Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the GEA Group AG Pre-Closed Call Q2 2025. At this time, all participants will be on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker, Mr. Oliver Luckenbach, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q2 2025 Pre-Closed Call. With me today are my deputy, Rebecca, and Eduard. As today's call will contain forward-looking statements, it will be conducted according to our disclaimer. I will not read the disclaimer, but please be aware of the cautionary language that is included in our safe harbor statement, which is part of our presentations you can find on our internet. We will now address eight topics, which we also discussed during recent conferences and roadshows, and afterwards, you will have time to ask your questions. First of all, guidance. We confirm our group guidance for the full year 2025. We expect organic sales growth to be between 1% to 4%.
We expect EBITDA margin before restructuring expenses to be in the corridor of 15.6 to 6.0%, and we also expect ROSI, return on capital employed, to be in a range of 30 to 35%. Topic number two, customer industries. Starting with food, here we see continued activity, especially on the project side. In terms of beverages, the pipeline seems to be on a similar level as we have seen it in 2024. Dairy processing continues to look promising and has been a growth contributor since the second quarter of last year. Dairy farming, here the market environment has improved, and we are cautiously optimistic that this trend will continue. On new food, here it is likely to remain on a rather soft level in 2025. Heating and refrigeration technologies, here is a good pipeline development.
The typical food and beverage-related applications remain attractive markets to be served with our decarbonization solutions. Coming to topic number three, order intake. We expect that 2025 will be another good year for GEA. The pipeline continues to look promising, and we are seeing that customers continue to come back to negotiate orders. Concerning large orders, we are in very interesting discussions and are optimistic that we will see some of the large orders kicking in during the course of this year, but we can't pinpoint the specific quarter when they will be signed. In terms of order intake, please keep also in mind that the translational FX effect is expected to be negative. Continuing with topic number four, sales.
Due to the composition of our order backlog at year-end, with more large orders, sales generation is likely to be slower at the beginning of the year and will accelerate towards the second half. That is what we have already shared with you since March, and nothing has changed in this regard. Organic sales growth in Q2 is likely to be closer to the lower end of the guided range of 1 to 4%. Also here on sales, please keep in mind expected negative translational FX effects. Topic number five, EBITDA margin before restructuring expenses. Our EBITDA margin guidance clearly indicates that we want to make further progress with regards to our profitability also in full year 2025. After an already strong Q1 with an EBITDA margin of 15.8%, we expect that we will also show some progress in Q2.
Just to remind you, our EBITDA margin in Q2 last year was 15.2%. That's it from my side, and I will now pass over to Rebecca.
Thanks, Oliver. Hello, everybody. Regarding topic number six, cash flow. What to keep in mind? With regards to CapEx, we stated that we do expect CapEx of around EUR 235 million for the full year 2025. In Q1, we had EUR 33 million of CapEx. Networking capital to sales for 2025, the target corridor is 7 to 9%, and Q2 most likely will be within this corridor. Please keep also in mind the cash outflow for the dividend of EUR 178 million at the beginning of May. Last but not least, the cash outflow for the remaining days of our share buyback program, which should be around EUR 35 million. Topic number seven, share buyback program. As I just said, we had some remaining days of the share buyback program. As already communicated and probably widely known, we finished the EUR 400 million share buyback program on 11th of April.
We bought back in total 9.5 million shares, which got canceled in May of this year. Therefore, the new number of shares outstanding is 162.8 million. Topic number eight, additional financial information. With regards to depreciation amortization, we indicated for the full year EUR 210 million. In Q1, we had EUR 49 million. Financial result indication is here minus EUR 30 million for the full year 2025, and we had in Q1 minus EUR 9 million. With regards to the weighted average number of shares used to calculate basic and diluted earnings per share, we had in Q2 2025, 162.8 million shares. As a reminder, the tax rate for fiscal year 2025 is 29%, and in Q2 2025, we had exactly 29.2%. That is it from my side, and we are open up the Q&A if you have any questions with regards to that.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please 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. Once again, please press star one and one for any question and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The first questions come from the line of Klas Bergling from Citi. Please ask your question. Your line is opened.
Thank you. Hi, Oliver and Rebecca. Klas at Citi. My first one I had was on order intake. Obviously, on the larger side, I think, Oliver, you said the pipeline is promising. We expect to receive several large orders this year, but to pinpoint a specific quarter can be difficult. We are obviously beginning of July, so are you effectively saying that maybe in the second quarter, we're not going to have that many large orders? Is that the sort of implied message? I'll start there. Thank you.
Yeah, first of all, Klaus, thanks for your question. As of today, we can, let's say, share what we have also discussed at recent conferences and roadshows. Just summarizing what I've just mentioned, generally speaking, we are really seeing a very good pipeline of normal orders, of larger orders, of large orders. As you know, it always sometimes takes some time to finally negotiate these orders. What's also important to understand in this context is that we see a very good base business, especially on the service side. Nothing has changed in this context. We are very optimistic to deliver a very good order intake for full year 2025.
As always said, this kind of volatility we see in order intake from quarter to quarter, there is nothing what we can change, but that is also nothing we are concerned about anyway because what we see makes us very confident for this year.
Yeah, no, that makes sense. I mean, we heard from others that have large orders that they're obviously seeing some push-outs in light of the uncertainty around tariffs. I mean, it's not obviously GEA specific. My question on underlying or base orders, if I try to strip out currency, if I look in, translate this into U.S. dollar, I mean, your orders, base orders are always down. I mean, seasonality, if you like, right, down second quarter over first quarter. You do say, though, that you have a very good base business. Do you think that you can have progression quarter on quarter on the base business, or will we have this normal seasonality with orders being down a bit quarter on quarter? Thank you.
Yeah, so if you look at Q2 last year, we reported close to EUR 1.3 billion of order intake, including four large orders. From that perspective, I think we can definitely expect here some improvement in our base business Q2 over Q2.
Okay, year over year. All right. Then my final one, and then I'll step back, is on the sales growth. You are talking about sort of the lower end of 1 to 4% for the second quarter. You have a good pipeline. The backlog is there, but it's just going to be a bit more back and loaded, which you talked about before in terms of getting those machine sales going. Consensus had 2.7% organic sales growth. You still say you will have progress on margin here again, but very little sales growth. Is this still that good service growth again driving a positive mix, or what is the driver here behind getting the margin up with very little sales growth? Thank you.
Yeah, so for Q2, we then need to do the final calculation once we have the numbers. What we have seen so far is a very strong business, especially also on the service side. There are no indications to us so far that this has materially changed during the second quarter. Service should be a good contributor in the second quarter as well.
Klas, also do not forget that we are also working in execution on our COX program, where we are targeting the EUR 120 million of savings until the year 2030. This is also, as we stated earlier, going to be quite a linear development. That is definitely something which we are executing all the time.
Yeah, that's the final one. I'm getting some questions from investors. I just want to clarify one thing. When you said base orders up year over year, Oliver, that was an organic comment, right?
Sorry, that was no?
That was an organic comment. We have big currency headwinds across all industrials. I just want to confirm whether that was an organic comment.
Yeah, that needs to be seen once the numbers are final. What we have seen so far shows a very good development of the base order business in general.
All right. Thank you.
We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Sven Weier from UBS. Please ask your question.
Yeah, hi guys. Good afternoon. I hope you can hear me. I'm in a car, so sorry for that. I have two questions, please. The first one is, did you comment on dairy processing in your prepared remarks? I was curious on dairy processing demand strength. The second question I had was just on U.S. specifically. I was wondering if some of the big tickets were coming or are in the U.S. and whether those orders are maybe a bit delayed because of the obvious issues in the U.S. Thank you.
Yes, Sven, maybe first of all, thanks for your question. First of all, drive carefully. Starting with your second question on the U.S., for sure, we are also monitoring what's going on in the U.S. regarding the tariffs. We have mentioned at Q2 stage that from today's point of view, based on the 10% that is still here in discussions, we are not that concerned. So far, we had no, let's say, very negative news here from our people in the United States. Also, when we discussed some of the large projects, then this also included one project also in the United States. Yeah.
With regard to the first one regarding dairy processing, yes, I mean, that was included in our comments, but happy to repeat it. As you know, actually, dairy processing has been a growth contributor since the second quarter of 2024. When we are talking to our people, the feedback we are receiving is that this continues to look promising.
Sounds good. Thank you very much. Oliver, I have to listen to you. I've actually arrived, so.
Okay, very good.
Thank you.
We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Max Yates from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Just a couple of questions I had. Just firstly, when we look at your Q1 margin, you were doing sort of 15.8%. I know you talked about the margin being up year over year. I'm just thinking, anything sequentially when we think about the revenue mix, the cost savings, was there anything hugely exceptional in that Q1 number when we just think about that as a sort of baseline going forwards? I know your business typically improves sequentially as we go through the year. Just at this stage, is there anything you'd like to call out in that number that was sort of particularly exceptional that makes it sort of impossible to repeat?
Yeah. Thanks for your question. As you might remember, in Q1 2024, we had these, let's say, hiccups here with a new distribution center for service products in our SFT division. We postponed last year a certain portion of the service sales to the second and partly also to the third quarter last year. Year over year, this year, this means for sure that we have seen an extraordinary strong increase, especially on the service side in sales in SFT. From that perspective, there was a certain positive mix effect in Q1. Nevertheless, you know our guidance for the full year margin, which is a corridor of 15.6 to 16.0%. In average, we need a number like, let's say, 15.8%. For sure, it always depends then also on the mix in a specific quarter.
Other than that, nothing is in my mind. Yeah.
Okay. Just maybe secondly, I know there's sort of always been some debate about kind of what your transaction FX exposure is. We know your translation, but I guess as you sort of discuss things internally with the CFO and you look at the guidance and with FX sort of rates, particularly the euro/dollar moving quite quickly, as we stand here today, what do you see or have you calculated what you think the impact of FX will be on your margin as a result of the weaker dollar/euro?
I mean, first of all, in terms of top-line growth, I mean, the guidance is in organic terms. I mean, translational risk, so translational FX risk is nothing, obviously, which we can hedge. That is something which we are also disclosing every quarter, what is the translational FX effect with regard to, let's say, transactional FX effects. I think that is the direction you are talking about. Transactional FX effects for us, every moment we are entering an FX transaction, we will have a hedge there. All FX transactional exposure is hedged.
Okay. And just final two from me. One just on China. Could you talk a little bit around kind of what you're seeing in China? Obviously, it feels like the economy had sort of quite a strong first half. Is there any kind of softening that you've noted in China as we've gone through the quarter? Or I guess any comments on that region in particular that you've highlighted in the meeting?
I think we haven't heard anything specifically, honestly, from the organization with regards to China. If I look at the order intake development over the last four quarters in China, China was actually up in terms of order intake. I haven't heard anything specifically here.
Maybe we have more news on this topic then with our call in early August.
Okay, understood. I guess just finally, on any of your sort of service products, I guess you've seen pretty strong developments in your service business. Do you see or think there is any sort of pre-buying from some of your customers in the U.S. who might be kind of buying some spare parts or anything you think may be happening there that's affecting that service business, particularly in an abnormal way? Customers nervous about supply chains because of tariffs? Do you think this is just sort of fairly normal development and good execution by your service organization?
Yeah, I would say the vast majority definitely is, let's say, good execution. We also presented at the Capital Markets Day last year what we are doing here. A lot of activities going on. From today's point of view, I haven't heard anything in the direction of pre-buying or anything like that. No, nothing that is known to me, yeah, as of now.
Understood. Very clear. Thank you very much for the time.
You're welcome.
Just one comment, Max, because just to avoid any misunderstandings, the comment I wanted or I made on China being up in terms of order intake over the last four quarters, this is as of Q1 2025 because we do not have the numbers yet for 2024.
I had assumed it was, yes. Thank you very much.
Thanks for the clarification.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone with your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, it is star one and one for any questions. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The next questions come from the line of Uma Salmelin from Bank of America. Please ask a question. Your line is opened.
Hi, good afternoon, Rebecca, Oliver. Thank you for taking my question. I just have one, actually. You commented, I guess, on the order intake, if I'm not mistaken, that on the food segment, you continue to have good activities on projects. The beverage is similar level at 2024, and dairy processing also similar to last year, Q2, and farming improved a bit. If I add that all together, does it mean that you're sort of looking at some more of an order activity that's similar to Q2 last year? Or did I misunderstand something there?
No, let's say the overall environment we have seen has not massively changed. That is what we are always communicating, that we are in very resilient but slightly growing markets. Food, beverages, and pharma accounting for 80%. There are not so many ups and downs even over a longer period of time. Overall, at least no big negative changes in the markets we have seen so far. The only exception also being new food, but we also openly discussed this. There is not so much activity right now, but we are very confident that sooner or later also new food will come back.
Okay, thank you very much. That's appreciated.
You're welcome, Uma. Thanks.
Hi, the final reminder to ask a question. Please 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 have no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to you for closing remarks.
Yeah, thank you very much. Many thanks to all of you for participating in our today's pre-close call. With the end of this call, we will start our quiet period. I'm already very much looking forward to talking to you again on the 7th of August, the day of our release of our Q2 numbers. All the best from the entire IR team. Stay healthy and have a good time.
Happy Friday and happy weekend.
Bye-bye.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you and have a good weekend.