Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Oliver Luckenbach. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today for our Q2 2024 earnings conference call. With me on the call are Stefan Klebert, our CEO, and Bernd Brinker, our CFO. Stefan will begin today's call with the highlights of the Q2 , and Bernd will then cover the business and financial review before Stefan takes over again for the Outlook 2024. Afterwards, we open up the call for the Q&A session. Please be aware of the cautionary language that is included in our safe harbor statement, as in the material that we have distributed today. With that, I hand over to Stefan.
Thank you, Oliver, and good afternoon, everybody. It's my pleasure to welcome you to our conference call today. In the Q2 of 2024, GEA has once again delivered organic sales growth and a significant EBITDA margin expansion. Order intake declined year-over-year by 3.5% in organic terms, but has been above the through levels seen in Q3 and Q4 2023 of EUR 1.25 billion and EUR 1.26 billion. Sales rose organically by 1.6%, benefiting from a further expansion of our service business. EBITDA before restructuring expenses increased by 4.7% year-over-year to EUR 201 million. The corresponding EBITDA margin rose significantly by eighty-nine basis points from 14.3% in Q2 2023 to 15.2% in Q2 2024.
Return on capital employed decreased on a high level to 32.3%. Since we have continued with a very positive operating performance in the Q2 of 2024, we have decided to raise our EBITDA margin and ROCE guidance for the full year 2024 on the tenth of July. We are now expecting the EBITDA margin for the full year 2024 to be in the range of 14.9%-15.2%, considerably up from the prior guidance of 14.5%-14.8%. The new guidance range for return on capital employed is 32%-35%, also above the prior range of 29%-34%. The new guidance implies that we might already achieve our ambitious financial targets under our Mission 26, two years earlier than planned. This would be a fantastic achievement.
We have another reason to be proud of ourselves. The U.S. news magazine, TIME and Statista, have determined the world's most sustainable companies of 2024. Over 5,000 companies have been evaluated globally to identify the top 500 companies, and GEA has not only made it into the top 500, but achieved a rank 33. If you look at Germany only, we are even number 3, though we are not only running ahead in terms of our financial targets under Mission 26, but we also continue to remain a front runner with regards to sustainability. The positive development, and here I'm talking about our financial and business profile, has been recognized by two major international credit rating agencies, which are already assessing our creditworthiness for many years, Fitch and Moody's. Both made positive changes to their assessment of GEA in the Q2 .
Fitch has confirmed the BBB rating, but has raised the outlook from stable to positive, while Moody's has upgraded the long-term rating from Baa2 to Baa1, and changed the outlook from positive to stable. Let me now provide you with a quick update on our share buyback program, which represents an important element in our capital allocation strategy. As you know, we have completed the first tranche of our share buyback program in May and have started with the second and final tranche at the beginning of June. This tranche will run until early 2025. As of end of June 2024, we have executed EUR 100 million or 45% out of the EUR 400 million program, and I can already share with you the latest numbers as of yesterday's closing.
We have bought back 5.9 million shares since the beginning of the program until yesterday's closing, which represents 3.4% of outstanding shares. With that, I hand over to Bernd.
Thank you, Stefan. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let's start with order intake. As we've left the trough levels of Q3 and Q4 2023 behind us, but continued to face postponements of larger orders and CapEx restraints from our customers in the Q2 . As a result, the order intake declined by 6.7% year-over-year to EUR 1.29 billion. Sales was up by 1.6% year-over-year on an organic basis. This was driven by strong organic service sales growth, while organic new machine sales declined. EBITDA before restructuring margin increased considerably by 89 basis points to 15.2% because of a higher gross margin.
ROCE declined slightly from a very high level of 33.8% to 32.3%, since the improvement in EBIT before restructuring expenses was overcompensated by higher capital employed, resulting from an increase in non-current assets and net working capital. Net liquidity decreased year-over-year only by EUR 33 million to EUR 32 million, despite the cash outflow of EUR 341 million for the dividend payment and the ongoing share buyback program. Looking a bit deeper into the group performance. As in the previous quarters, but to a lesser extent this time, the top line of Q2, and I'm talking about order intake and sales, was adversely impacted by translational FX effects due to a strong euro against some emerging market currencies, like the Argentine peso and the Turkish lira. Order intake was negatively impacted by EUR 44 million translational FX effects.
Adjusting for this effect, the order intake declined in organic terms by 3.5% year-over-year. This decline was purely driven by the lower volume in the mid-sized order bracket between 5 and 15 million EUR. All other order size brackets, including the base orders below 5 million EUR, were up year-over-year. From a customer industry perspective, not only beverage and food were growing, also dairy processing has slightly picked up. The growth in these customer industries was overcompensated by the decline in the other customer industries. Sales grew organically by 1.6%, driven by, once again, outstanding organic service sales growth of 12.1% year-over-year, to which all divisions contributed. The catch-up effect from postponed service sales from the Q1 at Separation and Flow Technologies also contributed to this strong development.
For the last four years, the service business has been growing organically in each single quarter, an impressive development. New machine sales have been impacted from the decrease in the order intake in the last four quarters, and has therefore declined organically by 4.1% year-over-year in the Q2 . Due to the strong service sales growth, the service sales share stood at 38.9%, three percentage points higher than last year. EBITDA before restructuring expenses rose by EUR 9 million to EUR 201 million, resulting in a corresponding year-over-year margin expansion of 89 basis points to 15.2%. Now, let me continue with the figures for the division Separation and Flow Technologies, which reported strong performance for all key performance indicators. Strong organic order intake and sales growth, coupled with considerable improvement in profitability.
Order intake increased organically by 11% year-over-year, which was mainly driven by the customer industries, food and pharma. Also beverage, marine, environmental applications, and the demand for new food were strong. Overall, quite a broad-based order intake strength. When looking at the order intake development on a reported basis, an adverse translation effects impact of EUR 31 million needs to be considered. Sales in reported terms were slightly higher than in the prior year quarter, but significantly higher when adjusting for the negative FX translation effects. Organic sales grew by 7.3% year-over-year, driven by an extraordinary organic service sales growth of 17.4%. This growth rate has been positively impacted by the catch-up effect from postponed service sales in the Q1 .
As you might remember, the service sales in the Q1 have been impacted by a change of our logistics provider as part of our move into a new logistics center. Problems that occurred during this change were caused by our partner and led to postponed service sales generation. This has been solved in the meantime, and a significant share of the postponed service sales in Q1 have been recognized in Q2. New machine sales have declined slightly by 1.3% organically. On the back of the very strong service sales growth, the service sales share has increased considerably by 4.7 percentage points to 50.6%.
The higher service sales share, in combination with the better margin quality in the new machine business, resulted in a significant year-over-year improvement of the EBITDA margin by 119 basis points to 27.3% in the Q2 . Because Separation and Flow Technologies has already been growing its sales organically by 6.3% in the H1 of 2024, we raised its divisional sales guidance for the full year, 2024, from the original range of 1%-4% organic sales growth, now to 5%-8%.... Let's move on to Liquid and Powder Technologies, where we have further expanded our service business, and the order intake has improved sequentially. Order intake for the quarter was down organically by 9.1% year-over-year, purely driven by a decline in orders between EUR 5 million and EUR 15 million.
The volume of large orders has been slightly higher than in the prior year quarter, and the base orders, so all orders below EUR 5 million in size, have been up year-over-year, too. Two out of the three large orders received in this quarter were coming from the customer industry beverage, and one was awarded in chemicals. So it is not surprising to see that the customer industry beverage showed overall a positive development in this quarter. In addition, dairy processing and pharma were also doing well. The growth in these customer industries was overcompensated by the decline in chemicals, which benefited from three large orders in the Q2 of 2023. When looking at the sequential order intake development, it is important to notice that the order intake has continued its sequential improvement, being slightly up from the level in Q1.
Sales declined 2.4% year-over-year on an organic basis. Service sales continued its strong growth trajectory of the previous quarters, with an 8.7% year-over-year organic growth rate. At the same time, organic new machine sales decreased by 5.8%. The lower new machine sales results from the decline in the order intake in the H2 of 2023, as well as the low level of order intake in the H1 of 2024. Due to the stronger service sales growth, the service sales share increased by 2.7 percentage points, from 23.4% in Q2 2023 to 26.1% in this quarter.
EBITDA before restructuring expenses rose by EUR 3 million year-over-year to EUR 43 million, resulting in a corresponding EBITDA margin of 10.2%, up from 9.2% in Q2 2023. Higher gross profit, resulting from the improved service sales share and better project margins, has been the main profitability driver. Operating costs have remained stable year-over-year. Since Liquid and Powder Technologies has reported an organic sales decline of 1.6% in the H1 of 2024, we adjusted its divisional sales forecast for the full year 2024 from the original range of 2%-8% organic sales growth to a range of -2% to +2%. Moving to Food and Healthcare Technologies, which continued its sequential profitability improvement and generated solid organic service sales growth.
On the back of a high comparison base and slow investment decisions of our customers, the order intake decreased organically year-over-year by 11.5%. Both customer industries, food and pharma, reported a decline, although pharma has received one large order totaling EUR 15 million in the quarter. Sales decreased organically by 3.8% year-over-year, despite a solid organic service sales growth of 4.2%. The new machine sales declined organically by 7.7%, resulting from the lower order intake in the H2 of 2023. As a result, the service sales share expanded from 33% in the prior year quarter to 35.8% in the Q2 . EBITDA before restructuring expenses continued its quarter-on-quarter improvement, reaching now EUR 24 million in the quarter, significantly up from the low point of EUR 15 million in Q2 2023.
The corresponding margin has not only improved from the trough levels of 6.1%, but also increased sequentially from 9.5% in the Q1 to 9.8% in the Q2 . When looking at the EBITDA margin in the H1 of 2024, which stands at 9.7%, we are fully on track to meet our full year EBITDA margin target range of 9.5%-11.5%. Continuing with Farm Technologies, which had once again a strong service business in the quarter, but suffered from investment restraints of farmers in its new machine business. The market sentiment has not massively changed since the last quarter. It is still affected by uncertainty resulting from high interest rates, lack of subsidies, and downward pressure of milk prices in some regions, like, for example, China.
As a result, the order intake decreased by 12.8% year-over-year organically, driven by the decline in the new machine business. In terms of products, the new machine business was mainly facing lower demand in manure and automated as well as conventional rotaries, and here, especially from China and the United States. When looking at the order intake development on a reported basis, an adverse translation FX impact of EUR 7 million needs to be considered. Sales grew organically by 1.4% year-over-year, driven by outstanding organic service sales growth of 13%. This marks another quarter of double-digit organic service sales growth at Farm Technologies. New machine sales declined organically by 7.8%, reflecting the above mentioned market sentiment. The service share increased further considerably on an already high level by 3.5 percentage points to 47.7%.
EBITDA before restructuring expenses decreased slightly by EUR 2 million to EUR 28 million, as the higher gross margin was overcompensated by lower sales volume and higher operating costs. The corresponding margin decreased by 38 basis points from 15.2% in Q2 2023 to 14.8% in Q2 2024. Finally, let us turn to Heating and Refrigeration Technologies. This division delivered once again a very solid set of results. Strong organic order intake growth, further service expansion, and significant rise in profitability. Let me run you through the details. Heating and Refrigeration Technologies has reported strong organic order intake growth of 8.8% year-over-year, which can be attributed to two reasons. First, the increase in the number of large orders.
Larger orders for this division are orders with a volume of more than EUR 1 million, but below EUR 5 million. And second, the strong demand development in small orders, which are below EUR 1 million in size. In terms of customer industries, distribution and storage, as well as food, were the main growth drivers. Predominantly in food, we are supporting multinationals, which are executing their net zero programs. Sales decreased slightly by 0.6% organically. The strong organic service sales growth of 7.2% was not enough to fully offset the organic sales decline in the new machine business of 4.9%. The service sales share, however, increased considerably by 279 basis points to 38.2%.
EBITDA rose to EUR 80 million, and the corresponding margin improved significantly from 11.4% in Q2 2023 to 12.5% this quarter. Gross profit was up year-over-year due to positive mix and margin effects, which overcompensated the increase in operating costs. Closing the divisional chapter now with the overview on the EBITDA growth contribution in the H1 and in the Q2 of 2024. There are two important messages. First message: we have been able to increase our EBITDA before restructuring expenses in both time periods considerably. To this positive performance, almost all divisions contributed. While Liquid and Powder Technologies contributed positively to the profitability growth in the Q2 , it was overcompensated by the weaker development in the Q1 , so that the overall contribution in the H1 has been slightly negative. For Farm Technologies, it is exactly the opposite.
The strong performance in the Q1 has overcompensated the negative growth contribution in the Q2 , leading to an overall growth contribution in the H1 of 2024. And now the second important message: we have managed to improve or at least keep gross margin, gross profit stable in all divisions, despite facing declining sales in many cases. This reflects our pricing discipline, as well as the effects of our efficiency programs. Coming now to another important topic, net working capital. In a year-over-year comparison, net working capital increased by EUR 29 million to EUR 486 million, despite significant reduction in inventories of EUR 50 million. Main reason for this rise is the lower volume of trade payables, which needs to be seen in connection with the reduction of inventories.
As you know, we are currently focusing on the reduction of our safety stocks to bring them back to the levels we had before all the supply chain bottlenecks occurred. This net working capital development is well covered by our guided corridor of 8%-10%, as the net working capital to sales ratio landed at 9.1%. Free cash flow has been strong for the Q2 , but let's have a look at the details. More than 58% of the EBITDA before restructuring expenses has been converted into operating cash flow. After a high net working capital outflow of EUR 115 million in the Q1 , the outflow has been lowered to EUR 28 million in the Q2 . Main reasons for the outflow were the lower amounts of advanced payments received in the quarter, as well as higher quarter-on-quarter inventories....
The CapEx related outflow of EUR 41 million has been rather low in comparison to our full year guidance, 2024, of around EUR 260 million. This is mainly driven by the build up of our new site at lyophilization in Germany, where groundbreaking took place in March this year, and where the main investments will occur during the H2 of 2024. So the step up in CapEx will be seen in the coming two quarters. As a result, free cash flow stands at EUR 83 million, leading to a net cash flow of EUR 64 million after deducting these payments and interest paid. The strong net cash flow was offset the cash out for our ongoing share buyback program and the dividend payment, so that we ended the quarter still being net cash with EUR 32 million.
Bearing in mind that we had a negative free cash flow in the H1 of 2023 and the H1 of 2022, the positive free cash flow of EUR 26 million in the H1 of this year is a very solid achievement. As a result, we have improved our last four quarters free cash flow conversion ratio from 48% the end of the Q1 , to now 62% at the end of Q2. We are comfortably within the target corridor of 55%-65%. However, as stated earlier, there is a step up in CapEx expected for the H2 of 2024. This will have an impact on our cash conversion ratio. With that, I hand back to Stefan for the outlook.
Thank you very much, Bernd. Let me now come to our raised outlook for the fiscal year 2024. As I have already presented to you at the beginning of today's call, our raised guidance for the EBITDA margin in ROCE. Let me only add here that we are of course confirming these upgraded targets as well as our unchanged organic sales growth guidance of 2%-4% for the full year of 2024. Finally, our roadmap for 2024. The next important date will be our capital markets day on first and second of October in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. We will kick it off with an informal dinner at Ron Gastrobar on the evening of the first, where we also will serve you alternative proteins, followed by presentations and a site visit on the second of October to our customer, Innocent.
The invitation will be sent out in the next days, and we are looking forward to seeing you there. That concludes my presentation, and I hand back to Oliver for the Q&A.
Yeah, thank you very much, Stefan and Bernd. And, yeah, with that, I also hand over to the operator, and please start the Q&A session.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. We will now take our first question. Please stand by. And the first question comes from the line of Klas Bergelind from Citi. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Thank you. Hi, Stefan and Bernd. Klas from Citi. So my first one is on the order pipeline. We obviously had this issue with larger orders not coming through because of high interest rates, among other things, and now they beat my forecast. But we also more widespread weakness across the mid-sized orders. You still seem confident, and as I understand it, that sort of H2 orders can be higher than the first. Do you think, Stefan, the larger orders, about EUR 15 million, will now come through even more into the H2 ? Or is this gonna be more broad-based also on the mid-size level, i.e., the mid-size here and or sector than are normally in the quarter? I'll start there. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Klas. First of all, I think what I can tell you is that we expect a H2 of the year, which will be bigger in order intake than the H1 of the year, and we are also very confident that it will be also above the last year's H2 of the year. So I think this is quite, quite a clear message. We also have a lot of interesting large projects in the pipeline, and it is like, you know, sometimes quite difficult to predict. Is it now the Q3 or Q4 when we will see this order coming in, or might there be also a risk to be postponed to 2025?
But I can tell you and confirm you that there are many interesting projects around, and we are optimistic that we also see in the H2 of the year interesting large orders kicking in. Also mid-sized orders, we have interesting pipeline. So as I said, we are looking cautiously optimistic to the H2 of the year. You know, the environment is not the best all over the world, it's very clear, but what we see here in our pipeline is quite promising. We will see a higher order intake compared to the H1 year and also compared to the last year, H2 of the year.
... Thank you. My second one is on the margin in SFT. It's a very solid development. Obviously, the service growth came back here following the logistics issues in the Q1 , which obviously improved the mix. But also, Bernd, you talked about the new machine business that saw a better margin. One thing that's becoming apparent is reporting season among the industrials, is that we see companies starting to talk about pricing running ahead of cost inflation, and that this can normalize into the H2 . And in some cases, we see it already coming through, the overearning effect normalizing, weighing on EBITDA. I get the service mix, but I'm trying to understand stay solid balance, increasing the margin in SFT-
You are almost impossible to understand. There's a very bad voice quality. I don't know if you have a chance to improve that, but it's very difficult to understand.
Okay, can you hear me now?
Not getting so much better. There was a huge echo at the end.
Was there any price versus cost boost in the quarter? Is pricing running ahead of cost inflation in SFT?
Okay. Got it. I mean, the price increases we have been able to make during the last months are not in that magnitude, like we could increase prices in the last two years, let's say, where we had the high inflation rate, and it also was not as necessary as it was during that period of time. So the performance you see also in SFT is not really based on pricing. That's really efficiency measures and, of course, also a little bit of catch-up effect from the missing service business, which we saw in Q1.
Okay. Well, that's good to hear. My very final one, if you can hear me, is on tariffs, thinking ahead of the U.S. elections there in November. Can we talk about your sourcing strategies as they stand now, where you're more local for local versus sourcing components from China into the U.S. in particular? Thank you.
Okay, I mean, what the good message is here, I mean, you might remember that we informed also very often that we have quite a broad range of suppliers, almost everywhere, which is a kind of potential, which we also could use during the last years to improve our purchasing policy. But the positive thing is that we are not depending on certain regions or certain areas, so we always would have a choice. And even if geopolitical tensions would increase, I can say that we are not depending here on single markets.
Thank you.
Thank you, Klas.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Sven Weier from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yep. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is kind of following up on Klas' question on orders and looking a little bit beyond what you see in the H2 , because we are—you've reached, obviously now this year, the 15% margin target already. The other aspect of the guide is the 4%-6% organic growth. I think we're all conscious of the fact that probably the orders need to improve also after the H2 . So I was just wondering, what do you see as the pipeline beyond H2 ? Is it as promising? I guess so, but yeah, maybe you can add a few words on this one. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Sven. I mean, I just can repeat what I said. We expect a H2 , which will be better than the H1 and will also be better than compared to the last year's H2 . The pipeline is interesting. The pipeline is there. The environment is like it is, but we also see a little bit of trend already in the early cycling business, that this is picking up. So let's see. I mean, the world is volatile, yeah, like we all know, especially when we look at the last few days. But it is... I mean, the good thing, you know our business very well, Sven, and we are a very resilient business.
As long as there are human beings on the planet who need to eat and drink something, sooner or later, our customers have to order, especially when we see a growing world population. That makes me very optimistic that we also will see quite a solid H2 of the year when it is about order intake.
Yeah, that sounds familiar, Stefan. The second one is also kind of a follow-up on pricing, because more on the project business side, because we had obviously the update from Krones last week, and they said that clients are more proactively asking for pricing discounts. Obviously also seeing some cost deflation. They say they will be very disciplined about it, but yeah, I was just wondering if that is also maybe something that stretches the project decision-making a bit further because clients are a little bit more price aware on the project side?
Yeah, I mean, clear price is becoming a bigger issue than maybe two years ago, where everybody was in a kind of after COVID cycle and having a need to order. That's, I mean, you know, in the machine building business, we always have little bit cycles. So but we keep our prices stable. There is also. I always say, no market ever was growing by decreasing prices, and that is a question of discipline, and we are quite optimistic that we also will keep our margins here while getting also interesting orders in the future.
Sounds good. And the final question I had was just on FarmTech, because there you kept the organic revenue guidance unchanged at +2%-6%. So should we assume that the dip we saw in Q2 orders is just a dip, and you see that coming back in the H2 ? Or any other reason why you keep being confident on the 2%-6% for FarmTech ?
So, Bernd here. So I think, in FarmTech , we are still confident that we meet our full year indication, which we have given, so therefore, for us, there was no reason to adjust this. We only changed for the reasons we've just highlighted. We changed the order intake numbers for, sorry, the sales numbers for SFT as well as for LPT, and we increased the return on capital employed expectation for heating and refrigeration technologies. But for FarmTech , given what we see in terms of pipeline, given what we see in terms of expectation for the full year, no reason to adjust the indication.
Because I guess that's more short lead time business, right? So you are somehow also dependent on what you get in terms of orders in the H2, right?
Yeah, indeed, the lead time is shorter compared to the bigger project business in other areas.
Good. Thank you, Stefan and Bernd.
Thank you, Sven.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Sebastian Kuenne from RBC Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a follow-up on the FarmTech . The backlog is about eight months, so I can understand that you maintain the, the guidance for growth. But the, the softness of the overall farming market is not going away with U.S. farm income, like, dropping very drastically, Europe, not great, Brazil, very tough times these days. What's your confidence for 2025 for the demand? That was my first question. Thank you.
Yeah, what is the confidence? I mean, first of all, I mean, we don't guide anything for 25 yet, it's very clear. But, I mean, it's also dairy is a very important food worldwide, there is no doubt, and it comes from cows, and there is a continuous underlying trend towards more automation. There is also a consolidation of farms is going on. There are good reasons why, especially in the U.S., the farm technology market is down. That it has also something to do, of course, with the high interest rates, that also has something to do with a lot of taxes the farmers still have to pay based on the good years they had in the last years.
So, that is something which might cause, at the moment, a little bit a downturn here. In China, we see the milk price is under pressure, which also might recover sooner or later because there is always a kind of cycle. And if you add and sum that up, I think sooner or later that will come back because like I said before, as long as there are human beings who need to eat and drink, that's the same, like it is valid for farm technology. The milk needs to come from somewhere, and the consolidation of farms is going on, the world population is increasing, and therefore, we strongly believe that this is a continuously growing market.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Then on the food processing, do you have discussions with investors basically saying that, you know, people can go to restaurants, which is unprocessed food, or people can go to supermarkets, which is processed food? We have a massive staff cost inflation in the restaurants, so the budgets tilt towards supermarkets instead, and therefore we have higher volumes, and therefore we need to reinvest more money for food processing equipment. Is this a discussion that comes up or with other investors or with the food processors themselves, or what, what is the reason for your confidence for food processing these days? Thank you.
Yeah, it's also based, I would say, on the underlying trends that people, I mean, world population is growing. We have a growing urbanizations, so people are more living in larger cities compared to years before. It's not this kind of small cities, and they don't have their own garden. So food processing, I think, will continue as long as world population is growing, as long as people are clustering together in larger cities. That are important trends. And to be honest, also, restaurants are becoming more and more expensive. And if you see who can really afford to go to restaurant every week, it's, I would say, only a small proportion of the population who can afford that.
Therefore, I think there are very, very good reasons why we see that food processing is a growing market and will also grow and continue to grow in the future as well.
Yeah, sure. But, do you have these days more discussions with food processors saying, "Well, we see more demand because of that shift from restaurant or takeaway towards supermarkets?" Or is that not a discussion you have currently?
To be honest, no. That was no discussion I-
Right
... I had in the last weeks or months. But, as I said, I can understand. If there is a trend, I also would say it's rather a trend towards more food processing than towards people are going more often to restaurants, simply because of cost issues and cost reasons and other mega trends.
Understood. My final brief question is on currency. Since Q3 last year, we see very strong currency headwinds that are somewhat above what the models should show, of our currency models show. And you mentioned Argentina, Turkey still being relatively high portion of revenues. Is this something you think will roll over then in Q3, that we see a much lower currency headwinds, especially in SFT? Or is this something we should expect for the rest of the year?
So, Sebastian, I don't want to share my view on currency movement going forward, so I don't have the crystal ball available. We don't-
You have your currency as of today, and you have your budget probably.
Yeah, sure, sure. But, obviously-
Yeah
... the question on, the question on reported numbers and organic numbers is something which significantly depends on the development of the currencies throughout the rest of the year. We have a view, this is part of our guidance, as far as organic sales growth is concerned. But other than that, I don't want to share my view on currency movements going forward.
Yeah, because it's not part of your of your guidance. That's what I'm asking. Okay, thank you so much anyways. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Christoph Dolleschal from HSBC. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Yeah, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got a few follow-ups. The first one, again, on order intake. Consensus currently looks around EUR 2.7 billion, and, when I take your, your view so far, like, H2 to be above H1 and above H2 last year, I would assume you feel comfortable with that number?
Yes.
Okay, that was a quick one. Then again, on the order intake shortfall in Farm Technologies, at least against estimates. I remember that you said that the European Union subsidies are coming late this year, and this obviously impacts the demand from the farmers in Europe. So, could you probably give us an indication in Farm Technologies, how much of the, say, decline is structural, i.e., China, U.S., and how much of it is maybe just a delay because of Europe being late this year? And actually, when are these European subsidies coming?
So I think, this is a very artificial question, which is very difficult to give you a precise answer. So what we see is that there are ... So we, we have an expectation on subsidies, especially in some European markets. This is not the case for the U.S. market, neither for the Asian market. There are some other structural elements in markets such as China and the U.S., which we have just discussed already. So for Europe, we still expect, for some selected countries that, subsidies will kick in, but I cannot give you a clear separation of effects for the H2 .
Okay, but the subsidies are going... Do you know when they're going to come, Q3 or?
Unfortunately, this is not something which we know definitely, so there is an underlying expectation that this will happen in the course of the end of Q3, early Q4.
Okay. Then again, on foreign exchange, could you give us a rough idea of how much the revenue shares of Argentina and Turkey are within SFT? Because here, the currency impact is obviously the biggest, and you don't disclose these on a group level, but it would be easier to model if we would know roughly how much comes from those countries in SFT.
Yeah, sure. So we are not disclosing those numbers.
And then, okay, last but not least, on the verticals, could you give us an idea of how you see your most important verticals developing in the H2 ? And especially because chemicals is currently still a drag, how you see the chemicals vertical performing in H2?
Yeah. I mean, we have interesting projects also going on in our chemicals verticals. I mean, chemical is a very broad thing. We know that we are focusing in our chemical business very much on sustainable solutions. Yeah. So, for instance, we have interesting projects in carbon capture. We are active in lithium preparation and recycling. These are interesting things which are going on for us, so we might be a little bit different from the traditional or typical average chemical vertical. But also here we see, yeah, promising and interesting activity.
Okay, thank you. I'll go back in line.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for your time. I got two as well, and I'll ask one at a time. My first one is a follow-up on your demand commentary. Can you tell us about a bit more about this recovery in demand that you're expecting? Where is it coming from? Is it in Europe, Asia, Americas? And could you also elaborate by business units that where do you expect more recovery, whether it's in dairy farming, dairy processing, food or beverage, and where you are more cautious on demand recovery, going into H2 ? So that's the first one to start with.
Okay. So what I can tell you, Akash, is so food has been gross contributor in the H1 and continues to develop well, but here it depends on the specific application. So beverage was strong in 2023, with some projects already arriving, such as in LPT and some projects are partially postponed or are taking their time in the negotiations. Picture in pharma is fine, as well as the development in heat pump technology. Dairy farming market sentiment has not necessarily changed, so we've touched upon that already since the last quarters. It's still affected by the uncertainties which we have discussed, high interest rates, lack of subsidies, and some downward pressure of milk prices in some regions, especially China.
Last but not least, dairy processing, we see some slight pick up here, mainly on the project side.
Maybe just a follow-up to that. When we look at the split between Q3, Q4, shall we expect more stronger Q4 than Q3? Or have you already received some quarter in July that gives you more confidence on H2 recovery and mean that Q3 could also be strong already?
Yeah. You know, you know, Akash, how difficult it is to predict quarters in our business. Quarter-
Please stand by.
Yeah.
The conference will resume shortly.
Hello?
Hello, you are back in the room.
Okay. So traditionally, I would say normally the Q4 should be a little bit stronger than the Q3. That's what we expect, but it is a very, very short period of time when we talk about quarter, when it is about our business, and especially if it is about larger, larger orders and larger projects.
Thank you. My second question is on upcoming capital markets day. In terms of if you can provide us some flavor of what we shall expect and what shall we not expect? And maybe on the same topic, and Stefan, when you came in, GEA was in the middle of a perfect storm, and you have steered the ship out of the crisis. Do you think now is the time for you to move back to adjusted EBIT or operating profit guidance metric from EBITDA, which will also align your profitability KPI with the rest of the capital goods sector? Thank you.
Yeah. I think what you can expect is an interesting day with a lot of news and with a time frame which will give you a clear indication until the year 2030. And hopefully, Akash, you can also join us the evening before for dinner, because that will also be interesting because we also try to serve you a variety of new food, like I said before, to really taste the future. And the second day, we also will visit our customer, Innocent, which is also a perfect example of how we combine our technology with sustainability. So all in all, I think it is really worthwhile to join us and please apologize that I can't spoiler too much today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We will now take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Sven Weier from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah, thanks. I, I had a few follow-up questions, please. The first one is on CapEx. I think you reiterated the EUR 260 million, meaning that you, I think, have almost EUR 200 million in H2. I was just wondering if there is not maybe the, the chance that things move into next year, on the, on the CapEx side, because that seems really quite a big number for, for one half.
Yeah, I'm happy to take that question, Sven. So I admit that from first glance it looks like that, but we are very confident as of today that we will come very close or even meet EUR 260 million based on the investment, the decisions we've already made and which will lead to the cash outflow in the H2 . So no reason for us to adjust the CapEx guidance.
... Should we still assume this number to come down meaningfully then in 2025? I suspect you will probably also give a midterm guidance at the CMD, but is it still fair to assume that this is a very elevated level this year, and it will start to normalize again next year?
Yeah, so in general, I would also not spoil it too much, but I can confirm that, we guided for a level of roughly EUR 200 million through, during our Mission 26 journey. That is still the case. When we announced the EUR 260 million, we clearly indicated that this was driven by a very single project, lyophilization, and this will not be the case on a regular basis going forward. So you should expect us to come down at least to the EUR 200 million.
Understood. And, the final thing from my side is just wanted to check in on M&A, whether there's any new developments there, or is it still very much the same as we had it now for some time?
Yeah. I mean, we are always looking. We are always in touch with companies, but there is nothing which would be on a maturity level right now where I could tell you something what is different now. But also here, I'm quite optimistic that sooner or later we will find right targets. But it's like, you know, Sven, we also don't wanna do any stupid things, not buying too high prices, not buying any companies which are in trouble. So therefore, we are quite selective, but yeah, cautiously optimistic also here.
Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you both.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand back to Stefan Klebert for any closing remarks.
Yes, thank you, operator. Thank you, everybody, for your participation and for your questions. Let me summarize today's statements. First of all, we had a strong H1 of the year with a record EBITDA margin for a H1 . That is really, I think, remarkable and outstanding. Also, ROCE is exceeding 30% for the eighth quarter in a row. We raised our EBITDA margin and ROCE guidance for full year 2024, implying we might already achieve our Mission 26 targets two years earlier. And we have left the trough levels in order intake of EUR 1.25 billion and EUR 1.26 billion behind us, and we are expecting a higher order intake in the H2 than we had in the H1 year.
We will present to you our strategic plan and targets until 2030 at our Capital Markets Day in October, and I think also that will be a worthwhile day with interesting information, what kind of additional potentials we see in GEA. That concludes my presentation, and I hand back to the operator.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.