Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the nine months results 2025 analyst and investor call. At this time all participants have been placed on the listen only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Max Westmeyer , Head of IR .
Thank you very much and welcome to a ll of you to our Q3 2025 results presentation. Today's call is hosted by our CEO Nikolai Setzer and our CFO Roland Welzbacher. Both the press release and the presentation of today's call are available for download on our investor relations website. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is for investors and analysts only. If you do not belong to either of these groups, please disconnect now. Following the presentation we will conduct a Q & A session for sell side analysts to provide a chance for all to ask questions. We would like to ask you to limit yourselves to no more than three questions.
This will help us to conclude in t ime and before handing over, I want t o briefly highlight some extraordinary effects that impacted our Q3 figures as you're already u sed to it from the former AUMOVIO r eporting, the signing of the sale of our Original Equipment Solutions business within ContiTech has resulted in some accounting technicalities. Here too, IFRS 5 applies and the assets and liabilities attributable to OESL were reclassified to assets and liabilities held for sale. Furthermore, the sale has resulted in a write-down of the assets which reduced the basis for depreciation. The depreciation of the new book values of the OESL assets has stopped. Without the signing there would have been no impairment trigger and the depreciation would have been roughly EUR 6.5 million higher in Q3 with this upfront, let. me now hand you over to Nico.
Thanks, Max. Very welcome to the call of an again eventful third quarter. Our quarters have been in the last time always eventful, but this time with two major events and two major milestones. As already mentioned, on the one hand the AUMOVIO spin-off with a fantastic ring the bell event on September 18th. This was very impressive going forward for sure and you could see already that it started quite well as well in terms of market cap. Just in that day, EUR 700 million market cap was additionally created and success story continues. I should say as of today, or better yesterday, it's in the meantime greater than EUR 2 billion, EUR 2.4 billion roughly, or 15% in some weeks. If you look at the underlying indices, they are definitely not 15% up, so we clearly outperformed with that measure the market.
Not just that this measure has been great, but looking as well how it was executed, speed and precision from announcement August, we started last year December decision and September 18th, then the listing with the final transaction I should say. That shows how focused and determined the Conti team was and is. Once we decide on strategic realignment, all hands on deck. I'm really grateful that the team has achieved on time and on budget, I should say in particular or even more because the OESL sale has been signed basically in parallel. It was August 27 when the signing took place with the industrial holding company Regent, which is, and that is why we were pursuing this strategic move from our point of view, clear better strategic owner for that asset to develop its value accretive going forward.
On the one hand, on the other hand we see for ContiTech this is a clear strategic move to focus even more on the industry business, on industry customers, getting now to an 80% industry business. Therefore, our strategy which we announced, three plus one champions, three sectors plus the one, the one is OESL. We see us following suit with those two, focusing now on the last two which are within the group. Just to finalize this one, expected closing is until first quarter 2026 and then OESL is done. At the same time, we fully focus then on the ContiTech independence. With those strategic milestones, coming now to our performance, and it is a good operational performance.
First of all, those strategic moves have had as well strong impacts, in particular on the near base. You see under special effects on the right side that combined both had an impact of greater than EUR 1 billion, EUR 1.1 billion negative impact. Roland will give more details in his part. However, I want to highlight right now already those have been all non-cash effective one-offs, means as we did it as well in previous years. Our dividend policy allows for adjusting such events, means they would be out of the dividend base, which we will then look into for next year's dividend. Secondly, leverage ratio. Now, on a pro forma base, means we have excluded out of the 12 months EBITDA the Automotive deconsolidation effect, EUR 680 million, so very substantial, which is getting us right now to 2.2.
We said we believe to be at around 2ish. This is now September until year end. We're working farther with our cash as well to deleverage. We are on target and we have expected such a ratio. From the more strategic part now to the operational part, you see organic growth 2.6% which is a decent growth given that the last quarters have been more shy. Very strongly driven by Tires. Tires 3.7% which we'll see on the next chart. Why I mentioned it already, because that tells you immediately that the growth was very much driven or all driven by Tires. ContiTech still slightly improving, but slightly negative organically with 0.6% and responsible Replacement tire business. There the regions North America and APEC and PLT helped as well. Overall good operational performance.
You could see that channel mix, regional mix, our measures all contributed to a strong price mix on the sales part. You see that the negative impacts, which we had, still lower volumes in line with the year to date, so at the -1 percentage points roughly, strong exchange rate effects with drop throughs, and the tariffs effects, they have been almost completely offset by all the mitigation measures which we took in place, which we started more or less at the beginning of the year and which are now unfolding. The adjusted EBIT margin is, with a strong comp of last year, basically close to be stable. On ContiTech, as mentioned before, slight sales down. However, earnings are significantly up.
That is a proof that our measures, our safeguarding measures which we've initiated, they clearly pay off in an environment which is still weak on the industry as well as on the OE side. However, we can admit that the third quarter already shown some signs, in particular September, of improvement. Industry, business, our business areas have been at least in positive territory with regard to growth. Whereas OE is still down, already mentioned OESL results in a stop of depreciation EUR 6.5 million. Already now I can mention ContiTech would be as well up in terms of earnings even without that effect. And we have excluded it, which you see in the middle from the group result where it has only a minor effect. Looking on the adjusted free cash flow here, slight operational improvement EUR 157 million to EUR 169 million, so EUR 12 million.
You have to consider that last year we had the one-off payment from Vitesco EUR 125 million. If you adjust for that, you see that operationally we are going in the right direction and this holds as well true for the adjusted EBIT of the group which you see on the upper there. If you deduct the EUR 125 million you see that our EBIT has improved there as well based on the two stronger sectors. Two strong sectors. Looking on the group operational holding costs you see like for like that we are trending, if you do the math, you see that we are trending as well downwards on those costs. We have elaborated on that. This is expected.
We are further working in order to get farther to the pure play of Tires now combined with ContiTech to lower holding costs, which are in line with our businesses. Looking into the figures, all in all you see a challenging quarter. With the strong September ending, the second half of September was on the stronger upper side. It helped with solid performances on Tires. You see 3.6%, which I already mentioned. Again, sales and Replacement PLT are up, whereas the OE part and in parts as well. Truck Tire was down. Still gives overall, with the strong price mix in organic sales growth. The result you see on the right side, 14.6% to 14.3%, flattish, again strong comp.
Last year it was a strong quarter with the 508 only slightly down with the 501 based on our mitigation measures which took place. ContiTech again 0.6%. Industry up, OE down. Both trending as well. The OE side trending a bit better in the year to date trend. That is a positive. You see on the right side, even if you deduct from the 97, the 6.5 mark mentioned gets you to 91. You see we are up from 4.4 to 6.1. In a difficult environment with organic sales slightly down, particularly the industry business contributed and the safeguarding measures, we managed quite well on the ContiTech side to mitigate the impacts. With that I hand over to Roland.
Yeah, thank you, Nico. A warm welcome also from my side. My pleasure today to join my first earnings call as a speaker, not just for Q& A. Last time, before we start looking at the entire Q3 figures, let me start with a brief look at the Q3 developments in our key markets and regions based on the latest available information. Due to some delay in the data on imports, you will see some retroactive changes in the database. Moving forward, on this page you see the market dynamics in which we operate with our Passenger and light truck tires business. Light vehicle production overall improved, but we're coming from a very low level, so rather easy comps year over year.
The strong performance of the Chinese market continues, also driven by government subsidies and exports in Europe while being slightly positive, lagging compared with the other markets. Dynamics due to weaker demand and declining vehicle exports on North America seem to normalize a little bit in a still difficult macroeconomic environment. Now over to the Tires market. PLT Replacement selling was slightly down in Europe and North America. However, you have to consider the solid comparison base Q3 2024, and looking at the single quarters it can be clearly seen that the impact of imports to Europe that were partly driven by the anticipation of potential anti-dumping measures by the European Commission is normalizing. O n Chart 7.
Coming now to the trends for our Truck Tires business as far as commercial vehicle production is concerned, there are still only slight signs of recovery in Europe even though we're coming from a very low level already in Q3 2024. The North American volume trend is even worsening sequentially. Truck Tire Replacement business continues to show modest positive momentum. In EMEA demand remained muted due to ongoing economic uncertainty while in North America it's been lately fueled by pre-tariff import activity. However, this trend is already slowing down and how these market dynamics translate now into the performance of the Tires group sector you can see on the next slide. Number eight, Tires is significantly impacted by the highly volatile environment. Once more we had to deal with substantial headwinds from FX and tariffs.
Overall, as Nico said, volume slightly declined on the same level as in the first half, mainly due to the continuing weak PLT OE market and softer truck tires replacement demand for local manufacturers business. However, demand for our tires in PLT Replacement was healthy in North America and APEC during Q3. The sell-in for the winter tire season was also comparatively strong with a promising order book. Also from a mix perspective and despite all challenges we managed to perform in line with the market or even slightly better in our key region. The strong price mix of +4.8% predominantly driven by product, channel, and country mix more than compensated for the negative impact from FX and lower volumes in the top line. We benefited from regional trends, positive effects in sales channels, and the continuing trend towards premium and ultra-high performance tires in our product portfolio.
In terms of profitability, price mix helped us to almost completely compensate for lower volumes to drop through on FX and the mid double-digit million euro cross burden. Still, from tariffs, raw material costs provided a slight tailwind versus prior year in Q3 with more positive effects now expected in Q4. While we're talking about tariffs, timing for the tariff reimbursements from the U.S. government and whether we still receive it in 2025 or in 2026 is still unclear. However, this will not have any impact on our ability to reach our cash flow guidance for the full year. This brings us to chart number nine. To shed some more light on our regional performance, let's take a look at the trends and drivers in Americas, EMEA, and APEC.
Starting with the Americas, we achieved strong organic sales growth of +5.1% while we faced a slightly negative volume effect due to a very weak Truck Tires OE market. Robust performance in both PLT and Truck Tires Replacement volumes helped us to offset this. Favorable price mix largely compensated for FX and volume effects, whereby mix was also strongly influenced by channel mix effect. Moving on to EMEA, we saw an organic growth of +2.7%. The negative volume effects were mainly driven by weak PLT OE and Truck Tire Replacement business. Truck OE, however, that's the difference to the Americas, recovered strongly, and the PLT Replacement business was supported by a healthy start into the Winter business. In addition to that, sequentially improved price mix fully compensated for FX and volume headwinds. Finally, on the right side, APAC, on the sales side, we delivered +3.2% organic growth.
Our PLT business showed solid growth in both channels, OE and Replacement. On the Truck side, however, Q3 was impacted by the closure of the APEC Truck Tires business in Modipuram, India. Price mix performance was largely flat sequentially, so all in all we demonstrated healthy organic growth across all regions despite the challenging market conditions. This brings us now to chart 10, over to ContiTech. Despite continuing weak volumes in the Automotive and Industry sectors, there are slight signs of improvement as evidenced by sequentially increasing volumes in our industry business, and the Automotive business showed a slightly positive development in September too. FX effects on sales were again negative, though with limited drop through to earnings for ContiTech other than Tires. Raw material impact overall was still slightly negative in Q3 due to some offsetting effects caused by some ContiTech specific materials.
However, the negative effects of lower volumes and exchange rate losses were more than offset by price mix safeguarding measures we implemented such as our measures to compensate for the impact of tariffs and by positive effects related to our transformation resulting in adjusted EBIT significantly above the prior year level. Those are one-time effects associated with a planned separation between AUMOVIO and ContiTech and technical as we stopped depreciation in OESL which increased the adjusted EBIT as Nico said from a pro forma 6.1% to 6.6%. Excluding OESL, the ContiTech margin in Q3 would have been at 8.5% with sales amounting to EUR 1 billion.
With that healthy underlying performance and an expected sequential improvement in Q4 mainly because of a seasonally stronger industrial business as well as continuous cost saving measures, we are confident to achieve the lower end of the guidance corridor for ContiTech. With that, let's talk about cash flow on page 11. The Q3 free cash flow generation operationally slightly improved compared to Q3 2024, the prior year. However, you need to consider that Q3 2024 was positively affected by a one-off effect from the reimbursement from Vitesco that Nico already touched upon earlier. The other changes in the operating free cash flow mainly relate to changes in employee benefits and some other changes in other assets and liabilities.
Capital expenditures increased compared to the previous year, mainly due to our continued investment in respective extension projects such as our plant in Rayong, Thailand, ongoing construction of our new tire distribution center in Texas for example, as well as a more balanced quarterly phasing of our CapEx spend compared to the last year. So much to the operational part. Let's move on to slide 12. I would like to briefly address the more technical implications concerning our balance sheet resulting from the spin- off of AUMOVIO. The left side shows how our net debt has developed over the last few quarters. You can see the influence of the spin- off in Q3 2025. All figures up to 6/30/2025 are presented as reported for the entire group as it existed back then. That means for continuing and discontinued operations. The figures as of 09/30/2025 refer only to continuing operations.
EBITDA for the pro forma leverage ratio was adjusted for the deconsolidation effect resulting from the spin- off. As expected, we came in at around 2 x leverage, which is a level that we will now continuously drive downwards in the upcoming quarters. On the right side you can see how the total equity as well as the net debt was particularly affected by the cash contribution to AUMOVIO. At the same time, the total assets were reduced by the disposal of the associated net assets. All in all, this led to an improvement of the equity ratio from 14.6% as per the end of June to 22.2% as per the end of September. Just as we already expected in H1. All KPI targets mentioned on our CMD do of course remain valid. That means we will continue to operationally strengthen our balance sheet.
With that being said, let's move on to our market outlook on page 13. After a very negative picture of light vehicle production expectations, especially in Europe and North America, S&P Global has raised their expectations for financial year 2025. However, we see in this forecast certain risk related to supply chain disruptions such as the situation around Nexperia, for example, so we remain cautious. The latest S&P Global figures on commercial vehicle production show that the situation has further deteriorated. Although the negative trend in Europe is gradually reversing, it is still far from sufficient to achieve growth for the year as a whole. The outlook for North America has also deteriorated significantly. Once again, our assumptions regarding the Passenger car tire replacement markets did not change materially.
While we increased the outlook for the Commercial Vehicle Replacement business on the back of a healthy year to date performance, and for the Eurozone, we slightly increased our assumptions for overall industrial production following the latest developments in this area. However, this is a very broad picture of industrial activities for the Eurozone. Unfortunately, we have not yet seen that positive momentum in the important areas for the ContiTech industrial business. Let's now turn to our guidance. As already announced in our pre-release in October, we are confirming the guidance for sales, EBIT, and cash flow. However, some changes had to be made because of the impact of Continental's transformation. The non-cash one-offs are affecting our earnings before tax, which leads to a distortion of our regular tax rate.
Since we of course still have to pay taxes in the countries where we are doing business, this is leading to an expectation of a low triple-digit percentage tax rate for the full year without the spin-off. Without the transformation, there would have been no adjustment for the tax rate, meaning it would have still been at around 27%. In addition, we've also adjusted the value for expected special effects on EUR 350 million to EUR 1.5 billion for the same reasons. Meaning this adjustment is solely attributable to the transformation-related special effects that we have already explained. Please keep in mind we're mainly giving you the guidance for special effects and tax rate. We can model a net income.
Our dividend policy does, however, as mentioned in the introduction by Nico and previously done in the past, allow us to exclude those non-cash one offs for the basis of our dividend proposal in 2026. In other words, the changes in the guidance will presumably not impact the dividend this year. Furthermore, we have also adjusted our CapEx guidance from 6% to 6.5% mainly due to the ongoing plant expansion in Asia. With this, we come to the end of our presentation. I would like to hand over the rest of the time to you now. Operator, could you please open the line for the Q & A?
Yes, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine and star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw your question, press three and star on your telephone keypad. The first question is from Akshat Kacker, JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you. Hi Nikolai. Roland, Akshat from JP Morgan. I have three questions please. The first one on the market outlook for the Passenger car replacement business. I see that you've talked about a decline in demand in the second half versus the first half. When we think about the inventory situation, I think something that has been very well flagged is the high inventories of budget tires in Europe and the U.S. How do you assess the current inventory levels in these markets and are you cautious on selling volumes when we head in? That's the first question. The second question is on the Winter Tire market, which I think mainly underpins the very strong price mix that you have had in the quarter. It's a more structural question on the evolution of this market.
Given that we have had two very strong selling seasons in 2024 and 2025, how do you expect this market to go going forward? Please. Given the discussions we've always had on a structural declining Winter Tire market due to all-season tires, but also global warming. The last question is on the cost actions that you have talked about and the fixed cost measures that you have taken in response to tariffs. Are there any structural cost savings that you can carry into 2026 or are most of these measures one time in nature, please. Thank you.
Yeah, let's start with the market outlook on the PLT side and I would like to refer to your comment on the inventories level. Overall, I think the inventory specifically in Europe on the PLT side were driven by imports and the imports again were driven by the expectation with regard to anti-dumping measures. Whether they come or not and to what extent and when is still unclear. If it would not come, then stocks obviously would normalize pretty fast. I guess it had a dampening effect on the sell-in. Whether this now continues into first half 2026 remains to be seen. In the U.S., of course, we also have seen raised imports, but the dynamic was due to the tariffs. There was a lot of preload on the inventory side with regard to the tariffs. This is now also normalizing to some extent. It also takes time.
It also muted to some extent the demand. Overall in general for volumes in Q4, as Nico pointed out in the beginning, we are rather on the cautious side. We expect a slight decrease, flattish.
At best with the Winter Tire market. This is as you pointed out, a strategic question. So far we've seen in the last years still a solid business there. I mean in those markets where still there's winter, there are wintertime regulations. We assume that this will drag for a certain time and this will still support our tire business strongly as well as our position strongly. On the other hand we see as well that those which are changing due to climate situations, they are going into All-season business and on the All-season side we are well positioned, so it's a one for one change to that. How this will play out remains to be seen. Still, what we said in the capital market day, that overall Tires is not a strong growth business but in the area of 1% CAGR.
You should see a switch that moves then strongly over time from the Winter side, will move towards season and then as well to summer. On the fixed cost measures, you asked what is structure on the tire side. We have announced the restructuring measures in Malaysia, also [Sita] truck tire, Modipuram, India. I mean, all those actions are getting as well into next year and helping. On ContiTech, we have announced as well several plant closures and structural measures. There is a certain amount of those which are executed this year, which are in execution, which will bring positive fixed cost savings then for the next year. However, with the one or the other part, like the Truck Tire Modipuram plant, there is obviously as well business not from high enough quality in terms of value creation. That is why we are pursuing this.
There is a certain kind of business which is as well then facing out which you have to keep in mind.
Thank you.
The next question is from Christoph Laskawi, Deutsche Bank. Please go with your question.
Hi, it's Christoph from Deutsche. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one please on essentially competitive situation in Tires and one of your m ain competitors talked about portfolio repositioning to rebalance volume and market share. Do you see any increasing commercial or competitive pressure in Q3, Q4 right now or so far no major impact? The second question, just if you could provide, I know it's quite early, but the main building blocks that we should think about on volume, price mix, potentially FX, and cost for tires in ContiTech into 2026, and then remind us of the one-time cash effect that you had in 2025 and what to expect in 2026, please. Thank you.
Yeah, first of all, as you know, we don't comment on competitors, so no comment from our side to that. At the end of your question, you referred to market situations. I think Roland already mentioned how we currently see the markets right now. We should say from the trending point similar to where we've been in the nine months. That's what Roland has as well referred to. So we are - 1% in volume so far. So we managed quite well the balances between our cost situation, the market and the different dynamics. And we assume for the fourth quarter that this is unchanged. Obviously we're always striving to be better. That's why Roland mentioned as well to be flattish at best. We had a stronger second half last year so higher comps overall.
This is the market dynamics in which we are operating right now. Going to the second part for the fourth quarter. The other important metrics. FX . Assuming that it continues on the FX rate, then right now FX should be the same because it was relatively stable last year in Q2. This year it changed, so it should be relatively stable for the fourth. Looking even into the first quarter, you should see similar effects as then second quarter. Really, the exchange rate on the globe versus euro have changed overall cost situation. We have seen on the indices and the spot prices since the second quarter into the third quarter already that they are going downwards. We had only limited effects in the third quarter based on inventory and consumption.
We assume that this gets a larger effect in Q4, still being certain shy due to how we currently see the inventories and the markets and the different parts, and then would drag as well into 2026 on the price mix, or I should would call it quality business. The quality of our business because it depends on sales and channel mix. Where we've been relatively rich in third quarter, mention North America, larger tires, larger mix, that is pure math, similar to Asia- Pacific. We see it, we see that certain trends should persist. However, as mentioned, we had really strong quality of our business in the third quarter. Certain parts will continue for sure. How it all plays out remains to be seen. We had seen the question on the Winter Tire business. Strong order book so far, selling was good.
Now we are hoping November December to see as well as strong sellout. Winter weather in January right now is not so winterish. We hope that we see some snowflakes and some predictions then obviously this helps as well the quality and the price mix to be more supportive in the fourth quarter.
I can take the free cash flow question. Going back, 2024, we forecasted that the totally expected one-time effect for 2025 are expected to be in a high triple-digit million euro area, more or less evenly split between restructuring, separation costs, and taxes. Restructuring cash outs are mostly borne by AUMOVIO spin-off. Cash outs have been specified in the prospectus, EUR 279 million thereof, over EUR 200 million will ultimately be borne by AUMOVIO. Tax cash outs will mostly be covered by Continental. This should lead to one-offs on the Continental side amounting to roughly one third of the originally anticipated volume.
Thank you. For 2026 all that should be gone, right?
From the, let's say, from the first two steps of the transformation, i.e., AUMOVIO and OESL, we do not expect then big effects for 2026.
Sir, thank you.
On the ContiTech side we announced that we are looking into plant measures as well, which is also dragging into 2026. There will be some one-offs associated to that. Special effects you always have, yes, but it is minor compared to what you have historically seen, yes.
Okay, the next question is from Horst Schneider, Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions as well. The first one that I have relates to ContiTech and the disposals. On OESL you have of course not quantified the purchase price, but what effects can we expect basically on debt when the OESL disposal gets executed? In that context as well, do you expect closure of that this year or it's more in January if I remember right? In that context, maybe also you can give an update on the disposal process of the remainder of ContiTech. When is that really kicking off and when you expect basically closure of t hat.
In that context again when we think about net debt EBITDA and your long term guidance one times but I think that is more for 2029. How should we think about net debt EBITDA when the ContiTech disposal gets executed? Because that determines and of course a potential special dividend. When this decision is made you want to be exactly at one times net debt EBITDA or you can be also above because you just want to trend towards end of the decade towards one. That would be the other question. Thank you.
All right, so let me take the first one. We agreed not to announce any details of the transaction with the buyer of OESL. I cannot be too specific but all the debt associated with the business will transfer to the buyer. This is mainly expected for the pensions.
Pensions, deadlight icons.
Exactly. Closure, I think, mentioned that already early in Q1 2026 to be expected for OESL, and then for the entire sales process for ContiTech, we more or less lay on track what we already announced. We are in the final stages of preparation that should be finalized before Christmas, and then we are basically ready to approach the market, and we want to complete the transaction in the second half of 2026. There is no news because we are still on track, and long term with regard to capital allocation and net debt to EBITDA ratio, as we always said, midterm that is 27- 29. We want to get to a leverage ratio of one or below, whereas we have certainly some flexibility with regard to the timing.
When we will achieve that depends on the market conditions. How is our business situation at that point of time, and obviously what are the preferences overall to be evaluated.
Okay, thank you. Just quick follow-up, this ContiTech disposal, basically the remainder can be initiated already before the OESL transaction is completed or it only starts when OESL is completed?
No, it starts already. As Roland mentioned, we are in the preparation. We're going into the market already in parallel then in the first quarter in 2026 and we as OESL itself carved out its own business. The one is independent from the other.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Monica Bosio at Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes, good morning, I hope you can hear me and thanks for taking my questions. The first one is a flavor between the Passenger car tires and the Truck. I know that the company does not split between the two areas but can you give us a flavor of the underlying margins in Trucks? And can you imagine that the margins in Trucks could be in the mid single digit zone or maybe better? Any color on this would be really appreciated. My second question is more on that strategic side. As you mentioned that the tariff impact for 2026 is still not very visible but more in general in the long medium term, what could be the euro strategic response to tariffs?
The very last is on the margins for the fourth quarter for the Truck Tires on the back of the favorable winter tire season and on the back of the sound results achieved in the third quarter. Should we expect margins for the full year closer to the upper part of the corridor range? Because at this moment the consensus is not accounting. This just a check from you. Thank you very much.
I would take the first one. We are not splitting the margins between PLT and Truck. Just in general, each business which we have has to create value. At least create or give the returns on the cost of capital. This must be. This is true for Truck as well for PLT. You saw us in India getting out of a certain business where this was not the case, we've seen the same. We act once we are getting into it. Truck tire has as well a different cost of capital, it's a different business model, it's a different cost base. That's why you cannot compare it. Again, we do not publish the different margins. However, as we have a strong position in Europe and Americas, you can believe that we are creating as well value over there.
Otherwise we wouldn't be in that business supporting and further investing into it. Strategic response to tariffs, first of all, our strategic response were mitigation measures as much as we could. Obviously we explore our U.S. American manufacturing sites or the North American manufacturing sites which we have to the max. We are doing debottling measures and so on. For farther, more long term, we have to wait until really the dust settles. We have right now a certain tariff which is in place. We have to see how the dynamics as well on the cost side will go farther out. Then as typically, we take farther measures with regards to our sourcing and where we produce those tariffs. Keep in mind that building a tire plant is a very strategic long term decision.
We have to be sure that the environment and the framework and the market is in line for a longer period of time to justify such a decision.
With regard to your third question, Monica, I expect that you're asking about the guidance range, right? That was my understanding. We feel totally comfortable with the current guidance in place for ContiTech 6%-7% and Tires 12.5%-14%. Right now we're remaining cautious for Q4. We're slightly optimistic, but we remain cautious. There's no need to change this. We just confirmed it and we want to stay with this.
Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.
The next question is from Harry Martin Bernstein. Please start with a question.
Thanks very much for taking my questions. The first one that I have is on the Capex increase. It sounds like this is for capacity increase in Tires primarily. Can I just ask about the motivation here? Is this effectively shifting capacity out of tire cost locations or an attempt to win more volume share in total? The second question, I have a few really on ContiTech. The first one just on the Q3 performance, is the industrial business now back to double digit margins in Q3 and how far away from the midterm target is the industrial business specifically now and then finally on the industrial separation process. Now that you've been working through that for a few more months, can I ask what you found out about potential dissynergies between the separation?
What proportion of the group's purchasing volume of rubber or similar raw materials go to the tire business versus the industrial business, and what is your current thinking about how the segment margins may be impacted by that dis-synergy on the separation? Thank you.
I can take the first one, Harry, on the CapEx side but what we have seen this year and what was the cause for the slight increase in the ratio is first of all our investments into two regions, i.e. Americas and Asia, for the Tires business. We are continuing to invest in our halfway plant in China and then we are in the second phase of expansion for our Thailand plant in Rayong. This was basically driving the ratio up. There is a little bit of a phasing element as I already said in the beginning. The motivation is explicitly not what you said, shift to best costs, it is more expansion into the two regions where we want to get stronger.
Yeah, looking for the industrial margins. We do not publish the full industrial margins. Keep in mind that the ContiTech without the OESL still includes the Surface Solutions parts, which has as well Automotive business. For that, we published that we reached in the third quarter 8.5%. Looking for 2024, we have shown this on the capital markets. We have been at 8.0%, so we improved by half a percentage point. This mainly comes from the industrial business. Now, with 80% industrial business, you can do the math and somehow see that this business is in a better shape than before. However, we are not where we are targeting to be. The 11%-13% is the midterm target for this parameter, including SSL, and the market itself is not where it should be. It is still a weak market environment.
When I mentioned that September has shown some positive signs. It's still on a low base and the -0.6% organic growth was as well versus last year already a reduced sales. We are still in a trough, but a trough which shows that slowly but surely we see some light of better trends. Let's put it that way. This energy is rubber. What we can say, we are not there yet. We have now separated our purchasing. We built up our purchasing on the ContiTech side but with a very small part only of same rubber materials from the same suppliers. This is really a minor part. We do not assume any larger dis-synergies from the material side.
We even believe on the material side we should have opportunities by having a ContiTech purchasing team which fully focuses on a very, very complex purchasing part with a high variety of materials and the tire side with a lower complexity, however, higher volume, those two parts. That is why we are doing as well the independence. That is why we are convinced that both parties are better off in the separation. We clearly believe that we can eliminate those synergies and even create momentum and better purchasing conditions for the individual companies.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question is from Thomas Besson, Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you very much. It's Thomas at Kepler Cheuvreux. I have three questions as well, please. First, could you tell us whether you've decided yet what you intend to disclose in the future for the Tire business? As we get closer to the target of having Continental, a pure Tire business, I've noticed you, you're giving us revenues and organic growth for three regions, but you're not giving profitability, you're not giving Passenger or Truck Tires. What's the plan there, please? Second question. When I look at Q2 2024 versus Q2 2025, Q3 2024 versus Q3 2025, I'm a bit surprised by the margin evolution. There was a strong decline in Q2, a much greater resilience in Q3 with relatively similar volumes, worse effect and a delta in price mix. That's not sufficient to explain the substantially greater resilience in Q3. Could you explain what I'm missing, please?
Thirdly, just to be fully clear on the base for the dividend you are going to give, propose to shareholders for 2025. Could you tell us what is the clean net income base over nine months on which you are going to base your reflection, please? Thank you.
Yeah, I can take the first one. The tariffs reporting structure. I think we wanted to already point out in which direction we want to report in the future by providing now a regional sales split. We believe this is the best way of creating transparency into the Tires business by splitting it by region, not by product segment. At some point in time next year, probably between signing and closing, we will have to change our reporting and provide more details also per region. In the Tires business, still to be decided what the right moment in time will be. We cannot do that before that because otherwise that would trigger then probably backwards split and we get into problems with the auditors.
With the sequential improvement on the tire side Q2, Q3, I mean, in Q2 we have mentioned that we had all the negative effects. FX already started, we had the tariffs which have been higher at the beginning, where you've seen now as well the lower base and then certain reimbursements which were coming then within the third quarter, all our mitigation measures which we implied due to the tariffs only unfolded in the third quarter. As I mentioned on the material side, we mentioned before there was a certain tailwind, so has been small, but there was sequentially there was an improvement. Overall, the third quarter volume though it was as well at the -1% versus prior year. The third quarter volumes are a bit higher than in the second quarter.
Those are all the reasons the positives which were the negatives in the second quarter were reversing in the third quarter. That is the reason why our margin is substantially better than we have been there.
The last one, basis for dividend and clean net income. I mean you've seen our net income, it's EUR -756 million negative. If you now would adjust this for the special effects we also show on one of the first charts in our presentation, already EUR 1.1 billion is due to the [OTI] recycling driven by the spin- off of AUMOVIO. In the second portion, EUR 680, sorry EUR 680 million.
In the other part of the [].
EUR 454 million is then driven by OESL. This together would already most likely bring us to positive territory. We did not do the math because it's a technical question, but it's certainly not negative.
There is a fourth quarter to come.
Sure, yes. Thank you.
You should get at a reasonable net income, let's put it that way.
Yep. Thank you, Nico.
You're welcome, Thomas.
The next question is from Ross MacDonald Citi. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes, hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. It's Ross at Citi. My first question is just coming back to Tires and you mentioned the second half of September in particular was accelerating. Can you maybe give some commentary around whether that trend has continued into the fourth quarter? Obviously we're tracking at the sort of midpoint of the tire margin range. Just keen to understand if you feel like we're tracking in the upper half now for the full year guidance on the Tires margin. My second question also again on Tires, given the weakness that we see in Truck original equipment, could you potentially update on factory load or factory capacity utilization rates, please, and maybe comment on how big a benefit to group margins it would be if we see, let's say, the Truck cycle at a normal level.
My final question is coming back to Christoph's question. Comment on the U.S. market, obviously Michelin have reduced their exposure to ATD. Could you comment on your exposure to ATD? I understand you sell to ATD. Just curious, in the third quarter if there was any additional potentially one-off volume benefits as you took additional share with ATD, it would be very interesting in understanding the volume dynamics in the U.S. there. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Let me take the first one on Q4 trends in general. We already commented a little bit on it. Raw mat slightly up versus Q3, maybe mid double digit million euro amount. FX more or less in line with Q3. Volume also in line, potentially even flattish year- over- year. As we said, price mix slightly below Q3 because the quality of business in Q3 was really very good, rather towards Q2 this year. Fixed costs slightly worse than Q3. That is more or less the comment on our expectations going into Q4. We do not want to be more specific at this point in time with regard to the guidance for Tires.
Yeah. There is still a Q4 to come. Obviously, many things can happen on the sales channel and so on with regard to the sales quality of our business. Let's see how that ends. We referred already to the Winter, which is not the winter yet. Much on the Truck Tire plant utilization, the OE part, we are larger exposed to replacement, the aftermarket, than to the OE part. Obviously, lower OE affects our plant utilization, which is a bit lower at that point of time. However, we can replace it in a certain part with the Replacement business. We have as well some factories where we share PLT with tractors. We manage this quite well going through. Which means on the other side, if Truck obviously comes back, that helps too. How much remains to be seen. Difficult to quantify.
Yeah. And on individual customers. Sorry, we do not want to comment on individual customers. Obviously, ATD is an important customer for us and will remain an important customer for us. That is all we can say on that. This one.
As in other markets. We have a substantial share overall in the U.S. markets, means we have several, many customers where we are balancing our businesses carefully in order to balance as well risks and opportunities.
That's helpful. Maybe if I could phrase that final question just slightly differently then, obviously versus some of your peers, you're clearly gaining share, let's say in the U.S. market. Is that a trend you expect to continue and would that trend be at a similar level to the third quarter? Obviously just removing the individual wholesaler names, but you know, just keen to understand the momentum on market share gains in the U.S. that you expect into 2026.
We don't comment on gaining share. That's not the important part. Anyhow, looking on our business continues, we are confident and also said that we continue as well on North America and the Asian PLT Replacement business where we have clearly seen positive momentum in third quarter, and we assume this going on. What our position is afterwards in the market, that is the result of what we are doing and not vice versa.
Thank you.
The next question is from Michael Punzet, DZ BANK. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes, Michael Funke, good afternoon. I have two questions. Maybe first one on your statements in the pre close call, can you maybe explain the difference between the statements in the pre close call and the final margin development for both divisions especially since this must be result related to the development in September. The second one is on the special items. Can you give us any kind of guidance what we should expect for special items related to the transformation process besides the stopped depreciation on OESL?
The first part I will do. What was the difference? I already referred at the beginning. The second half of September was very strong. We came out of the July and August which were kind of muted. First half of September took over momentum and then in particular at the end we have seen the markets much better in terms of volume.
There was more volume coming in, there was more favorable quality of business or price mix. Clearly in the different regions which are contributing as well to the better results, we have seen unexpectedly better. Once we had, we came out at lower cost, lower fixed cost as we have predicted. The tariff relief, which was then in September, then published where we had to do the math back. What have we paid before, how much? How do we reconcile and book for it? This effect has been larger. We had as well transitional service agreements with AUMOVIO, which came in positive on the cost side on the IT license allocation. You see it was a month ending with many positives, which has resulted in a more positive result than we have foreseen it in the pre close call. Good news came relatively late.
Yeah, yeah. That leads us to the second one. Special items of the transformation. Let me refer back to Chart 4 of the presentation where we try to list all of the effects in Q3. We already touched upon the most important ones. The impairment impact EUR 455 million and the EUR 680 million coming from the autospin. There are some other carve-out related project costs for ContiTech as well as auto and also some tax-related special effects coming from the carve-out and from the spin-off. The only thing left is the restructuring. EUR 22 million in Q3, EUR 111 million in total for year to date. That is more or less all the special effects which we explained on page four.
That means there will not be any major part of a major additional special items in Q4 related to the transformation.
That could well be that. There is a little bit still in terms of FX change related and there's probably some carve-out related project costs still coming in Q4, but it's not as big as you've seen here in Q3. Q3 was the major impact of everything to do with the spin-off and a large portion of the current preparation for OESL and also for ContiTech.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Michael Aspinall at Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.
Thanks. G'day Michael from Jefferies here, just one you might not comment but it's being discussed a lot. I thought I'd ask directly. Wondering if you can give us any thoughts as to the value of ContiTech.
Y eah, your assumption is right. We can tell you we believe in a strong value of ContiTech, which is then underpinned by strong interest in this asset, which we believe is a great one, a valuation asset. We will not comment yet. This will come then later in the process. Sorry for that.
We're getting basically calls every week from potential buyers saying when are we going to start the process and we want to be part of it. We believe it's going to be an attractive purchase price, but of course we don't want to be specific.
Okay.
The last question is from Horst Schneider, Bank of America.
One minute left.
Please go ahead.
Maybe we get it done in 30 seconds. I'm glad that I can ask a follow up briefly on price mix because that seems to come down again normalizing Q4. Roland, you said also at the Munich auto show that going forward you would expect that 3%- 4%. The 3% is a minimum number we can assume going forward, not for Q4. It more refers maybe 2026 and thereafter. On cost savings specifically and ContiTech, can you maybe quantify to what extent cost savings has driven the ContiTech results year to date and what specifically, not just on cost savings but in general, any statement on ContiTech Q4? I think Q4 is always the strongest quarter usually for ContiTech also in terms of margin. Is that going to be the case also this year? Thank you.
I do it very fast. I start with the back Q4. I mean if you do the math Q4 must be stronger than the year to date. Must be the best quarter otherwise to get into the margin corridor. We said as well before it will be for ContiTech more at the lower part depending on how the Q4 will end. Yes, and most of the improvement versus prior year was clearly from the cost side. If you take this as a comparison a bit. We worked obviously as well on the quality of our business repositioning and more focus on a higher quality business, let's put it that way. A really large portion of that is coming from our safeguarding measures. As obviously the sales part has not contributed a lot to the price mix.
I mean how Q4 will end remains to be seen. We depend on all sales channel mixes and so on, which we assume rather stable. We already referred to that Q3 was on a high level. Everything was coming in, larger markets, larger customers with larger tires contributed, which is great going forward. As mentioned at the capital market day, historically a mix in the range of 2%-3%, 2%, 2.5% has been shown. Looking at the trends in the market, EV, the new marketing, new car park, and the new cars which are registered with larger, higher tires suggests that such a trend should accelerate for the future. It all depends, the additional one, how we perform in the different markets. Our main growth markets are the Americas as well as Asia- Pacific.
Truck Tire might come back, which adds then to that on top.
Okay, thank you.
We have come to the end of the time. Thank you everyone for participating today. As always, we the Conti IR team are happily available if you have any remaining questions. We would like to conclude for today. Thank you very much and goodbye.