Cadeler Q3 2025 Earnings Call - EUR 2.8bn backlog, 2027 fully booked as company pivots to full-scope foundation T&I

Unknown, Moderator/IR, Cadeler: Good morning, and welcome to Cadeler’s third quarter 2025 earnings presentation. Presenting today are Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, and Peter Brogaard Hansen, Chief Financial Officer. Please be reminded that presenters’ remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated. The risks and uncertainties that could cause Cadeler’s results to differ materially from today’s forward-looking statements include those detailed in Cadeler’s annual report on Form 20-F on file with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements made this morning are based on assumptions as of today, and Cadeler undertakes no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. This morning’s presentation includes both IFRS and certain non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of non-IFRS financial measures to the nearest IFRS equivalent is provided in Cadeler’s annual report.

The annual report and today’s earnings presentation are available on Cadeler’s website at cadeler.com/investor. We ask that you please hold all questions until the completion of the formal remarks, at which time you will be given instructions for the question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. Mikkel Gleerup, you may begin.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Thank you very much, and thank you to everyone dialing in to listen to our presentation this morning/afternoon. I will ask everybody to read through the disclaimer in the presentation. Annual report 2025, and first taking you through the highlights of 2025. Financial performance in Cadeler in 2025 were above our expectations. We ended at the top end of the range that we guided last year, ending the year with a robust contract backlog of EUR 2.8 billion, which really gives us that earnings visibility into the future that we have been discussing with our investors over the course of the last couple of years. We had 4 new builds scheduled for delivery in 2025, and they were all delivered on time and on budget.

We added Wind Keeper to the fleet, to support Nexra and our partners and really this new O&M service platform. We continued exceptional execution with significant project progress made towards the delivering on the Hornsea Three project. Wind Keeper upgrade successfully completed and multiple campaigns supported with vessel swaps. We have had strong utilization with vessels operating across the world in markets as Europe, U.S., and in APAC. Commercial highlights for the financial year 2025. Wind Scylla continued to work in the U.S. on Revolution Wind for Ørsted and have since shifted over to Sunrise Wind. The Wind Orca has been mobilizing for the Hornsea Three project for Ørsted, where she will be executing the secondary steel scope. On Wind Osprey, we have been mobilizing for the EA3 turbine installation, which is a project we do for ScottishPower Renewables.

On Wind Mover, we will shortly be commencing the turbine installation on the Baltic Power project, where she’s taking over from another vessel that we previously had working on that project. The Wind Maker stays in Asia, and as we have announced over the course of the last couple of weeks, will be executing O&M campaigns for clients in Taiwan this year. Wind Pace came back from the U.S. after having supported the Vineyard Wind project and is also now mobilizing for the EA3 turbine installation project for ScottishPower Renewables. Wind Peak will continue to install turbines on the Sofia project for Siemens Gamesa. The Wind Keeper has been delivered to the client on an up to 5.5-year contract and is currently installing on the He Dreiht project for Vestas.

Wind Ally is completing the last phase of the mobilization in Europe in Rotterdam and is preparing to go to the U.K. to start putting in monopiles for us on the Hornsea Three project. The Wind Zaratan project for her, 2026 is a transition year. We have decided to do some upgrades to Wind Zaratan, do some O&M work in Asia, and then take the vessel back to Europe to start working both on O&M but also on support jobs for foundation projects. At a glance, we now stand at 362 office-based employees, more than 800 seafarers.

We have now installed more than 1,700 wind turbines, more than 900 foundations, a number that will go up significantly during this year due to the Hornsea Three project, and also have been working on more than 275 locations for operations and maintenance. All in all, very busy and continuing to grow the business in the industry that is also growing with us. We have been discussing a lot with our investors and other stakeholders in the company the transition to full scope T&I campaigns for the foundation work. We have prepared a few slides to go through where we are now on the Hornsea Three project and where we are as a company on the transition to taking on these full scope T&I campaigns.

The company came from a charter-based, day rate model where we could add services, as requested by the client to now having a more integrated project delivery and construction platform, as we say, it’s a solution-based offering to the clients. We used to have a very compact organization and moderate complexity in the organization, but also in the offerings we were offering to the clients.

Now we are going into a much more complex environment, and really also where the organization has to deliver many different scopes from transport on heavy lift vessels to handling equipment in port, offloading, unloading very large pieces of equipment, storing them safely, Q&A on these products while we have them in our custody for the clients. We came from a utilization-driven model with a higher relative percentage margin to an execution-driven with a higher absolute return and upside model on the T&I scopes. The vessels in the previous model was the primary revenue stream and where we today see vessels as strategic enablers to capture more scope as we take on these bigger projects for our clients.

On Hornsea Three, trying to give you an overview of the timeline for the first full T&I scope that we have embarked on, the project was signed in early 2023, a very busy year for us signing both that project but also working on the merger with Eneti, preparing for taking delivery of the vessel, a lot of supplier scopes, starting to transport monopiles and secondary steel, starting to install monopiles and secondary steel, and then also embarking on installing 50% of the turbines on the project, and then commissioning and closing the project somewhere in 2027. It is a very, very complicated project and something that we go into with a great deal of humility. I think that I’m pleased to say that we are exactly where we want to be. The Wind Ally delivered early.

We were able to mobilize her in China directly from the new build yard and have taken her successfully back to Europe, finalizing mobilization now in Rotterdam before, as I said, starting to put in monopiles in April this year. Hornsea Three really requires a lot of coordination. We are also now experiencing being in the middle of the project, the complexity of the project and all. Asia continues to perform as well. We see new markets opening in Asia as we progress the ongoing markets, which is Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. We see also development now in the Philippines, but also development in Australia, and all in all, we are active where our clients want us to be active, and we are continuing to bid for projects in the region, in a region that I would say is developing as expected.

The U.S. market, it is what it is, and we have discussed it many times before. We don’t see any short-term opportunities in the U.S. market, but we are still executing in the U.S. market. We sent the Wind Pace back to Europe from completion on Vineyard Wind, and we are now installing with the Wind Scylla on the Sunrise Wind project. All in all, we expect to be busy in the U.S. for the years to come, and also we are happy to engage with our clients for new projects in the U.S. region when that time is coming. We still sit on a significant backlog. Our backlog year-over-year has grown.

We are standing at EUR 2.8 billion in backlog, which as I said, really provides the earnings visibility that we would expect, and also what we have communicated to our clients. We have things that also that we are working on here that we have discussed in the market where we are preferred supplier on a foundation project that is not counted in our backlog, and it’s also not sitting in our vessel reservation agreements because it has not reached that stage yet. We still have work that will hit the backlog, and we are sure that in the coming quarters that we will have positive announcements around backlog development. As I said, the backlog stands at EUR 2.8 billion at the moment, and 80% of the total backlog has reached FID.

We have discussed that before, and I think that that’s really a sign of the quality of the backlog, where we know that 80% has already been approved for the final investment decision at the client side, meaning that that project has also reached a contractual milestone that is important for us. As I said, we do have a preferred supplier agreement, a sizeable preferred supplier agreement, and one of the things that we discussed around our Q3 announcement was that we had some projects that in the site that we would like to secure, and one of them is what we have now a preferred supplier agreement on.

It’s for a significant foundation project in Europe, and one of the projects that was important for us for our 2028 campaign, and I’m pleased to say that we have been moving ahead as we expected on that one with our client, and that we are also now in the negotiation with the client to make this preferred supplier agreement into a real contract. On 2027, 2028 that we discussed at length in the Q3 presentation, I’m happy to say that in 2027 we consider ourselves fully booked now.

We are currently working with the yard to potentially deliver the Wind Apex slightly earlier because we have a client that is ready to take the vessel straight from the yard and into a project, meaning that we are with the few white spaces we have left in 2027. We do consider that time that we want to keep available for clients should they run into some sort of supply chain issue and really have built a solid 2027 for ourself. In 2028, we are also much more positive now than we were in Q3 due to the fact that we have secured the preferred supplier agreement on this large-scale foundation project and overall are seeing positive momentum for the 2028 campaign overall. In terms of the progress on the new builds, Wind Ace, we are at 94% completion.

The naming ceremony for the Wind Ace, the official naming ceremony, will be on the fifteenth of April, and we are looking to deliver the vessel on time. On the Wind Apex, as I said, we are at 34% completion, and we are currently discussing with the yard to do up to one month early delivery due to the fact that we have a client who would like to take that vessel straight from the yard and into a project for a sizable project on turbine installation. In terms of the progress from the yard, a few pictures as we always have. I think that I can say that on the COSCO shipyard site, things are progressing as planned.

Not many surprises there, and really pleasing to see that the collaboration we have with COSCO SHIPPING Heavy Industry continues to develop, and we are very, very pleased to work with COSCO SHIPPING Heavy Industry, a quality partner for us and for the development of the company. The fully delivered Cadeler fleet, as it stands today, with an average fleet age of five years, which I believe is a very good number to have, and really also shows that we have been building a young fleet that is ready to take on the positive developments of the future. Now I will hand over to Peter for the financial highlights of 2025.

Peter Brogaard Hansen, Chief Financial Officer, Cadeler: Yeah.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Here you go, Peter.

Peter Brogaard Hansen, Chief Financial Officer, Cadeler: Thank you very much, Mikkel. Yes, the financial highlights for 2025, it was really a strong year for Cadeler from a financial and operational point of view. As Mikkel said, we ended in the high end of the range that we had guided revenue of EUR 620 million as compared to EUR 249 million. Equity ratio is now at 44%. It’s a decrease as compared to last year, but it’s also where we see it bottom out the equity ratio and starts to increase again. Utilization also very high, 88.9% adjusted utilization as compared to 75% last year.

That is the adjustment is where we say, okay, we take out what is planned dry docking and transportation from the yard. We think that is a meaningful number to look at when we get all these new vessels delivered. Market cap EUR 1.8 billion. EBITDA EUR 425 million as compared to EUR 126 million last year. Net profit, important number for the shareholders, of course, EUR 280 million as compared to 65 last year. As Mikkel elaborated on, a backlog of EUR 2.8 billion. Three months daily average turnover EUR 7.1 million on the stock exchanges.

If we first look at the last three months of the year, Q4 2025, very strong quarter. EUR 167 million in revenue. An increase of EUR 82 million compared to Q4 2024. With the adjusted utilization of 87%, cost of sales is of course going up with the delivered vessels. SG&A also is up because of the ramp up that we have talked about at previous releases where we build up the organization to be able to manage these foundation projects with increased complexity.

Finance net isolated for Q4 is EUR 20 million, and that is a shift you see here in Q4 finances because we have capitalized the borrowing cost to a greater extent while we had more vessels on construction. Now that the vessels has been delivered, a bigger part of the finance interest is going to the P&L, and that is something you will see in 2026 as well. Of course, it’s the same cash outflow, but it’s just whether it’s in P&L or it is in CapEx. EBITDA, I think very strong.

EUR 104 million in a quarter where Wind Ally and also Wind Mover were not in operation as such, but in transport to first project. That was Q4. Isolated for the full year, some of the same remarks that we had in Q4 but also what we have seen during the year, it’s fair to say everything has played out exactly to plan. Revenue in the higher end of the guidance. Cost of sales, everything is as according to plan. SG&A, the same. We are very pleased with the financial result for 2025, but also the underlying operation where we have control of the important things. EBITDA, EUR 425 million.

Vessel OpEx per day is EUR 36.3 million. A small increase towards last year, and I think also under control. Headcount onshore averages 307. The consolidated balance sheet, now we have an equity of EUR 1.5 billion. An increase of nearly EUR 300 million as compared to last year. We see the equity ratio of 44%. I think that is something we have all along said that that’s approximately there where we will bottom out. Of course, it’s a natural consequence of taking delivery of the vessels where your assets go up and your liabilities also go up correspondingly.

We still have a CapEx program now on the Wind Ace and the Wind Apex. This is installments to the yard that we show here. We have signed commitment for A-class Wind Ace. We also have an ongoing RCF facility of EUR 148. Together with what we expect to raise of financing on the Wind Apex, we are at EUR 637 of total financing. We are in advanced discussion with Apex and are confident that we’ll be able to sign that during 2026.

As you may recall, it’s delivered in late Q2 2027, so we have really had the goal of signing a facility commitment one year ahead, so we are not paying unnecessary fees and commitment fees and so forth. Interest from banks is strong, so is interest from the ECA, so it will be on similar terms as you have seen on previous transactions. Cash EUR 152. You can see with the A-class payments we have outstanding, there’s still a significant cash surplus. This is the financing overview. You can see here that we have the RCF A and the B.

We have not drawn down fully yet. Since Q3 September, we have signed a holdco financing, second one with HSBC and Clifford Capital, unsecured loan EUR 60 million with an accordion of EUR 80 million. It was made on very similar terms as the original holdco with HSBC and Standard Chartered. With Apex, I have talked to that, but that is progressing according to plans. We are very confident on that financing. There is the outlook for 2026. I think what we guide is in revenue EUR 854-944 and EBITDA EUR 420-510. We have put up the comparison here.

Of course, 2025 includes revenue that you’re supposed to get in 2028 but was postponed, and we got termination fees for that. Of course, that should be adjusted for in the comparison. A very strong outlook for 2026. What is important to understand about the outlook in 2026 is exactly what Mikkel has talked about earlier in the presentation. First of all, it’s a transition year for the fleet. Isolated on 2026, you could argue it is financially a transition year, but it will improve the returns in 2027 and onwards. It’s actually a good year for the fleet and assets and an investment year.

Wind Ally or Wind Ace will be delivered in Q3 2026, but will not go on any contract and have any contractual revenue in 2026, simply because we will sell direct to first projects year two north. You have seen in the past that on some of the wind turbine installation vessels that we can do some work before first project, but it’s simply not possible on a foundation project. It’s again a good sign because the customer wants us to be at the site as early as possible. We are simply doing everything that we can to arrive as early as possible we can in 2027.

This Hornsea Three, when Hornsea Three, you can’t look at Hornsea Three isolated in one year. First of all, it’s a project where you have revenue across several years. We already had in 2024, 2025. As illustrated by the slide Mikkel presented, we now see that the revenue on the project goes up due to changes on the project, not due to Cadeler-specific things, but due to something designed by the developer. That means for Cadeler two things. The total project goes up, earnings goes up, but the timing is different. Some is pushed into 2027.

When you look at 26 and the outlook, you should also remember that evaluating that year. Back to you, Mikkel.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Thank you, Peter. As this is something that still remains very important, between 2024 and 2025, we have been working on biofuel blending in our fuels, that has been successfully introduced across the fleet in 2025. Together with our clients and our sustainability team, we have developed a new circularity strategy. We have more than 30% women in leadership, and that was achieved in 2025. We have set a new target of 40% women in leadership by 2030. Also, on governance, the CSR leadership group established to execute key ESG priorities. In terms of our path to zero, we have set a target of a net zero target in 2035 and a 2030 target of a 50% intensity reduction.

Obviously, we are going up in intensity in the beginning, and that’s largely due to the fact that we are delivering lots of vessels that are still burning fuel. We have a path towards achieving our targets here, and we have maintained our targets. It is as what is described on this slide, it’s adoption of green fuels, it’s enabling electrification, optimizing energy consumption, which we believe is one of the big things because really education and training of teams on board and clients is one of the real big savers here. That is how we will achieve the first part of this journey. Second part of the journey is continuing to enable electrification and again, optimizing the energy consumption.

As we start to see it, you know, getting the green fuels on board, which will form a larger part in the second part of this journey. At the moment, the reality is that the green fuels are not available to us. Although we have a portion of our fleet on the new builds that can burn these green fuel types, we are not able to buy them at the quantity that we need them, and it would more be an R&D project at the moment.

We believe that the second part of the journey will have a greater availability of this fuel type, and that is something that we at least will support that with a demand for these green fuel types when it is available to us. In terms of commercial outlook, which of course is important, because I think in all honesty, we are coming from 2025 where we were facing a very negative narrative in general in the industry due to a lot of factors. We are seeing milder winds blowing over the offshore wind space and also continued growth of the industry and the deployment of offshore wind globally.

As we say here, after 2028, 2029, we expect a very strong growth towards the end of the decade. Europe has been raising the bar and has declared by the North Sea Summit, the 9 member states of the North Sea Summit have declared a target of 15 GW per year outbuilt between 2030 and 2040. We are very pleased with a target like that, because that is, in our opinion, how you build a supply chain, that you actually set a target, what should the supply chain be able to push out per year in this region. This is not the entire European target, this is for the member states of the North Sea Summit. In all Europe will be a higher number than this.

Outside the fact that there’s an annual outbuild target, there’s also a financial plan to how to achieve this. That is also what has been lacking in the more arbitrary targets that were more setting a target for 2040, 2050 in the past. All in all, we really are pleased with seeing these targets, and we believe that that’s a very strong data point for the future and also for the demand situation for the future. Another very real data point is the U.K. Allocation Round 7, where the U.K. government re-awarded record volumes. Really, it was 70% above what was expected, and the budget went up to 200% of what was the original budget. Also a very strong data point.

Another strong data point is that the UK Allocation Round 8 has already been shifted forward, so we can expect that already to happen in July 2026. These are projects that are happening towards the end of this decade and the beginning of the next decade. Already today, we are in dialogue with clients for work that is taking place in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, 2033, and so on. That is a very, very positive data point for us. We also do see a lot of private capital coming back into offshore wind. Apollo committing $6.5 billion to acquire 50% of Hornsea Three, and KKR forming a joint venture with RWE for offshore wind projects. There are many, many other examples of this.

All together, strong growth in the space and in the industry. As we have said, a much better feeling about the 2028 situation for Cadeler. Although we still recognize that for the industry, 2028 for some can be a difficult year. We say today that we have a much better feeling about 2028. We still believe that there will be an undersupply of capable vessels in the market, and that will start in 2029, 2030. We believe that in particular on the foundation side to begin with, of course, because they go in first and then secondly on the WTG side. It happens for a multitude of different reasons.

It’s efficiencies, it’s the efficiency on the larger turbines, it’s the more complicated projects, it’s the raw efficiencies in terms of how many turbines and foundations these vessels can transit with. It’s also the fact that there are a lot of vessels that are reaching the end of the useful life in the beginning of the next decade. Vessels that are counted today because they in theory can install a turbine, they will not be counted in after the beginning of the 2030s because simply they are falling out, because they are coming to end of useful life.

As the fleet stand today, Cadeler still sits on the largest fleet in the world, and we believe we have the most versatile fleet of really the tier one assets that can support our clients with the targets they have for continued outbuild of offshore wind. We have also decided to distribute this slightly different and first look at which vessels do we believe are able to efficiently install 15 MW turbines, and the picture looks somewhat different here. With the targets that are being set in the North Sea Summit by European government, by Asian governments at the moment, then we believe that there is still a significant undersupply as we come into the next decade of the capable vessels that will always be chosen first by the clients.

If we look on the foundation side, the picture is even more problematic if we want to deliver the targets that are currently being set and also backed up by auctions in many different countries around the world. A few words on Nexra, our business platform for the aftermarket services in offshore wind. We believe that the O&M market will continue to demand increase will continue to grow, and we believe that the market is shifting towards long-term agreements. We have seen that with our agreement on Wind Keeper with Vestas, and I think there are other examples in the market as well.

We believe that the whole O&M story and strategy for Cadeler is an important strategy because it will create a longer and more transparent revenue stream on part of the fleet, and also it’ll be able to generate utilization on the installation fleet if there are small gaps between installation projects. That is important because we have always just talked about the importance of upkeeping a high utilization, and hence that is something that we really believe is a strong advocate for the whole development of the Nexra business platform. We also believe that Nexra will grow as a business and also at some point in time, potentially even be a bigger business than the installation business. That is in the years out in the future.

Of course, every time we install a turbine, the whole ecosystem for turbines installed grows, meaning that there are more work to do for the Nexra platform to service our clients with, as it stands today, mainly the main component exchanges that we do from a jack-up. In terms of the development of Nexra and an update on that, I think that we saw it and have always seen it as a very strong market, a market that can stand on its own two feet, a market that is profitable, and it’s also a diversification of income streams for Cadeler.

We signed the first contract for an O&M campaign in Taiwan, and showing that when a vessel is sitting in a region that is complicated to transit back to, for example, Europe from, then you can do these O&M campaigns in the spot market and still upkeep a very healthy financial year for the asset. I think that is something that is important because after this, we have also announced another project yesterday morning in the same region for the same vessel. There’s a dedicated team for Nexra today. We are continuing to build the team.

I think that it’s also fair to say that we get positive feedback from our clients on the fact that we are now having a dedicated team to discuss aftermarket services with them, because they have dedicated teams to handle that part of the value chain for them. We believe that as we grow, we will also be better at understanding the needs and the execution requirements and really a very strong mandate from all over this company here and from top to bottom to grow Nexra into the strength vehicle we believe it can be. We did strategic fleet expansion in Nexra last year with the acquisition of Wind Keeper.

We believe that we did a very, very strong deal, and executed very, very fast on this, but also was able to pin a contract, a commercial contract to that vessel very, very soon after the acquisition of the asset. We took the vessel back to Europe. We did the modification to the vessel that we believe was necessary, and we are now working with the client on a project with the vessel, and we are very pleased to see that. O&M services in 2025 forms around one-fifth of our total revenues, and that also shows the significance of what we already are doing in O&M.

Continuing the growth journey, as we have said, we are in an industry that grows, and as we are also saying to you today, we are more positive and have a very positive and optimistic view about the years out in the future. That is also why we are looking at continuing the story of Cadeler. We evaluate opportunities to expand into attractive and synergetic segments, like, for example, the strategic O&M offering. We are open to both organic and non-organic growth.

We believe that scaling the organization and have a bigger, more versatile, more flexible offering to a client is something that the client is willing to pay a premium for, and something that will also secure that Cadeler will always take more than our proportional share of projects in the industry, simply due to the de-risking of our clients’ projects that we can provide. In terms of regional expansion, we are where our clients want us to be, and we are working with the projects that we believe in and the projects that we believe will go from development to FID and to finally execution. That is how we look at it. That’s how we have always looked at it, and that’s how we’ll continue to look at it.

We are monitoring and applying new technologies, and we believe that efficiency still will be driving a lot of the value in the industry and also a lot of the sustainability in the industry. We are very open to discussing efficiency gains with our clients, and we are also willing to do our part in what was the North Sea Summit, which was really trying to make a more competitive offshore wind industry by being more efficient with what we do. We believe that that is definitely something we can do if we work together in the whole value chain.

Strategic partnerships have been one of the foundation and one of the pillars that Cadeler is standing on, really making sure that we are developing structures, strategy to strengthen our key strategic partnerships with our clients, including the long-term agreements that we believe is out there, and also doing the scopes with their clients that they are asking for. Really trying to understand, be early with our clients, trying to understand what it is that they require from us, and then be able to deliver that quality-wise and safety-wise when they need it. That is very important. In terms of key investment highlights, largest and most capable and versatile fleet.

We believe that means redundancy for our clients, and as I already said, that is something that our clients are willing to pay a premium for, and also what we believe will secure a more than proportional share of market to Cadeler. We believe that strong relationships and partnerships and our industry-leading position is also something that will be continuing to support the whole growth of the company. We have global reach and experience. We have worked in all key markets, and we are happy to continue to work in all key markets if our clients want us to do so. We believe there’s a structural undersupply and an increasing market demand, and we are already starting to see signs of very strong demand as we move into the next decade.

We have a strong track record and backlog, and we are very, very much looking forward to continue to work with our clients in the future. With that said, I think that we are moving into Q&A.

Unknown, Moderator/IR, Cadeler: Thank you. At this time, we invite those analysts wishing to ask a question to click on the Raise Hand button, which can be found on the black bar at the bottom of your screen. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by lowering your hand. When it is your turn, you will hear your name called and receive a prompt to unmute. Please accept, wait a moment, and once you’ve been unmuted, you may unmute yourself and ask your question. We encourage you to turn your video on as well. We will wait one moment for the queue to form. Our first question comes from Martin Huseby Karlsen from DNB Carnegie. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Martin Huseby Karlsen, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: I obviously understand that. Hi, can you hear me okay? Sorry, it was some-

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Now we can hear you, yes.

Martin Huseby Karlsen, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Okay. Thank you. I think I heard during the prepared remarks that you said the Wind Apex would be delivered early and do turbine work. Could you talk a little bit about the background for using the vessels for turbines and not foundations and the decision process behind that?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yes, that is a good question. The reason we are discussing it directly that we are looking at delivering the Wind Apex early is because we have been asked whether we were looking at potentially delivering her late. Just to make clear that that is not a thought at all. It’s the opposite. We have evaluated opportunities in the industry, and the best opportunity we believe for Apex right after the yacht is to embark on a turbine installation project.

The reason for that is that working with the client on a turbine installation project potentially opens up opportunity for other things, and hence we have decided that here the best use of the capacity we do have available, as you also heard in my presentation. I said that we consider ourselves fully booked in 2027 now. Basically, what we have available for clients now is becoming limited. That this is the opportunity we have for the client, and hence we have decided to go with the client because we believe that it’s the best overall decision for Cadeler to start with a turbine installation project. It doesn’t mean that Apex will stay on turbine installation projects, but the first project will be a turbine installation project.

What it means is that she will earlier generate revenue compared to if we did a foundation project. With the long duration of the contract we’re looking into, that will also run into a significant part of 2028, but also a potential for something coming on the back of that with the same client.

Martin Huseby Karlsen, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Could you remind us about how much time and cost there would be to get it back to foundation mode?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: There’s a mobilization spread, but that is typically part of the project. When you sell a foundation project, the client is contributing to the mobilization spread there, and typically it would take somewhere around 2-4 months to put her into foundation mode with mobilizing all the equipment on the vessel.

Martin Huseby Karlsen, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Good. For 2028, you definitely came across as more optimistic, but it seemed to be more Cadeler-specific than for the industry as a whole. Can you talk a little bit to why Cadeler have been more successful than the industry for 2028 and what has changed since last quarter?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yeah, I think that what we do say when we talked about 2028 and after the Q3 announcement, we also said that it looked like a year that could be challenging for the industry. What we are saying now is that that is still the case. We believe that there are still some companies that will have challenges in 2028, but that we today feel much better about 2028 than we did around the Q3 because there were still some things that we believed in at that point in time but that had to happen. Now we are saying that we are seeing that that is happening and hence we are much more confident on 2028.

One of them is of course the preferred supplier agreement on a large scale foundation project. That is important for 2028, but that’s not the only thing. It is also how other things we are working on have progressed. All in all, we are much more positive about 2028. But it doesn’t mean that everybody else will have the same feeling. But for Cadeler that is the case. I also think there is a progression from the Q3 call to now where we are saying today that 2027 we consider fully booked now.

Martin Huseby Karlsen, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Good. Last question, you’re about to get into real cash generating mode with all the new builds and delivered. Could you talk to how you look to allocate capital ahead between shareholder returns, delevering, and you also spent some time in the presentation today talking about growth opportunities.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yeah. I think that, as we have said before, capital allocation ultimately is a board decision. But I think it’s realistic to believe that we will be spending our capital in three buckets. One is to delever the company, one is to continue to maintain the position we have in the industry, and then the last bucket is of course returning capital to shareholder in some shape or form. I think that if we look at where we are moving in terms of generating capital, all three buckets are possible at the same time. I think that that’s where I will land it at this point in time.

Martin Huseby Karlsen, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Okay. Thanks. I’ll turn it back.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Thanks, Martin.

Unknown, Moderator/IR, Cadeler: Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Jamie Franklin from Jefferies. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Martin Huseby Karlsen, Analyst, DNB Carnegie: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. So firstly, just wanted to clarify on Hornsea Three, and appreciate the useful slides in the presentation. If I look at slide 12 specifically, as I understand it correctly, essentially we’re now gonna have a much more progressive ramp up in revenue through the year from that project. It’s just gonna be very back half weighted, and it looks like the expectation is first turbine installed around Q3. If I assume that the margin and EBITDA contribution should really start to sort of kick in from the second half. Is that a fair assumption?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yeah, I think overall what you’re saying is a fair assumption. As we are saying that, and of course this is what is complicated to sometimes explain when you have projects and calendar years. Overall Hornsea Three for us is a more value creating project today than it was when we signed it. The way the revenues and profits are stretched over time is different. I think that is what we are trying to explain today, and it’s due to decisions that have been made by others than Cadeler, but where it’s in our interest, but also where we are contractually obligated to deliver on this new method.

I think one of the key things on the project, without diving too much into the detail, is that the flow of the foundations when they come into the project is slower. We are not building up the buffer we had in the beginning. The monopile delivery is over a longer period of time, and that is out of Cadeler’s control, and it’s due to things that is related to the fabrication yards on the monopile foundations.

Jamie Franklin, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. Got it. Secondly, just on operations and maintenance. Obviously you’ve announced a few shorter duration awards to the Nexra platform recently. As you mentioned, there’s been this ten-year O&M contract announced by one of your peers. Could you give us a sense of how you expect to balance the sort of longer term agreements with the shorter term contracts? Is the idea to sort of keep Zaratan and Scylla available for more spot O&M while Wind Keeper kind of takes the longer term contracts? Or could we see you enter into a longer term contract with a specific, you know, one client on those assets?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: The question is, yes, that could be expected that would happen. It all depends on the project economics. There are limits where we believe that it’s better to stay in the spot market rather than to sign up to a long-term. For us, that is an internal evaluation that is happening between us and the team that is dealing with the clients on these long-term opportunities, because obviously there are benefits of having a long-term contract. The benefit of that can be outweighed by, let’s say, what you are sacrificing in terms of annual revenues.

For us, it’s a balance, and if we believe that we can generate more money by having the vessel in the spot market and being available to our clients when they need us, then that is the decision we will go for. I think we have discussed it before as well, that one of the real benefits of being, let’s say, active in the O&M market is the social capital you’re building with your client. Because when they have problems, if you are able to come and help them and fix them, that is something that is very much appreciated, and also where you are able to generate stronger relationships and partnerships with your clients.

I per se that the long-term agreements is not just what we are aiming for, but of course, if they are good enough, if they live up to our criteria, then we are happy to enter into them.

Jamie Franklin, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. Very clear. Finally, there was a wind turbine installation vessel order announced by shipyard Hanwha Ocean for about $530 million last month. Very high price tag, obviously, relative to what you paid for your new builds. Is there anything you can say in terms of what is driving those higher vessel prices? Is it simply a function of kind of shipyard capacity or material inflation? Yeah, any thoughts there would be helpful.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: I think the reality that we are looking at today is that the shipyards are incredibly busy. Even if you wanted to deliver a vessel in a short time, you are not able to. I know that this vessel looks on paper like a short timeline, but that is mainly because they have been working on it a long time before they actually announced it. It’s a vessel targeting the domestic Korean market with a lot of Korean companies going together in that vessel. It’s a repeat M-class vessel more or less that they have paid $530 million for.

I think that the underlying factors for the price is a real tightness in the yards, but also in general what it costs to build a jackup today. I think that there are, let’s say that is. If you look at the price for ordering one vessel, I think that is you’re probably seeing significantly increased prices to what we build at back in when we ordered our vessels.

Jamie Franklin, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. That’s great. Thanks a lot, guys. I’ll hand it over.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Thanks, Jamie.

Unknown, Moderator/IR, Cadeler: Thank you. Our next question comes from Anders Rosenlund from SEB. If you’d like to unmute your line and ask your question.

Anders Rosenlund, Analyst, SEB: Thank you. Could you break down the order backlog indicatively on 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029 and beyond?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Unfortunately, we don’t do that, Anders. We only give guidance one year ahead. We don’t give guidance year by year on the backlog.

Anders Rosenlund, Analyst, SEB: Also, do you expect to see more of your competitors to place newbuild orders for 2029 and 2030 or beyond delivery, given the outlook comments that you are coming with today?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: I believe that based on the supply and demand balance we are looking into in the beginning of the next decade and the tightness in the yards, that I would be surprised if there were not several companies already looking in the yards.

Anders Rosenlund, Analyst, SEB: Okay. Thank you.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Welcome.

Unknown, Moderator/IR, Cadeler: Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniel Hovland from ABG Sundal Collier. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Audrey, Analyst, China Securities: Good afternoon. This is Audrey from China Securities, and thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first question is about the foundation installation business. I noticed that actually, the foundation business, it includes quite large preparation works, and it has larger amount. Could you please share with us, what’s your target of the foundation business in the future? Would the volume or the amount be higher than next year? You just mentioned that next year, the future revenue would be, maybe will be higher than the installation revenue. Could you please share with us about the foundation business in the future and your target, your overall strategy? This is my first question. The second question may be for Peter-

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Can we just take them one by one?

Audrey, Analyst, China Securities: Is about the-

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Can we just take them one by one?

Audrey, Analyst, China Securities: Sure. Okay.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Thank you. Thank you.

Audrey, Analyst, China Securities: Oh, sorry.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: [Xie xie]. [Xie xie]. I think that to answer your question, we have had a humble approach to the full scope foundation T&I projects. In 2026 we will be executing the Hornsea Three project. In 2027 we will be embarking on the EA2 project with ScottishPower Renewables. We are on a journey here where we are building up together with our clients, two of the biggest developers in offshore wind worldwide. Together with them, we are building up these capabilities to ensure that we do this safely and with the quality that both we and they expect fairly. Our long-term target is, of course, to execute several foundation projects in parallel in a year.

That is how we have built the fleet, and that is how we are building the team and let’s say the protocols around this. Let’s say, we have a fully delivered capacity, three A-class vessels that are targeting the foundation market. We would certainly expect that these three A-class vessels would all be doing foundation work in parallel at some point in time in the future. When I address the fact that I believe that the O&M market could be as big as the installation market, it is because I.

With the build-out targets that we are seeing in the industry, there will be a lot of requirements for O&M, and hence we say this, but we cannot say when it will happen or whether they will inflect or whatever. We do believe that there will be a case for the fact that the O&M market as such will be a very value-creating market to be in and also potentially bigger than the installation market.

Audrey, Analyst, China Securities: Okay. Great. Thank you for the insights, the explanation. The second question is about the financial expenses. I noticed that, in 2025, the financial expenses are a little bit higher. Could you give us some color about the financial expenses in the near term or in the one to three years? Because, with our two vessels delivered in 2026 and 2027, these expenses cannot be capitalized, and they should go to the P&L. Could you give us some color about that? Thank you.

Peter Brogaard Hansen, Chief Financial Officer, Cadeler: Well, that is absolutely correct. Also, what I talked to in Q4, where you saw net or finance net was around EUR 20 million, and that is what you should expect to see going forward. Then less and less goes to CapEx when we get one vessel delivered here in 2026, and it will be less 2027 we get the last one delivered. Then it’ll be, to current plans, nothing that we can capitalize. That is the picture we see. Q4 is more representative for 2026 than the full year.

Audrey, Analyst, China Securities: Okay, great. Thank you so much. That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Thank you. I don’t know whether we missed Daniel Hovland from ABG.

Unknown, Moderator/IR, Cadeler: Yes.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: I’m, uh-

Unknown, Moderator/IR, Cadeler: Next question, Daniel Hovland, please unmute your line and ask your question.

Daniel Hovland, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Yeah. Hi, guys. Thanks.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Hi, Daniel

Daniel Hovland, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: I was a little bit back in the line there. I have a couple questions on 2027 that you maybe can kind of enlighten me on. Because I think you now say that 2027 is getting fully booked from your perspective.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Mm-hmm

Daniel Hovland, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: What type of utilization level are you kind of targeting, or at least some kind of range, when you’re talking about kind of fully booked? Because I think based on announcements, it looks like there’s a lot of white space, but obviously you guys have looked it through, so.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yeah. I think we have.

Daniel Hovland, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Any commentary on that would be helpful.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yeah. No, that’s a totally fair question. I think we have guided from the beginning of the journey of a utilization between 75%-90%, and that is also the target in 2027. That is an adjusted utilization because obviously to assume that a vessel is busy when it’s transiting from Asia and back to Europe, for example, that is not possible even though we would love to install turbines all the way. But that’s how we look at it. Then as Peter also said when he went through his numbers, that we exclude planned dry dockings and stuff like that. The adjusted number we are expecting between 75%-90%.

For 2027, yes, it is correct that we are considering ourselves to be, at the moment, fully booked.

Daniel Hovland, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Yeah, just to clarify, you kind of include this potential contract that you talked about for the Apex?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yeah. That’s how we have to do it because there is a potential contract that is negotiated, you know. Of course, nothing is firm before it’s signed, and there’s ink on paper. Of course, when we are in the process where we believe that this is something that will materialize, then it’s also something where we are saying, with what we know today, we think that we are in a situation where we don’t have much other stuff to sell.

Daniel Hovland, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: One question on the Wind Orca. It seems like that will be working together with the Wind Ally on Hornsea Three on secondary steel. Is that. It seems from the slide that you kind of indicate that going through Q1, maybe into Q2. Is that kind of correctly assumed?

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yeah. It’s correct that the Orca is starting almost side by side with the Ally being mobilized now for the campaign to go to Hornsea Three, sorry. It was the evaluation we did when we secured the project because it was our option to either go with an offshore construction vessel or with one of our jackups. There were benefits in the jackup in terms of the weather downtime during the winter and hence the progression on the project. That’s why, with the project economics, of course, that we were able to provide to our one of our own assets that we decided that the O-class vessel was the best option for the task.

Daniel Hovland, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Okay. Great. I think that was all from me right now. Thank you.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Thanks, then.

Unknown, Moderator/IR, Cadeler: Thank you. That’s all we have time for today, and thank you for your participation. I will now hand the floor back to Mikkel Gleerup for any closing remarks.

Mikkel Gleerup, Chief Executive Officer, Cadeler: Yeah. Thank you, everybody. If we did not have time to take your questions, then you all know where to reach Peter and myself or Alexander, and we are of course happy to take offline discussions with all of you. But thanks a lot for taking the time to listen to us today. We’re looking forward to catch up with you as we move ahead. Thank you.