Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Full Year Results 2024 Analyst Conference Call of Fuchs SE. This conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for the analysts of Fuchs to ask questions. May I now hand over to Lutz Ackermann, Head of Investor Relations at Fuchs SE, who will start the meeting today. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Lutz Ackermann speaking. On behalf of Fuchs SE, I wish you a very warm welcome to today's conference call on the fiscal year release. With me on the call today is Stefan Fuchs, CEO of Fuchs SE, and Isabelle Adelt , CFO of Fuchs SE. As always, Stefan and Isabelle will run you through the presentation, and afterwards we will have a Q&A session. All the documents for the call you can find on the IR section of our homepage since 7:00 A.M. this morning. Having said this, I would like to turn it over to Stefan. Stefan, please go ahead.
Hi to all of you. Yes, Stefan, we can't see us, but I think I know all of you very well. We are very happy to present you the 2024 numbers in all detail later. Isabelle will do that. I must say we had a really great year in very difficult times. We have announced an outlook exactly 12 months ago, and we made that outlook. If you look at the cash flow, we even succeeded what we anticipated because we had a very good conversion of net profit into cash flow. Due to the share buyback and our increased EBIT, we have a 10% growth in earnings per share. I think that makes us happy. We also think in the current times that aiming for another record result in 2025 is also a pretty good outlook.
I would like to go with you through mainly three parts of my presentation to start with. I want to go with you again one more time to the organizational changes we have announced on March seven. You know about them. First of all, we have a board with five board members, and it will stay the same in the future. You have a CEO. You have got two colleagues representing the regions and our sales divisions. That's Timo. He's also my deputy. Then we have two functional board members. It's Isabelle as the CFO, including IT. It's Sebastian as the CTO. That will also remain in the future. As we have announced on the 7th of March, Isabelle, Sebastian, and the supervisory board together came to the conclusion not to prolong the contracts.
If you look in the German corporate law, we have normally a five-year contract, so we are not so-called employees, but we are appointed for a fixed share. We have, as the first-time participants, a three-year contract. Reviewing the three years and before heading into the plus five-year contract, we all acknowledge that there is not a 100% fit, and I think that's what we expect moving forward. We have prepared for that for quite a long time. If you look to the letter to the shareholders of our Supervisory Board Chairman, the Supervisory Board was involved since July of 2024. I think that was a pretty good process. We had also a very good search firm. Today is not the farewell of Isabelle because she will be here also for the first quarter call and for the annual meeting with our shareholders.
I want to sincerely thank Isabelle and Sebastian for what they have done for the Fuchs Group and wish them all the best moving forward. Before I come to Esma Saglik, I will get involved in the next couple of months in the investor relations. I very much look forward to that. You all know me very well over all the years. We agreed with Esma that in the first couple of months, she will focus on getting to know Fuchs and Fuchs getting to know Esma, her team here in the holding. To give her adequate time, I will make the visits and the conferences together with Lutz. I must say I really look forward to that time. Coming to Esma, she will start in about five weeks' time, on May one.
She has a lot of international experience coming from her previous companies. She also has IT experience, which is important to us. Some of her stays with Hella , for example, were in the automotive industry. Rexnord is also a heavy-duty industrial company from the U.S. involved in bearings and chains. She was now with Rehau. That is where she also lives at the moment in Erlangen. She will take an apartment here in Mannheim. She will have a two-month handover with Isabelle. Isabelle has a new assignment starting in July. May and June will be the handover period. I really think that is going to be a very good and smooth process moving forward. The second part is Mathias Wollny . He is 42 years old, and he is since 21 years in the lubricants industry.
He knows as being a chemist, he knows lubricants in and out. He spent his entire life with Total Fina Elf or TotalEnergies today and with BP Castrol. The good thing about that company is with changing jobs every three years is that he got to know many different countries, many different assignments. His heartbeat for the technology part, for R&D, which is for us very important because we are very much into the technology and we are involved in the processes of our customers. So far to that part. I want to go really quickly with you through what we also presented at the Capital Market Day. I think it's very important because we get questions from many companies we know, either customers or suppliers. Why do you do so well in really challenging and difficult times?
I think we see plenty of growth opportunities. Very often when we discuss with you and we give you an example of one application, you always say, "Wow, how big is that?" We don't have the one blockbuster part. Lubricants is a consumer, and we have a lot of small-type business pockets, and it's a nice cash-generating business. What we really see is when you look in the world and without any arrogance, we say we keep daily life moving. If you really look at what is happening in the world, whether we have local or global or not, we have all the time more and more people on the planet. As I said before, when I was born 57 years ago, there were like 4 billion, university times 6 billion, today 8, and we go to 10 in 2050.
At the same time, especially in China and India, but also in the future, I think in Africa, a lot of people want to have a higher standard of living. They want smartphones, they want to go to vacation, want to use a car, want to have an apartment, which means we need to produce all of those things in the world, and we have to achieve more with less. The more with less, that's when we come into play. Therefore, we continue to speak about lots of growth opportunities. I come to that segmentation part a little bit later. One more time, moving your world is our company purpose. That's what drives us every day, and it's a very important purpose for us.
If you really look again at what a lubricant is doing, I don't want to be arrogant, but the lubricants are the small heroes, the invisible heroes in the world because a lot of things you use every day either need a lubricant to make them work or a lubricant to manufacture them. Basically, we protect surfaces from corrosion and wear. We reduce friction and wear-moving systems. That's probably the biggest function a lubricant has to do. We cool machines and equipment, and we help to transfer energy. Especially the lower parts is a big part in the e-mobility because the lubricants get in contact with equipment under high voltage, and there is copper corrosion and other things. The electric conductivity is very, very important, and the cooling part is very important. Without going through all the details, we are used everywhere.
Aside of what you know, agriculture and mining and steel and transportation, we are utilized in the cooling parts of the loading sockets. That's quite a big business in China, but also the cooling of a car. You go to the entire food chain. It's one of our key segments we want to grow. The circle around the food processing gets bigger and bigger. If you go, for example, in a filling plant of a beer company in the U.S. or to a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Europe, they have no interest in lubricants. All they want to make sure is we don't stop their machines and our lubricants are in line with all kinds of regulations. We've also found out in the segmentation part that we don't want to sell only those specialties, but we want to service the customer in total.
Also on standard-type lubricants, I think that the market penetration gets bigger and bigger. The other part for us, very important, is wind. Wind is the biggest wind business we have in the Fuchs Group in China. It is a growing business. In the wind turbine, you have a gear oil and you have grease. That is one part where we made a deep localization in China. We manufacture all of that over there. Also, a lot of Chinese equipment gets exported. With our approvals out of China, we can sell them also in other parts of the world. Semicon is a pretty new segment for us. Semicon, we have got two different applications. One part is in the metalworking to produce the machines. You have grade one and grade two metalworking fluids for clean rooms and really high-end applications.
You also need a lubricant to run a Semicon-producing machine. I think that's where we also come in play. You know we have about 30 different greases in each car. We also know that in an e-car you hear nothing if you don't have the radio on. In the past, you had an engine or you had a diesel. Today we need noise-dampening greases. It's also something we learned from Nye. We had some before, but we have got more now. The noise dampening, I think, is a very cool application for us. The other part, honestly, when I go back in my life, 15 years, the whole medical part was not such a big deal for us. Today we see in the medical arena, we see three different fields.
We see, number one, we see cutting and grinding fluids for titanium implants for knees and hips. We see coatings of the spring in one-time injections, either diabetes or to lose weight. Also, the equipment in the surgery room needs to be lubricated. We have a lubricant, for example, in the Da Vinci prostate robot. I think it's a very interesting field for us to move forward. That was also one of the reasons to acquire Bausch. Last but not least, we also had one product in the Mars Perseverance rover. That's a nice marketing tool. You don't get rich on that one, but it just shows that we are all over the world. What is the unique part of Fuchs? No other competitor really has got all of those ingredients. We are very close to our customers all over the world.
We have over 2,500 people in sales and application engineering. We do 75% of our business direct, which is all our specialty industrial and mining business. We only sell automotive aftermarkets through resellers. We have the full product offering, which we have not really explored in all the markets. We have the best team in our industry, highly motivated. They walk the extra mile for our customers. I think especially today, in today's world, we are independent. We have a stable shareholder, and we have no debt. I think that really helps for us moving forward to have that flexibility. Nevertheless, we have a balance sheet, and we are not obsessed in having no debt at all. We always look for acquisitions. As most of you know, we do not see the mega thing to be bought.
We don't see a EUR 500 million or EUR 1 billion acquisition. If you look on our businesses we acquired over the last 15 years, larger acquisitions were for us in 2015, Pentosin, Double Clutch, Gear Oil. Today, also the electric drive fluids come from that origin. We scaled that business through our organization. It was a German business. Statoil was a regional part, which we acquired for Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Really cool was Nye because we were able to double Nye within five years. Nye is really for us the hub for medical and semiconductor applications. LUBCON is also a specialty part. They go into the medium-density fiber boards. If you look at your kitchen plates or IKEA shelves, all of that is a continuous process. You have got big machines manufacturing those wooden fiber boards on a continuous process. They need high-temperature chain oils.
They are also big in corrugated. You know, more and more Amazon stuff gets shipped, so you need much more cartons. That is interesting. They are also in the railway industry, so some really cool segments. We acquired Strub, and that also looks and shows that we are always able and willing to do fast deals because Strub was not in such a good financial condition. We could close a regional, not whole, but we were really not present in Switzerland other than through distributors. Now we have a little plant in Switzerland. We have an R&D lab, and I think that for us was a very cool part. Then we acquired Bausch . It is rather small. They are near Stuttgart. They are near the cluster where Aesculap and those type of companies are home in Tübingen.
We acquired them mainly for the medical part, but also for the high-safety part like brakes and other things. We continue to look for acquisitions, but you see bolt-on either strategy-wise or from a regional standpoint. Without going too deep into the exercise, for us, Fuchs 2025 was a really cool journey. We had a wonderful time from 2019 until today, and we were involved in culture, structure, strategy. Towards the end of the year, this will be the end of Fuchs 2025. We are in the middle of fully preparing for FuchsOne or FUCHS 2025 from 2026 to 2031 because we will be 100 years old in 2031. This will not be a revolution. It will rather be an evolution. If you look in the strategy, also for you, it's mainly about segmentation.
We are decentralized companies with a lot of local decision-making, high incentivation that allowed many of our MDs to either go for automotive aftermarket, food grade, metalworking, etc . We get so excited about things that for us, focus and priority was important. We defined about 50 segments all over the world, and we focus on 12 now. We also do not allow a larger country not to focus on one of our key and core segments. I think that will allow us to grow in the future. You will see more in FuchsOne or FUCHS 2025 once we approach the latter part of the second half of this year. A few news. What we published over the last couple of months is in the Fuchs Group, number one in South Africa. We did last year sales of EUR 118 million.
It is a sizable business for us. It is in South Africa, but also in Southern Africa, mainly around automotive, around mining, specialty, and also in industrial. Over the last couple of years, not all in 2024, we invested EUR 26 million on the site. We have now much more capacity to also go after larger types of businesses. I think that was very good. Many of the customers visiting us in South Africa are amazed about our setup because no other global lubricant company has such a setup like we have in Isando, nearby Johannesburg. The other part was the acquisition of Bausch. It is a smaller acquisition, but on the left hand, you see Ralph Rheinboldt, my board colleague. You see Mr. Bausch and Mrs. Bausch. They were the founders. We are happy they both continue to work for us, focusing on the medical part.
We want to make that to our European hub and make like a second Nye in Europe out of Bausch. That is very cool. On the right side, you see Susanne Heinrich, our Managing Director in Germany. Last but not least, it is a small country, but very important for our international mining customers. With our today's distributor, we founded a joint venture. He owns 40%. We own 60%. We sent over a young German colleague who is the Managing Director. We have now a setup in Peru, aside from Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in South America. I think that is also very, very good for us moving forward. My last slide is that we are happy and proud to have received for the second time in a row the Global Transition Award, which is from the renowned German newspaper, from the Handelsblatt.
There is a whole jury behind. They looked at us based on their catalog. We were state-of-the-art with regard to reduction of scope one and two emissions and also work on our scope three emissions. I think that also shows that with regard to sustainability, we are on the right way. I hand over to Isabelle to go through all the numbers, and later on, we look forward to your questions.
Thank you. Thank you. A warm welcome from my side as well. As already indicated by Stefan Fuchs beforehand, we ended 2024 with yet another record result. I'll only outline a few highlights on this first slide, and we'll then go into the details in the following 15 to 20 minutes.
I think what we liked about last year is that despite a very challenging and difficult economic environment, we managed to keep our sales flat. The 0% year-over-year you see here is a little misleading because there's a lot of swings and roundabouts behind that number. On the negative side, we saw price adjustments, especially driven by our price variation clauses and slight negative impact from foreign exchange revaluations. On the positive side, we saw volume growth. The first year with significant volume growth after rather flattish development the last couple of years. We saw external growth, especially contributed by the LUBCON acquisition, which we consolidated for the first time, if you recall, in August 2024. What we liked even better was that this growth we saw was highly profitable.
We managed to up our EBIT by 5% over flat sales, which means we took another step towards our midterm target of 15% EBIT margin and improved the margin compared to the year before by 0.6 percentage points. Major positive impacts here came from the mix effect. The growth we talked about earlier was majorly contributed by our specialty and automotive aftermarket segments, which are more profitable, and by lower raw material costs in total. Yet, our procurement department did an amazing job in renegotiating some of the contracts, which contributed nicely to our earnings too. This resulted in a significantly higher earnings per share, 10% up year-over-year for both share classes, overproportionate to EBIT growth since we ended our share buyback program last year. The stock we bought back is now liquidated.
Last but not least, stronger than expected cash conversion once again, so second year in a row at 1.0. That means our entire earnings could be converted into cash from last year. What does that mean in detail? We are now back to our normal pattern in terms of cyclicity. Q2 stronger than Q1, Q3 stronger than Q2, and then a little softer Q4 due to the number of working days. Yet, we saw a slight increase year-over-year for Q4 in sales. We managed to confirm our EBIT we generated last year in terms of profitability. Why was it only on prior year level? Very simple answer.
Due to the lower number of working days, especially in December, given that Christmas was in the middle of the week and all of our big countries closed down for longer, especially our customers, than what we saw the year before. What does that mean for our P&L? I think two highlights to take out here for me is definitely the gross profit and thus gross margin development. As already said, we had a very positive impact from mixed effects. The entire volume growth we're looking at was contributed by specialty and automotive aftermarket, which as well means we managed our OEM and industry sales on a volume, sorry, on a flat level in what was a more than challenging environment last year when you read the newspapers.
All of our sales teams did amazing jobs to bring in new contracts, bring in new customers, up the volume, and that in a very profitable way, supported by procurement that resulted in a gross profit step up of more than 2 percentage points. Part of that was then converted into additional EBIT, not to the full extent since we still have to somehow bear with high increases in personnel expenses. Thus, we are still very careful in adding new people. The headcount increases you saw last year were majorly due to acquisitions and headcount insourced from formerly external providers. We are still very careful in terms of adding heads given the very challenging environments we face in a lot of the regions we operate in. Below EBIT, you see two numbers I'm very pleased with as well.
Capex, as already promised several times, said after the big invest program ended in 2020, Capex will be on the level of depreciation, which is EUR 80 million a year, which was spot on in 2024. Only a very slight change in net working capital. This is majorly due to the fact that we know we will see volume growth this year due to some contracts we won and we signed last year. The countries we need to deliver already stocked up end of the year, so they are able to or were able to deliver January and February when those contracts came into effect. This is why we saw a small spike end of the year. I think this is good inventory the moment we already have contracts and obligations on hand. The third highlight now comes with a look into the regions.
I think the story we told the first three quarters continues. In 2023, we saw all of the growth in terms of earnings coming from the EMEA region, which was good. Of course, we always said we wished for all regions to contribute to those nice numbers, to those nice growth rates. This year, 2024, we really saw that all of the regions stepped up. In EMEA, we had a lot of great performing countries. Germany, once again, very strong. Eastern Europe, especially Poland, to mention, very strong. South Africa, we just saw the new factory we recently opened with very strong growth rates. Southern Europe, Northern Europe, very good too. It is very hard to just pick a few since all of the teams did an amazing job last year. Obviously, external growth as well.
For LUBCON, we consolidated first time in August. Then Strub, who joined the group end of last year in Q4, but with no significant contributions for 2024 yet. This resulted in an EBIT step up of 7% once again, which was really good, especially given the fact that this result includes the restructuring cost in France we already talked about in Q3. What was very nice to see was a step up in Asia-Pacific. Major contributor to that was China. China found back to old strength, which was a huge effort by our Chinese colleagues. They did really well and managed to win over new contracts to establish themselves as preferred supplier for a lot of Chinese companies. We now see really nice growth rates in China, but as well in India and Australia too. Last but not least, our colleagues in the Americas.
The development in the Americas was rather flattish in 2023. It was a challenging environment, especially due to the political frictions and uncertainty we saw in the U.S. Nevertheless, the team managed to keep the volumes, keep the revenue, but grow in a very profitable way, which is majorly a mixed effect, obviously. If I have to mention one thing here, it's the development of the North American specialty business, namely Nye, and the strong growth rates we saw in Mexico yet again. Mexico now established itself amongst the five biggest countries very solidly in the Fuchs Group. I think really that concludes the view that Fuchs is in a very comfortable position from a geographical point of view.
We can stand on many more legs than we anticipated beginning of the year, plus the exposure to so many different industries, different end markets who can balance each other out. This excellent performance in the regions and end markets resulted in a more than strong cash position. Our free cash flow, as already said, with a cash conversion over net profit of 1.0. A little more than 100% was converted into cash due to very strict management of CapEx as well as inventory. Despite the share buyback program, plus EUR 100 million spent on acquisitions, we ended the year on a net cash position, which is something we are very proud of. Yet another year with a very strong balance sheet and no debt position by end of the year.
One of the major contributors, the working capital, I think in terms of percentage, slightly higher than the year before at year-end. As already explained before, this was only due to the fact that we stocked up in some countries due to contracts with higher volumes that were signed last year, and we knew that delivery obligations will start early 2025. That was the only reason why we saw slightly higher inventory levels. I think to conclude the operational review, again, we replaced the charts because they were rather flattish with those boxes. I think once again, raw material markets rather flattish. Nothing out of the ordinary we observed in Q4. If anything, slightly lower prices on base oils, I think nothing too serious. This is what we expect to see into Q1 and beyond for base oils as well as additive packages and individual chemicals.
This will result in the fact that we will propose the 23rd consecutive dividend increase to our general assembly, which is a 5% increase, 6% per share class, and is paving the way to become a dividend aristocrat in two years' time from now. This is the promise we gave to the capital market, and we stand by. We are proud that we were able to earn sufficient cash to yet again increase the dividend quite significantly in a more than challenging environment. That brings me to my last slide, the outlook for next year. We are proud that we can make the next step towards our targets and guide towards what are record sales and EBIT numbers of around EUR 3.7 billion worth of sales and EUR 460 million worth of EBIT. If we reach those numbers, those will be the highest numbers recorded in Fuchs history ever.
As guided before, the free cash flows are at an 80% cash conversion rate. That brings me to the end of my presentation, and we open the floor for your questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now go to our first question. One moment, please. Your first question comes from the line of Matthew Yates from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Firstly, Isabelle, just wishing you good luck. Thank you very much for all your help the last couple of years, and good luck with the future. Stefan, I wanted to come back around your introductory remarks around segmentation.
Clearly, in 2024, we can see the positive mix effect from those initiatives moving you into higher margin business. You also talked about segmentation, perhaps unveiling an opportunity to move into some more standard products, which I guess would possibly be at the expense of margin, but nevertheless good for your Fuchs value-added metric that I know is an important part of the evaluation. Can you help me think about mix, therefore, going forward and the margin trajectory? Because those strike me as two kind of opposing forces of some things being incrementally good for margins and some things perhaps incrementally dilutive. Just how you're thinking about that would be interesting. Thank you.
Thanks a lot for the question. I think that's an excellent question, and you can have days of discussions on that background. What we learned over time is that we should really focus on the EBIT margin.
If you take, for example, a high-end specialty business with very high margins, that is a good and healthy business, but you have normally small parcels of sales. When you go to a large OEM and you have a large volume private label business, or you go to a large mining house, the contribution margin is normally lower. Looking at the amount of sales you do, the underlying expenses in relative terms get lower. The earnings you do is much better. The second part of it is also that you will see that by definition, if you say a standard type grease, a standard type hydraulic oil, there are some companies who might be able to do it cheaper than us.
If you go to an Australian mine, like an open pit mine, and our driver delivers the grease into the mine, he needs the license to enter the mine. He also needs a lot of training in Australia to lubricate the equipment while it's moving. Not just per type of volume or per type of product group, you can say this is a specialty and this is a commodity. What Timo did is really because he's in charge of FuchsOne or FUCHS 2025 . Our problem a little bit is that we get excited about many things at the same time. We said we have 50 different segments and we focus on 12. Now we acquired LUBCON, and you have two new segments coming up, like drain and the wooden fiber business.
What we will see in FuchsOne or FUCHS 2025 is that we will have a few really distinct where-to-play areas where we can grow. Specialty will be one part of it, but things like a genuine brand business or automotive aftermarket is the other part of it because we see a lot of cash-generating business at good margins. Isabelle said last year was automotive aftermarket and specialty running both very good, and both were also leading to that number. As you know, our long-term target is still the 15% EBIT level. All those businesses we focus on will pay onto that. It's not just the pure profit or FVA number we look at. We also look at the relative returns.
Okay, thank you. If I can ask a second question, you mentioned, I think, Mexico as a top five country.
Are you flagging that now as a potential risk that if we see a breakdown of NAFTA and tariffs, that part of the business becomes vulnerable to lower demand? How have you thought about potentially having to shift some of that volume north of the border over the coming years?
That would be no problem at all because our manufacturing capacities are much bigger in the U.S. than in Mexico. In the last 10 years, we did very well on all the businesses closing up in the U.S. to follow them to Mexico and to service them over there. In Mexico, we have a site in Querétaro, and we are able to manufacture most of our metalworking fluids there, but everything else, we are completely out of it.
We have toll blenders in Mexico, and therefore we also bought a property in San Luis Potosí, which we will develop because the light will not go on or off at that time. If stuff moves back to the U.S., for us, it's fine. Nevertheless, what we can't influence is the consumption in the U.S., and that will suffer for some time, and life will be more expensive in the U.S. From a pure manufacturing standpoint, we can manufacture in Canada, in the U.S., and in Mexico. That's not a problem for us. I think if there's something somebody equipped for that circumstance, it's really us. Many of our customers, they have now 15 plants in Mexico and only two remaining in the U.S. For them to build up their plants again is a much bigger problem.
But for us, from a pure manufacturing and supplying standpoint, not a problem.
Okay, thank you both.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of, apologies, one moment, please, Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Good afternoon. My first question is more related to the latest development in politics. The Bundesrat has now approved the targeted debt orgy by the upcoming German government. To which extent can Fuchs benefit from the special funds, especially from the EUR 500 billion extra budget for infrastructure? I think about your activities in construction, in the cement industry, in the metal treatment industry, and so on. Secondly, regarding the digitalization costs you mentioned in your press release this morning, can you quantify what you fear about the burden from these digitalization costs in 2025 and maybe beyond? Finally, how do you see the current business environment in your individual regions?
I guess there is a difference regarding the demand patterns when we compare, for example, China, Europe, and the U.S. Maybe some words on the patterns you see right now at the beginning of this year. Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Martin Roediger. I think really good questions. I start with the last one on the business environment. What do you see that within Europe, our industrial business related to automotive manufacturing, but the entire industrial business and also the first fill part of OEM is not running at full steam, and we see that since a couple of months. Good is in Europe specialty and automotive aftermarket.
Also, when you look at our so-called OEM business, the larger part of that business is what we call genuine brand, and it's not first fill, but rather aftermarket done by the OEM when they sell branded lubricants in their bottles and in their marketing. When you go in China, second half of last year was good. The beginning of this year, we were satisfied. China is okay. India is okay. Australia continues to run. South Africa runs well. Within Europe, also one of the top five companies for us is Poland. We did very well over there last year. Also, southern European countries were running okay. The U.S. had a good second half year. In the beginning of this year, I think this consumption part and high inventories of new cars, we have to see how that develops.
That also leads me on what you asked about Germany. On the one hand, I think it's good that they made the decision now to spend more money. Being a German taxpayer, I would also really like to see some savings and not only what we call—I hate to say when you make new debt and you call it a Sondervermögen. Vermögen for me is wealth, and debt is a problem. I think it's good, but I still would like to see that they finance one part of that through bureaucracy winding down and through savings. If you look at it, where it goes to into military manufacturing, but mainly in roads and in bridges and in railways, that will all help us.
The question is, once the decision is made, whether the companies have the capacity to really do all of that within the next two to three years, I really doubt. I do not see that as a major boost for this year, but definitely it will help with regard to the Transform to Grow. Isabelle can answer much better, but Transform to Grow is for us not a money hole, but it is really for me and before Isabelle starts a one-time opportunity to really clean up the past of the Fuchs Group. We look forward because that will be our basis for our future digitalization because we will have one core system. Therefore, I do not like the burden part of the question, but Isabelle can answer better.
Yeah, and there is, of course, two sides to that medal too.
Yeah, so Martin, you mentioned digitalization, and of course, this is far beyond just systems. We have this AI partnership that's somewhere all across the board. I think what we generally expect is a significant increase in digitalization costs, not only due to the T2G, but sustainably since the way we work will change dramatically in the years to come. Regarding the T2G you were referring to, as Stefan said, we started to build the template, but we will then, on the other hand side, see the impact, so the positive impact from that by becoming more efficient, more productive, more resilient as well. For 2025, this is all baked in in the guidance, majority of which will go into CapEx. You will see later this year. This is part of our normal CapEx budget.
The cost we will see this year is a rather small number, and then it will be distributed over the next couple of years. Every country we roll in, we will see costs, but we will see benefits on the other hand side as well.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Lars vom Cleff from Deutsche Bank AG. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Three quick ones, if I may. First, Isabelle, you said that 2024 saw significant volume growth. I mean, net-net, deducting the price effect, it was flat. Just for me to get a feeling, what does significant mean? Mid-single-digit percentage figure?
Yeah, about that ballpark, yeah.
Okay, perfect. I mean, you built up net working capital in order to generate revenues in Q1.
I assume Q1 so far has started relatively good and successful for you, correct?
We saw a satisfying start into the new year. Of course, I mean, I think there's light and shadow when you look at what's happening, not only for Fuchs, but I think in the world as well, right? We had a very strong start in January. Of course, what you see is a lot of uncertainty in the market, especially in the U.S. market, with some kind of ripple artifacts globally due to the uncertainty what the new office in the U.S. will do next. I think this is something to watch carefully. We see a nice development in terms of volume, in terms of sales. Of course, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of hesitation on our customer side too.
This will for sure be something to watch.
Perfect. Thank you. The last one also for you, as long as I still can ask questions and get you on your nerves. SAP, the integration is and was a key project for you. Could you update us o n the status quo and who will take that over from you, Isabelle? Will it be Esma?
Yeah. I mean, we are perfectly on track with the project. We are about to close what we call the template phase. We have more than 80 colleagues full-time globally working on the template. They defined all the processes. We now really start to build and test the template. We are well on track towards bringing the Northern Americas entity live during 2026. So far, all according to plan.
That will be part of the handover I will do with Esma in May and June as well.
If you look at our Transform to Grow program, the one part is the ERP part around going from R3 to S4. We have a group CDO on that, and we have regional CDOs in Australia, China, the U.S., and Germany. I would say even more important is the preparation for the rollout. The one part is process, process harmonization, and we have a global business partner for the processes reporting today to Isabelle, tomorrow to Esma. He has a team of 24 process people in the regions. We have 24 shadows of them on the IT side, so that's a heavy team. We have another string on the data side for cleaning up past data, building up data structures.
Being a decentralized company, we have got very strong teams in the large countries and in the holdings. I think we have a very stable team together. The tension is pretty high because that's a huge undertaking.
Crystal clear. Thank you very much. I'll go back to the line.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. We will now go to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Schaefer from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on your top line, Outlook. You look for 5% sales growth, and you basically indicate that this should be primarily volume-driven. I wonder whether you can be a bit more, let's say, explicit.
Where do you see the pockets of growth in 2025 in the regions, maybe end markets you are looking into? The second one is more on your cost base. I mean, you also, I think you mentioned it on one of the slides, you closed down French production capacity last year, provisioned a bit on that. I wonder, what's basically the outlook for the cost base, the fixed cost base you can share with us heading into 2025? Last but not least, you indicated that China is back to old strengths. I wonder what this really means to you because looking into the profitability level, APEC is certainly not yet back where it used to be. I wonder whether you can shed a bit more light on how you see the Chinese market evolving throughout 2025.
Thanks a lot, Michael, for those questions.
First of all, because one can always remember the last question the best, coming to China, you said that it's back to old strengths. I said it went much better in the second half and in the beginning of this year, but as we all know, China is not at the old strength as a country. We were happy with the development in China, and they have good plans together. I think they are not at full steam, but much better than in 2023 and in the first half of 2024. When I look at our P&L, and it's clear what I say, our P&L is top line, margins, and expenses. That is decisive for us, coupled with the cash, how much NOWC do we need. On the margins, I'm not concerned of this year. It looks pretty good.
I've seen, as you have seen, the gross margin was a little bit down the fourth quarter. That was not a tendency. I'm not so concerned about the margins this year on the gross margin gross margin level. Top line, we have got good plans because we made a couple of contracts already. The one you know about is the Mercedes aftermarket business, which we also advertise because it's being a private label or genuine brand business. They also put our logo on it. Especially since one part is the U.S. and in Canada, we have millions of bottles in our brand name, and we want to grow an automotive aftermarket there. That's the one part. We also built up our mining business last year. We are on a good ride with the Nye business, and we did further acquisitions on the specialty part.
The question on the sales side is really what is going to happen now in North America? How is Europe going to go in the next couple of months? I must say, unfortunately, 2025 is the sixth consecutive year where we have got almost 0 visibility. 2021 were COVID years. 2022 and 2023, we had that 70% raw material increase. I appreciate you pushing us on the 15% EBIT level. As long as those raw materials do not come down and they stay on that high level, that will take some time. Also, 2024 with the wars going on and now in 2025 with all the tariffs. It is going to be a year where we have to see month by month. We are confident. I mean, today we published an outlook we believe in, but we are always conscious about our cost base.
I mean, the one part what Isabelle mentioned is that we have pretty high increases in our personnel cost. That is one part because we always look on conversion rates, how much of incremental contribution profit do we convert into profit. The other part is also from acquisitions. First of all, I buy a company with everything they have. Over time, obviously, we will have some scaling impacts because we will cater for some of the stuff from our own organization. Nevertheless, LUBCON is a growth acquisition for us. Switzerland is a growth acquisition. Therefore, that's the one part. You mentioned France. Yes, we closed a smaller site in Germany two years ago in Bremen. France is a larger site. Also, Isabelle rightfully said, we recorded for the social severance part of that announcement last year. All the transition will be done this year.
This year, we have almost double expenses in the books because the receiving plants in Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the U.K. have built up a small amount of personnel. We still have got the entire team in France for the full year. Therefore, you will not see savings from that part coming. All in all, we continue to micromanage our costs and are also pretty diligent on new positions, with the exception of our digitalization part, where we have really increased the team. That is my answer to your cost question.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. That is star one and one to ask a question. We will now take our next question.
Your next question comes from the line of Konstantin Wiechert from Baader Helvea . Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. Also, Isabelle, from my side already, also it's not the last call, but thanks for the work together already. I hope that we see each other in Switzerland then as you are basically coming closer to me. On the question side, maybe two remaining from my side. The first one is on maybe again, I understand that you have a regional setup and therefore should see limited impact from the tariffs on the sales directly. Given the deteriorating GDP growth that we've seen basically in the outlook over the last weeks, how has that impacted your outlook then maybe compared to what you were expecting two or three months ago?
The second question, just the standard one for me back on the pricing, I think in the third quarter, you mentioned that your customers or the environment is generally becoming more receptive for small price increases again. How has that evolved over the last months given basically that we see at least a weaker automotive production in Europe and North America? On the other hand side, how's maybe the pass on tariff-based raw material price inflation? Is that maybe something that should or could lead to price increases nonetheless?
I think on the tariffs, if you look on them, we would rather go for a surcharge for the time being. Also our suppliers come to us with surcharges. We have to just wait and see a little bit, but definitely we are not going to eat those.
When you look on the general market, and I think it's a really cool question because pricing is the most important part of us. We have learned to also do price increases just to cater for our cost increases. We do the one or the other price increase in the markets, but you also have a tremendous pressure from the car manufacturing industry, from component manufacturers and from those type of customers. I think there are pluses and minuses, but I can only repeat my statement. Margins is not of my concern for this year with regard to contribution margin or, let's say, gross margin . The other part is the different emotions we went through coming up with our outlook. I leave to Isabelle.
Yeah. No, I think regarding the outlook, of course, we discussed quite lengthily.
So far, I think it's still too early to give a real estimation on impact U.S. tariffs might have on our results this year. As already indicated, we won over new contracts, and we are confident we can grow. Of course, not everything is in our hands. We watch the macroeconomic circumstances, what the political parties are doing quite closely, and then react accordingly. I do not expect a big impact yet. Of course, to be seen and reconsidered once the packages and the actual facts become more visible.
Thanks.
Thank you. We will now take our final question for today. Your final question comes from the line of Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. It's just one that's remaining. Mr. Fuchs, I heard you talk a lot about the success of, let's say, the lubricant products, so the more traditional products that Fuchs has in its portfolio. I haven't been hearing something about, let's say, the new products, the products that you promoted to make inroads into the EV market, like cooling agents, fluids that specifically go into the EV car type, except for the noise reduction greases you mentioned. I guess with demand for EVs having cooled down a bit in 2024, perhaps it's now the perfect time if you want to make more inroads into that business via acquisitions. I guess it would be better to do it now than wait for the EV business being hyped again in one or two years' time when demand comes back. Are there any plans to make specifically acquisitions or additional inroads organically into that market?
Have you made any, let's say, new customer wins that you can share with us? Anything in that connection might help. Thank you.
Thanks, Oliver. I think that's also a very good question. Once at the end of this year, you will see the whole FuchsOne or FUCHS 2025 rollout. You will see that one of the where-to-play areas is the new mobility part. We work full throttle on that. If you go through the various markets, listening to Donald Trump and also Elon Musk is with Tesla involved, but EV is not on the front end in the U.S. market. I do not see it in the next couple of years. In Europe, since the subsidies are away, you see a significant decline in the EV part. We have got our E-Lyte joint venture , and we wait for some customer conclusions. You see it is also damped here a little bit.
If you look to China, that's really booming there. We work with the Chinese OEMs together. We have really cool inroads. Our main product is the electric drive fluids. In easy language, I would say the gear oil of the car. It's all based around the Pentosin technology. We bought from the double-clutch technology. That is, for us, very important. You won't make large inroads in acquisitions because most of it is new business. On the cooling side, it's also interesting. I can repeat my statement. I think cooling side, you need to be careful. There are some specialties and stuff you can earn margins. But there's also some commodity-type business. For us, it's very important, but the main thing is China. In China, I always say we are in our fourth cycle in China. We started initially German products manufactured in Germany.
We sold in China. Then we manufactured those German products in China. Then we manufactured in China products for the Chinese OEMs. Now in the fourth phase, we go with the Chinese OEMs outside of China. Soon, we will have liaison offices from China in our companies in Hungary, Thailand, South Africa, and Mexico to go with the China OEMs, especially on the EV part into those countries, but also to cater for the wind market or the underground coal mining equipment. For us, it is a big deal. The market is not growing as the hype was there two years ago.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I will now hand the call back to Stefan for closing remarks. Thank you. I am very sorry, but I have to make a little sad announcement to the end of our call.
I am happy for him. It is with tears in my eyes that Lutz informed me about a month ago that he will leave us end of September. Lutz is with us four and a half years. He did an outstanding job for us. I am sure you all like him. We would have loved to continue to work with him, but there was no way we could hold him because there is also a private life behind, and he will also move. Therefore, we said we will go with that very transparent. On Monday, we are out on a search. On Monday, you will also see it on our homepage. We thought it is adequate to inform you today about it. I am sure that one or the other will call Lutz later.
We are very sad, but I look forward because the next couple of months, I will travel a lot with Lutz, seeing you and seeing investors. We have to see. Life will continue. We wish Lutz all the best. It is not a farewell today, but I only wanted to inform you today.
Thank you, Stefan, for the words. You should not be worried. I'm still around, and we will be in touch soon. As the first quarter comes to an end and the reporting of the first quarter will be end of April, we will be in touch soon. Until then, you may now disconnect. We have come to the end of the call, and see you all soon. Bye-bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.