CFE earns 72% more, and that is worth 2.4% of Ackermans & van Haaren's profit

CFE's results release carries a striking figure: net profit up 72% in the first half. On its own, it reads like a major event. Seen from Ackermans & van Haaren, the story is more measured, and more interesting. CFE is indeed a significant controlling stake, but it remains a secondary engine of the holding company's current profit, a long way behind DEME.

Before looking at CFE, put it back inside the holding company

AvH closes the first half of 2026 with net profit of EUR 339.6 million, up 24%. Group shareholders' equity reaches EUR 5.90 billion and the net cash position EUR 524.4 million. The holding company has raised its outlook and now expects net profit growth of more than 10% across the whole of 2026.

Within that structure, CFE sits in the Marine Engineering & Contracting segment, which contributes EUR 140.2 million to consolidated net profit, or about 41% of the holding company's total profit over the period. But inside that segment, the orders of magnitude are very different.

The stake matters through the control AvH exercises, but it is far smaller than DEME in the profit of the half year. That scale is where this article starts, not a conclusion meant to play CFE down.

A small contribution today, but an improvement that counts

CFE's weight in total profit stays limited. Its movement is anything but trivial. Its contribution rises from EUR 3.2 million in the first half of 2025 to EUR 8.1 million in the first half of 2026, EUR 4.9 million more.

AvH's total profit rises by EUR 66.3 million over the same period. On a purely arithmetic basis, CFE's improvement therefore accounts for about 7.4% of the increase in the holding company's profit. And in the Marine Engineering & Contracting segment, where profit rises by EUR 23.2 million, CFE on its own explains about 21% of the increase.

Opulion calculations: 8.1 minus 3.2, divided by 66.3, giving about 7.4%; and 8.1 minus 3.2, divided by 140.2 minus 117.0, giving about 21.1%. These ratios measure the contribution to the improvement from one period to the next. They are not valuation weights.

CFE is only 2.4% of AvH's half-year profit. But its recovery explains about a fifth of the improvement in the Marine Engineering & Contracting segment.

Why does AvH receive more from CFE this year?

To see that, you have to go down one floor. CFE posts revenue of EUR 531.5 million in the first half, down 2.6%, but its operating profit rises 51% and its net profit 72%, to EUR 12.9 million.

AvH holds 62.54% of CFE. Applied to net profit of EUR 12.9 million, that stake gives about EUR 8.1 million: exactly the order of magnitude carried by the contribution AvH publishes.

Construction and Renovation, the real source of the recovery

Revenue in this division slips, from EUR 359.2 million to EUR 350.3 million. But its operating profit goes from EUR 5.5 million to EUR 20.2 million. The margin reaches 5.7%, a record high according to CFE.

The release explains that increase by better execution and stricter selection of tenders, but also by several favourable factors: the sale of a production site at Marche-en-Famenne, the favourable settlement of certain significant accounts with subcontractors, and the absence of heavily loss-making projects.

That is an important qualification for an AvH reader: the rise in CFE's contribution is real, but not everything that produced the record margin of the half year is necessarily recurring.

Multitechnics: VMA moves ahead, MOBIX remains the weak point

Both companies grow their revenue, but their results move in opposite directions. For AvH, that means CFE's improvement is not yet the improvement of all its businesses.

The order book offers a second reading

Poland is the clearest case: revenue falls by a quarter while the order book grows by more than 40%. The first measures what has just been executed, the second gives part of the visibility already under contract.

And even that order book does not yet include everything that has been won. CFE notes that several significant orders, Kennedy Park and Lake Side among them, were not yet booked at 30 June.

CFE's best half year should not be multiplied by two

CFE itself counsels caution about extrapolating. Construction and Renovation should improve its operating profit across the whole of 2026, but the group already states that its contribution will be lower in the second half than in the first. Construction is a seasonal business besides.

CFE's net cash, at EUR 21 million at the end of June, remains very solid for a half-year close, even though it sits below the EUR 43.8 million of end-December. VMA should continue to improve, while the low level of activity will remain a drag on MOBIX.

What CFE actually changes for Ackermans & van Haaren

So the subject is not "CFE earns 72% more". The subject is: how much of that progress travels up to the holding company, and on what scale?

The answer has two halves. CFE is only 2.4% of AvH's half-year profit and stays a long way behind DEME inside its own segment. But its improvement against last year explains about 21% of the increase in that segment's profit. CFE is therefore a secondary engine by size, and a real contributor to the acceleration of the half year.

That is precisely the right way to read a holding inside an investment company: never look at it on its own, and always ask what it represents, what it brings in, and what it changes for the company that owns it.

Editorial information, with no investment advice and no investment recommendation. AvH holds 62.54% of CFE at 30 June 2026. The contributions of EUR 8.1m for CFE, EUR 132.3m for DEME and EUR 140.2m for the Marine Engineering & Contracting segment are published by AvH. The ratios of 2.4%, 5.8%, 7.4%, 21.1% and 41.3% are Opulion calculations from those published figures.