Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to the full year 2025 conference call of the DEUTZ AG. Please note that this call is being recorded and a replay will be available on DEUTZ.com later today, and your participation in the call implies your consent to this. I'm pleased to welcome DEUTZ CEO Sebastian Schulte and CFO Oliver Neu. Sebastian will begin the presentation with the key figures of the financial year 2025 and then walk you through the progress made in the business units. Oliver will then provide you with the financial details, and Sebastian again will conclude the presentation with a look on the guidance. After which, we will move over to the Q&A session. As always, please note our disclaimer, especially regarding forward-looking statements.
Before we start the presentation, I'm handing over to Lars Boelke, the new Head of Investor Relations, Communications and Marketing of DEUTZ. Lars, the stage is yours.
Thank you very much, Sarah, and, a warm welcome from my side as well, both to the guests joining here physically in the room, as obviously also virtually participating. Yeah, we had a very exciting bell-ringing ceremony this morning. We enjoyed it a lot, and we are delighted to present to you our business results, the latest developments obviously, and last but not least, the outlook for 2026 in more detail. However, before I hand over to Sebastian and Oliver to kick it off, let me take quickly the opportunity to introduce myself. I'm Lars Boelke. I'm very delighted to be part of the DEUTZ family since mid-March, and I'm leading with a great team behind, obviously, the communication, investor relations and marketing. Please feel free to reach out to me and the whole team at any time if you need anything.
We're happy to be at your service. Obviously, I'm very much looking forward to an exciting time ahead in the MDAX now because DEUTZ has a great team, a convincing strategy and fantastic products and services in place, and I would think it's a perfect timing to be here. DEUTZ is back in MDAX. DEUTZ is successfully transforming, and DEUTZ is growing. How? This for sure will be presented to you by our CEO and CFO who will guide you through today's presentation. Afterwards, we are of course, more than happy to take your questions. Let's kick it off. Sebastian, over to you.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Lars and Sarah, and also welcome to the team, Lars, in this exciting phase of our transformation. Yes. First of all, first things first, you know, this morning was a great moment for us, celebrating here in Frankfurt, entering the MDAX, ringing the bell, opening the daily trading here. You see a picture of Oliver and myself, Katharina, our HR boss, as well as three of our Business Unit heads, who were with us celebrating because it's a team effort, as we say with a lot of pride. Let's move on. You know, before looking ahead, let me look back because that's the purpose of today's annual results conference.
want to guide you through what we achieved as a company in 2025, with a bit of an executive summary. The headlines shows it actually pretty nicely. We managed to achieve growth, and we managed to achieve profitable growth without the support of our core markets, you know, our long-term core markets. Obviously we are now represented in many attractive markets, and we'll guide you through that later. The core markets which were extremely relevant for DEUTZ, like mainly between 2020 and 2021, 2022, they certainly didn't help. Even more importantly that we actually managed to sail through quite successfully. Let me guide you through that step by step.
New orders went up almost 14% year-over-year to a level of almost EUR 2.1 billion. Of course, the changes, the growth, the additions of our portfolio, they did help to compensate our weak engine demand. I'll come to that later. Revenue slightly below new orders, EUR 2.044 billion, but also growth of almost 13% year-over-year. Here the driver was clearly our new business areas as well as, and let's not underestimate that, our service business, which continues to grow in a healthy way. We'll also give you more flavor on that later. More important from my point of view than only the top line growth is the bottom line growth, the 5.5%, so that's 1.3 percentage point better year-over-year.
For that increase in profitability, our margin accretive M&A and also our cost reduction program, Oliver will talk about that a bit in his part, did help. Well, that's a good result given the circumstances in our core markets. Last but not least, we also managed to significantly increase free cash flow before M&A to EUR 44.2 million. That's also a significant increase of almost 50% year-over-year, especially driven by a strong cash flow in the final quarter of the year. Important and, you know, we'll give you a bit of a mixed view between purely sort of revenue but also units.
I know that many of the analysts and investors covering and following us for years have always been looking at number of engines as a key driver, and it is still an important driver, but mainly and only for the engine business. If you see that, and that's in this analysis in a way, you know, you see that, you know, from 161,000 engines in 2021 and then up to 181,000, 187,000, down 142,000, down 133,000 in 2025. You see that sort of this core market, and that was exactly the point I was referring to earlier. There was not much support from the industrial activity, particularly construction equipment, agri and so on.
That means, engine business becomes in relative terms, less relevant to the group, 64% out of that EUR 2,044 million revenue. In turn, the service business continues to be in relative terms on a level a bit above 25%. Important is also that our new business units, particularly at this point in time, energy, is becoming more and more relevant. I'll guide you through that later. You know, let me summarize that. Despite these lower volumes in the engine business, we actually managed to deliver one of the strongest results in our recent history of company. Performance quality improved, margins became more and more solid and strong. That's mainly because across our business units, we were actually executing with a high degree of discipline. The broader business mix increasingly pays off. You know, we are not as dependent on the traditional engine cycle anymore.
That's, as I said, is driven by the service business, by the energy business, and most recently also by the defense business. We are building based on what we already have shown in the last months. We are building a significantly more diversified and also resilient setup. We call that, you know, our new strategy or strategy update. Let me put it that way. We're building here the Next DEUTZ. The Next DEUTZ, let me summarize that. That's both our ambition and our strategy. As we show later, also our structure, which in an ideal world, and that's what we're trying to achieve here, follows the strategy. The Next DEUTZ will comprise and is already comprising of five business units and also five business models.
On the one hand, the Defense business, that's still in absolute terms one of the smaller units, but with a high growth. Here we're building an ecosystem. The energy business, which we have grown also with acquisitions over the last years. I'll come to that later. Here it's about really building a global business, moving from a fairly regional focused business to a global business. Engines, of course, still when we talk about revenue, when we talk about headcount, that's still the largest business. The profit pools are shifting. The new business units become more relevant. Here it's about streamlining the business, driving performance, but still growing. NewTech is driving innovation. It's a bit for me an option value in a way.
The markets are not yet picking up as we would like to, but it's important to be in that business in order to be ready when the market is picking up. That's here about innovation. Last but certainly not least, our service business. That's really a global setup. Our footprint, extremely strong asset of the company where we want to broaden our position. The service business traditionally or historically helped the engine business or the customers of the engine business. We are ideally set up to also support our new business units, defense and energy and new tech. That's our vision and strategy. In that, let us move on. I said it already, structure needs to follow strategy. Since the beginning of this year, January 2026, we have reorganized ourselves formally.
Since 1st of January, we have introduced five business units. Defense business led by Marco Herre. The energy business led by David Evans out of the United States. The engines business led by Markus Villinger. The new tech business led by Bert van Hasselt. Last but again not least, the service business led by Andreas Schmidt. Group wide leadership, you will see, you see here in this conference call, Oliver as CFO, myself as CEO, and also last but not least, Katharina, who focuses on human resources, strategy and transformation. That's a nice mixture between, let's say, a lean group wide setup, group wide leadership topic, and very clearly P&L responsible business leaders in their respective business areas. Let me walk you through the units item by item.
First of all, when I look back at defense, the contribution we had hoped for, we had planned for out of defense, we managed to exceed. Because there is, and I think that's not a surprise, strong momentum in that business. We established our initial footprint now also in the DefTech area. We acquired SOBEK, as you all know. We sealed partnerships with ARX Robotics for unmanned ground vehicle systems. We secured and also executed first direct orders. That's very, very promising, both in sort of the traditional field, i.e. we are delivering DEUTZ diesel engines to defense customers, but also in this field of the defense tech companies, where we talk mainly about battery electric systems in military drones. We managed to establish ourselves as a player.
I can tell as much that we work on that and we continue on that because here profitable growth lies ahead of us. The outlook, and that's a number which we have in mind for 2030, EUR 300 million revenue, step by step with high growth rates. We want to further expand our footprint in DefTech, a lot through partnerships, potentially joint projects. Every now and again, we're also considering investing. But what's always important for us, you know, when we enter into a partnership, that we have a right to play and a right to win, that we bring something to the table to the partners. Important is, of course, there is an extremely promising sales pipeline, both in traditional drive systems as well as in the DefTech drive systems. It's about, you know, strengthening the execution in here, but we're on good track here.
Of course, there will always be opportunities around because that field is developing quickly. Budgets are there. Budgets are growing. Everyone is aware that this is a field which is important to also support from government side. We're always open for partnerships and also M&A. Energy, really a highlight, looking back in 2025. Blue Star Power Systems, our U.S. American footprint has delivered above plan growth and also profitability, expanding the network in the United States, improving in terms of growing, but also execution, the operations. Our Moroccan asset, serving mainly Northern but also Central Africa, it's a completely different market, but the turnaround we had to initiate here after this asset was a bit, yeah, left at the side for many, many years within DEUTZ, the turnaround is progressing. Leadership has been set up.
Great guy we've got there leading that business now. We already see now in the first weeks and months of 2026 that it's paying off. Order intake is increasing, so that's great. We concluded the acquisition of Frerk. I mean, technically speaking, the closing was this year, but the signing was in December last year. With Frerk, I will speak about that also later. We are establishing our European presence in Europe out of Germany, but also growing into neighboring countries, particularly in the field of emergency power supply for data centers and creating here a momentum for further growth. Outlook is here very clear. Our objective, our target is achieving EUR 500 million revenue by 2030.
It's 20% CAGR, not a low number, but we're very, very optimistic to achieve that. We've got a dedicated plan on that and, we're certainly ahead of the plan that we initially put in here. We're driving the organic growth with the companies, and the operations we've got in the business footprint right now, Blue Star, Magi. Of course, now we have to execute the integration of Frerk, a light integration because these companies, you know, they have developed very well without the support of corporate. We want to continue enabling them, obviously, their agility and their freedom. On the other hand, we will bring what we really have to support the business, such as our service network, to the table, in order to achieve that the equation one plus one is above two.
That's what I also mean with synergies across the business unit, because, you know, we've got engines in the portfolio. As I will point out later, we've got the service footprint. Here everything is set up for profitable growth. Moving on to engines. Looking back at 2025, I said earlier the market has been challenging. Demand has been challenging across the regions. As you know, our main regions, our main sales regions is Europe and is the United States. Still, you know, the recovery which we were all waiting for hadn't picked up till 2025. I will speak about the outlook in a minute. From a portfolio and strategic point of view, we did launch a new engine, a 3.9 L/4.0 L engine. The customer response is extremely promising.
A lot of orders we already caught and secured. That's fantastic. Also, our engines which come from Daimler Truck, the so-called HDEP and MDEG, heavy-duty and medium-duty engines, we've successfully integrated them both in our sales product portfolio as well as our service portfolio. And that's important because it's crucial for us that we are expanding our portfolio towards higher power ranges like that one, because heavy and medium and higher power ranges, the internal combustion engine will play a significant role in the next not only years but potential decades to come. Here we are extremely well set up. We did right-size, i.e. reduce our R&D capacities. Oliver will talk about the Future Fit program later.
We're ahead of plan here as well. Market consolidation efficiency plays an important role. If I look ahead for 2025 and beyond, you see we foresee a growth here. We foresee a growth. Why is that? Because we want to integrate or we will integrate more of our partner engines, large engines like a 24-L e ngine. It's a V12 engine in our portfolio. We have already first orders from power generation customers, so that's great. We're driving further performance. We're now with a business unit structure under the leadership of Markus Villinger set up really strongly in a way that we have now a strong focus on performance also both in sales but also in operations. Like we hadn't had that always, so that's a great progress going forward.
Let me give a bit of a glimpse as well. We're talking here of course about the long-term outlook, but we started quite well into the financial year 2026. We see a good order momentum both from the United States as well as from Europe despite the geopolitical uncertainty. Order intake is quite promising and that makes us also confident even in that field which was under pressure in the last years going into 2026 and beyond. NewTech. We acquired UMS in Holland, in the Netherlands. We initiated integration. We managed first shifts from sort of small one-offs to small series. Still not, you know, into large series, but that's not because we are not successful.
It's just because there's nothing like that happening in large series on the market. We are continuously strengthening here our portfolio and also our production capabilities. Important is when, and that brings me to the outlook, we are able to convert a pipeline into revenue. We are also able to scale up the projects, bring our production excellence here into force, into play, and deliver to the needs of the customers. We wanna be also more efficient in terms of R&D, faster, more cost-effective using artificial intelligence here. This is an interesting and very promising field to simply become better and faster. That's also needed in that field where the change and shift of technology is certainly faster than in our traditional fields.
Last but not least, moving to service. As always, in the last years, service is really a business where we're extremely proud of, looking at the development. We further expanded our network. We integrated also the larger engines coming from Daimler Truck, the HDEP and the MDEG engines. We completed further acquisitions in Turkey and in the United States. Because in terms of service, it's extremely important to be there where the customer is, particular in rural areas when I think about the United States. We are growing our U.S. footprint in a very good way and focusing now also on Europe, including the DACH region, Germany as well.
Going back, please. Looking ahead, we're continuously driving this growth, especially in America and Europe, as I said, but also expanding our portfolio, e.g., like the remanufacturing, where we're able to bring new engines into a new life. That's something extremely important. Now making use of our portfolio also for the new business units, expanding our offering in service business, for the power gen business with the focus on Europe and the United States. Yeah, let me conclude that we want to obviously confirm, reconfirm, give the confidence that we as the management team remain more than committed to our 2030 revenue target. We've got plans laid out in very much detail that every-
All of the business units has to make and will make their contribution to bring the status quo up to the target. Yeah, we're good on track, well on track here. The support of Defense Business, Energy Business, Engines Business, NewTech Business, and Service Business to bring up to that, bring us to the target to become more relevant and more profitable. That's a perfect transition point to Oliver talking about numbers, and I will be back in a second.
Thank you very much, Sebastian. Good morning. Welcome also from my side. Let's dive into the numbers immediately. We heard it was a good year, even though we are not receiving that much support from the engine market, at least. It was a good year, good year also means we met our guidance. That is where we are committed to, same as we are committed to our 2030 guidance, our targets. We are committed to our yearly guidance. On the revenue side, we guided to roughly EUR 2.1 billion. We achieved it on the adjusted EBIT. Last guidance was midpoint or middle range of the guidance range expected. We made it straight on the point with 5.5% adjusted EBIT.
Also, the free cash flow, mid-double digit EUR amount guided before M&A, we met it, was EUR 44.2 million. Very positive information on this slide. Moving ahead, what was driving the results? One topic we continuously report on as it's addressing directly our structural cost structure is our Future Fit program. Just to remember, we have a target of EUR 55 million cost reduction, structural cost reduction 2026 compared to the baseline year 2024. We are absolutely well on track there. We have more than EUR 25 million already fully P&L effective in the accounts. All measures are identified, implemented, running, so effects are ramping up continuously into the results, and that will continue throughout the year 2026 as well.
Costs related to the Future Fit program, EUR 25 million, was booked, as you know already, in Q1 last year, so Q1 2025. Looking a bit on the key figures of fiscal year 2025, we see, first of all, new orders ramping up 13.7%. That is a book-to-bill ratio once again higher than one, which is good. A trend which seems to continue also in the current quarter. The order backlog at roughly EUR 500 million , so positive sign there. On the revenue side, 12.7% increase. Application areas, especially construction, 14%. Agriculture machinery, +10% compared to the year before.
Those areas particularly benefited from the contribution of the Daimler Truck industrial engines, while material handling, which was mainly on the engine side in the U.S., was a bit weaker due to the overall economic situation in the United States. Service business, very positive news, continues the growth path, +9% year-over-year, continuously contributing both in top and bottom line. Coming to the bottom line, talking about earnings, 5.5% adjusted EBIT margin, which is a 46% increase year-over-year. Cost saving from the Future Fit program supported the results, but also the portfolio measures, and this was somehow offsetting missing fixed cost absorption due to the overall lower production volume. On the net income side, EUR 54.1 million. This is a bit lower.
Higher than last year, but a little bit lower due to the Future Fit provision that was booked in Q1. On the next slide, we see further KPIs or the same KPIs basically on the quarterly, in the quarterly development. We see that new orders, revenue, and EBIT increased and showed the strongest quarter in Q4, especially nice the trend on the EBIT side with a very strong Q4 at a margin level of 6.8%. Several factors that were supporting us there. On the one hand, of course, the Future Fit savings, which continuously grow and grew over the year, but also higher sales volume on the engine side, roughly EUR 35 million higher volume than the quarters before. That also helped a very stable production with a good shift model.
Of course also M&A activities like SOBEK or service acquisitions, which were kicking in in September last year or throughout the last quarter of 2025. Looking a bit in the segment reporting, it's the last time we're going to see the traditional segmentation. Here we look at engines and services. We see, also here all KPIs growing. Purely looking at the business unit engine side, we sold 133,000 units. Total sales volume was a bit lower, 5%, 5.5% lower year-over-year. Also in-house production was 4.5% lower than the previous year. There were kind of negative economies of scale. These were, however, offset from Daimler Truck off-highway engines and also especially from the Future Fit cost reduction program. Very successful also HJS Emission Technology.
The turnaround case we acquired and we turned it positively, so also contributing it positively with the results. On the business unit service side, revenues at EUR 545 million, 9% year-over-year. Also besides the this year slightly lower organic growth, especially inorganic growth. The US acquisitions, OnSite Diesel , Double Down, which we reported early on in Q4 were supporting. Of course also the Daimler Truck service business we acquired, which is developing very well and nicely. Looking into the second segment, DEUTZ Solutions, combining as you know, energy and the business unit NewTech, quite two different businesses. On the energy side, order intake remains strong, EUR 165 million. That's a book-to-bill ratio of around one. Order intake here is not naturally distributed equally throughout the quarter, so there are some peak quarters.
That's why it's overall growing, even though book-to-bill is around one in the entire fiscal year. On the revenue side, strong EUR 170 million and a EUR 15 million EBIT. Important to know here, this is an EBIT after these technical accounting purchase price allocation effects you can see in the footnote. So purely operational, it was even better, EUR 23.7 million, which is a 14% EBIT margin on the Energy side and supports a strong growth and thereby the group financials. NewTech, still low on the new order level and also on the revenue level with only EUR 14 million revenue. On the other hand, EUR 34 million losses, same level as 2024. On the one hand, R&D expenses came down, of course, as you know, due to the Future Fit program.
We also build up a bit of a structure to be prepared and properly address the market side to be ready once orders are kicking in, and of course also to ensure that orders are kicking in. Looking a bit more in the financial KPIs, R&D, CapEx, working capital, all KPIs go in the right direction. R&D spending reduced to a level of EUR 85 million, so a 9% reduction, direct consequence of the Future Fit program. CapEx coming down to EUR 95 million. This is including leasing. So among others, some assembly lines, new test benches, logistic facilities, but also this year a bit of IT infrastructure. On the working capital side, in absolute terms, it remained almost exactly on the same level as in 2024. However, the ratio significantly reduced, so the trend is definitely going in the right direction.
Also inventories-wise, we only saw a slight increase even though we had several acquisitions in, so there was efficient inventory management in place as well. Looking at the cash side and net debt. Cash flow from operating activities up by EUR 33 million to a level of EUR 143 million. That results in a free cash flow before M&A of EUR 44 million, so also here an increase compared to 2024. Net debt position then going up slightly of course mainly due to the M&A activities where we spent between EUR 160 million and EUR 170 million last year, while on the other hand, the capital increase we conducted in September was of course contributing in the other direction. That brings us to the balance sheet and the financing side. Balance sheet remains strong. Equity ratio remains strong.
51.3% equity ratio. Also, leverage here including leasing at a level of 1.3x. If you exclude leasing, you are slightly below 1x in the leverage. This combination of the figures we present here of course shows that we continue to have strong financial firepower also for further acquisitions. For example, the acquisition of the Frerk group, which we closed beginning of February and which was financed via debt completely. Dividend proposal is going to be EUR 0.18 per share. That's the proposal Supervisory Board and Management Board will propose to the Annual General Meeting that takes place on the 13th of May. Last but not least, just a quick outlook on the change of reporting structure. Structure follows strategy, so also reporting structure follows strategy.
We're going to report beginning Q1 2026 in the new logic here alongside our business units, thereby increasing again transparency towards the capital market. Also of course, considering the differences in the business units, the different focus points and structures and challenges and opportunities those business units are having. I hand over to Sebastian for the guidance 2026.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Oliver, for the numbers and for the also, you know, all the details on capital structure and funding. I mentioned it earlier. We're building the Next DEUTZ. You see the Next DEUTZ again on the left part of that chart. I'd like to also translate it a bit in what are the levers that will create value for the shareholders here. It's very traditional. We've got a couple of important levers. We see growth, selective. What do I mean with selective? Not at any cost. It has to be profitable. Structural in areas which are ready for growth and resilient. We want to build something which is there for the long run and not just for a hype.
What do I mean with that in terms of our portfolio? We can scale up. We will further scale up our energy and defense business, that is clearly backed up by market growth. Not much cyclicity. We want to further gain market share and service. Service is also resilient, and it's there for the long term. Even in the engine business, the engines will remain in the field for decades. We will grow very focused also in our engine business, particularly in terms of using larger, more powerful engines. Second lever, margins. Quality before volume. We like volume, but we like quality even more. Quality before volume, ideally both. We will increase the share of our margin-accretive businesses. Service is clearly margin-accretive. Energy, clearly margin-accretive. Defense is clearly margin-accretive.
There will be a focus on performance, especially on engine. Not limited, but especially on engine. These are the big levers in terms of margin. Of course, cash is king. Discipline, orientation on ROCE. We've continued to allocate capital in a profit-optimized way. We will obviously put a focus on working capital. I mean, keep the focus, let me put it that way, especially when there's a market uptick in the traditional engine business. You know, managing working capital is key here. Not to be filled up too much, but also be there when the customer orders. Of course, there is integration potential in our new business as well. Last but not least, there is strategic upside on top of gross margins and cash. It's an option approach.
Leverage really partnership options which may appear on the road. NewTech certainly is a market-driven strategic upside. We are there. We invest in a limited but focused way. Once the market is picking up, we are there, and then we will benefit. That's an extremely important perspective on our Next DEUTZ. When we look at 2026, the outlook we will be giving in a minute, I mean, that's clearly driven by our strategic value transformation. Of course, you all know that, macro geopolitical volatility and uncertainty is there and will likely remain. However, the end markets and all of the end markets are improving. Some of them are already in good shape, like Energy, Defense. Others are cautiously improving.
The engine business is picking up has been picking up already in the first days and weeks of 2026. These signs are very, very good. Time will tell how strong we will continue here there, but we are very positive right now. The first time, quite frankly, in, let's say, 15, 16 months, I'm really, really positive in that outlook of the engine market. Then of course, the DEUTZ perspective. You know, the more resilient structure we have been building, the benefits will increase. They're already there, but they will increase. We see in 2026 the full P&L impact of our acquisitions, which we concluded in 2025. Frerk, we closed February 2026, so it's almost a full year effect, which will support our numbers here.
Of course, also other portfolio matters. As well as efficiency and cost improvements, like we just heard from Oliver, the Future Fit program. We wanted to achieve EUR 50 million P&L effective. We are above that. That's one of the clear points when we talk to our investors as well. We make announcements which we will deliver. With that, we are positive to grow and to also grow in 2026. Let me give you the numbers now. Of course, let me start with revenue. We're expecting here a range between EUR 2.3 billion and EUR 2.5 billion. We provide you also the midpoints for the business units. I will not read them in detail. We see a margin range between 6.5% and 8%.
Also again, midpoints in engines, midpoints in the business units. Free cash flow, we expect to be high double-digit million EUR. I mean, there are certain important points which I show you on the left-hand side. There is good positive momentum right now in energy, service, and defense, and also most recently in engine. I would be a bit more bullish than what's written here on the chart. This sounds a bit like, oh, let's see what happens. Actually, first quarter order intake shows in a very good direction. That gives us confidence already for the second quarter and also leading into the third quarter. That's, you know, what we have somehow expected here.
A bit of a stronger second half is actually well supported by the KPIs we are following here right now. Yeah, that's the look ahead. We hope that you feel a bit the confidence we have coming out of a strong-ish 2025 with a new setup, with building the Next DEUTZ. Yeah, now looking ahead or looking forward to lead this great company not only through 2026, but beyond with our ambitious but yet realistic targets. In that sense, thank you very much for your attention. Of course, as usual, we are open for questions.
Yeah, thank you very much for guiding us through here, for giving the outlook, which is quite promising, if I may say so.
Of course, we're happy to take your questions now. We would like to start with in this room, to make it a bit easier I guess. If there are any questions here, please go ahead. Afterwards, of course, we'll also give all the colleagues, dial-in the opportunity to ask additional questions. Okay, you wanna go ahead.
Yes.
You need to please use the microphones on. Thank you.
Okay. I don't need to go close, no?
No. Of course.
It's okay. Thank you for the presentation, Sebastian, and congratulations on entering the MDAX. I mean, it's a great milestone. Regarding the guidance, if I may, I see that the target in terms of engines is more or less the same result than this year, I think, making the math myself. This means that you are quite cautious even in the midpoint, or is there any reason to be this cautious apart obviously of the geopolitical events that we are suffering these days? That will be my first question, please.
Yeah. I mean, we really rather give an outlook and then slightly over-deliver. That's what I believe we've shown in the last three, four years. It takes some time to build up trust. It takes a second to destroy it, and we want to remain within that sort of mindset. Of course, you know, as I said, February order intake in engines has been promising. March is not over yet, but it's also promising. I look quite forward to Q1, but especially Q2. I'd rather wait until the end of Q2 when we have order intake numbers for Q2 in and then to potentially be a bit more optimistic right now. At the moment, you're almost right.
In the guidance for engines, it's a slight recovery expected, but certainly not a moderate or even large recovery. The operating leverage, you know that very well, in the engine business is extreme. We're coming from that, you know, 130,000, 135,000 engines. Once this is going up, we'll be certainly moving not only in revenue towards and potentially beyond what we have here as the upper end, but especially profitability will benefit significantly. Let me be a bit cautious with that guidance right now and then see what happens. I mean, the war in Iran, that's obviously we as DEUTZ do not feel any negative impacts right now, as terrible as that obviously is from a personal perspective.
However, we all know that a higher oil price is not good for the economy, so that's why a little bit cautious. I believe this is not the moment with that geopolitical uncertainty to say, "All right, you know, there's only sunshine and sparkles in the second half of the year." That's a bit the background for providing that, I would still say actually quite positive guidance. I mean, in a year like that, 6.5%-8%, DEUTZ has never shown numbers of 8% even in boom phases. Don't make me feel too bad about being slightly optimistic. Yeah.
No, don't take me wrong, but it's I feel also that the year has started in the right direction. Yeah, I was curious to know how this was fitting into the optimism that you have or not. Maybe following up with this, can you give us a little bit of feedback of your conversations these days with the OEMs, how they see the investment plans in Europe? If this is something that is still not driving really the demand or if you think that we can see some at some point some good boost to the demand maybe end of the year or next year or something that is going to happen. I mean.
Yeah. I mean, I always don't wanna talk about individual customers, yet, or at this point in time. I think that they are those who are listed obviously provide their numbers also publicly. What we see at the moment is a couple of customers, and a couple meaning more than two, ordering quite relatively large quantities, and this both comes from the U.S. There's one customer who's quite optimistic in the United States, but also a group of customers in construction, quite optimistic, in Europe. We still have to bear in mind we're taking off from a low level. You know, we're talking about numbers on a monthly basis, maybe 13,500, 14,000 engines, what we see recently on a monthly basis.
That's significantly more than what we've had through last year. Again, it's one month, right? What I take positive is that this is happening or this has not happened before the beginning of the Iran war, but during or after and during. That means that we'll see some recovery. Yeah. It fits probably very much to what these customers particularly in construction say openly. Bear in mind, wait until we release the Q1 numbers, because then we've got the Q1 in the books, and we've got already a good indication of what's happening in April, and also towards May.
Okay, maybe a last one from my side. Regarding defense, the target for 2030 is really strong and it's interesting that you have already a number in your mind about it. Also you mentioned that the pipeline it looks quite nice. How do you feel or see DEUTZ being recognized in the market? Are you positioning all your different products together, or how you are managing this growth in the defense? That would be interesting to know.
Yeah. Our defense business unit, it's a small but pretty fast-moving, fast-acting units. You know the guys a bit from several interactions and, I would describe them a bit as a market-oriented business unit. They don't have their own products, but they market the products we have in the portfolio, towards defense customers. It's extremely important because the go-to-market in defense is extremely different than a go-to-market in industry, right? Let me give you an example. You know, when it's about placing a diesel engine into a military vehicle, typically the go-to-market takes not just weeks and months, but can take years, because it has to be sort of baked into the specifications and, there's a bit of lobbying sometimes as well, as we all know, right? That's why.
Of course, on our side, also, the application engineering is different, and we do not talk about volumes, as high in terms of units, as in industrial applications. If we manage to place, let's say, an order of 300 or 400 engines to a defense customer, because margins are higher, and justified because there's more work to be done, right? But if that happens, our engineering teams need to obviously do the work on the machine, and they need to do the work pretty quickly. Under normal circumstances, you would always, you know, prioritize the industrial customer who wants 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 units, but their margin level is different.
It's a bit also managing internally the resources, and that's actually proven to be quite successful to have a dedicated team who work dedicatedly with defense customers but also who manage the internal complexity in a different way. That is just the example for the ICE, but the same applies for products for power, for gensets, for example, 'cause there's also increasing demand by defense customers as well as in the whole DefTech field with our battery electric products. Go-to-market business unit fit for market and also managing the internal complexity. It's a proven recipe which pays off every day more.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Actually, I would start with the guidance for this year and if you could remind us of the unfolding of the remaining cost savings of more than EUR 50 million. Connected to this, last year we saw a rather linear development of profitability through the year in terms of margins quarter by quarter. Would you expect the same picture or something like a seasonality through the quarters? That's where I'll start, please.
On the cost savings, that EUR 50 million, I call it EUR 50+ million , so it's gonna be around EUR 55 million or even slightly higher. EUR 25 million-EUR 30 million are already in the P&L. The rest will then come 2026. That is fully P&L effective then. It's not like coming only in 2027. These measures being in the middle last second, but it's really like we wanna see the full P&L impact 2026 versus probably 2024. The ramp-up curve, I would expect that rather linear. Part of those savings are related to employees. Majority are out already. Some are still to come through the year, so that's a bit more front-loaded than. On the other hand, there are certain other measures included, so linear ramp-up is a fair assumption. Yes.
Thanks for this. Second one would be on the, let's say, 2030 targets for the business units you, in future, will report on. You gave us the sales figures you're targeting. Can you remind us also of margin ambitions for the-
We gave the overall ambition level of a 10% adjusted EBIT margin.
Okay.
That's gonna be distributed accordingly. What we can say is that, you know, service and energy will be accretive. Engines will be probably below the 10%, but also not at zero. Right.
Okay. Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you. Any additional questions in the room? Yeah.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. Lars Vom-Cleff, Deutsche Bank. I'm the new kid on the block here.
Welcome to the show.
Looking at your target of a high double-digit EUR million free cash flow, I saw the working capital to sales ratio coming down from 21-ish to 18.7. Is that the new normal, or do you have a specific target ratio in mind to improve cash flow even further?
On the cash flow side, I wouldn't consider that as a new normal. I would consider that as a rather careful guidance on that end. Free cash flow generation was not the strongest KPI of DEUTZ over the past years, so we are a bit more cautious on that, but we are working on the right things. Working capital, you mentioned, is exactly one of those where we are getting continuously better. Also, new business models, changing it towards a bit less CapEx, working capital efficient model. We are targeting more towards the 15% in the midterm there. On the cash flow side, we are overall seeing continuous improvement.
15% target?
The midterm.
Sorry. Yeah.
working capital target. Yeah. Not for the year 2026. That we gave the specific guidance in the annual report.
Perfect. Thank you.
To 90.
I mean, also on the different business models or business units, I mean, the engine business typically comes with a very traditional of sort of serial production or serial business model terms, whereas we have other business models which work with down payments or with milestone payments. It's even more difficult to purely say, all right, it's between, let's say, 15% and 20%, because the business mix changes as well. We want to, and that's the positive thing about that, obviously, we want to also utilize this. This is one of the synergies in the group as well.
You know, mixing different business models, also that's what I meant when I talked about the cash lever to here, and mix and match in a better way.
Perfect. Thank you. Your service business was continuously mentioned as one of the growth pillars. High margin, of course, we appreciate that if it grows. How do you intend to grow that? Is it digitization, predictive maintenance offerings? Or are you also trying to take market share or convince your customers to do less and let you do more?
It's the many, many growth levers. One lever is simply winning market share. Mainly, when I talk about the engine business, service comprises of pretty much three levers. One is parts, and we have already a good market share. Still a bit room to grow, but not unlimited room to grow, of course. The other lever is work at the machine, so like sort of labor, technician work. There we have still a fairly low market share. Over the last years, I mean, 50 or 10 years ago, we were not doing that at all. We were just selling parts, and now we're already doing much more work at the machine. That's one of the focus points to grow.
Thirdly is indeed digital offerings like telematic solutions. We have quite a few promising opportunities in that. The fourth point is also a series of small-ish M&A, buying former external dealerships in order to increase the footprint and bring that margin in-house. These are the sort of. Of course, last but not least, also offering or utilizing our footprint for the new business models. That's why we're pretty confident on that growth, the number you just mentioned, because they're supported by at least four pillars.
Maybe last question, staying with M&A, you said small-ish in service. Completely understood. You were quite successful with your recent bolt-on acquisitions, also targeting higher margin product offering services. Where would you see remaining wide spots rather, I guess it's rather products or technologies than regions? And thinking about your leverage ratio of 1.3 x, what would be the maximum to accept in this regard?
Let me start with the areas, and then Oliver will talk on funding. First of all, I mean, as you said, service, we'll continue to work on that. These are not large acquisitions. We've shown a proven track record to be able to do quite a lot of them on an annual basis. We are certainly open to grow also more in both energy and defense business, and we have quite a good overview what could happen in the next years. You will understand that this is exactly the field where transparency has very strong limitations. We can just say we are working on a lot of opportunities and options. With M&A, you never know.
It always takes two to tango, and we will see. We'll keep you updated as soon as we can.
On the leverage question, well, we have a strong balance sheet. We have a decent leverage with the level of 1.4x, leasing, without leasing even below 1x. We have that capacity. That also means, and as you saw it with the Frerk transaction recently, we added additional debt because the balance sheet supports that. With the increasing resilience of our business model, you know, growing energy, growing defense, growing service, volatility gets out of the results. That means we can support higher leverage. Specific numbers, it depends a bit on if you ask the CEO or the CFO. The CFO is always a bit more careful, so I can easily imagine-
More careful.
I can easily imagine a leverage of 2x. Yeah, 2.5x, but of course, it needs to fit to the development of the business. Yeah.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much for your questions, and I hope you got the answers that you were looking for. There's one more in the room, and I think afterwards we're gonna move into the virtual world, please.
Yes. You mentioned that your book-to-bill ratio in your new Energy unit was below the threshold of one. You pointed out a clear growth path until 2030. Can you give us an indication how this order intake is currently developing, where you stand at the book-to-bill ratio? Yes.
In energy, you mean?
In Energy, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, first of all, the book-to-bill in engines is more an indicator of growth, if it's above 1. In energy, it's, we talk about a bit more the sort of lumpy orders. There is a lumpy order, and then you suddenly have in a quarter potentially even a book-to-bill of 2, and then in the next, you have a book-to-bill of 0.4, 0.5. That's why I would not put too much emphasis on the book-to-bill in energy. Again, in engines and service, it's highly relevant. Here, what we can say is that, with our two larger assets in energy, which is Blue Star and Frerk.
We do see very solid prospects for growth in both the United States as well as in Europe, and also in our small asset in Morocco. Here the book-to-bill is actually above one, but the same applies what I just said earlier. That's why, you know, we see here based on the sales funnel. Here we rather think in a sales funnel. Typical logic, you know, you start with a fairly large sales funnel. You put in go/no-go probabilities on there. You calculate them. Here we see quite a good deal of supporting information for the growth we put in here into the numbers.
Once again, thank you very much. With that, I would hand it over to Sarah, to the virtually dialed in colleagues.
I don't know why my microphone has a bit of a weird noise. I hope you can still understand me, but Sarah, please take it.
Absolutely, sound is good, Lars. Thank you for handing over. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a couple of minutes left for you in the virtual line to ask your questions in person via the audio line. To do so, please raise your virtual hand. Yeah, unfortunately, forgive us, we cannot cover all the questions in the chat today, but we will take them and come back to you afterwards. In the meantime, we have a virtual hand from Stefan Augustin. Please go ahead and ask your questions.
Yes. Thank you very much. The question is actually on the guidance and the new business unit guidances. So there is defense, and it says defense and others. Could you remind us what else is in others in there, and possibly also if there is a huge differentiation between the profitability of these businesses? And maybe a technicality, but to understand the rest a bit better, if you sell a genset to the Bundeswehr, is it then accounted for under defense or under energy? And maybe also then connected here, if I look at these business units guidances, is there any one where you include M&A perspective, or shall we take these separate BU guidances as organic growth opportunity guidances for 2026?
Yeah. Let me start with your first question on the defense and other segment. Basically, it's defense, but we also will allocate our recent acquisition, HJS, which we acquired beginning of January 2025. From a margin perspective, obviously, defense business is way more profitable than HJS, which is also slightly profitable. That is in the combination how we derived it overall guidance. That is basically the only relevant part which is covered by other.
The second question, if you sell a genset to the Bundeswehr, for example, yes, that's defense. On the third question, to which degree M&A is impacting the guidance here, naturally we see some M&A activities on the service side, where we have a good track record of two, three, or more M&A transactions per year. That is also what we are expecting then, so a certain M&A contribution on the service side, along what we achieved over the last years, while the other business units are not M&A-driven in the guidance.
Thank you very much.
Which doesn't mean we're not doing that. You know, that's important.
Yeah. Exactly, exactly.
It doesn't mean we're not doing that. We do not put, you know, unlaid eggs into the guidance. Let's put it that way.
No, it's just that it's very clear, but it gives a better picture of what you think is organically happening. Lastly is on new tech, and how do you feel about the loss allowance here? You outlined that some of the costs is for setting up structures. In case there would be in first half or so of 2026, nothing materially happen on the opportunity side, how quickly could you reduce the cost base, and how willing would you be to do so?
Yeah. First of all, we couldn't reduce it to zero, obviously. I mean, we could, but that would not be wise because I talked about an option value, and that would destroy the option value also to zero. In fact, we are obviously always evaluating here the cost base and the structures because in the end, cost is structure or structure is cost. In case, and I'm not saying it is happening, but in case we wouldn't see a first sort of serial or small serial order, we obviously would be able to stretch projects to reduce the losses here, and we're well prepared to do so. We are actually quite optimistic that this will not be necessary.
It's important, you know, to be always ready for both potential developments.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much for your questions. In the meantime, we did not receive any further virtual hands, so we therefore come to the end of today's conference call. Thank you everyone for joining and your shown interest, and also a big thank you to you, Sebastian and Oliver, for guiding us through the presentation and for answering all those questions. From my side, it was a pleasure to be your digital host today, and I hand back to Sebastian for some final remarks, which concludes our call for today.
Yeah. Thank you very much for dialing in. Thank you very much for asking all these very valuable questions. Thank you very much for accompanying us as DEUTZ . It's really a great time in a way to, you know, guide and lead this company through this transformation. It's also great to see how our measures are paying off. Let's also bear in mind, you know, it's been a challenging year in 2025 given the environment and we have managed quite successfully through that and we are, you know, with a bit of caution, as we just heard also in the Q&A here, we're going with a bit of caution into 2026.
We are everything is set up to make this another success, and that's extremely important. We need a bit of support from the end markets, from the traditional end markets, but we are ready to also grow both in terms of top line and profitability, even if you know that support is not as strong as we all hope for. We're looking forward to a great year, 2026, and looking forward to the continuous dialogue with all of you throughout the year. The financial calendar is here put on the chart. I mean, we will release Q1 on May 7, AGM in Cologne, this time a physical AGM again, in May 13. We're happy to welcome as many as possible for you who are also physically in Cologne.
We'll be by H1, i.e. Q2, beginning of August. Obviously, looking forward to talk to many of you through the, I don't know, more than 2025 investor relations opportunities throughout the year. Thanks for your attention. Stay tuned. There will be more to come.