TechnipFMC plc Price & Performance (FTI)

We wish to caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward looking statements which speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any of our forward looking statements after the date they are made. Whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I will now turn the call over to Doug Furdiehert, TechnipFMC's Chair and Chief Executive Officer. Thank you, Matt. Good morning and good afternoon. Thank you for participating in our fourth quarter earnings call. I am very proud to report our strong quarterly and full year results as 2024 was another year of tremendous success, for the TechnipFMC team For the full year, we achieved total company inbound of $11,600,000,000 driving year over year growth in backlog to $14,400,000,000 Subsea inbound orders increased to $10,400,000,000 representing our fourth consecutive year with a book to bill greater than one. This inbound was best characterized by growth. Growth in iEPCI growth in Subsea two point zero, and growth in Subsea Services. These strong commercial results also benefited from a significant level of direct awards. Total company revenue for the year grew $6 dollars Adjusted EBITDA improved to nearly $1,400,000,000 an increase of 47% when compared to the prior year.

Full year free cash flow grew 45% to $679,000,000 dollars of which we returned $486,000,000 to shareholders nearly double what we distributed in the prior year. Now highlighting our commercial achievements, our integrated model iEPCI, and our configurable product architecture Subsea two point zero are unique to TechnipFMC and are the fundamental tools we created to drive sustainable change in subsea economics. In 2024, iEPCI orders grew nearly 25% year over year, reaching an all time high. And came from a diverse set of clients across six offshore basins, Our ability to continue growing this model stems from our strengthened offering that expands the market for integrated opportunities which was evident during the year. For example, in the fourth quarter, we were awarded an iEPCI contract from Total Energies for the Gramerogu project the first oil and gas development offshore Suriname, During the year, we were also awarded IEP projects for the Shell Sporta and BP Cascada developments both of which will utilize our 20 ks high pressure technology helping unlock the most economically attractive opportunities the paleogene in The U. S. Gulf. Our ability to expand the IAP market is not limited to traditional energy resources. With several major milestones achieved in 2024.

Including the Merrell III HiSET Project In Brazil, representing the first iEPCI for Petrobras and the first to utilize subsea processing to capture CO2 directly from the well stream for injection back into the reservoir. All of this done on the seafloor. We also announced the industry's first sub C all electric system for carbon transportation and storage for the Northern Endurance Partnership in The United Kingdom. And more importantly, we formalized a new partnership with Prismian that will combine our subsea expertise and dynamic offshore applications with Prismian's leading cabling solutions. Together, this unique combination creates IEP for offshore floating wind. Inbound in 2024 was further supported by growth in our configurable product architecture Subsea two point zero. Our ability to generate significant product volume allows us to leverage the full benefits of the configure to order model. Creating incremental manufacturing capacity without the need for additional capital expenditures. In fact, we have already demonstrated the ability to more than double manufacturing output from our existing capacity for this product portfolio, And from our client standpoint, by eliminating product engineering hours, and streamlining the supply chain, we can accelerate equipment delivery, by up to nine months. It is really no surprise to us that we saw continued adoption of our Subsea two point zero platform.

With Subsea two point zero tree orders in 2024, significantly outpacing the more than 50% growth of our total Subsea Tree awards versus the prior year. The clear benefits of iEPCI and Subsea two point zero are further enhanced by our relentless focus on execution. Where we seek continuous improvement using the lean principles of simplification, standardization and industrialization. Or SSI. As part of our SSI journey, we have made a bold decision to approach every process in TechnipFMC from a fundamentally different perspective. One focused on visual management, allowing our teams to identify and solve challenges much earlier than before. Across the hundreds of projects we execute, our teams map out every step and every project deliverable is identified as green or red. Meaning it is either on track or it is not. We then focus our efforts on things that are not on track and we use this approach for every function in the company not just manufacturing. Adopting this methodology was a cultural shift that did not happen overnight. It required transparency and trust. And adopting a mindset throughout the organization that fosters asking for help. It is transforming how we operate by achieving seamless coordination and client centric improvements Key drivers of our robust execution that help deliver greater value for our customers and higher and more sustainable returns for our company.

During the year, Surface Technologies benefited from the proactive steps we have taken to refocus the business. We are capturing the benefits of targeted actions including the sale of our Measurement Solutions business and optimization of our Americas portfolio. And we expect our actions to drive further improvements in financial performance as evidenced by the guidance we have now provided for the coming year. In The Middle East, the growth we anticipated is materializing driven by the ramp up in activity in The United Arab Emirates and The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia. This represents a differentiated growth opportunity for our company. More broadly, we remain positive on the outlook for energy. We anticipate further growth in demand, with affordability and security of supply now also major considerations, We continue to believe that both offshore and The Middle East markets will remain the preferred investment of operators with Deepwater attracting a growing share of capital flows, driven by much improved economic returns and broad access to these resources. In offshore markets, we are seeing this today with both an expansion of new regions for development and a growing list of clients, We have secured $20,200,000,000 of subsea orders in the past two years.

And our strong market visibility gives us confidence we will exceed $10,000,000,000 of inbound in the current year delivering on our guidance of 30,000,000,000 over the three years ending 2025. And as we look beyond the current year, we have increased visibility into the pipeline of longer term opportunities supported by a growing list of named projects that extend beyond the historical planning horizon, This gives us even greater confidence that activity will remain robust through the end of the decade. In closing, I am very proud of what we accomplished this year the momentum we have built to create a truly unique company in an industry that was ready for a better way forward, The success of our strategy was clearly on display this year. And we continue to lay the groundwork for further improvement ahead. With multiple levers to drive business performance some of which are less visible to our external stakeholders, yet are very much within our control. Our unique combination of direct awards, iEPCI and Subsea Services continues to represent an even greater share of our business growing to more than 80% of total subsea inbound in 20 and underpins the quality of our expanding backlog Importantly, the actions we have taken on our transformational journey to further simplify standardize and industrialize the organization are changing how our company operates and gives us confidence we will successfully execute for our customers.

And finally, we are committed to sharing our growing cash free cash flow in 2025. Which would result in growth in distributions of at least 30%. 2024 was indeed a major milestone on our more ambitious journey. I will now turn the call over to Elth Thanks, Doug. Inbound in the quarter was 2,900,000,000.0 driven by $2,700,000,000 of subsea orders with total company backlog ending the period at $14,400,000,000 Revenue in the quarter was $2,400,000,000 EBITDA was $354,000,000 when excluding $19,000,000 primarily related to restructuring impairment and other charges. A foreign exchange loss of $3,000,000 Turning to segment results. In Subsea, revenue of $2,000,000,000 was up modestly versus the third quarter. The increase was driven by higher activity in The U. S. Gulf and Africa, largely offset by lower activity in Latin America and Asia Pacific following the completion of project milestones in the third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $339,000,000 with a margin of 16.5%. Down 180 basis points from the third quarter. The sequential decrease was primarily due to seasonally lower vessel based activity. And the mix of projects executed from backlog in the period.

For the full year, Subsea revenue grew 22% or the prior year.

With a subsea adjusted EBITDA margin up three forty basis points to 16.7%. In Surface Technologies, revenue of $319,000,000 was a essentially unchanged versus the prior quarter. Lower activity in North America was offset by increased project activity in international markets. Particularly in The Middle East. Adjusted EBITDA was $54,000,000 up 9% versus the third quarter. The improvement was due to the higher project activity in international markets partially offset by the lower volumes in North America. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.8% up 150 basis points versus the third quarter.

For the full year, Surface Technologies revenue decreased 9% versus the prior year. However, when excluding the impact of the sale of the Measurement Solutions business, which closed in the first quarter, revenue increased 1%. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 140 basis points to 15%. Turning to corporate and other items in the period. Corporate expense was $38,000,000 net interest expense was 13,000,000 And tax expense in the quarter was a benefit of $18,000,000 Tax expense was significantly below plan due in large part to a net $54,000,000 positive benefit from the release of valuation allowances, which resulted from the company's assessment of the carrying value of its deferred tax assets. And future projections of income. Cash flow from operating activities was $579,000,000 and capital expenditures were $126,000,000 This resulted in free cash flow of $453,000,000 Free cash flow for the full year was $679,000,000 with free cash flow conversion of 50%. [indiscernible] Total shareholder distributions were $91,000,000 in the quarter, and $486,000,000 for the full year. We ended the period with cash and cash equivalents of 1,200,000,000.0 cash position of $272,000,000 In January, we received an upgrade to investment grade from Moody's, with a positive outlook on the company's credit metrics following the change.

With this upgrade, we are now rated investment grade by all three rating agencies. Moving to our financial outlook. We have provided detailed guidance for the current fiscal year in our earnings release. I will now provide additional color on the guidance and our first quarter outlook. Starting with Subsea, we are updating our previous guidance provided in October We now expect revenue of $8,600,000,000 with adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.5% at the midpoint of the full year range. This implies revenue growth of 10% adjusted EBITDA growth of 28% when compared to 2024. For the first quarter, we anticipate subsea revenue to decline low to mid single digits sequentially due to normal seasonality while adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to improve modestly from the 16.5% reported in the fourth quarter. Moving to Surface Technologies. We are guiding to revenue of $1,275,000,000 dollars with adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.5%. At the midpoint of the full year guidance range. This would represent mid single digit growth in adjusted EBITDA when compared to the prior year. For the first quarter, we anticipate Surface Technologies revenue to decline approximately 10% when compared to fourth quarter results with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.5%.

Lastly, we anticipate total company capital expenditures of approximately $340,000,000 for the full year. Which is below our long term guidance range of 3.5% to 4.5% of revenue. [indiscernible] When all of these items are taken together, we expect to drive our full year free cash low higher to a range of $850,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 In closing, the team delivered on what we believe to be among the key drivers of value creation in 2024. Either meeting or exceeding our commitment for segment profitability free cash flow, and shareholder distributions And looking ahead, we anticipate further growth in each of these metrics in 2025 when compared to the prior year. We expect total company revenue to increase high single digits and adjusted EBITDA to improve to approximately $1,760,000,000 for the full year when taking the midpoint of our guidance items. We expect to convert over 50% of adjusted EBITDA into free cash flow. And I will reiterate that we expect this to translate into further growth in shareholder distributions in 2025, where we now plan to distribute at least 70% of free cash flow. Said another way, we expect this to be another strong year for TechnipFMC. With adjusted EBITDA growth of more than 25% excluding foreign exchange.

Growth in free cash flow of more than 35% and growth in shareholder distributions of more than 30%. Operator, you may now open the line for questions.

Our first question will come from the line of Arun Jairum with JPMorgan Securities.

Doug, good morning. My first question, Doug, is I wondered if you could talk about kind of the margin journey at the midpoint of the range, you're now pushing close to 20% margins in Subsea. I wondered if you could talk about between the favorable mix and you mentioned in the release some of the multiple drivers to boost business performance. But give us a sense of where do you think we can move across in this margin journey as we think about 26% and beyond? Thank you, Arun, and good morning.

Great question, one that we continue to monitor ourselves And as we have ended every call now for quite a while with the statement of major milestone and a more ambitious journey. So it is true that 20% seemed like maybe a peak margin for this sector in the past. And in fairness, it probably was and certainly the historical data would support that. But remember, that was when the company and the industry was working in a very different operating model than we're operating in today.

TechnomicFMC chose to take a different path. We started that journey in 2015 and we're reaping the benefits of it today. And as highlighted in the script, the combination of the Subsea two point zero configured order and the iEPCI integrated model showing our customers real tangible value by reduction of cycle time. By doing that, we're able to extract our fair economic benefit from that. And that's why we're able to have the margin progression that we have experienced And as clearly stated, we are not calling this a peak margin or a midpoint margin or we're not class to expect to deliver higher margins as we have higher quality backlog being we really see the benefits of this new operating model. So Arun, I guess, I would just say it's a new way of doing business. It didn't come easily. It took a lot of hard work. But that's all behind us now and we're focused on delivering these results and better.

Great. My follow-up, Doug, obviously the Cytem Subsea merger announcement Earlier this week has attracted a lot of buy side attention. In fact, FTI was mentioned a number of times on that conference call Saipen did mention they're going to honor their SURF agreement with FTI until expiration. I was wondering if you could give us your bigger picture thoughts on the implications of this merger in your business And maybe you've been getting a lot of questions on you could go through some of the specifics of your SURF agreement with Saipem and maybe the go forward, what happens on expiration, etcetera? Okay, sure. Obviously, we have a lot of really exciting things to talk about here at TechnipFMC. But let's take a moment here. I do appreciate the opportunity to share our views on the proposed merger. So look Arun, in these type of strategic transactions, there is one of two paths you can take. Can take the path of consolidation you can take the path of integration. Many choose the path of consolidation As a matter of fact, we sold this recently on the equipment side or the S SPS side of the industry as well.

What is the result of this? More of the same. Clearly a bigger company doing the same thing. It does not fundamentally alter the mark [indiscernible] Indeed, it does impact the market structure but it doesn't change the way that the market operates. We chose to go through a very different path and I would say it's the less travel path for sure which was integration. So we chose to put together an offering that we believe could create real sustainable change to drive improvement in such a economics that were never able to be achieved in the past. By significantly reducing cycle time, And this was why we brought together FMC and TechnipFMC to create the new company. Much more disruptive I would say higher risk. But the good news is did it in 2017.

So it was eight years ago.

So we are well beyond all of the pain and we are enjoying the gain. Our strategy continues to be focused very much on creating client success, way we create client success is to reduce cycle time and ensure schedule certainty. These are the two drivers that our customers are making their decisions based upon today. So we're going to continue to focus on that. Because this creates a sustainable new way of working and if you will a better way forward for the industry. Our focus is to be asset light We're going to do more with the same or more with less. As we've identified and I talked about in our script, In terms of the manufacturing capacity as well as the fleet capacity by shortening cycle times. The integration has proven to improve project economics We benefit from a reduction in cycle time and we can do more with less or if you will a reduction of capital spend and our clients and we benefit together because of this type of a model. And therefore, the results speak for themselves. Over 80% of our business is direct awarded to our company because of this truly unique offering.

Now you mentioned relationship with other vessel operators and we have several and these are in what we call the vessel ecosystem. The vessel ecosystem simply gives us optionality. We have multiple different partners We have a very open architecture. We welcome anyone to work in our ecosystem. The benefit to us is optionality The benefit to our partners is they gain access to an expanding and exclusive iEPCI market. If you will, it gives them an ability to address a portion of the total available market that they otherwise would not have access to. Our focus remains very much on iEPCI.

Or the integrated projects. This is how we can deliver the greatest value versus installation only contracts.

So we're going to continue to do that. And we believe it's going to create the greatest benefit for our clients. We have many people interested in working with us in the ecosystem. And we would expect others to continue to or to work with us in the future. And just to maybe summarize, the impact of the company, the proposed merger does not have any impact on our ability to meet our inbound expectations for 2025 and there is no change to our view of our inbound outlook over a multiyear planning horizon. Doug, thanks a lot. That's super helpful. Our next question will come from the line of Scott Gruber with Citigroup. Yes, good morning. Great to see the cash return target. Going to over 70%, which I think is clearly leading. My question is how you think about managing the balance sheet now that you're your net cash we'll see how much more cash you put on balance sheet this year.

Maybe it's north of $200,000,000 which kind of could take it towards $500,000,000 but is there a level where you think you have enough cash on the balance sheet? Would you cap it around $500,000,000 And and kind of move to return Basically all cash to shareholders, how do you think about managing the cash on the balance sheet? [indiscernible] Alfi here. I'll take this one. So first of all, maybe some some numbers. Currently, we have less than $900,000,000 of gross debt on our balance sheet and our gross leverage ratio is clearly well below one 1x EBITDA. And as we noted, we have we achieved investment grade ratings with all three agencies most recently with Moody's, who is now also holding a positive outlook on us. So all of those things have really good about the strength of our balance sheet to be honest. So then you kind of pointed out we have strong fourth quarter cash flow performance here that drives us to net cash position of $2.72 at the end of the year. And looking ahead, we have also strong free cash flow conversion in 2025. So near term, first of all, we think about this as in near term, we'll take the down the debt as debt matures.

So we have a debt maturity in June and we will take care of that one. We obviously are not looking to build a cash balance. Okay? But we do think for our type of business, it makes sense to have a small net cash And obviously, when you say small application, and the strength of what we have in the free cash flow outlook, we are being very clear of committing that we will distribute at least 70% of our free cash flow to our shareholders in 2025.

That's great. And then turning to the subsea revenue mix, In terms of the revenue contribution from Subsea two point zero projects in 2025, kind of roughly where will that stand and and how much will services contribute Just thinking about the kind of higher margin contributors here impacting the mix. Scott, I'll start and then Elph can add any additional color So on the Subsea two point zero, thank you for asking. It was a big highlight of the quarter. We talked about the fact of the significant number of orders being over 50% of our orders coming from Subsea two point zero. Clearly, we're past the inflection point in terms of market adoption. And as you correctly point out, exciting part is as we see that convert through the backlog, into revenue or if you will as it goes through the execution phase. Myself and the Chief Technology Officer, we were just in Malaysia, and looking at some of the progress that we've been making in terms of the manufacturing cadence associated with Subsea two point zero, it's a real time learning curve. In other words, it's getting better and better. And we've yet to really see what the full potential is going back to the original question from Arun at the beginning of the conversation.

This is why we have further confidence in a lot of the internal things that we're doing terms of driving our overall performance for the company.

But I would say in the neighborhood of about one third of our activity that's going on in manufacturing today is associated with the new Subsea two point zero configured to order product family or product platform We know the orders are well above that as we've stated. So that will continue to grow and as that continues to grow, it will make the results through our many the efficiency of our manufacturing process even that much greater. And I'll add some additional color. Just maybe add a couple of comments. So first of all, it's clear that we have built our success and continue to build our success on the high quality backlog that we have achieved. As noted, it has an increasing share of iEPCI and Subsea two point zero, which becomes enabler for our business overall. And then you kind of look at our track record, we have Dennis the ability that we can execute on this backlog and we've been driving margin improvement consistently over the last several periods. And disability also is now further enhanced by what Doug said in his prepared remarks about our business industrialization and including visual management systems, which allow us to have earlier identification of any potential problem and which helps us secure our execution even further. [indiscernible] at the end of the day, it always starts with what you onboard also.

So we're going to be very, very focused on the awards that we are continuing to onboard.

Meaning the right quality for us and meaning the right fit for our industrialization. Which actually which will be translating into more iEPCI more Subsea two point zero and more services. That's where we're focused. So when you look at whether you look at 25 or you look beyond, these are the ingredients that are going to continue to to drive us. The strength of our backlog in inbound that drives revenue growth and the quality of our backlog that results in the expanding margins for the reasons mentioned.

That's great. Do you have a rough figure for the service? Portion of it too?

Yes. Was there a question about the service volume? [indiscernible] Yes, service revenue. So if you take services overall though, we we grow the service business roughly in line with the rest of the overall growth of Subsea and we estimate or we're projecting that that will be around a $1,800,000,000 revenue business in Great.

I appreciate all the color. Turn it back.

Our next question comes from the line of David Anderson with Barclays. Good morning, Doug, Tom.

I just want to ask you this kind of a bigger offshore question So we've seen some mixed use. I know offshore markets are expected to play out in the next twelve, eighteen months. On the one hand, we have the offshore drillers that aren't seeing any new tenders.

Seem to be suggesting projects might be getting pushed out a bit.

The other hand, we have service companies are expecting 26 to be a marked improvement in offshore development activity.

Just want to know, if you can kind of give us a what you see from your standpoint in terms of installations and backlog conversion? Do you think 2026 could be a step up in that or will be similar as far as you can tell, standing here today?

We've talked about this on a couple of the other calls in terms of some of the impact that's happening to the drillers as I've As said before, I think these things are companies specific. They're not industry specific and I stand by that. And I think that's a more widely accepted view for many at this point in time. So look, what we see is a significant amount of activity, a significant obviously, we have the strength of the backlog, which largely will be covering 25 and most of 26 already to your question. But in addition to that, the amount of tendering that is going on right now is significant. I've been on the road now. I think this is either three point five or four point five weeks, and it's almost all been associated with meeting clients on very that are wanting to secure high quality capacity They want our IPCI, they want our two point zero and they are looking to get a commitment and these are for projects that go well beyond the 2026 timeframe. So no, David, I don't see any if you ask me what I think of 2026 versus '25, I think it's going to be a more significant year.

We won't put numbers to that. At this stage, but clearly 2026 is going to be a there's no we're not reaching a plateau on the horizon.

That was actually my follow-up question. Was on the tendering activity. I was just kind of curious maybe provide a little color around that of kind of what you're seeing out there. You said a growing list of name projects, but I assume there's a lot of exploration happening, maybe talking about the gas demand. Are you starting to see more on that side of the business? I know some projects were sort of pushed off to the side on the gas side. Continue to develop. Can you just maybe just add a little bit more color in terms of those conversations and where do you think we're going to start seeing more of these orders? And I don't know if you want to go there about getting these $10,000,000,000 annually is that a number you think you can kind of keep consistently beyond 25? So David, let's break it down a couple of different ways. I think the drivers continue to be the mature markets not seeing any any pullback in any of those, be it The U. S. Gulf, be it the North Sea, you're going to see some good tendering activity again this year. Brazil continues to remain quite strong.

I think some of the mature basins will be coming back and we're actually surprised people to the upside. And we'd use West Africa as an example of that. Possibly parts of Asia as well.

And then when you look at some of the new horizons with within the existing basins, the Paleo gene is spectacular. The amount of tendering activity and it will actually it's more of direct award activity, if I'm being honest to our company. Is humbling and we will continue to do everything we can to maintain our clients' confidence there as well.

Guyana, I would put in the same category. So then when you start to look at some of the emerging basin obviously, we had the award in Suriname that we just announced in the past quarter. We are seeing other potential tendering activity in Suriname. You're beginning to see tendering activity happen in Namibia. Returned to Mozambique in terms of tendering activity. So actually quite strong in the emerging basins as well. And then, finally, and it's always important that we don't forget, there's a very solid underlying core business of tiebacks or brownfield activity where the capital expenditure for the host facility, it's already been that has already been spent. So that the returns on these projects are extremely attractive allows us to really leverage that in that area as well. In terms of what does it look like beyond 2025, let me be clear, it's not a plateau. Let me be clear, there is no cliff. We are talking about projects again well towards the end of the decade and we would expect expect to continue to build a very healthy backlog. Thank you very much, Doug. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Wilson with Jefferies.

Please go ahead. Hello. Good morning.

Doug, Al, thanks for taking my question. Your Your own global opportunity slide shows the highest number of really large awards over $1,000,000,000 I think you've ever shown before now in double figures. Of 10. You speak to Doug the reasons behind these project sizes getting larger Is it the complexity of the projects and the equipment required or the depth or indeed simple pricing? That's the The first question And the second then is you also spoke to how cycle time is so important for clients And earlier this year, I believe you spoke about being able to deliver your equipment still a year quicker than the competition just like to confirm that be the case and whether there's anything to update on that? Good afternoon, Mark.

So let's take the first one first. It's a good observation. One that we have obviously also observed.

Obviously, there's an economic element of it. But that's not what's driving it. I mean, we've talked about this for some time.

The quality of the rock offshore is truly phenomenal.

We kind of got away from that a little bit as an industry and we started focusing on on other opportunities because these big projects do require a lot of upfront commitment from our clients. And they do carry the execution risk. I believe the reason you're seeing so many of these larger projects are the clients are migrating back towards the highest quality reservoir or the highest quality rock, which is why these projects are the size that they are. And they're also migrating towards back to the offshore and towards the our offering because we have been able to consistently demonstrate in not only on time and on budget, but in many cases we'll get to the second part of your question, at a reduced cycle time. So it's about scheduled surety. That's what they're looking at. That's what they expect from us and that's what we have been delivering to them. So this is really just the quality of the rock, which is obviously makes the but they want to be confident that they're working with a company a company not multiple companies, a company that can deliver these projects for them with a high level of confidence.

And that's why we talked about earlier 80% direct awards that doesn't happen if they don't have the confidence in you. In terms of cycle time in one year, after continue as we are not done with our journey So as others continue in the one point zero world and we're in the two point zero world, and we now have the experience, the knowledge all of our heavy lifting is behind us. We're fully focused on execution. We would expect to continue to shorten the cycle time and that is absolutely the relentless pursuit of everybody within our company. Every decision we make, every investment we make we don't invest for scale, we invest to reduce cycle time. Appreciate the comments Doug. I'll hand over.

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Biakhi with TD Cowen.

Thank you. I first want to ask about the surface outlook here. So for first quarter, I know it's typically seasonally down from fourth quarter, but it looks like a bit more pronounced here and then what I need to assume to get to the revenue for the year reflects a pretty sharp snapback. So maybe you could just sort of walk us through how you see that unfolding?

Yes. Thank you. That's my question. Certainly, your observation is correct that Q1 is weaker than not only than Q4, but also weaker on average than any other quarter. So if you look at the dynamics of that quarter, so it's really two things. It think about the uncertain outlook and a little bit of the weakness we've seen in North America, And then there is really a timing aspect to project and service activity in the rest of the world and in particular in Middle East. So we clearly as we go through the year, we anticipate to continue to have a stronger international markets and particularly Middle East. So you think about the revenue growth think about for the year, think about maybe high single digit revenue growth in The Middle East and think about in North America being a headwind or maybe similar offsetting revenue decline. And we will continue to improve the throughput of our production capabilities in country in The Middle East. As we further ramp up the volume there. So those things will help expand the margins as you go through the year, not only revenue, but also And also, as you may have noted from our prior year's activities and even now in this past year, we have been rationalizing our North American footprint and that is also helping us sustain profitability in the North America.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that, Al. Maybe this next one is probably for you as well. The CapEx guidance for the year is looking like I think it's about a 20% increase from what we saw in 2024 and looks like revenues guided up about 9% at the midpoint. So suggests a bit more capital intensity, but maybe you could sort of talk through where that CapEx is going and kind of how to think about it beyond?

Yes.

Yes. So I'll make this fairly simple in one way. So first of all, there isn't anything very different going on with our business, but there is actually such that we have we embarked a little bit more than a year ago now. We embarked on an ERP upgrade program for our for our company. And this year is actually the first year where you will have substantial CapEx associated with that upgrade program. And that's really driving call it, the majority of the year over year increase. So it's really something that will be here in 2025. It will continue in 2026, but start tailing off in 2027. So it won't be with us through all the cycles. And I just want to note also that even with this, we are still maintaining capital expenditure below our long term guidance 3.5% to 4.5% of revenue. So we can actually accommodate that program within that same commitment that we have made for the long term.

Got it.

Okay. And then just on that, is there any impact to EBITDA margin in the current period and next year from this or is it all kind of slowing through CapEx and ultimately DNA?

There is a little bit of an operating expense that is contained within our corporate expense. Bucket of our guidance. But most of it, the biggest expenditure is actually going through CapEx.

Okay. Thank you very much. I'll turn it back.

Our next question comes from the line of Kurt Hallead with Benchmark. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning everybody. Good morning, Kurt. So Doug, thanks for all that insight and helping us see kind of what you see in the conversations with with your varying customer base. So I guess my question is, you've seen a a pretty remarkable increase in the inbound being 80% of IEPC IEPCI and Subsea two point zero, Look, I guess theoretically, you can see that go to 100%, but I also have to imagine that there's probably some limit to that. But like to get your gets your insight and your perspective on where you think that percentage could ultimately land?

Sure. And great question and thank you for the observation. Because again two very important drivers to our business and our strategy and we always said there are kind of three things to focus It was the percentage of iEPCI, the percentage of Subsea two point zero, and the percentage of direct awards, all of which hit new benchmarks in 2024. Let's break down the IPCI first. We're at 50% of our inbound. That's substantial. This was a new operating model that a new commercial model that had never been applied before. It takes a very high level of trust from our customers to take that amount of scope and provide and hand over that responsibility to any company. We are deeply humbled and honored that they choose to do so with TechnipFMC. Obviously, there was heavy lifting to get here in including the merger and the integration and all those things that can take four or five years to distract [indiscernible] well behind us as we're eight years into it. But important all the same.

The IPCI inbound not only reaching the 50% was important, But if you look at the mix of the iPCI awards that we had, representing almost 100% of the market for integrated projects in 2024, we had two that were in new frontiers. So that was very exciting. We had two so if you will think about that, you have a new frontier, we've never operated here before and we're going to go with this iEPCI model.

We had two in emerging frontiers within existing bases for instance, the Paliogene. We had two in mature basins, because it continues to be the model of choice in mature basins. And then we actually had two in non traditional oil and gas developments, the Marrow three HiSET project for Petrobras and the Northern Endurance partnership project CCS project for BP. So it's really not just the growth within our traditional customers, or our traditional markets, it's really becoming the model of choice. Why is that? Because of the proven success. And then so where does it go from 50%? There's no reason that that becomes a limit.

I think there will always be some level of activity, either because the customer procures the product separate from the installation of the product. This happens in Brazil. As an example with flexible pipe, we provide flexible pipe. We also have vessels on long term charter that install the flexible pipe, but they use those vessels our flexible pipe or flexible pipe from our competitors. So they separate those two work back So I do think there's an upper limit, if you will, to the total market for IEPCI. Moving to Subsea two point zero, again, the significance of it was our overall tree order was up 50%, which is tremendous growth year on year. But the Subsea two point zero percentage of that was up even more. So you can speculate on that. That's just up [indiscernible] because that drives the manufacturing cadence. It goes back to Mark's question in terms of cycle time and our ability to be able to maintain the significant advantage that we have on cycle time in terms of delivery So here I think we could get into a debate, I do with my own team, that it couldn't why couldn't it get to 100%?

And I haven't given up on that ambition. But okay, maybe it will be a bit shy of 100% but the Subsea two point zero is now clearly well above the 50% mark. So very exciting for the company.

That's awesome. That's all for color. I'll just leave it there. That's great. Thanks.

Our next question comes from the line of Victoria McCulloch with RBC Firstly, if I could ask you talked about the standardization and industrializing of internal processes. When you spoke in your initial comments, provide some color as to how much of these actions are already reflected in this financial results you're seeing. And there's a follow on, but maybe slightly different topic. Brazil doesn't meet your or not all projects in Brazil meet need sort of integrated strategy and the appetite that you have in the business? Active in this market to the same degree and what you're seeing as attractive bidding opportunities in the next twelve months? Thank you very much.

Well, thank you, Victoria, and I want to welcome you to our call. We're excited to have you on the call. Both questions are very important. So let's cover them one at a time. In terms of some of the internal initiatives, we tried to highlight that in the script. This is our focus on simplification, standardization and industrialization or SSI.

And it And many companies do lean, but they do lean in manufacturing. What we're trying to emphasize is we do lean across our organization. Alf has now become a black belt lean. He fully is indoctrinated and the finance organization is now very much on this same journey as well as every other function and every other business within our portfolio. And that's the big difference Few companies take it beyond manufacturing.

We sold we're a manufacturing company. We've understood this for some time. We've We've seen the benefits of manufacturing, but it takes a real mindset change to take it beyond manufacturing and not just a mindset of the people doing the work, but also the people managing the work. In other words, myself this has been a real journey for myself. I've had to change my behaviors. We talk about it's okay to be red, it's not okay to stay red. Most managers don't like to see problems. We We live we enjoy problems because if we see a problem early enough, we can correct that problem before it has any impact. Any impact financially or any impact on our client's schedule. So it's getting everybody in the organization to feel very comfortable to bring those bring anything forward early, ask for help, we call it pull the help chain, continue to have the largest and most significant local content in Brazil, not just on traditional products or