InvestorNews

The operational investment effort has been stepped up, especially in regulated businesses, where returns provide high visibility
Figures as of June 30 reflect the picture of a Group engaged in executing a significant investment plan, designed to ensure that our assets are increasingly equipped to support the energy transition and more resilient to climate-related events. This is proven by the nearly 400 million euro in capex carried out during the period, mostly focused on Networks, which mark increase of nearly 20% compared to the first half of last year.

A well-designed structure of the business portfolio allows Hera to control risk and EBITDA volatility
The 2025 Half-Year Report also portrays the profile of a Group that grows while preserving a controlled risk profile: regulated businesses account for the highest percentage of our EBITDA, 40.5%. We also maintain a well-balanced portfolio of liberalised businesses in which we continue to strengthen our competitive position, with Energy and Waste contributing to consolidated EBITDA by 33.1% and 24.3% respectively.
In these six months, the returns generated by the investments on this well-structured multi-business portfolio allowed Hera to absorb the disappearance of approximately 56 million euro in temporary opportunities that we had successfully captured in the first part of 2024. These factors, non-repeatable in 2025, refer to supply contracts in Last Resort markets, which had particularly high margins, for about 46 million euro, and to electricity hedging contracts in the Waste area, currently expired, for about 10 million euro.
Therefore, first-half 2025 Group EBITDA, amounting to 721.7 million euro, is a result that confirms the soundness of long-term strategy and the effectiveness of management policies, as it derives from a choral growth, recorded in all areas in which we operate. If we exclude the 56 million euro of temporary opportunities from the comparison with the figure of first-half 2024 of 732.7 million euro, we observe a first-half 2025 EBITDA growth of about 45 million euro, at a pace of approximately 7%.

EBIT benefits from lower provisions
In the recently concluded half-year, Hera also benefited from a normalisation of provisions, with a reduction from 81 to 58 million euro, owing to improved customer credit quality and a reduction in the contribution of Last Resort contracts. This dynamic – despite higher Depreciation due to new investments - allowed us to record only a marginal decline in EBIT, around 0.5%.

The 5% EpS increase benefits from the value creation achieved in the financial management area
While Net Operating Profit was broadly stable, we were able to leverage a very positive financial performance in the first half of the year to post a 5% increase in Earnings per Share: a progress, that of 5%, which sees us firmly on the path outlined in the Plan to create shareholder value. Compared with the first half year of 2024, against a broadly stable cost of long-term debt – which remained at around 2.75% – Hera achieved a sizeable reduction in net financial expenses, through an optimisation of the cost of short-term financing to manage the daily modulation of cash requirements. So, we recorded a 22.7 million euro decrease in the result of the financial management area, an improvement of 36.7% compared with the first half of 2024.
This performance reflects the continuous effort to optimise our debt in parallel with the gradual normalisation of the energy market. Indeed, we successfully renegotiated the terms of the bank credit lines that we had secured to cope with the peaks of the crisis and rationalised all the different sources of financing.
The positive outcome of the liability management activities were also reflected in improved ratings from rating agencies, as Moody's recently raised the outlook on Hera’s long-term debt from Stable to Positive.
Today, 97% of Hera’s debt is represented by fixed-rate instruments: another factor that allows us to rely on a solid financial structure also for the near future.

Returns keep growing
In the first half of 2025, the Return on Investment stood at a double-digit level, going from the 9.6% of first-half 2024 to 10.3%. Return on Equity also strengthened, with a 20-basis points increase, bringing the indicator up to 11.5%, from 11.3% in the first half of 2024.

Robust cash generation fuelled further deleveraging
The cash generated in the first half of 2025 was 36.3 million euro higher than the needs to cover operating investments and dividends distributed in June for the Financial Year 2024. Net financial debt as at 30 June 2025 could therefore decrease to 3,927.1 million euro, bringing the leverage to 2.5x.

Therefore, today we can rely on a
Debt-to-EBITDA ratio that provides us
with high financial flexibility to continue the industry consolidation process through M&A.

Hera’s share price reflected investors' appreciation for the size and quality of the profits achieved
Last June, the stock market brought Hera share price back to levels not seen since before the pandemic, demonstrating its appreciation for its growth consistency over time and the very quality of its fundamentals.
This encourages us to move forward resolutely with the executions of the commitments we have made in the Plan.

We are also fully aware that Hera today
has significantly greater financial strength,
risk management capability, and growth potential than
it did in 2020, when the share had already reached a price of 4.4 euro.

Our goal, therefore, will be not only to deliver financial results that give substance to these favourable premises, but also to keep communicating them effectively to investors, so that this value is fully reflected in the share price.