KGSPFKGSPFOTC
Loading
Operator: Hello, and welcome, everyone, to the Kingspan Preliminary Results 2025. My name is Becky, and I will be the operator today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to your host, Gene Murtagh, CEO, to begin. Please go ahead.
Gene Murtagh: Excellent. Good morning. Thank you, and welcome, everybody. I'm joined here by Geoff and Dave to take you through our 2025 results. If you could please just go to Slide 3 in the results deck titled 25 in summary. And just in brief, we saw revenue growth to EUR 9.2 billion, which was pre-currency growth of 9%. On the EBITDA, we were just over EUR 1.2 billion, which similarly was 9% up. And trading profit was just over EUR 955 million. And again, like-for-like growth or pre-currency growth of 8% which brought our EPS to EUR 3.70. And once again, on our continued emission reductions program right across the group, we've seen since 2020, a Scope 1 and 2 internal reductions of 70, 7-0 percent which is pretty extraordinary, and that continues to advance along the lines that we've discussed previously. Backing up those results clearly and exiting the year, the insulated panel order bank as part of the envelope was ahead 8%. And actually, the intake in the same product group is ahead 8% for the first 6 weeks of this year. And in the Advances business unit, the revenue was up 12% in the year, which obviously accelerated through the second half. The backlog at the end of the year was ahead 24% in that whole product group. And the order intake in the Advances product set is double prior year in the first 6 weeks, and we expect that growth rate to actually accelerate from this point forward. So all in all, it was a strong year given the circumstances. We entered this year with, I would say, very encouraging backlogs and activity right across the business. And notwithstanding the weather hampered start to the year, which won't surprise anybody, we do expect to see significant growth in 2026. So just for some more color on all that, I'd hand you over to Geoff now.
Geoff Doherty: Thank you, Gene. I'm on Page 6, the financial highlights. Firstly, group revenue at EUR 9.2 billion, up 7% or 9% at constant exchange rates. The principal FX move year-on-year was U.S. dollar to euro. To be specific on that, the average translation rate from euro to U.S. dollar was 1.08 in 2024 versus 1.13 in 2025 in terms of our average translation rate. Group EBITDA, EUR 1.22 billion, up 7%. Trading profit, EUR 955 million, up 5% or 8% at constant exchange rates. Earnings per share at EUR 3.70. Our total dividend for the year, EUR 0.555, a payout ratio of 15%, which is our policy guide. Strong free cash flow of EUR 429 million, and I'll come to the components of that shortly. Trading margin at a headline down 10 basis points to 10.4%. But actually underlying pre-acquisition, we were actually ahead by 20 basis points to 10.7% year-on-year. Net debt, we ended the year at EUR 1.88 billion. And in terms of leverage, net debt-to-EBITDA of 1.65x. Turning to Page 7, just bridging revenue and trading profit year-on-year. Our 2024 revenues of EUR 8.6 billion. Clearly, the significant component of sales growth during the year was the EUR 707 million contributed by acquisitions year-over-year. And then we had the FX move of 2% or so, clipping sales by EUR 138 million. From a profit perspective, 2024 was EUR 906.7 million. Currency shaved EUR 21.4 million of that. It's worth highlighting that of that EUR 21.4 million, EUR 19.6 million of that occurred in the second half of the year because that's really when the pronounced exchange rate move actually happened. Acquisitions contributed EUR 49.5 million in the year, initially dilutive, but will kick on from here in terms of trading margin and underlying profitability up by EUR 20 million. The geographic profile of sales set out on Page 8, pretty consistent year-on-year. The Americas at 22% of the business. Rest of World, 8%. And Europe, all told across all territories, 70% of the business in both '24 and '25. Turning to free cash flow on Page 9. Naturally, the strongest component of free cash is the EBITDA of EUR 1.22 billion. Working capital, an outflow of EUR 151 million. Our working capital to sales ratio was 11.9%, which on a 5-year view, is an efficient performance. It happened to be up by 50 basis points on the very low level of December '24. And about half that move reflects the timing of acquisitions versus year-end. CapEx, EUR 325 million. And we're guiding EUR 350 million for this current year. The other significant cash flow item, tax of EUR 132.8 million, in line with our income statement charge with an effective tax rate of 16% in 2025 and our guidance for 2026 is an effective tax rate of 16.5%. So all of that combined to give us free cash flow of EUR 429 million. From a capital perspective, that's set out on Page 10 in terms of the reconciliation of opening and closing net debt. We reduced debt by the free cash. We deployed EUR 258 million in acquisitions and incurred EUR 168 million in deferred consideration. We also acquired 2.2 million shares during the year for a consideration of EUR 148.6 million. That's an average share price of EUR 67.58. Dividends paid of EUR 99.5 million during the year. So net debt ended the year at EUR 1.88 billion. A feature of the business for a long period of time has been the strength of our balance sheet, some commentary around that on Page 11. The group has significant liquidity. The principal strands of that are our undrawn EUR 800 million green revolving credit facility, which is fully committed to May 2028. We have cash balances on hand of approximately EUR 600 million. Our total gross debt is about EUR 2.2 billion or so between private placement and public bank. And the weighted average maturity of all of our drawn debt is a little over 4 years, and we have no significant maturities in the current financial year. So with that, I will hand back to Gene.
Gene Murtagh: Thank you, Geoff. So just to look at the structural growth drivers of the business. Once again, a lot of you will be familiar with this. But just in summary, if we can go to Slide 14, which is titled multifaceted growth drivers for the insulated envelope. And again, we'll go through this in some more detail with Dave shortly, but the 3 primary strands here are growth and penetration, which continues even in European markets, not to mention North America, APAC and South America with very significant runway for us there into the long term. The continued geographic rollout of the business continues. Again, I would stress, even in Europe and all of the other regions that we've just mentioned. And the product portfolio within the envelope is expanding way beyond what it was 5, 10 years ago. Obviously, huge growth in the QuadCore business, but expansion into other technologies like wood fiber and the acoustic insulation sector, stonewool, not to mention, obviously, the roofing expansion, which is going on worldwide and most significantly in North America, where we have very large ambitions for our business there. And I'd say similarly on Slide 20, which is the growth drivers for Advances. And this clearly is quite extraordinary and won't come as a surprise to anybody. But the sector itself we're operating is demonstrating very strong double-digit growth in itself, which naturally we're in the middle of. The business is growing share as we go along as well. So just market share growth as we expand our product portfolio is a significant driver for us. And then the share of wallet is just way beyond what it was even 5 years ago, where per megawatt we had exposure of about $100,000 per meg, and that is now 5x that and growing. As we've expanded the product portfolio, got into water cooling and now obviously into air handling, that continues to grow. And that spread of business and share of wallet, we expect to continue to expand significantly into the future.
David O'Brien: Thanks, Gene. If I could take you all to Slide 16 now, please. I think just as we enter a period where the macro backdrop looks like it's a little more stable than it's been for some time, it's probably worth reflecting on the markets that we faced over the last 5 to 6 years. And what the slide is showing you is look at a very challenged backdrop, particularly across Europe compared to 2019 on a volume basis, which if you look at the total footprint of the Kingspan markets, it looks like volumes in our addressable market down between 4% and 5% globally when we compare that to 2019. And over the same period, organically, insulated panel volumes have grown by nearly 14%. So it's been a very consistent 3% outperformance, which will become more evident as markets stabilize, with the conversion to more energy-efficient products has never been stronger. If I can bring you on then to Slide 23. Look, you've seen our global expansion map before and really in taking advantage of all of the opportunities that Gene has outlined across the data business, the roofing opportunity that we have started in Europe and are embarking upon in North America, alongside the structural growth of the vast array of our products. You can see the investments we are making across the globe now and over the next 2 to 3 years to unlock all of that potential. So we look to have projects in the pipeline that will require investment of about EUR 1.2 billion, which is nothing out of the ordinary in terms of capital allocation, but has the potential to unlock about EUR 2 billion of revenue over the fullness of time, which, again, if you flip on to Slide 24, will underpin that consistent long-term growth story that you've been familiar with Kingspan. With that, I'll hand it over to Gene.
Gene Murtagh: Thank you, Dave. So just on Slide 25, which is the outlook and how we're feeling about the near-term future. We've -- as we said earlier, we've entered the year with very strong backlogs right across the business. They have continued to grow significantly through the first 6 weeks, although clearly, dispatches and deliveries have been hampered somewhat by weather, but we expect that to recover pretty swiftly through March, April and beyond that. And really just when we step back, the business clearly has grown consistently over the last forever. We reached our target for 2025. We expect growth of in or around 10% in earnings for the current year. And we would expect that rate of growth to accelerate beyond that into 2027 and '28. Difficult to be specific about that, but we're certainly seeing a pipe of longer-term activity and engagement that would give us a high degree of confidence to deliver what we've just expressed there now. So with that, we would be delighted to take your questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Shane Carberry from Goodbody.
Shane Carberry: The first one, maybe just to follow up on that last point you were making, Gene, about the kind of level of growth over the kind of medium term or out to the end of the decade. Can you just give us a little bit more color on exactly what you mean in terms of that trading profit growth exceeding what we've seen over the last couple of years would be helpful. And then the second is just thinking about the product evolution from a data perspective and how you kind of keep a pace with all the change that's happening in the industry. And are you still confident in terms of achieving a kind of EUR 600 million EBITDA number kind of over the next 4 to 5 years?
Gene Murtagh: Okay. So on the first point, so we really have multi-stranded growth across the business. And it's actually very, very exciting, very encouraging. But if you look at our envelope for a start, like we've clearly got the evidence through the backlog and order intake in the insulated panel product strand. And obviously, our entry into roofing, which has been both acquired and now increasingly organic, predominantly in North America, which just hasn't kicked in at all, and that's something for second half of this year and into 2027 and beyond. And that's going to be significant. And as I say, clearly not evident just yet. We've got another dimension which is happening, and I think it's going to be significant and here to stay for some time, which is inflation. So there are all kinds of trade barriers coming up left, right and center. The result of that is that our big inputs like steel and chemicals are going to be subject to significant inflation in the current year, it's happening, and we see it happening consistently quarter-by-quarter into the future. And as odd as that sounds, that actually is a very positive dynamic for the group once you get past the lag phase. And that's going to be, I think, more and more materially evident as we go through even 2026. And then beyond that, which affects both Advances and the Envelope business is just this truly seismic transition that's going on in the tech sector and in particular, around the move towards AI. Like as a group, we are positioned right at the core of all that, and that's both internal and external. And just when you just piece all that together, and you consider the level of tangible engagement we've got with our client base, which is now much more long term because of the nature of these projects. The pipeline we're looking at is actually just really extraordinary. On the product evolution piece, we've obviously been able to keep at or above the pace of that moving from what was just a simple access floor, which was giving us exposure today to going back 20, 25 years, in fact, like now the product portfolio is just not comparable to that, and it continues to expand. So in terms of us being able to keep the pace of that, all I can say is the evidence of the past is that we have been able to do that. We're able to pivot and move with whatever the technology and the solutions have been going all along. And I'd be extremely confident that we continue to be at the forefront of that with our clients. And confidence around the EUR 600 million EBITDA, yes, we'd be at least as confident on delivering that as when we kind of mentioned it 3 or 4 months ago. And that's obviously whatever kind of 4- or 5-year target. But the trajectory towards that is very, very evident.
Operator: Our next question comes from Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley.
Cedar Ekblom: I've got 2 questions. One quite simple one. On your free cash flow, you had quite a big swing in working capital in 2025. I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of commentary around the working capital investment there. Is that simply associated with new plants? Or is there something else that we need to think about there? And then how we think about that sort of working capital development into 2026. And then secondly, on your roofing portfolio, can you talk a little bit about your decision to invest beyond these 2 initial assets? I believe that recently, the commentary was around making a third investment in residential roofing. It would be good to just hear how you're thinking about that cadence. And then beyond maybe the next 2 years or so, can you talk to us about what your ambition is in the U.S. roofing space? You're a new entrant. There's a lot of concern around disruption to pricing, et cetera. And I'd just like to hear how you would like your business to be positioned towards the end of the decade?
Geoff Doherty: Cedar, just to take the free cash flow question first. Over time, a highly efficient measure for us is a working capital to sales ratio less than 12%, and that's been the measure of efficiency over time. At the end of 2024, it was 11.4%, which was particularly low and particularly efficient for a number of reasons. It was 50 basis points higher at the end of December 2025 to 11.9%. That's our assumption as we go into 2026 in terms of average working capital levels. It can be -- it can vary for a whole number of reasons to within 50 or 60 basis points, but 11.9% is what we see the profile of the business. The -- specifically, about half the move during 2025 was associated with the timing of acquisitions and the working capital move between the date of acquisition to year-end. So that will naturally normalize as we move through 2026.
Gene Murtagh: And then Cedar, on the roofing side, we've got the first 2, as you mentioned, Oklahoma and Maryland, they're happening as planned. On the commercial roofing side, we will be moving to a third facility as well in the not-too-distant future, more than likely in Utah. So that's going to give us really an ability to service the market pretty much nationally. And as you mentioned there, our intended entry into the resi side, that's kind of always been on our radar. It won't surprise you to know that we've been looking at acquisition opportunities on that side as well. It's a huge market. There are tens and tens of facilities around the country and us entering with one will hardly even be noticed. But obviously, we've got to step into it at some point. That clearly, just by the nature of the size of the project is more long term, probably more like a 3-year project. And as you know, that side of the roofing market is pretty challenged at the present time, but that's just a moment in time. So we just see it as part of the wider roofing portfolio longer term. How will be received or what our success rate will be, that's all TBC, but we haven't failed yet. In terms of disruption, market pricing, it's not something I'd be particularly concerned about. It's a huge market. It's a growing market on the commercial side. We would expect that certainly in the earlier years that our capacity additions will be readily absorbed by the general pace of growth in the market. And our previously stated ambition of getting to a 15% share of the addressable side, bearing in mind, we don't want any presence in the EPDM market or the bitumen market. That remains our ambition, and we have every confidence of succeeding in getting there.
Operator: Our next question comes from the Florence O'Donoghue from Davy.
Florence O'Donoghue: I have a couple of questions. I might just ask on Advances. First of all, just in terms of the order book, how much visibility that gives you when you talk about it being the intake levels doubling and just generally, the conversion of an order book, is there a long time lag, just the kind of dynamics of how that works. And then the second one I might ask is just -- you mentioned in the document about the boards business in Europe in terms of capacity management and actions you've been taking. Just a little bit more color on that would be very much appreciated.
Gene Murtagh: Yes. So just on the Advances backlog floor, it's approximately 9 months, but it's actually becoming even longer. So it's getting larger and longer. And then we would have very solid engagement of work right through '27 and even into '28. Now that's obviously not -- they're not purchase orders. And so not entirely bankable. But on the basis of the type of engagement we've had with these end clients going back, we'd have a fair degree of comfort in that work coming through. And none of that will come as a surprise when you look at the general scale of investment into AI. It's only a tiny little bit around the edge that we're after. And in terms of the board capacity, we have been -- it's obviously not a huge part of the group any longer. It's become overpopulated, to be frank, particularly in Europe, largely granted by Brussels, which is completely daft, but that's the situation we've got. So it's become unattractive in many markets. We have invested in the -- probably the finest plant in the world in Winterswijk in the Netherlands, huge capacity. And what we're on course to do is to really kind of gear up on that facility and get out of lesser performing more niche manufacturing plants around. So Finland, we've exited. Sweden, we're in the process of. We have a facility in France that we're not starting up, and we're likely to take out of commission another facility somewhere in the middle of Europe. And like I say, really just gear up on one core plant in the Netherlands and just make that work hard. But importantly, we're going to be repurposing this capacity. It's not going in the bin or going to be growing cobwebs. So at least 2 of those lines I've just mentioned are going to be -- one of them is brand new in Rian in France that like I said, we're just -- it's not wise to start it up. It's going to be going into the roofing sphere in the U.S. and one other of the European facilities is likely to be Utah destined as well. So we just see a better future for those assets in that market, and that's kind of what we're about doing.
Operator: Our next question comes from Arnaud Lehmann from Bank of America.
Arnaud Lehmann: A couple of questions on my side. Firstly, on Advances, obviously, you decided not to IPO the business. Can you confirm that this is now a closed idea and that you're going to keep 100% of Advances and obviously keep the full consolidation of this high-growth business? And secondly, just a follow-up on U.S. roofing, as you know, there's been a decent amount of consolidation and M&A activity in the distribution side of it. Is that an opportunity for you in terms of the new owners of these assets are maybe more open-minded to take on your products? Or does that create new challenges.
Gene Murtagh: Great. So Arnaud, yes, the Advances IPO idea is put to bed, that's it. We're retaining 100% and moving on. That is that. It was a fantastic exercise, very interesting for us as well. But that's where we've ended up. In terms of the U.S. roofing, yes, there's an awful lot of moving parts on the distribution side, which to be honest, it's neither positive nor negative for us because we're starting from 0. So it's opportunity one way or the other is the way I would characterize that. Bearing in mind, by the way, that we're obviously through our Insulated Panel business a direct-to-market model. So our relationships are with specifiers, delivering direct to site and invoicing contractors is our primary presence in North America. So we're going to be multi-stranded in terms of how we approach the market, which we're already doing. So distribution, we see as a route as opposed to the route. And it will take us a while to find our feet, but we have a blank page and we're looking forward to it.
Operator: Our next question comes from Elodie Rall from JPMorgan.
Elodie Rall: My first question is actually going back on Q4. If you could get us maybe a bit more color on the organic growth for both businesses, price volume, that would be helpful. And my second question is going back on U.S. roofing on '26 guidance, what do you have with regard to that part of your business? And how should we model start-up costs as the plants are ramping up, please?
Geoff Doherty: Thanks, Elodie. I'll take those questions. Firstly, as it relates to Q4, I mean, as we've said before, we're -- our business ought to be judged over a 12-month period, you get ebbs and flows through various months and quarters. We guided in November that we would do approximately EUR 950 million of trading profit, and we came in at EUR 955 million. I think it would be fair to say as well that our intake in Q4 was strong, both within Envelopes and Advances such that we ended the year on the panels dimension to envelopes with the backlog 8% ahead. So that did build through Q4. And as we've highlighted previously, the intake in advances was strong as well, both in Q4 and beyond that. As regards to the components of the growth into this year and the 1050, since we gave the guidance of 1050 in November, the FX headwind has become steeper. Weather has been more acute in the early part of the year. Notwithstanding both of the factors, we're still -- we still have a lot of conviction around the 1050 given the momentum in the business. Specifically within that, there's about EUR 30 million of scope in terms of the run rate annually of acquisitions we've already made. So they're the constituents of that.
Operator: Our next question comes from Yassine Touahri from On Field Investment Research.
Yassine Touahri: I think the main question I would have is that what kind of sequence of organic growth do you see throughout 2026. I think the organic growth was very slow in 2025 in H1 and H2. I understand that the first quarter will be a little bit slow as well. Do you see an acceleration for the rest of the year? And it would be great if you could give us a little bit of more color on the element of the growth in trading profit. What is scope, what is organic, what is FX.
Geoff Doherty: Yes. Just to deal with the last part of your question first, the scope is about 20 -- sorry, EUR 13 million in terms of acquisitions that we've already made and annualizing that through 2026. FX at current spot rates, so we can only assume what's out there at the moment is broadly a EUR 17 million or EUR 18 million headwind for '26 versus '25. Much of that is in the first half because the euro-dollar rate really moved in a pronounced way from the second quarter. So much of that is the first half. As we've highlighted, Q1 is likely to be soft enough for the early part due to weather. But we -- given the backlogs that we have, we see momentum picking up considerably from March onward. And it's always difficult for us to kind of trend things from quarter-to-quarter. But over the course of the year, we're absolutely poised for decent growth.
Operator: Our next question comes from Pujarini Ghosh from Bernstein.
Pujarini Ghosh: So going back to the roofing in the U.S. So could you talk about the progress on the build-out of the plants? And you just highlighted that potentially the contribution to the P&L in 2026 is not that material, but then how should we expect that to progress in 2027? And also regarding your approach to commercial roofing going greenfield and then potentially considering M&A for residential roofing that you just talked about. What is the difference that you see in the market, which informs the difference in the way you're considering entering the market in these 2 sides of roofing. And my second question is a little bit broader. Could you talk about your exposure to OpenAI and any potential opportunities or headwinds you see in the medium to long term?
David O'Brien: Pujarini, thanks for the questions. Just on Roofing first, to be clear, we're leading out with an organic investment. We've said we're keeping our options open with regard to potential M&A. But at the moment, the investments in Oklahoma and Maryland are organic investments. Similarly, on commercial, when we move towards the West Coast, that will be organic as well. And as we appraise and go after the shingles market, that's again an organic investment. None of that precludes M&A, but we are leading out organic for the time being.
Gene Murtagh: Yes. And as regards to the broader question of exposure to OpenAI, I guess, AI, never mind OpenAI, just AI itself. It's -- like what's going on is -- there's no other word for it, except extraordinary. And yes, our exposure to it is extremely significant. And honestly, like we've had -- we've seen exciting times in the past and growth in Kingspan, obviously, over the years. But in terms of what we're looking at for the next number of years, like who can see way beyond. We're kind of looking at activity levels just way beyond growth levels that we've ever experienced in the past. So our exposure to it is, yes, very significant.
Pujarini Ghosh: And the Roofing profit contribution in 2027, if you have any indication?
Geoff Doherty: I mean, we should see sales activity from the end of this year in Roofing and will ramp up through 2027. Trading margins in Roofing will still be single digits in 2027, but building out to group average rates into '28 and beyond, and that's assumed in our forward guidance. At this stage, we would expect sales in the U.S. in Roofing to be somewhere in the region of $150 million to $200 million in 2027 and building out to $300 million to '28.
Operator: Our next question comes from Julian Radlinger from UBS.
Julian Radlinger: Two from me. So first of all, the stronger or the very strong order intake in advances year-to-date, that's obviously similar to what we've seen from many other data center exposed players. I suppose why might that not lead to upside to the EBITDA guide for Advances for EUR 300 million that you gave a few months ago. Is that because you're basically sold out for 2026 already and that order intake translates more into 2027? Or what are the moving parts here? And then second question on inflation. So you called this out explicitly. Is that more steel or MDI that you're seeing just because I'm looking at MDI prices, they were actually -- I think they're actually down year-to-date in the U.S. So is it more about steel here?
Gene Murtagh: Okay, Julian. So yes, just on the Advances EBITDA, so like that's progressed. If you say -- if you go '24, '25, '26 and it's largely organic, it's kind of EUR 180 million, EUR 230 million, EUR 300 million. So that's obviously pretty lively. So I guess in all of that, we were indicating that it was going to grow significantly, and I think that's kind of -- that qualifies as significant. But we're not going to hold the business back. And the EUR 300 million number for this year would be a minimum, actually, to be honest. So let's see how that progresses. And then in terms of the other point was inflation. So steel by far and away, like it's multiples of size and impact versus chemicals, not just MDI. So we do see it has been predominantly steel. It's largely as a result of protective measures all over the place, and it's starting to kind of jump ahead now. MDI, whatever MDI is doing in the U.S. just spot, I wouldn't be particularly -- like for a start, our consumption in the U.S. would be tiny by comparison to Europe. So -- and in Europe, it's definitely trending upwards. And if it's not, I'll just have to speak to the procurement guys because that's the message I've got.
Operator: Our next question comes from Chase Coughlan from Van Lanschot Kempen.
Chase Coughlan: Just 2 quick ones. Firstly, could you provide a bit more color around your pricing strategy for this year? I mean you just discussed raw material changes, but also in the context of potentially wage inflation, what sort of pricing measures you're taking throughout the course of '26. And then the second question going to Advances. Obviously, there was sort of somewhat of a rebrand over the last few months. I think it's likely to cause some more traction commercially. I'm just curious on what you're hearing from competitors, especially given the more modular solutions you're offering? I think Vertiv was quite bullish on this in their last results. So I'm just curious on what you're hearing there and how you're seeing that rebrand play out with customers.
Gene Murtagh: Yes. So in terms of pricing, like our approach successfully at all times has been just to pass through. So whatever cost inflation we're seeing we have all always succeeded in getting it through to market. That's over decades. So we don't expect that to really be any different. From a wage inflation perspective, that's not a particular kind of dial mover for us. The materials would be much more significant and much more public and obvious in terms of our ability to actually pass it through as well. So that's kind of our approach to that. In terms of the positivity that Vertiv have been propagating, we clearly would agree with that. We see it. We're growing into it. We're coming from opposite ends of the spectrum, if you like. We're literally coming from the floor up through the white space into gray. I'd say predominantly, Vertiv is at the higher tech end, very deep in gray and to some extent, kind of moving south into the white. So I think yes, there's certainly enough for all. But I think, yes, we'll be looking -- our Advances business will be increasingly looking more like it, I'd say, more so than the other way around.
Operator: Our next question comes from Priyal Woolf from Jefferies.
Priyal Mulji: The first one, I guess, is just a clarification just on the U.S. residential roofing. I appreciate you talked about this being something that you're looking at more in the longer term. But in your usual slide on global expansion, you've talked about a plant in Georgia in 2028. So I just wanted to check, is that locked in? Or is that sort of still TBC? And then the second question is just in terms of capital allocation. You've reiterated that you're looking at the EUR 650 million share buyback in tandem with other growth opportunities. Should we interpret that as you potentially don't fully reach that EUR 650 million level if you see bigger or more interesting organic and M&A opportunities. Or you think you'll get there regardless and it's more just about the timing, which is the uncertainty.
Gene Murtagh: Okay, Priyal. So just on the first point, that remains our ambition and our plan. Like that clearly can flex. It's not going to come forward, but it could push out. And that will depend largely around timing of machinery, plant construction, all that kind of stuff as well as market conditions. We clearly want to -- at whatever point we enter that site, we want conditions to be as favorable as possible. And naturally, right now, it's about as bad as it's been in recent years. So thankfully, it's not right now that we're entering because they're all under an awful lot of pressure, as you know. But 3 years from now or whatever, that's some time out. And on the buyback...
Geoff Doherty: Just on the buyback and capital allocation, generally, as we've said previously, we, at all times, compare opportunities that are external to Kingspan versus buying ourselves in terms of the relative valuation of both. We're fortunate that we have a healthy pipeline of development opportunities within the business, both organic and inorganic. And we'll continue to get that balance right and assessment right as we move through the year. We've done about 23% of the announced program, and we'll just see how that evolves through 2026. .
Operator: Our next question comes from Harry Goad from Berenberg.
Harry Goad: Just a question on the Panels business, please. Can you give us a rough idea of what the annual increase in new capacity is? I appreciate you probably can't be too exact year-to-year, but in terms of the percentage number on average over the years, just to think about the sort of steady increase in contribution from that division.
Geoff Doherty: I guess it's difficult to give a global answer to that in terms of capacity is pretty regional and localized. We're addressing different markets in different parts of the world. Naturally, we've seen very strong intake in a lot of the regions that we've entered over the last decade, in particular, like Latin America, APAC, all of those, we've put down a lot of capacity in recent years, but we're now seeing the fruits of that come through intake and orders. So as I say, it varies very significantly from one region to another and capacity is regional.
David O'Brien: Rather than think about it as one lump sum, Harry, if you go back to that Slide 16, just think about the average construction cycle and the investments that we're making, that feeds the 3% outperformance very consistently.
Operator: We currently have no further questions. This concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
Gene Murtagh: Great. Thanks. Fantastic. Thank you all for joining, and we'll be in touch over the coming days.