The publication of the Q1 figures of 2025. The CEO, Dr. Sebastian Schulte, and CFO, Oliver Neu, will speak in a moment and guide us through the presentation and the results. After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session in which you will be allowed to place your questions directly to the management via audio line. Dear ladies and gentlemen, please note that this call has been recorded, and a replay will be available on the DEUTZ website at deutz.com later today. Your participation in the call applies your consents with this. We are looking forward to the presentation. With this, I hand over to Head of Investor Relations, Communications and Marketing, Mark Schneider. Mark, the stage is yours.
Good morning from Cologne. Thank you, Sarah, and thank all of you for joining our Q1 2025 conference call on this busy reporting day. As usual, our CEO, Sebastian Schulte, will walk you through the highlights of the first quarter and the implementation of our strategy. He then hands over to our CFO, Oliver Neu, who will provide more details on our financial figures and our new segment structure. Sebastian will close the presentation with a look on the guidance and our upcoming AGM. Afterwards, we are happy to answer your questions. As always, please note our disclaimer, especially regarding forward-looking statements. Having said this, I'm handing over to you, Sebastian. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mark. Also from my side, good morning to our Q1 earnings call for 2025. I would like to start giving you an overview on where we stood, how we closed the first quarter. Like the headline says, we performed quite robustly in an environment that still provides a couple of challenges, particularly in our core business, the classic engines, core business in the sense of magnitude of our portfolio, because the economic environment in that business has not significantly improved yet. We see, and I will guide you through our numbers, how we are benefiting from our significantly increased resilience, even more so than in the past year. Let me guide you through the relevant key figures of the first quarter. First of all, new orders, we recorded almost EUR 550 million. That is quite a significant increase year on year, 30%.
It is, of course, driven by the contribution of our recent M&A because organically, focusing very much on the classic business, we see a rather flat development. This is an explanation, but also a proof point how important it has been in the last years to change to adapt our portfolio to the demands of the market. Most notably, we're talking here about the acquisition of Blue Star Power Systems. We'll talk about that later, but also the acquisition of the Daimler Truck business portfolio from Rolls-Royce Power Systems. On the revenue aspect, we closed with almost EUR 490 million. That is also up 7.5% year on year, and also supported by the service business, which is still growing on a good level, and obviously M&A as well.
Organic, we have been slightly negative, bearing in mind that the first quarter 2024 on the classic engine business was actually still extremely strong. The drop which we saw in 2024 in the classic business came in a little into the second quarter, or rather actually into the second half of the year. EBIT margin, we closed at 4.3% adjusted EBIT. That was minus 1.8 percentage points down year over year. The scale effects on the engine production, they hit quite significantly, but again, they were partially mitigated by the effects from our profitable acquisitions by the service business and also by the cost discipline, which Oliver will talk about later in particular. There is more to come in the second half in terms of effects. Free cash flow are positive. I'm actually quite pleased with that result, EUR 23.4 million.
We're up EUR 18 million year- on- year and supported by quite an exceptionally strong operating cash flow. The cash conversion of the business is quite healthy at this point in time. I mentioned it in my opening words. The Dual Plus Strategy, as we call it, as we call our journey, is progressing well. Although, as I said, the environment remains quite volatile, some highlights or some main points of our positive progress of the strategy. First of all, the newly formed business unit energy is actually working very, very well, and that's very much driven by Blue Star Power Systems, the acquisition, and we'll talk about that later. This business is continuing performing well and performing above our initial expectations.
Some weeks ago, we announced the acquisition of UMS, and the closing has not yet happened, so we do not see any impact in the numbers as of yet. From a strategic point of view, it will substantially broaden our footprint, particularly in the new tech business, and will speed our go-to-market up here significantly. We have got another sort of smaller acquisition, but we are also quite happy with higher emission technology, a hidden champion from the heart of Germany, the Sauerland, and we have that on board since the beginning of January. That initially was the focus here, mainly actually to secure our supply chain in the very important component of aftertreatment system, but the acquisition is also performing well and starting to contribute to our results.
We had, and the picture shows that we had, from our point of view, quite positive happening here at the Bauma, at the large trade fair in Munich, where we felt a very positive customer sentiment, both on how we as DEUTZ are positioning and improving ourselves in this important market of construction equipment, but also with lots of positive views on the future. Although we still do not see this hugely positive sentiment yet in order behavior, we believe we are approaching a tipping point here in a positive way. As I said earlier, our cost program, Future Fit, is well on track. To keep in mind, we announced to reduce significantly our cost base by EUR 50 million on an annual basis by the end of 2026. Oliver will talk about that later, but what I can already say, we are well on track with this program.
Speaking about the United States, for several reasons, obviously. I mean, first of all, and that's the headline, the U.S. business is and remains a cornerstone of our Dual Plus Strategy for several reasons. First of all, we do expect the business to show significant growth in the upcoming years, significant. From a technology point of view, I mean, we all probably have a different view on the future of the combustion engine now than the industry had three, four, five years ago, which is much, much longer lasting, particularly in the areas of work equipment. That probably is even more true in the United States because the geography is large, operations are partially very, very remote, particularly if we do not talk about the East and the West Coast.
The use cases typically are quite heavy duty, and also the regulatory framework in the U.S. is different than in Europe, not only since the new administration is here in place. About half of our business is locally driven, service and energy. I mean, service, obviously we do import some parts from Germany, but apart from that, that's actually working out the equipment and energy with the acquisition of Blue Star Power Systems. I mean, that's a totally local market. Classic, obviously engines, they remain imported out of Germany. We see in our classic engines a very high share of material handling, almost 50% of that, and the rest is then mainly stationary equipment, like pumps, for example, and construction equipment.
Obviously, and that's one of the questions we're currently, as most other industrial players here, day by day, the tariff situation does fuel uncertainty and certainly affects also some of the order behavior. We are not, let's say, too negative about it because the tariffs, obviously, I mean, that's a general challenge for everyone in the market, also for our competitors. We do not see our competitors in the fields we are active with a heavy sort of advantage completely by local production. That's why our assumption is and continues to be that the tariffs, which are currently at least at the 10%, at least for this first of 90 days period, and we're all obviously interested to see what happens afterwards. What we expect is that this will lead to prices, to inflationary pressure in the customer industry. That's the current view on that.
Important is the U.S., for the reasons just outlined, remains extremely important for us, and we are totally, we are very well positioned there. That is our take on the United States. Let me move on. New tech, the acquisition of UMS Urban Mobility Systems in Oss in the Netherlands. UMS can truly claim to be an innovation leader in battery electric drives, particularly for the off-highway sector, and particularly as also the pictures on the right part of that chart indicate in the area of construction equipment. UMS has in the past already successfully retrofitted a couple of hundred applications like excavators, also like heavy excavators, not only the light excavators, heavy cranes, asphalt rollers, and very, very specialized equipment. We announced to purchase 100% of that stake on April 6, and we do expect the closing to happen throughout the second quarter.
In the meanwhile, all regulatory approvals have been granted very, very quickly. We are just preparing the closing. As said, during the second quarter, we are going to conclude that acquisition. UMS was founded in 2016 by a gentleman called Lars Kool a very energetic and competent individual. It is fun to work with him. We are really excited to develop this company in the future together because he is also going to stay with us to approach the market together. One of the things is, I mean, UMS brings in a lot of sort of entrepreneurial spirit, great products, a great way of doing business. We, as a much, much larger partner, will bring in obviously the complex scale-up capabilities, including also using our plants or facilities, but also our access to the core customers.
It is a truly win-win situation, and we're excited to enjoy the first day and everything following after the closing. Some of the topics you mentioned already, particularly the 200 machines which have been retrofitted by UMS in the past. One of the things which UMS has done actually pretty greatly and different than what we have attempted in the past, they learned pretty quickly that electrification in this business is obviously not pressing, not pushing forward as much as in automotive, for example. That is why some of the OEMs have been, for good reasons, reluctant, because the customers of the OEMs or the customers of our customers have still been reluctant as long as there's no TCO benefit in using electric equipment in that field.
UMS went via the distributors and via the distributors in the Netherlands and in also sort of rather Nordic countries where obviously the regulatory environment is very different than in southern Europe or in the United States. That is how they secured this very good position in the value chain. That is certainly a learning that sometimes it is more than just having the right products. It is also very important to have the right go-to-market, and I think that is something we can learn from going forward. UMS is still small. In last year, it has been a little below EUR 10 million revenue. UMS has a fairly positive, fairly large order book and actually a lot of LOIs.
We are talking about a high double-digit million euro range, which now we want to jointly convert into order intake and then obviously into revenue and profit at a later stage.
Very excited about that. Last point in terms of UMS, originally we approached it for the purpose of battery electrifying construction equipment, but almost sort of a side effect, a very welcome side effect was that UMS also offers opportunities in the defense sector. We're showing here a picture of the Bushmaster military vehicle, which currently obviously, as any other comparable vehicles, are mainly driven, mainly powered by combustion engines. The idea is here to retrofit in the first place vehicles like that with a hybrid solution. That includes them, as a hybrid solution, as the name suggests, it includes a smaller combustion engine, but also battery electric drivetrain. In the end, you have an electric drive, which is much, much more silent than the combustion engine. That allows, like you speak in the defense context, a lower noise signature.
Obviously, there's no compromise on the range because of the combustion engine to recharge the battery. By the way, almost as a side effect, you created a genset on wheels. These are very interesting, very interesting possibilities going forward. UMS has done a feasibility study with the partners, both the OEM as well as the military users. That's also something where we believe there's a lot of potential going forward. With that, having said that, I would then hand over to Oliver who will guide you in more detail to the numbers as well as provide some details on the cost program before I'll come back to give an outlook.
Thanks, Sebastian. Good morning also from my side. Let's go straight to the numbers. I would like to start with an update on our Future Fit program.
As Sebastian mentioned, we put the target to achieve sustainable cost reduction, structural cost reduction of EUR 50 million in 2026, full impact. We are well on track there. A bit of half of it is related to headcount-related measures. We are planning to reduce roughly 300 FTEs globally, 50 outside Germany. That correspondingly means 250 inside Germany at our Cologne facility. Where do we stand? As of now, we are well on track. We have signed already roughly 75 termination contracts. Another 30 abroad are signed or at least clearly agreed. We are going to see 75 fluctuation via natural fluctuation, not replacing positions. That brings us already to 180, which are either signed or agreed. Part of that are already out. The rest, vast majority of that to leave the company throughout the current calendar year.
On the remaining 120, there are advanced discussions so that we are going to achieve the 300 FTEs as planned. In terms of total cost, we managed to bring down the total expected cost to EUR 25 million. Provisions fully booked in our Q1 figures, as you saw. It brings us a specially attractive payback period. The majority, almost all of the expected cost is related to redundancy payments on the voluntary program. We are going to see that attractive payback period of two, rather one and a half years for the employees leaving the company. Talking about DEUTZ Group figures Q1, a bit more detail. We saw already the new orders. They jumped by 30% to EUR 546.1 million in Q1. That is driven by M&A effects. Blue Star Power Systems contributed very positively here with around EUR 65 million order intake.
It was a very strong order intake quarter on the energy side. On the organic side, taking out all the M&A effects, also taking out HJS, first consolidation effect, EUR 25 million, we see a rather flat development there. On the revenue side, increase of 7.5%. If you look in the segments a bit, construction and material handling rather going down, stationary equipment deflecting, especially the M&A activities around Blue Star Power Systems, significantly going up, more than doubled. Agriculture rather flat. Nice to see the service business, it grew by 12% on a group level. Partially driven by the Daimler Truck business, which is now fully reflected in our figures on the service side also from beginning of the year, but also organically still in the growth motors. On the EBIT side, we went slightly down a few millions to EUR 21 million compared to last year Q1.
What is the main reason? We say here lack of fixed cost absorption. If you remember Q1 2024, we had a three-shift operations in our Cologne facility in the line number five where we are producing the lower four-liter engines. Due to market reasons, we went back to a two-shift pattern. That, of course, in a quarter-over-quarter comparison is reducing the fixed cost absorption. This negative impact has, of course, been mitigated. Profitable M&A, we talked about it, the growth in the service business organically and inorganically, and of course, also our Future Fit program where we now see the first effects in our P&L. Net income, we ended up at EUR 10 million, but that is driven by the Future Fit provision of EUR 25 million.
Having a look on the segment view, segment DEUTZ Engines and Services, just as a reminder, because it is the first time we are officially reporting the new segments, this comprises the business unit classics, our classical combustion engine business, and also the service business related to those classic engines. We sold here 30.6 thousand units. That is a 20% reduction in sales volume compared to Q1 last year. Especially here the effect I mentioned on the production side, almost 26% year- over- year down, resulting in the negative economies of scale that were then compensated on the EBIT side partially. HJS consolidated from beginning of 2025. We own 50% but have the full control. That is why it is also fully consolidated. On the service business, we see here purely on the engines and service segment, almost 11% growth.
As I mentioned before, Daimler Truck off-highway engines are now fully in our accounts also from the service side. Talking about solutions, we see a big jump in the new orders to EUR 70 million. As mentioned earlier, that is mainly driven by Blue Star Power Systems or basically entirely driven by Blue Star Power Systems with almost EUR 65 million order intake, which we saw in Q1. On the revenue side, due to the Blue Star Power Systems effect, also coming up to almost EUR 40 million for the EUR 39 million, that is a significant jump in revenue.
The adjusted EBIT on a solution segment basis is minus EUR 7.5 million. However, here we need to keep in mind the complete different profile of the two businesses we are consolidating here. We have on the one hand our energy business. We ended up at EUR 3.5 million here. It is important to understand that that figure is driven down by purchase price allocation effects.
Complete accounting effects, which we typically have after the acquisition, which are going to reduce over time. That has drove down the figures by EUR 3.0 million. Adjusted for that, we would have been at EUR 6.5 million and therefore at an attractive margin level in our energy business. On the new technology side, we see small revenue still, EUR 2 million, EBIT minus EUR 11 million. This is, however, front-loaded. We cannot simply take that times four. It is especially front-loaded due to R&D spending. There are EUR 8 million R&D spending in Q1, also partially related to our hydrogen engine with the last R&D activities that are ongoing. That is going to be reduced going forward. Having a look on some more KPIs, they all went in the right direction. R&D spending down 11% in a quarter-over-quarter basis.
We clearly see here the positive effects of our Future Fit program and the clear cost discipline on the R&D side. The split is EUR 40.6 million on the classic segment or engines and service segment, EUR 8 million on the solution side. Also clearly investing here in the future. CapEx side, also here, reduction of 18%. This is also a direct consequence of our very strict cost discipline, CapEx discipline, cash discipline. We are well on track here as well. Working capital went down 2%, quarter of 20.3% in the working capital ratio. Inventory, straight receivables slightly increased on the inventory side. That is a typical effect we see in Q1 after typically a good year-end rally. In this case here, it was offset mainly by the trade payables, which were on a higher level due to some material purchases at the end of the quarter.
This brings us to some further KPIs on the next slide. We see here cash flow, operating cash flow, basically reflecting the good operational development, but also the just mentioned working capital effects that directly relates then to a free cash flow of EUR 23.4 million in Q1. That is rather strong on the free cash flow side. We see a good cash conversion here from our business in Q1. Net debt went down as corresponding effect, EUR 15 million. We had EUR 210 million on a net debt, EUR 83 million out of that related to leasing. That still means we have significant and sufficient headroom in our credit lines where we have EUR 450 million- EUR 500 million credit lines available. Completely solidly financed for that net debt level we see.
Talking about balance sheet, the total equity ratio remains high, EUR 47.4%, slightly reduced due to a bit higher asset base, but also the negative net income, but still a very high and solid level. Leverage remains with slight improvement at a level of EUR 1.3. The dividend per share we're going to propose as Supervisory Board and Board of Management to our AGM next week is EUR 17 per share. Thanks a lot. With that, I hand over to Sebastian.
Thank you, Oliver. Yes. How do we look at the rest of 2025 now? First of all, we did, we do not change the guidance. We confirm what we announced with the annual result presentation.
That means we see a revenue in the range between EUR 2.1 billion and EUR 2.3 billion, which still in the majority dominated sort of by engine and services and EUR 150 million- EUR 200 million out of solutions. We see the EBIT margin in the range between 5.0% and 6.0%. We will see engine and services at 6%- 7% and solutions at - 10% to break even. As Oliver just outlined, obviously, we have a very different margin profile of energy and new tech. Free cash flow, we see mid double-digit million euro amount going forward. I mean, there are obviously, there's some improvement estimated or considered for the second half of the year. That is supported by quite some important factors.
First of all, like Oliver explained, the cost cutting, our Future Fit program, that'll support significantly the second half of the year because that is when the first sort of groups of expensive staff is also then leaving and releasing the personnel costs. Secondly, obviously, growth in energy, continuous growth in energy. With all uncertainties out there on the market in general, what we can say is that our energy business is rather actually looking at a further improvement into the second half. That is very new information for us, very positive information. Obviously, the service growth is also continuing to support us. New tech after the acquisition of UMS, we expect some first, but these are still small, but first positive effects as well. That is supporting our view on the second half.
We still expect some sort of economic recovery in the second half of the year. Obviously, that is most likely rather influencing the fourth quarter and certainly not kicking in much earlier. That is why we feel very confident and comfortable to confirm our guidance as outlined here on that chart. Last but not least, I want to also announce a little bit our AGM, which happens next week. We just heard it from Oliver. Our dividend proposal is like the one in the last year with EUR 1.70 per share. We want that our shareholders participate also in this or throughout this important transformation of the company on a decent level. We want to continue paying dividends always at least on the level of the previous year. Other than that, we do not expect the sort of major topics for the AGM.
I mean, mainly we are proposing the typical sort of market-based capital authorizations pretty much to renew the status which we had before the capital increase in 2024 where we successfully placed 10% new shares. The AGM 2026 will be held here again as an in-person meeting in Cologne, but that is a bit of a sort of mid or long-term announcement. Having said that, yeah, thank you very much for your attention. We are available for questions.
Thank you so much, Sebastian and Oliver, for the dive into your first quarter and the presentation. As mentioned, we will now move over to our Q&A session. For a dynamic conversation, we appreciate it if you would ask your questions in person via audio line. To do so, just raise up your virtual hand.
If you have dialed in by phone, you can use the key combination star key nine to enter the queue, followed by pressing star key six to unmute yourself. We already received the first virtual hand from Jorge. Please go ahead and ask your questions.
Hello, good morning. Can you hear me?
Loud and clear.
Perfect. I am going to turn to the web this time. Three questions if I may. Thank you again, Oliver and Sebastian. My first question is on the mood of the customers. You mentioned that demand has still stabilized in the quarter and that the mood was positive in Bauma.
In relation to previous comments on some concerns of your clients regarding a possible bottleneck in the second part of the year, is this still this kind of thinking in the sector or have the tariffs a little bit cooled this super strong momentum at the beginning of the year? That will be my first question, please.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, on the mood of the customers, the good thing at a trade fair like Bauma is you talk to pretty much every customer, at least in the field of construction. We see here quite a few European customers who are definitely hopeful and optimistic, also because these were the ones driving down demand first. Some of them really feel now that their stock is emptying.
We have particular in Europe, I mean, mentioning Germany, mentioning Nordic countries, mentioning France, for example, we feel, or not we feel, we see first increase in orders, but we're talking each about a couple of hundred engines. That is sort of the general theme for Europe. America, we see a bit of uncertainty. It is not a meltdown or die down or anything like that. It is rather uncertainty because it is not clear for the customers to which prices they order best. You see at the moment, one of our large customers in the U.S., JLG, they have still quite a large stock because they continue to order. In hindsight, that was for them certainly the right decision given the tariff situation. They are for the next couple of months a bit reluctant, obviously, to first see what happens.
On the other hand, we have other customers in the U.S. who are still sort of ordering on the typical level. Here, I think it's really the question what happens after the 90 days of the pause sort of of the tariff topic expires and what's then the call for the future. This is pretty much the picture right now. That's what we try to summarize with saying we hear good, we feel good mood, but it's not translating in orders. The other thing in that context is, of course, related to Germany. I mean, everyone was extremely excited when we all learned about the infrastructure spending programs. We're still excited and we believe that this will have an impact. The question is which time, as we all know, the German government is now being formed.
We're all seeing how quickly these sort of programs are being launched and important. That's what we feel from conversation with customers. Everyone wants to be ready, particularly rental companies, because the rental companies in construction equipment, they are the ones who then are immediately approached by the customers to fill sort of lack of demand or lack of equipment, sorry. That's on construction. Agricultural is still fairly cautious, but agricultural is always a bit heavy, a bit more front-loaded in the first half of the year. Yeah, that's what I can say at the moment on your first question.
Very interesting. In fact, one follow-up on this one. You already saw some decline in North America and thus the mix has been compensated by Europe or not really?
I see. No, it's not a significant decline.
I mean, we see we are looking always on our sort of consensus demand for the next 12 months. And we see like, I think it's less than 1,000 engines down at Americas, but on the other hand, it's always a couple of hundred up for several customers in Europe. At the moment, it's fairly stable, I would say.
Okay. We might see before order intake jump with the cycle, with the turnaround in the cycle, we might see maybe a weaker quarter in order intake. It's possible, no, because North America is still not reflecting the tariffs at this point.
No, no, in terms of top line, the second quarter is actually we expect to be fairly stable for sure.
What I think as much we can say right now is from the top line point of view and thus also obviously as a consequence from the bottom line point of view, we expect the second quarter to be above the first quarter. It's a bit the question what happens towards the third and particularly the fourth quarter.
Yeah, understood. Thank you very much. My second question and last question is on the PPAs for Blue Star. Should we consider EUR 6.5 million as a run rate in the future per quarter? How many years are you expecting this to continue?
The PPA on Blue Star, the effect of PPA on the Blue Star in the first quarter was EUR 3 million, right? That effect is perspectively going down.
We took over, as you saw also last year, a significant portion of order intake or existing orders that impacted technically also the PPA. The PPA effect is going down in the second half of the year compared to the first half of the year. It has been reduced by like EUR 1.5 million or so. Actually, the run rate purely impacted by PPA effect should even be higher, like EUR 1.5 million or so going forward.
Okay. We also should proceed.
Yeah, per quarter then. Yeah.
Okay. EUR 1.5 million per quarter. We should expect this to continue in 2025, in 2026, and 2027?
The EUR 3 million PPA is going to reduce by like half for the second half of the year per quarter. That is to be clear and precise. That is perspectively phasing out.
It's a bit of impact next year, so.
Thank you, Oliver. I go back to the line. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Jorge, for your questions. Dear participants, please be reminded that it's still possible to ask questions if you may have. Let's wait a couple of seconds. Maybe another question pops up. We move on with Dario Diekmann, not anymore. With Stefan Augustin, please go ahead. Mr. Augustin, you should be able to speak now to unmute yourself. That's okay. In the meantime, yeah, now we can hear you.
Great. Thank you very much. I have a question on your expected capacity planning on Blue Star and the energy business. You had a very strong order intake from your statements that even the second half could be better than the first half.
Do you have plans to ramp up the capacity at Blue Star in North America significantly?
Stefan, in principle, of course, we have the plans. Blue Star currently operates in a one-shift operation. We see currently a potential for output increase within the one-shift operation, probably around 10-15%. That is at the moment also the year-over-year growth rate we see. It is above 10%, slightly above 10%. We are really on the edge of needing to increase capacity. That is something we are currently evaluating because obviously we want to participate and enjoy the growth. Currently, we are seeing, as I indicated earlier, a growth year-over-year and also a growth from our current estimates compared to estimates we had when we entered into the year 2025. Is it already the point in time that we are adding a second shift? Not yet, but obviously we are preparing ourselves for that.
I think it's clear why not yet. We are currently at Blue Star Power Systems around EUR 150 million-EUR 160 million revenue. If you double capacity, I mean, you're holding capacity to also double revenue. That's a huge step. We are investigating what's necessary, but we are well prepared. That's actually a positive thing because we're talking about a one-shift operation. Adding a second shift or a partial second shift is always easier than to jump from two shifts to three shifts. That's much more difficult as we know from our home base here in Cologne.
Thank you very much, Sebastian. On the new tech, let's say R&D costs, which have been quite high in Q1, how quickly is that going to go down? Could you give us a rough idea?
Quickly, very quickly, because Oliver, I think, indicated it.
As you know, our R&D efforts in new tech, historically, in the past three, four years, they've always been roughly 50% on battery electric and 50% on the hydrogen combustion engine. With the current assessment on the market, I mean, first of all, that fairly huge development project on the TCG 7.8 hydrogen combustion engine, that's consumed a lot of money in the last three years. We now brought this engine to serial readiness. I mean, there are always improvements and further developments needed, but not significant and not incurring significant costs anymore in the future. We're still working on placing these engines in the larger order, but we don't see this coming anytime very, very soon to get here to feel a huge demand for hydrogen combustion engines.
That is also why we decided to remain with the one almost completely developed hydrogen combustion engine, the 7.8, in our portfolio rather than adding another one. If we now actively decided we would add another engine in the portfolio, that would mean that we would continue spending R&D on that high run rate in new tech for the hydrogen products, but we do not see the market as of yet. That would not be the right allocation of capital. That is why we are pretty much seeing the effect very, very quickly. That is why we highlighted it also in the presentation.
Would it be fair to assume something like if we have the EUR 7 million R&D at solutions in the first quarter and we take off the 50% for the hydrogen part that we are roughly EUR 3 million-EUR 3.5 million lower on the R&D costs in Q2 already?
In Q1, we had EUR 8 million R&D expenses. I think it's fair to assume that going forward from Q2 onwards, it's going to be EUR 2 million-EUR 3 million lower on a quarterly basis.
Perfect. Thank you very much. That would be my question for the time being. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your questions. We move on with Dario Diekmann.
Yes. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Could you comment a little bit on the agricultural sector?
Because by looking at the order intake by application, one can see a book-to-bill ratio of roughly 0.5. Current industry assessments from CEMA, for example, the Business Climate Index, seem to have improved significantly over Q1. Do you see some improvements going on in April or over the next months?
I think, Dario, we need to distinguish here. First of all, we share your information, or we know we have the same information that the Business Climate Index is improving in Agri, the climate. Agri is always not only this year, but always for us as an engine supplier, cyclical that it typically favors the first half, even the first quarter, because of the timing of harvesting season.
A low book-to-bill in Agri in the first half of the year is actually a principle normal because customers do not order engines now to be delivered in, let's say, February or January 2026. Typically, you would see in the first half a low book-to-bill. Therefore, in the second half, a rather larger book-to-bill in agri. That is why we share or we see that customers are beginning to speak positively about 2026, but certainly, in Agri, we do not expect any significant uptick in 2025 purely for the normal seasonality of the business.
Okay. Great. Thank you. Could you maybe share a rough breakdown of end market of the Rolls-Royce business you acquired?
Yeah. Just a second. We have to. We see the end market is about 30% is Agri. Another 30%, actually about 20% is construction.
We've got a bit of material handling, and we've got also some special applications in the marine context, but also in heavy cranes. There is a fairly high share of Agri, and that relates to particular one large customer, the German company CLAAS.
Okay. Great. Thanks. Maybe to get back, last question to the PPA. Did you say that it should fade out already in 2026, 2027? Did I understand it correctly?
No, there will be some PPA effects also still in 2026 and 2027, but it's significantly reduced. Also, there are two steps of the PPA. The first step, which will go down quickly, significantly relates to the order book, which we took over. The remaining step relates then to plant equipment and others, which takes a bit longer.
Okay. Great. Thanks.
Thank you so much for your questions.
Then we come back again to Jorge. Maybe he has some follow-up questions.
Yes. Thank you very much. I have two follow-up questions. One on regards of the massive blackout in Spain. Did you see any potential business for you in the second part of the year coming from a special request for your stationary equipment produced here in Europe? That will be my first question, please.
First of all, to be extremely transparent, obviously, as of now, we do not see any specific or concrete orders coming out of that blackout, which happened early this week.
We do, of course, made or we made obviously experience now in the U.S., and also Blue Star has made this experience before being acquired by DEUTZ, that after a hurricane or any sort of natural disaster, which leads to blackouts and so on, typically three, four weeks later, orders are being placed. In principle, and I need to be careful how to phrase that because I do not want to relate blackouts or label blackouts in Spain and Portugal as something positive for us because obviously it is not a positive thing, but it certainly underlines that it was a right decision for DEUTZ to enter into this market with power generators, particularly for the emergency provision of electricity. It also underlines that we are continuously scanning the market also with a focus on Europe in identifying potential acquisition targets such as Blue Star.
I mean, it will be difficult to find, obviously, an equivalent of Blue Star Power Systems, but you know what I mean. Obviously, even with the existing still sort of low-scale offering, which DEUTZ has in power generation also beyond the United States, we are positioning ourselves as a provider of solutions also in Spain and Portugal. The short answer instead of a long one, yes, we see potential, and we see that it was the right decision to go into that market. Can I tell you that this blackout translates into X million order intake? Not at this point in time. We are working on that because we were obviously also reading the news and have already instructed our salespeople to go out.
Thank you very much, Sebastian. I read the news, and there were some winners, supermarkets that cut their own gensets.
I was wondering if you have an idea of the percentage of, for instance, supermarkets and other potential clients that for them is critical to keep the power in these kind of situations if they might, yeah, post some orders.
I think your answer is very valuable. Jorge, it is. I mean, we talk so often about this in the context of the United States. As you and probably others in this call also know, one of the most important groups of customers in the U.S. are the supermarket. It's Walmart and it's Target, which also placed the first order at Blue Star now. The logic behind that is well known and long known in the United States.
We may see this now approaching also Europe, where this has not been so much of a problem in the past, but certain trends, unfortunately for the industry, but fortunately for those who provide solutions, develop in different parts of the world in a similar fashion.
Thank you. Very interesting. My very last question on the guidance. Taking into account the tariffs and all the developments we have been commenting, do you still believe the meeting of the guidance as the most likely scenario for you? How do you see the year developing? Do you still think that a rebound in Q4 will be quite relevant to achieve the midpoint?
That is our current estimation, Jorge. As I said earlier, we see some supporting factors on the bottom line, the cost cutting. On the top line, the growth in energy.
On the top line, the potential in new tech, the growth in service. This is all supporting our most top line, everything top and bottom line. Obviously, there's still the question mark, what is exactly the sort of when is the change, the real sort of up ticking point in the classic market development? In principle, as of now, we see the midpoint as a very realistic assessment. Of course, at this point in time, we can neither rule out that it improves or even worsens, but we'll see depending on the drivers, which I just mentioned. Now, it's a very sort of, I think, good assessment, which we can currently give in the light of everything we have. We know it's difficult, sometimes difficult for you and everyone to put this into the financial models because typically, it's always easy to run like-for-like comparisons.
DEUTZ, at the moment, at least since the last two, three years, is in a position that it is not a like-for-like. The portfolio changes, but also profitability profiles change. That is why it is probably a bit more difficult to assess from the outside here development because the typical like-for-like comparisons do not, well, have only limited explanatory power. Very clear.
Thank you very much, Sebastian and Oliver.
Thank you so much for your follow-ups. Now we move on with the questions from Miro Zuzak. Please ask your questions.
Yes. Hello. Can you hear me?
Loud and clear.
This is Miro Zuzak, JMS Invest. I have a couple of questions. I would like to take them one by one, if I may. The first one is again regarding the tariffs. You mentioned that your clients, basically, they are retentive.
We know that Trump ultimately wants to have industrial capacity back in the country. I wanted to ask what you're thinking around this is basically, how do these tariffs affect your thinking about where to put production, where to increase capacity to potentially build an engine line? I don't know whether that's possible at all in the U.S.. How do these tariffs affect your thinking? That's the first question.
Yeah. Miro, for your question, thank you very much. First of all, our U.S. business is about 50% engines out of Germany, and then each a quarter energy, which is very, very localized, and service, which is also very, very localized.
The energy, which is the most profitable part as well with Blue Star, I mean, here Blue Star uses engines, currently not by a large extent DEUTZ engines, some of them imported, some of them from local production. That is very unlikely to change because we're talking about a little more than 1,000 engines for this point in time coming from several suppliers. There is not really a point in thinking about localizing here. Service obviously has a very high local share via all the sort of maintenance hours, the work of technicians at the machine. The only imported elements are parts out of Germany. These are typically, relatively speaking, low-price, high-margin. That is not a huge impact on tariffs. On the engine side, it's obviously different. We are assessing the potential benefits, but also costs of local assembly.
We have got a couple of challenges and also one opportunity. The challenge is, of course, we are talking about a bit above 30,000 engines sub 4 liter coming from Cologne to the United States. That is not necessarily a critical number of engines justifying an own assembly line. We would obviously then also take this, well, take this away from like-for-like. Again, now I am using the word like-for-like. We would take this away from the German facilities and create other challenges here. We would only need to do that if we are pretty much forced to do that because otherwise competitors would gain the share, which we in this particular field only see in a limited fashion.
The major challenge, of course, is we need to know what the environment is in the long term because you do not move an assembly line in a week or a month. It typically takes significantly more than 12 months. In order to do that, we would need to know very, very clearly what is the situation in the next three, four, five years. I think that is what every player in the industry currently is struggling a little bit with. We are not, to cut a long story short, we are looking into these options, but at the moment, it does not look like that is the most promising alternative.
Okay. Maybe a related question. The dollar lost quite a bit versus the euro or versus any other currency. There are macro guys who predict that the dollar is basically strategically going to be lower going forward.
Now, two things. I think the U.S. dollar effect was still positive in Q1, but will probably also because of the base last year. In Q2, probably it will be negative. Could you give me a number, what the impact will be on your basically order intake or the top line, like from the negative, just the translation effect of the lower U.S. dollar? That's the first question regarding US dollar. The second question regarding U.S. dollar is, is there a change in the competitive forces? You mentioned some local production there producing engines for Blue Star, but are there any U.S.-based or U.S. locally produced engine manufacturers who compete against your 30,000 engines that you ship from Germany? Two questions regarding FX effect.
Let me start with the second part of it, and then Oliver will speak more about the currency in particular.
The level or the competition level in our sub 4 liter segment in the U.S., there is competition. The one aspect is, are we currently a single source in the applications of the customer, or are we a dual source? Because even if there is competition, an OEM does not replace an engine also overnight. Obviously, when it becomes unbearable to cover costs or so, this sort of encourages you to do that more quickly. That also then you need to take into account R&D costs to change the application and so on and so forth. We have obviously looked in where our engines build into it. We see that there are competitors in there where we are not single source, and that is most of them.
If you look at them, some competitors come from, and I don't want to go now in this sort of relatively public environment, mention names, but you see some competitors producing in the United Kingdom You see some competitors producing in Japan. You see some competitors producing in other parts of Europe. There's not this sort of light switch effect that'll change immediately because all those countries I just mentioned, I mean, they're equally facing the uncertainty on tariffs. On the dollar, and before handing over to Oliver, we typically have agreements with the customers also on currency exchanges. Some of them we factor in euros. Others we factor formally in dollar, but there is a currency exchange adjustment clause behind that. Let's also bear in mind that in the last years, I mean, the dollar significantly strengthened.
We are moving it back to a more long-term level. Oliver, I think maybe you want to add something on that.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we see that we are in some of our long-term boundaries nowadays. The development is not concerning at that point in time here. Also, we do some systematic hedging activities. At least for the year 2025, we are hedged to a good degree to the extent possible. Of course, translation risks remain as it is for all internationally operating companies. That is the typical translation risk you'll see. I mean, on the top line specifically, we also see positive developments on the energy business compensating that partially. I would not see a noble big concern on that side.
Can you give me a number?
If I just look at the dollar, which is now effective for Q2, say $1.14, and I look at the dollar Q2 last year, it was maybe $1.09. Would that be like the $0.05x the dollar exposure that you have, say 25%-30%? So 1%-2% negative impact on top line. Does that make sense?
I think what Sebastian said earlier, they are customers, which we are factoring in always in the invoices in euro. We have some currency exchange clauses also in that. That is, of course, reducing the exposure towards the dollar also on the top line. Of course, I cannot go into detail of the individual customer context since we have very few big customers there. Yeah. That simple calculation which you made is mitigated to a certain degree by the just mentioned effects.
Okay. Okay. Sure.
It's less than that. Very good. The other question is, actually, I have to admit, I don't have a clear view about all the exact consolidation dates of the acquisitions. Can you give an organic growth number in orders for Q1 without the acquisition effect?
Pretty much flat. Very low negative, but we call it flat. It's also the way we put it on the chart. Organically flat. The consolidation effect drove the growth in order intake, but particularly supported performance.
Okay. Cool. Thank you. Another one. All else equal. I mean, it's a bit of a theoretical question, but if you look at your cost structure, by how much are costs going up on a like-for-like basis?
This involves obviously the personnel cost, like the tariff, the agreements that you made with the labor unions, but might also have some offsetting effect with the material costs, which I think is coming down or has come down quite significantly. Maybe you can give us a globalized number. Again, this is more to understand the ballpark. It is not about to fill a number into my model.
I mean, ballpark, as I like-for-like. As I said earlier, it is very difficult at the moment to make like-for-like statements in these changes. Ballpark, like-for-like, probably without the countermeasures, the costs are increasing overall by, let's say, 2-2.5%. That accounts obviously for quite a, relatively speaking, higher increase of personnel cost in Germany due to the union negotiations, which still, again, was, I think, three point something, so not terrible.
We have obviously on the material side a development. That is one of the reasons, Miro, why we entered also our Future Fit program to reduce costs significantly by EUR 50 million on an annual basis. That, let's say, net, we are going to reduce costs. As Oliver indicated earlier, we are in quite good progress. If you just look at obviously the P&L, the accounts in our numbers, you see not only on the top line, but you see also on account by account, of course, the cost increases in personnel, in R&D, or not so much R&D, but in G&A and so on. Like-for-like, I would pull the number 2.5 roughly.
Okay. Cool. I have two questions left. Quick ones.
Unfortunately, I regret to interrupt you, but in view of the time, we need to come to an end today.
I'm quite sure Mark from Investor Relations would be happy to assist you afterwards. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, everyone, for joining and your shown interest in DEUTZ. Also a big thank you to you, Sebastian and Oliver, for your presentation and the time you took today to answer all the questions. From my side, it was a pleasure to be your host today, and I wish you all a lovely remaining Wednesday, a happy national holiday tomorrow to those who are based in Germany. With this, I hand back to you, Mark, for some final remarks, which concludes our call.
Thank you very much, Sarah. Thank you very much, all of you. Yes, please do reach out to Rolf, Robert, and me if you have any further questions like you have, Miro.
In any case, we are looking forward to interacting with you around our virtual AGM next week. Have a successful day also from our side. Enjoy the bank holiday in Germany tomorrow and hope to talk to you soon. Bye-bye.