clearly becoming one of the most strategic and with growth opportunity regions for Técnicas Reunidas. Let me start from the top.

Working on a FEED awarded for a gas terminal and transportation facilities, cannot disclose the customer, we're not allowed, but I can tell you that is a Tier 1 operator in the US. It's a midstream operator.

What's extremely relevant in that client that he has subsequently awarded further phases in this huge development to TR. Today, we're working on Phase 4, and we're doing additions to that Phase 4, working very hard on that Phase 4, which is a reflection of the quality of TR capacity on delivery.

We do have something to offer. The second one, the second job, is a cost-plus link that we are already on Phase 2.

When we started with them, we were not even on Phase 1, we were being tested. This is another very clear example.

This is the LNG Canada job that we have to support them in transporting the gas from the Alberta to the Pacific. It's again another very clear example on how our service-driven strategy is paying off and how TR has acknowledged the client's philosophy to execute on a stage-by-stage basis.

We're being successful, and we're ready to move from Phase 2 to Phase 3 and support our customer. We're doing it well.

Finally, the Coastal Bend LNG phase development, which was awarded to the joint venture of KBR and TR, which places TR as a front-runner again on the LNG investments. In conclusions, these three projects illustrate very clear that we have the quality to offer our clients, and we are reaffirming their confidence in TR by progressively awarding all the subsequent phases of their investment plans.

It's a successful story, and you have to remember that we only landed 2 years ago. There is opportunity of growth.

If we quantify, we have to put into numbers, what is the final investment of our stake in these jobs, it doesn't mean that it's going to be EPC, it could be cost-plus, it could be EPCm, it could be lump sum in some parts, the value to be awarded to TR across all this is the project raises up to €7.7 billion. This is for the America, and this is for the US.

Now let's move into Power. Artificial intelligence is emerging, and everybody knows is a dominant driver of future demand and electrification trends.

We're there. We've announced a spin-off.

That spin-off, some people got confused. In the spin-off, it means focus.

Focus and resources to capture this market that is growing. Which this AI dominant driver translates into new power generation capacity, which needs a reliable power supply.

It could come out of many sources, but one of them has to be reliable, and that will be combined cycles. This trend is clearly visible on a €27 billion pipeline in only this segment.

Today, we're better than ever positioned in this sector. If we take a closer look of this €27 billion figure, which I think it's important to break it down because it's a big number, we see a very diversified pipeline.

In North America clearly stands out. Artificial intelligence, they want to take the lead, and they are going to take the lead, accounts for more than €15 billion of upcoming investments.

For instance, in Canada, we expect to be awarded the third quarter of the year a combined cycle projected with a carbon capture feature for our stake, €400 million. Second, we have Europe, that we have identified around €4 billion of new opportunities.

Those are mainly linked to electrification and energy transition projects, where we're moving forward very fast. Just as an example, all the combined cycles for RWE in Germany, which are expected to materialize as EPC progressively from the second half of 2026 onwards.

This is a market, and this is a region, Power, that we were not there before. Again, it's a growth message.

In the Middle East also remains a very important contributor to this Power business, with around €7 billion of opportunities. As Eduardo has explained before, we're tracking a large combined cycle in the United Arab Emirates of around €1.5 billion, whose financial investment decision is expected to take place very soon.

Finally, let's consider our opportunities in Europe. As we're seeing, there is a clear push for both government and industrial players to reduce dependency on external energy sources and to move towards a more secure and sustainable energy system.

In this context, electrification is playing a key role. It allows countries to shift energy consumption to a more controllable and domestically sourced solution while supporting decarbonization.

This is Europe. This Europe is creating a significant number of opportunities for this industry, and very particularly in projects linked to power generation and energy infrastructure.

We've talked about that before in the Power section. At the same time, we are seeing very concrete development in very specific industrial sectors.

Besides the projects that we already talked of RWE in the Power business, we're working, and we have been working for a while, but now we're really launching the job for ArcelorMittal on the decarbonization in the steel sector, a one very specifically. In the next slide, I will further explain this very important milestone and very important award, which I think we have announced yesterday or the day before.

It's also important to say that we're working, and we expect investment decisions very soon, in Spain on sustainable fuels, and SAF and e-methanol. All of them have increased the probability, and today's turbulence in the Middle East is increasing the probability to reach final and full financial investment decision soon, very soon.

I think it's important to spend just a little time, because there's been rumors, we talked about, people didn't know very well where we were. We've always said we were very well positioned, and we wanted to position ourselves in Europe and in the world using our technology, our engineering capacity to transform and to support our customers in the steel industry to decarbonize.

We have been working with them, and very specifically in this case with ArcelorMittal in this business. We've announced 2 days ago that we are being awarded the EPCm for the decarbonization of a steel facility, a very important steel facility in Dunkirk, France.

This project includes a new 2-million-tonne electric arc furnace with all the associated facilities, which enables production to be reduced three times with a CO2 three times lower compared with the traditional process. This is a very extremely important award for TR.

We're very keen to start. We've been working with the customer, and we're proud of having been working with the customer for the last, close to 2 years, finding ways how to improve and deliver this very important investment.

It confirms our company's role as a key player in this industry, and it's fully aligned with the strategic plan that we have announced to the market in several occasions that we have to promote our service contracts and our decarbonization activity. This is it.

At the bottom line, is clear to conclude that the current conflict is going to reshape, is already reshaping, the energy investment strategy in many regions. Therefore, high investments are for sure going to take place in all major players on the oil and gas and power sector.

If I have to say anything, today TR is best positioned to capture this growth. Now it's Eduardo's turn for

Eduardo San Miguel

our financial figures.

Juan Lladó

For

Eduardo San Miguel

financial figures. As both Juan and me have said before, we have booked a €45 million provision to cover what we expect will be the total impact of the Middle East conflict, assuming the Hormuz Strait opens this quarter.

This provision reduces the EBIT of the quarter to €31 million. I don't want to miss the focus on our performance, our revenues, underlying EBIT without the provision, cash, and equity have improved again.

Quarter after quarter, throughout the last 4 years, we are beating the figures we delivered the year before. As you can see, revenues are 21% higher than a year ago, and the underlying EBIT improves 32%.

What is absolutely relevant to me is our sales and our underlying EBIT are absolutely aligned with the guidance we provided to the market. That's why this quarter, our EBIT margin is already at 4.8%, very, very close to the 5% we forecasted for the whole year 2026.

The cash and the equity figures reflect the good health of the company. We have our highest-ever equity, amounting €591 million, and the net cash is solidly above the €300 million where we have fixed a threshold below which we don't want to be.

It's a fact we are facing an extraordinary event: the conflict in the Middle East. We have tried to encapsulate and evaluate all the consequences of this conflict in a provision that has already been booked in full in our accounts.

We are still delivering a €16 million net profit in the quarter, while improving our cash and equity. I don't want to look naive, and I also want to stay humble, but and I cannot be happier with the figures we deliver.

The performance of the company has been solid, and will go on being solid this year and the forthcoming years. Maybe, Juan, final remarks?

Juan Lladó

Let me go with final remarks. Just 1 second for you to look into this slide, because this is not a message of justification on provisions or anything else.

It's a message of growth. It's a message of growth because we have performed on revenue, cash, and underlying EBIT.

It's a message of growth because we have been able to best manage Middle East disruption. Managing Middle East disruption has given us an opportunity.

That opportunity has been of working together with our best customers, with the customers with whom we want to be in the short-, medium-, and long-term future. We have strengthened our customers' relationship with our partners and our friends.

This allows us and positions ourselves extremely well to capture the very short-term and mid-term opportunities. If you look into our metrics, today we're stronger than ever.

With that message, thank you very much for listening to us, and now we're ready to take any questions you want to pose.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad.

First question comes from Mick Pickup from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Mick Pickup

Good morning, everybody. Nice to see business going well.

Couple of questions, if I may. First, on the outlook for new awards.

If I'm correct, you're saying €4 to €8 billion in the Middle East, and then possibly another couple of billion elsewhere later on in the year. Is that correct?

The follow-up on that is, how do you price Middle East contracts today? €4 to €8 billion is a big, big number, and there's clearly some uncertainties around.

Mick,

Eduardo San Miguel

if you don't mind, I prefer to start with the second one because the first one is simple to answer. I cannot disclose today what is my strategy with my clients pricing projects, we have to be careful with the answer to this question.

I want to tell you something, and that's so relevant. The impacts of the conflict are today.

When you launch a project, you take at least 1 year to develop the engineering of the project, and then you start procuring the equipment. Very few things happen in the sites of construction until at least 15 to 18 months have passed.

Do not be afraid if we are properly pricing the potential impacts of the war in the new projects, because being very honest, those impacts are going to be extremely limited. As you can imagine, we have good margins, aligned with the margins we were expecting a few months ago, before the conflict started, and we have good cushions, contingencies.

We are doing things in the right way as what we were doing months ago. We're still quite comfortable with the pricing of the projects, and we still believe these expected margins we are announcing for the future are well secured even in the actual scenario.

Regarding the first question, €4 to €8 billion, yes, that's my estimation. Four is very clear, six is quite solid, and eight is the best scenario.

Also, we have opportunities outside the Middle East. If everything goes right and everything is perfect, we could be beating, yeah, our expectations, our guidance at the very beginning of the year, or what we were finishing the year before, but let's wait.

I don't want to be aggressive today telling you that we are going to have an extraordinary year in terms of awards, although we believe that the market opportunities are increasing, and we have a good chance of having an extraordinary good year in terms of awards.

Mick Pickup

Can I just follow up on a second question then on your guidance? You've obviously taken a €45 million provision.

You're telling me that four of the Middle East projects have logistic challenges which are, let's say, more critical to them. How come revenue guidance is still at €6.5 billion if four projects are likely to face some form of delay?

How do you keep up with those milestones and percentage of completions?

Eduardo San Miguel

You're right. First, we follow the projects on a daily basis.

We're very close to the clients, analyzing how to recover and how to accelerate the projects. By the year end, we expect to be able to recover the rhythm of execution, to accelerate, and to be not that far from the original expectation of €6.5 billion.

That's my first answer. Probably the second answer is I had some room when I give you my guidance at the very beginning of the year, and potentially revenues could be above this 6.5.

Now I do really believe that's very tight. We will be doing 6.5, but I have not any cushion.

Mick Pickup

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Ignacio Domènech from JB Capital. Please go ahead.

Ignacio Doménech

Hello. Thank you for taking my questions.

I have three. The first one is related with the €45 million provision you have booked in the quarter.

If you could give us the assumptions, okay, that behind this provision. I believe you've mentioned that you expect, or you assume, in this provision that the strait would open this quarter, but just wanted to you could provide some more detail, no, on the projects that have been affected, and more importantly, what mechanisms you have in place in order to in the future, okay, to negotiate with the clients to offset, no, potentially this impact.

That's my first question.

Eduardo San Miguel

Hi, Ignacio. Thanks for the question.

Sorry, again you are posing very complicated questions to me, not because I have not the answer, but because you are asking me to show you my strategy with my clients. If I tell you today I have booked assuming that I'm going to recover 60% of the amount, I'm telling my clients that I am willing to accept a reduction of my rights in 40%, I cannot enter into such a level of details.

As I told you, the main assumptions basically are yes, Strait of Hormuz open in June, no resume of hostilities. What is clear for us is what we have defined, which is the final expected cost of this conflict.

I'm not talking about incurred cost, I'm also talking about what we expect to happen since June and onwards, because a few impacts still will come due to the closure of the strait this period. We know, give or take, how our clients will react: first, because we're talking to them, as I told you, in a daily basis, but also because we have a track record negotiating with them recovery plans, acceleration plans, we know how they behave.

The net value of all those impacts less the money we do really believe we are going to recover from the clients is around this €40 to €50 million, this €45 million provision. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you anything else.

I think you were asking about the contract. I think we have a good potential for protection in the contract.

For sure we are protected in terms of extension of time, for sure, and we also believe that there are room for obtaining significant amount of money to be recovered from the extra cost incurred.

Ignacio Doménech

Very clear. My second question, we've seen, no, how consultants have done some estimates, no, on the rebuild capex in the Middle East.

I was wondering if you expect higher works, no, or rebuild capex from some of the infrastructure that has been damaged. I think this also bodes well with my third question, which is related with the high level of awards that you are expecting, okay, in the event, no, that you have a strong pickup or acceleration of activity in 2027.

I was wondering if you have enough capacity, okay, to accelerate materially that level of activity. Thank you.

Juan Lladó

Hi, Ignacio. This is Juan.

I'm going to answer these questions. We don't like to talk, and I think we should not talk, about damaged facilities, expected capex, and expected opportunity.

I think, it's not a question we don't like to answer because, in fact, it's not a real question. There's no such a big damage, and the opportunity is not to rebuild what has been damaged.

The opportunity is the relationship that we have created these weeks with our customer in working at a fantastic pace in extremely disrupted situation. Opportunity are the awards and the continuity on the awards, on the investments that our customers in the region are even accelerating.

That's the real opportunity, is not to rebuild or fix damages. That's obviously something that when we are asked to do, which is in addition to that, we'll support them.

We don't see that as an opportunity. Our opportunity is relationship that we have built and the investments that in that region with our customers are taking place.

If you're asking us about capacity, the answer is very simple: yes, we do have the capacity. We probably one of the companies in the region best placed, and with more capacity and more experience, to take and to undertake the investments, the new investments that we already bidding and that we already negotiating.

Ignacio Doménech

Thank you. Thank you very much, Juan.

Operator

The next question comes from Juan Cánovas from Alantra. Please go ahead.

Juan Cánovas

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.

I have two. The first one is regards to Power business.

You've highlighted significant opportunities in terms of pipeline, but normally those projects require substantial capital. I was wondering what your plans are with your TR Power unit, whether you are planning to open it to external capital, be in the form of an IPO or maybe taking in a partner.

The second question regards to working capital dynamics. I wonder whether you could explain to us how working capital has held up so well, even in these circumstances in the Middle East, where you seem to have suffered very little.

Notwithstanding, you have got very few new orders. I don't know whether you can shed some light into that.

Thank you.

Eduardo San Miguel

Hi, Juan. Eduardo.

Let me start with the second question because I think I need to say that. I have to express the gratitude of Técnicas Reunidas to all the clients in the Middle East.

You cannot imagine how they are paying, how they are attending their obligations. It's unbelievable.

How is going to evolve the working capital? If everything goes as of today, I can tell you no problems at all.

Everything would be very smooth this year, and you will see, I'm not only talking about working capital, I will talk about pure net cash figure, you will see a clear improve for the future throughout the years because the new projects that are coming will bring relevant down payments and good payment conditions. That's regarding the working capital.

Regarding the Power business, we invest nothing at all. We just construct the plant.

Investment is done by someone else. When we talk about specific projects, all of them are projects that already have the money available.

The investment has already been decided and money is available, no reason to be concerned. This year, we expect good news in Middle East, good news in America, hopefully somewhere else, but for the time being, yeah, let's focus on those two projects.

If any problem may arise, has nothing to do with availability of capital. I don't expect any problem, but nothing to do with capital.

Juan Cánovas

No, sorry, I was not asking in a way that would be problematic. I was referring to the bonding requirements, which normally require a level of equity that you might not have in that subsidiary.

Oh,

Eduardo San Miguel

yeah, yeah. That's a complicated question.

No, you're right. It will take a couple of years to fully decouple TR Power from TR Group.

In the meantime, it's obvious that we will be supporting them and we'll providing them bonds, if needed. If needed, I'm not sure they will need it, but if they need it, we will be there.

You're right, yeah, no, the question is a sensible one. I understand it now.

Juan Cánovas

Thank you so much.

Operator

The next question comes from Filipe Leite from CaixaBank. Please go ahead.

Filipe Leite

Yes, hi. Good morning, everyone.

I have two quick questions. First one regarding Teesside, and if you have any novelty or when should we expect a final decision?

Last one on Power business, if you can give us the contribution of this unit to the quarterly results, namely top line and EBIT margin? Thank you.

Eduardo San Miguel

Filipe, hello. Thanks for the question.

Teesside, no news, and the only news we have is probably we will have a final ruling from the arbitrator maybe July. That's the best scenario.

We are not yet disclosing the figures of the Power business. From next quarter, you will have each figure available.

Okay?

Operator

There are no further questions. Please continue.

Eduardo San Miguel

Okay. Thank you very much for attending this session.

I do believe that we'll talk to each other on the next quarter presentation, which I think will be the end of July. I'm not sure exactly which date, but towards the end of July we'll have the first half of the year full results presentation.

Thank you very much again, and looking forward talking to you in just a few months. Thanks a lot.