Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the SFC Energy publication of the quarterly report Q3 2025 conference call. I am Valentina, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and one. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Dr. Peter Podesser, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, Valentina, for the introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us on this call presenting our Q3 and 9-month figures, as well as an overview of the business right now. Together with Daniel, we will lead you through all the key figures, but also key facts relevant to the 9-month period right now, but also naturally onto the outlook. Thereafter, we will be happy to answer all your questions. No question. We are looking back to a soft quarter. We are looking back also to a challenging period here in the business. We have to say, as also anticipated, that this was one of the key reasons why we saw ourselves obliged to bring down the guidance back in Q3 at the end of July.
Naturally, starting with this point, I think we want to give you, let's say, a solid and concrete analysis on this. If we look at the development here in the first nine months, we see a slower growth than originally planned in core parts of the business. If we look into the main reasons of deviations, I think we have to start off with the biggest impact on the defense business in India. We saw a postponement of the follow-on programs here for our EMILY and JENNY deployments, EMILY and JENNY fuel cell deployments to the Indian Army, based on a decision that was basically a repurposing of funds during this current fiscal year.
We have spent quite some time in various meetings on site in India, and I think within the last three months, we see a, I think we see solid signs, and we see, let's say, basis also for a rebound within, let's say, the next fiscal year here for the business in India. Maybe not back to immediately the levels of the 2024 business, but definitely higher levels than we see it in 2025. Two additional elements here. We have signed service and repair contracts, comprehensive maintenance contracts now for all the deployments with the Indian Army, which going forward as of Q4, and we have signed them last Friday. Going forward, this is basically also covering more or less local cost and also yield proper capacity loading here for our operation in India.
We have also started last weekend local methanol filling here, as we do it in other parts of the world, North America and Asia as well. We are also able now to provide local methanol, address also cost concerns from customers there, and see this as a basis also for the rebound. India, the first element here of deviation, this year, definitely, I would say volume-wise, the biggest impact. If we look at our organic growth, we also see a growing, we still see a growing business in the U.S. Overall, in the first nine months, we see about 28% growth, but we have to say, especially with new customers, we were expecting also, based on historical growth rates, a significantly higher growth.
The overall economic uncertainties have an impact on decision-making of our customers there, and therefore we have missed out on the original plan to see growth above 40%. As said, 28% organic in the first nine months, and a corridor that we also expect until the end of the year is, per se, a solid growth number, but definitely not what we had planned for and what we expected. The third element, and Daniel will dive into this. Yeah, we have seen three functional currencies, I'd say, devaluating significantly against the euro, U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, as well as the Indian rupee, with an impact on sales and earnings. Getting into this in a bit.
If we look now into, I'd say, the reaction on these developments, I think we are seeing first fruits out of, let's say, cost alignment and cost measures that we have implemented right immediately in third quarter. We are seeing, let's say, a normalization, especially on IT and ERP spending, and I think also functional cost, you will hear from Daniel, is, I think, an alignment on what we implemented. As also mentioned before, we are not talking about here now a significant headcount reduction at all. I think we are in a selective hiring mode here in those areas where we see growth, and we are reallocating also resources to those areas where we see growth, and we are taking capacity out in those areas where we don't see growth.
If we now look into the third quarter, we are seeing a significant increase, especially on the order intake side, which also is the basis for us expecting a strong fourth quarter. We are overall seeing an increase to a book-to-bill ratio of 1.2% compared to about 0.76% in the first half of the year. Combined with, I'd say, a product mix also impacted and positively impacted by a higher defense sales ratio in the fourth quarter, we see a positive impact also in the fourth quarter. If we now look also into, let's say, the next steps of implementing our strategy, I think the acquisition of a 15% stake in Oneberry Technologies in Singapore is a key element. On the one hand, for the regional expansion of the business, we are seeing Singapore as the regional hub for the expansion in Southeast Asia.
The closing process is in a final phase, and besides the regional expansion, I think we have a unique opportunity here to learn and to step into a business model that is highly attractive and profitable, where Oneberry is operating under a security as a service business model for their AI-based unmanned security solutions, from border protection to drone defense applications and critical infrastructure protection. Overall, we have an option also to take majority ownership, and we are working actively on this as also a platform for further growth in Asia as of 2026. Furthermore, important to inform you about the U.S. operation. We are on track for the ability to do the local production, to ramp up the local production in our facility in Salt Lake City.
Strengthening our local-for-local program here at the end helps us to reduce exposure to import tariffs, but over time, naturally, also makes us less vulnerable and depending on exchange rate and currency risks by establishing a local supply chain. Our team from the U.S. right now is here in Europe for training, and therefore we will be ready to have a first pilot series produced still this quarter and ready for production early 2026. Overall, looking at the sales performance, we see a decline of 2.4%, as said. Not happy with this performance, the reasons for the deviation, the reasons for the decline, the main reasons mentioned here. If we look into, I'd say, the order intake, I mentioned this, seeing EUR 34.6 million in the third quarter, we see a significant increase to the previous quarters.
The book-to-bill ratio now is up at 1.2% in this quarter, and this also naturally gives us a solid basis here now for the final weeks of the year. If we look at the overall backlog here being around EUR 79 million, that is definitely significantly lower than at the beginning of the year, with EUR 104 million reflecting the weak order intake we had, especially in the first six months of the year. Here, I would like to also draw your attention to the fact that we naturally have a part of the business being highly transactional, which means it is kind of a rolling order book that is turned around within the quarter. We are looking here at a ratio between, I would say, slightly below 40% up to 50% of the revenue also turned around within a quarter.
We are looking at, let's say, this year, EUR 14 million-EUR 15 million turnaround in a quarter. Having this in mind also, you put in perspective the order backlog. If we look at the segments, the big impact here on the revenue and the significant impact here was mainly on the clean energy segment. The bigger segment, clean energy, still is accounting for about 69.7%, so almost stable to the year before, but still here we see a drop in revenue of about, I'd say, 2.5%. I mentioned this, the U.S. and the Indian defense business being the biggest impacting factors. Looking at the end markets there, we still have to see that the industrial part of the fuel cell business is growing above 10%, 10.8%, and the security part in this, that is basically CCTV applications, civil security business, is running above 15% growth.
There is an intact growth curve, I think, visible. Looking at the clean power management, around 30% of the business, a decline of 2%, strictly leading back to a single project missed in the Canadian oil and gas business of, I'd say, a EUR 2.8 million business here for power products, VFDs, with one customer in Canada that was basically in our forecast but lost to competition. Looking at the clean energy business in Canada, we see also this part on a solid growth curve. With this, I would hand over to Daniel, leading you through the financial results here of Q3 as well as the first 9 months.
Good morning, Peter. Thank you for dialing in. Let me go into the margins a little bit as well as the cost basis.
I think as a summary, what we could say is that those negative impacts that we have seen in the first half year have continued to some extent. They have lowered, but there was still a negative impact. I believe from the cost basis, you've seen we are running rather stable in the underlying because costs are rather optimized. Let me go into that real quick and highlight certain developments. When it comes to the overall gross margin in the first 9 months, we've seen the negative impacts that we also have seen in the first half year, especially with regards to the segment Clean Energy, which is the less favorable product mix with a lower share of the defense revenue. We mentioned that before. That really played an essential role in the unprobable gross margin development that we've seen since the beginning of the year.
What we also have seen now is that the custom duty that have been introduced slowly negatively impact our gross margin. Like I said, it will be unlikely that we'll be able to avoid the entire customs, so impact. It is not that we will see a huge impact. What we see is slight impact from those custom duties. What we also see in the segment Clean Energy is the less favorable exchange rates with regards to the U.S. dollar and the Can dollar. If you compare the average exchange rate of those two major currencies, the U.S. dollar in average depreciated by 1%, the Can dollar in average depreciated by 4%, which has an impact on the gross margin.
The overall group's gross margin reached 40% in the first nine months, which is slightly below what we've seen in the nine months of 2024, while we had a gross margin of 41.7%. It is also moderately below the level of the previous full-year margin, which was 41%. Nevertheless, we consider the group's gross margin to be on a level with which we are not entirely satisfied, as for good reason. At the beginning of the year, we had higher goals and higher targets. We may not have anticipated entirely the economic turmoil ahead of us at the beginning of the year. We may not have seen entirely the development of the exchange rate, but also the development in India. All of it has an impact on the gross margin, especially with regards to the segment Clean Energy. It is a heterogeneous development, the gross margin. We've seen that.
We have a gross margin expansion in the segment clean power management, where we see the gross margin going up to 29.7% from 26.9%. That is something that we are happy and content with. The main reason for that, the increase is basically in both main product lines in that segment. The power management solution, we were able to implement a higher pricing also because I mentioned that in the first half-year call already, also due to our products that we've been offering. We have also been able to implement higher prices in the drive motor control products. If we then look at the EBITDA margin and the key impact on those operating expenses, R&D and G&A, I think there are, again, three major topics that we've seen in the first half year, which is the extraordinary cost for exchange rate losses.
That is the IT spending for the implementation of SAP, as well as making our IT's overall landscape more robust. We have seen those costs of those expenses having come down in the third quarter, but there was still an extraordinary expense in there. What we also see in the third quarter is a lower rate of capitalization of R&D, which is something we have had in the first six months, and which is also something that will unlikely change because that is pure accounting, and that has also impacted EBITDA negatively compared to the first nine months in the last year. If we add up those three facts and look at the last year, make a like-for-like comparison, those three facts together have impacted EBITDA negatively with approximately EUR 5.5 million, which really shows that our cost basis is solid. The earning power is still there.
If we take those three facts away, we know that they're there, but you'll see that we didn't do that bad. Let me dig into the exchange rate losses. First of all, so you've seen or we had an income from exchange rate gains of EUR 1.8 million in the first nine months, which were entirely offset by the exchange rate losses of EUR 5.1 million in the first nine months. That comes to a net impact of EUR 3.3 million, which negatively impacted the EBITDA for 3.2% of revenues. Out of these exchange rate losses that we've seen, EUR 4.4 million or 85% is unrealized losses, and out of which approximately EUR 4 million are related to intercompany positions, i.e., shareholder loans and intercompany receivables. I mentioned that already in the first half year, so that's why we would not see that in the cash flow statement.
Yes, we'll book it, but it's unrealized losses for the exchange rate. It does impact our EBITDA negatively with 3.2% rather highly. The next position is the extraordinary cost for IT in the G&A expenses. These are costs relating to the SAP implementation. In the first nine months, the total cost has been EUR 1.9 million. They have gone down notably, the spending has gone down notably in the third quarter, but it still, over the first nine months, translates into 1.8% negative impact of the revenues on the EBITDA. We also had costs for improving our IT system that amounted to approximately EUR 1.4 million in the first nine months, which again would then mean a 1.4% negative impact on the EBITDA.
Together, if you see the amount that we will spend on IT, and yes, it's necessary, we need to make our system more robust. We need to make a step forward in higher efficiency and automation in our system. This is not something that we're just doing for doing it. It really means making the major steps in getting our system safer, more secure, more robust, increase efficiency, also increase effectiveness of our operations. What is a huge investment that we've seen? We will see further investment in the fourth quarter. We also will see some of those investments still in the next year until we got the system entirely implemented. The third impact is the lower rate of capitalized R&D expenses.
The total R&D spending amounted to EUR 8.7 million in the first nine months of 2025, compared to EUR 7.5 million in the previous year's nine months. You see a decent hike in our R&D spending. What you will also see is that in the previous years, approximately 23% of these costs were capitalized. In the current year, we are capitalizing 13% of the cost. On a like-for-like basis, this would also translate into a negative impact on the EBITDA on EUR 6,000. To go into this really briefly, capitalizing on the expenses is not a choice or not an option, which we do. It is, as I mentioned at the beginning of the call, an accounting principle. Certain projects can be capitalized, certain projects cannot be capitalized.
That is a little bit depending on your R&D focus, but also what you have in the pipeline. Remember, any capitalization going forward means also depreciation, additional cost. It is not that you are optimizing your costs. You are just pushing those expenses into the future. In any event, it is what it is. You will see that our R&D spending, even though it has increased, it has not the huge jump that you see in the P&L. The earning power, that is why I said that at the beginning, is still at a decent level. What does it mean for the adjusted EBITDA? For the adjusted EBITDA, it means that we reached EUR 10.8 million, which, of course, is significantly with 56% below what we have seen in the previous year's nine months.
It is, of course, a factor of revenue growth, of gross margin, and those negative effects in the other operating costs that I just mentioned. Depreciation amortization, you do not see a big change in there. Depreciation EUR 5.8 million versus EUR 4.5 million, 40% of the depreciation is IFRS 16 related. You will not see a huge change in that position going forward either. That brings us to the adjusted EBIT, which came up to EUR 5 million. That represents an adjusted EBIT margin of 4.9%. That is significantly lower from what we have seen in the first nine months in 2024. Again, we are not entirely happy with that, as you can imagine. Let me finalize with the cash flow and our cash position.
Cash freely available at the, sorry, at the end of the first nine months were EUR 40.8 million compared to EUR 60.5 million, which we had at the end of 2024. It is EUR 20 million lower from what we have seen. The financial debt on the other side also decreased by approximately EUR 1 million- EUR 3.1 million, which gives us a net debt, sorry, net cash position of EUR 37.6 million, pretty much EUR 20 million below what we have seen as the year-end. Our equity decreased by EUR 1.5 million. That is due to the negative earning. Remember, the negative earning also those non-recurring effects with regards to the IFRS 2 and the stock option programs are reflected. Cash flow, the operating cash flow before the change in networking capital was EUR 10.5 million.
That compares to EUR 18 million in the first nine months of the previous years. What you see is it is significantly lower, but it is still at a good level with EUR 10.5 million. It is 40%, sorry. What we see then is the networking capital development. The networking capital increased by EUR 21.5 million. That compares to EUR 2.5 million in the last nine months. The working capital ratio to last 12 months net sales went up to 40% as of September compared to 25% at the year-end. We are really trying hard to manage that working capital. It is really the inventory that we need to look at. It is really looking at the accounts receivable. The largest impact is really the increase in the inventory, which has gone up by EUR 10.3 million.
That has changed the date of inventory to 237 compared to 131 at the end of the year. That is an extreme high value. We are fully aware of that. That is something that we need to manage more actively and bring it down. We are fully aware of that. We have a lot of material sitting in there. It is mostly fuel cell components and material, which we intend to bring down in the next six months. It is nothing that is going to go bad or will become obsolete. It is really material that has been acquired and has to be bought and brought down. You also see a large impact on the increase of the accounts receivables. They increased by EUR 8.1 million compared to year-end.
That translates into a 12-month trailing days of sales outstanding of 114 compared to 90, which we had at the end of the last year. We have seen an increase in the sales outstanding. We do not see any bad receivables out there, but this is something also that we are managing actively and intend to bring that number down again towards the 90 days. What you also see is that the accounts payables have gone down. They have gone down by EUR 2.8 million. That brings the payables outstanding down to 52 days from 66 days. With the tax payments of EUR 1.4 million, you will see that the operating cash flow after networking capital tax is becoming very negative. With very negative, it means -EUR 12.4 million, all driven by the networking capital development.
Cash flow from investor activity is much, much lower from what we've seen in the last year. We are looking at EUR 2.6 million compared to EUR 6.4 million in the last year. All those large investments that we have made last year are done and completed. EUR 2.6 million is at a decent level. It includes, of course, the capitalized R&D. You see the cash flow from financing activities of EUR 2.8 million. A large portion of that is related to leases. If you add those numbers up, you'll see a change in the cash position of EUR 17.9 million. We'll still have to add the exchange rate impact on our cash employing currency. Overall, cash has reduced. Like I said in summary, mostly with networking capital. We've seen a large decline.
Still, I think we are at a good level, but not a level which we are happy or satisfied with. We are fully aware that we need to keep on working on further implementing measures and structures to optimize, especially our tax consumption. With that, I'll return to Peter.
Thank you very much, Daniel. Summarizing where we are, I think on the basis of the performance today, also we talked about the order backlog and also, I'd say, still some, I'd say, challenging macro conditions here. We've done, I think, a concise assessment here on the year-end forecast, and we are expecting the revenue at the lower end of the target corridor that we had out there as we have out there as a revised guidance. We see EBITDA adjusted as well as EBIT adjusted in the lower half of the corridor that is out there.
For EBITDA, the corridor is EUR 13 million-EUR 19 million, and for the EBIT, respectively, it is the corridor of EUR 5 million-EUR 11 million. As said, we are expecting to end up in the lower half for both ratios. Looking at this, I think after years of continuous and significant growth and increasing profitability, you see ourselves here clearly and honestly disappointed with those results here after nine months. We also have to be self-critical here in terms of some maybe too aggressive and optimistic plannings in some areas, especially of the top line against the macroeconomic also environment that we are operating under. At the same time, I think we have done a thorough analysis of the situation. We also see the recent off deviations, and we have implemented clear and targeted measures. We have talked about the cost part. I think on the inventory part, yeah.
The defense part of the business has downsides with, let's say, longer procurement cycles. The good thing is those products are not turning anywhere bad, as Daniel mentioned. This is naturally the basis here for the improvement also on the cash flow side to get, let's say, this out of the door as fast as possible. That is why you see ourselves here, and I'd say this clearly, I'd say, a realistic moat, but with all the dedication to get this back to a growth curve. Again, I think for all of us here, we have an organic growth in the business, be it, let's say, our civilian security business, be it the industrial business. We are talking here about double-digit growth here between 11% and 15%, and also our U.S. business significantly above 20%.
The expectation there is to continue on this growth path, to return to a growth path in India, as I said, service contracts in place, local methanol filling, all basis also for further, I'd say, satisfying the customer's needs there. We've been intensively working on OEM programs on the defense part of the business in Germany, as well as in NATO states. Naturally, we are expecting an impact of this in the year to come. We are doing, again, our regional expansion with the investment in Singapore. We expect a growth impact out of this. We are seeing our products performing properly well also for new applications like drone charging. I also mentioned the drone defense activity here in Singapore. All over, yeah, the situation, especially the last two quarters, are very, let's say, disappointing.
We've taken the measures now, and we are looking at a strong year-end and again a return to growth and improved profitability here based on all the measures that we mentioned together. With this, we close our presentation and would like to open the floor for questions. Thank you very much.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only hands while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Karsten Blumenthal from First Berlin Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Peter.
Good morning, Daniel. My first question is regarding Oneberry. You have now a 15% stake, and perhaps you could shed some light on your future activities. You have a 50% option. When and how will you try to get this option?
Good morning, Karsten. So we have that option to be exercised in the short term. Short term means within this year, potentially beginning of next year. That option, apparently, as we said, is to increase our holding in Oneberry to a majority for a fixed valuation. This is something that we intend to do. I mean, we put this option in there in order to exercise them. Of course, we'll have to review certain things with the business. We'll have to complete a bit more on the due diligence side, everything that is standard in such a process. Then we will likely exercise that option.
All right. If I can help here, Karsten, just to, I'd say, shed a little more light on, let's say, the business model. At the end, they are engaged in long-term multi-year contracts with the Singaporean government. The pipeline they have and the backlog they have is more than 90% government business there. This is something naturally we want to continue to grow, but then also replicate this model to other parts of the region, and if possible, also in other parts of the world. A rental business, so security, unmanned security, automated based on, let's say, significant also, let's say, AI content to, let's say, recognition parameters here. At the end, with a higher profitability than we see it in our own business.
Having been partners for quite some years, I think we also have a good trust base there to roll this out to other areas in the region as well as in other parts of the world.
There is a high likelihood that you will be able to consolidate Oneberry next year when you exercise the option. Could you shed some light on sales and EBIT Oneberry reached, for example, last year in 2024, so that we can have an idea what will be the impact on your P&L next year?
I think we would, at this point, also of the negotiations there, I think it is good to have a ballpark figure here in terms of revenue. We are looking at about EUR 20 million revenue. And as to profitability, let's say, above our own EBIT and EBITDA levels.
Yeah, consolidation, well, let's assume that we exercise that option or access to that will get the control as defined for consolidation. Then apparently, and let's assume that we would close that transaction, yes, we would consolidate Oneberry from next year on.
All right.
The numbers we are saying are not in IFRS to be also to make that sure, right? We're still talking about Singapore gap just as a caveat here.
All right. That is very helpful. Next question. You mentioned the postponement in India, and you said that you expect a rebound in 2026, but not as high as in 2024. Could you roughly tell us how high revenue was in India in 2024?
The defense revenue in India was around EUR 12 million.
Being, let's say, now 60% below last year's revenue, as said, is one of the major impacting factors this year. The fiscal year there ends at the 31st of March, and that is why we are, as we speak now, in the assessment of, I think, the rate level of or the rate budgeting level together with our partner on site. We will naturally be, based on the experience, a cautious assessment for next year, but still, we expect a rebound and growth based on what we have learned over the last three months out there.
All right. Thanks for that. One follow-up question regarding the U.S. You mentioned that you are on track for local production in your facility in Salt Lake City. Could you shed some light on the next milestones you want to reach? When will production start?
How quick do you want to scale it up?
Pilots, as we have our team of the U.S. right now in Europe for training for, I'd say, still the next weeks here. Then we do the first pilot trial still in December so that everything is geared up for 2026 series production. The plan here is to have, especially, let's say, our high runners, the EFOY, 2,800, all produced locally next year. That is why we are looking, let's say, at a shift here from production from Germany as well as Romania to the U.S., whereas the core element as the stacks still will be mounted here in Brunnthal. It is pretty much the same exercise we did here with India and we did with Romania in the last, let's say, 12, respectively, 24 months. We are not reinventing the wheel here. It is basically copying the process.
Yeah, that was certainly facilitated. Could you roughly give us an idea about the value of this shift in terms of revenue? For 2026?
You mean end customer revenue or simply the transacted systems?
No. How much revenue will you generate with the U.S.? You plan to generate with the U.S. production next year, roughly, very roughly?
This will be somewhere above EUR 10 million because still part of the products will be shipped from here as we are not transferring the whole product line over there. We also do refurb of old EFOYs here in the market where we will not shift the entire production of this. Therefore, in the first, I would say, two years, we will still see a mix dominated by also the old version here that is in the market. Step by step, I think we will fade this one out.
The entire production for the U.S. consumption of EFOYs is planned to be there. In addition, naturally, we will also have to see how the defense part of the business evolves. I think we were particularly pleased to be invited by the U.S. Army on the occasion of the AUSA, this defense show here a couple of weeks ago, to again re-engage into a fuel cell development program. They were particularly happy about the fact that we already had prepared local manufacturing capacity there, which I think is also a big argument for us, let's say, being then a partner for them doing the local production also on defense over time on site in the country.
All right. That sounds pretty interesting. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Michael Kuhn from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Three, essentially. First of all, you mentioned OEM programs in the defense space into 2026. Is there any possibility to roughly quantify that scope already, or would that be too early? Second question would be on the contract loss you mentioned in North America, I think, where you lost versus a competitor. Was that a fuel cell competitor, or was a customer there going for, let's say, a different technical solution? And last question would be on working capital. I think you talked about a six-month timeframe to reduce that. Just to confirm that and maybe get a confirmation on, let's say, that working capital will not dramatically change over the course of the fourth quarter.
Good morning, Michael. First, OEM programs in defense.
I think with, let's say, all the experience we just are undergoing here, we are a little hesitant now to come out, let's say, with numbers on those programs that are still work in progress. What we see today is that, I'd say, with a very, let's say, favorable financing environment based on all the political decisions, we also see that still the capacity on the administrative part of the purchasing or procurement part, but also the capacity in, let's say, some of the OEMs' manufacturing capacity is a limiting factor. We, let's say, therefore expect all this to happen, I'd say, in 2026. Part of it, I would say, on the earlier part of 2026. I'd say the visibility at this point in time is not at the point where I would feel comfortable to, let's say, put numbers out.
We are looking at programs in Germany, but we are also looking, as you recall, we have, let's say, this also partnership here with Polaris where, let's say, our products are under a NATO procurement contract. We know that this program, that tender has been awarded here to Polaris, but we have not been, let's say, informed about individual numbers here out of the different countries participating. I think the same thing here now with our German program. We are working on it. As soon as we have more clarity, even if this is still before Christmas, we would be, let's say, able to share this. On the contract loss in Canada, we are talking here we are not talking about the fuel cell business. It is, I'd say, on the power management side where we are integrating VFDs, where we are integrating equipment also from ABB.
This was a loss based on, let's say, tough pricing here with an oil and gas OEM. At the same time, I think we also see, I'd say, that's a competitive market. It's the single reason for, I'd say, seeing a deviation from the original plan here. Otherwise, in the, I'd say, Canadian oil and gas business, also especially on the EFOY side, we are still on our growth plan. The third question, I would hand over to Daniel for answer.
Good morning, Michael. With regards to the working capital, yeah, there are two positions that we're really working on, as you rightly said. The first one would be inventory, bringing inventory down.
That, of course, is a function apparently of selling and manufacturing those fuel cells because the largest part of the inventory increase, as I mentioned, is in the German entity and happening here in Germany. That is really our intent to get back to a normalized level, which would be looking at what we have at year-end. One impact that is one factor that is negatively impacting our inventory is the platinum pricing. Remember that a large part of our membrane is platinum. That has, the price has increased significantly in the last nine months to all time, not all time high, but at least I think the highest thing I have seen for the couple of years. The amount of platinum that we have in our inventory is over EUR 1 million.
Of course, that and we tend to buy platinum when it is at a low price or relatively low price. Then we intend to buy an amount of platinum that covers us for at least two to three, sometimes even four quarters. That is really making sure that we can lock in the cost. That will have an impact on our inventory. Like I said, right now, we are holding EUR 1 million on it. On the in-house receivable, yes, we intend to bring them down significantly. We expect collections. We do not see any receivable going far or going south. There is an old no-write-out there. That is something we expect to improve towards the year-end. I know you made the math with regards to revenue. You know what we expect in terms of revenue in the fourth quarter.
Apparently, the higher revenues at the end of the quarter, the higher the accounts receivable. Everything that we have to book right now, we intend to turn around quickly.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Malte Schaumann from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. First one is on the customer behavior. I mean, during the second quarter call, one of the reasons for the weak order intake in the first half of the year, you mentioned that especially new customers kind of hesitated to adopt new technologies, place orders, etc. Do you actually have in the recent weeks just a change in the customer behavior, or is it more of the same U.S. tariff discussions, etc., and still lead to existing uncertainties?
Good morning, Malte.
I think at the end, we see, let's say, with new customers still, I'd say, hesitation out there. I mentioned before also that the U.S. pattern of the business still, yeah, seeing a, let's say, a growth of significantly above 20% organically is a solid growth, but it's not at what we have seen here, I'd say, historically over the last three years. That's why I think with the environment, let's say, not being more stable and continuing as it is in the macro part for the new customer business, we have also factored this into our year-end planning. Existing customers, I think, being we published a significant order a couple of weeks ago with one of our largest civilian fuel cell customers here in Europe. We see a consistent repeat business.
As mentioned before, the overall CCTV part, civilian security part of the business is also above 15% growth. The change or the decision-making to, let's say, embark on a new technology here and complementing their existing whatever battery and solar devices with fuel cells definitely is delayed with, let's say, the environment as it is. Therefore, I think we can differentiate this pretty clearly and see this also in, let's say, the customer behavior.
Okay. Maybe kind of an early view. Next year or your level of confidence that order levels will what do you expect kind of subdued order levels going into early next year and then hope for recovery later next year? What's your visibility or your level of confidence then going into 2026? Where do you see maybe increasing customer activity and where are uncertainties still prevailing kind of reducing the visibility?
I mean, you have alluded to, yeah, in some areas, unstable situation, low visibility. On the other hand, you might have kind of gained some confidence in the meantime that, for instance, Indian return is a major customer in defense. Maybe you can share some light on what your thoughts and maybe how 2026 can play out.
As you can imagine, no, we are doing, I'd say, a constant analysis on this and, let's say, also assess, let's say, the regional part of or the different regions of the business and also the different end markets. Looking at where we are right now, I think we see, I'd say, this repeat part of the business on a constant, I'd say, growth curve that we also would, I'd say, assume as a basis.
We are also doing this in our planning right now because it's budgeting time. We are finalizing our planning rounds right now. We are expecting, let's say, an organic growth out of this. We are seeing, I'd say, signs of, again, improvement again in India where we have this deviation this year. With this coming back to, let's say, a modest growth part, I think we are in a corridor here of mere organic part that is somewhere around, let's say, low double-digit growth. We also do, I'd say, this analysis here on our, I'd say, what we call this rolling part of the order book that is intra-quarter business transactional, where we have a pretty good view on it. As I said, this is between, let's say, 40%-50% here that comes in and out within a quarter.
Adding this all up, I think, and then also looking at what we have, let's say, done on the cost side. We are also looking at our product pricing here based on raw materials, platinum being a big factor here. We will have to adjust this, and we are preparing for this. Therefore, I think a growth corridor just organically, as mentioned here, of a good 10% is, I think, a solid ratio across everything. This does not include, let's say, a big impact also of when we look at, let's say, a larger defense program. At the same time, we have just discussed with Karsten also the impact here of a potential majority acquisition of the Singapore business here adding up to, let's say, the planning then in 2026.
Also, with the caveat, we have not exercised this option yet, but naturally, we have done this to go through this process and hopefully get to a positive end also here with our partner in Singapore.
Okay. On Oneberry, in the press release, I think you laid out the scenario for potential significant growth in the years ahead. Maybe you can shed some more light on where you see growth. I think you mentioned EUR 100 million potential revenue contributions. Maybe you can shed some more light on that number and where the growth primarily comes from and what should happen that does materialize in maybe, I do not know what the time frame is, five years, five years plus. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah.
Oneberry has been very focused and fully entrenched in the Singaporean security architecture also by, let's say, family roots here of the owner of Oneberry. Also, let's say, looking where, let's say, such a family business then stays also in terms of, let's say, further investment into regional expansion, the planning of the owner here, the family owners, was not to expand this and roll this out, let's say, into the region. With us being on board, this is a key element, really copying what they have built up, integrating also our products into those security services and roll this out. Actually, it is then logical. We have done some business development in Indonesia. We have done in Malaysia and Thailand and in the Philippines. This is, at the end, the overall business plan that we have already sketched out with them.
Naturally, first of all, we need to take the next step and close the transaction and talk about, let's say, the option. It is initially a regional play, but we are also seeing large customers in our civilian security business looking for potential rental solutions. We might also have to and be able to, I'd say, copy this part or this business model here in other regions. If we look at the, let's say, potential in, let's say, Asia, this is, let's say, what we have developed together as a scenario with the owner family of Oneberry that is also, at the end, a reflection of what we see in terms of demand here in Asia, which at the end, again, is the most populous region.
Time frame, yeah, as you said, we are talking definitely midterm, and we are talking about a five-year scenario here.
Yep. Okay. Many thanks.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Dr. Peter Podesser for any closing remarks.
With this, we thank you all for your time and interest. As always, we are at your disposal also for bilateral discussions here with Daniel, myself, and also Susan. We are heading through some rough waters here. Stay with us. I think we have a solid plan ahead of us, and we have shown that we are able to, let's say, implement plans apart from naturally not neglecting the fact that we have seen two very tough quarters behind us. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over.
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