Good afternoon, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the conference call for the publication of preliminary figures FY 2025/ 2026. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Jürgen Otto.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Heidelberg's conference call, and our preliminary financial results for fiscal year 2025/2026. We would like to give you some insight on the financial performance of last fiscal year, while our strategic outlook and financial guidance will be presented to you in our press conference dated 10th of June 2026. Fiscal year 2025/2026 was characterized by setting the right strategic direction for Heidelberg with a great amount of projects and measures which we initiated and partly already finished. We will summarize at a later stage of this presentation, to tell it in a nutshell, we have set the right points for the mid and long-term development of Heidelberg. Operational-wise, we are looking back at a challenging and volatile external environment with increased geopolitical tensions, such as the Iran conflict.
But even in these uncertain times, Heidelberg continues to make targeted forward-looking investments in new growth areas, particularly in security and defense. We are of the firm belief that this will strengthen the foundation for future profitable growth. Despite the visible headwinds, Heidelberg demonstrated resilience, disciplined execution, and continued progress on its strategic priorities. Order intake amounted to EUR 2.2 billion, which we expected comparing to a very strong prior group per year. Adjusted for currency effects of EUR 71 million, order intake would have reached around EUR 2.3 billion, reflecting a stable underlying demand environment. Importantly, momentum improved toward year-end, with Q4 representing the strongest quarter of the year. Net sales totals EUR 2.3 billion and remains stable year-on-year, despite FX headwinds of EUR 69 million.
On the operating side, group operational performance was primarily impacted by margin pressure in Print & Packaging. A weaker macroeconomic environment, including softer demand and pricing, delayed investment decisions, and timing-related upfront expenses in technology growth areas weighed in on overall performance. These effects were partly offset by strong cost discipline, with personnel expenses excluding res tructuring reduced by EUR 23 million, supported by a roughly 3% reduction in headcount from 9,309 to 9,065 employees. Further, functional costs also came in below prior year levels based on strongly executed initiatives. Heidelberg delivered on adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.6% despite external pressures, negative currency effects of around EUR 20 million, and accelerated investments in growth areas such as security and defense.
Heidelberg closed the year with a positive net financial position of EUR 39 million and further strengthened its financial flexibility by extending its syndicated credit facility to 2030. Albeit the challenging market conditions and pressure we have observed, fiscal year 2025/2026 in total demonstrates improving operational quality, disciplined cost management, and continued strategic momentum, positioning Heidelberg well for the future. Volker, I may pass it on to you for further details on the financial performance of last fiscal year.
Thank you, Jürgen. Welcome from my side to our today's conference call. Let's take a look at the segment's performance after 12 months, noting that current headwinds had a significant impact on the results. Net sales mix continued to be well-balanced, with around 52% generated in Print & Packaging Equipment, 46% in Digital Solutions & Lifecycle, while the remaining part contributed by HEIDELBERG Technology. For the time being, a minor contribution, which develops in line with internal expectations. In the future, the growth engine of Heidelberg. Incoming orders in the Print & Packaging Equipment segment declined by 11%, amounting to EUR 1.13 billion, reflecting the absence investment tailwinds and negative currency effects of around EUR 41 million.
Net sales grew softly by 2%, reaching EUR 1.18 billion, driven primarily by solid demand in sheetfed and wide web, despite currency headwinds of around EUR 39 million. As a result, adjusted EBITDA declined, reaching EUR 93 million compared to EUR 107 million in the previous year. The adjusted EBITDA margin declined by 130 basis points to 7.9%, largely due to product mix utilization and currency effects, rather than any deterioration in underlying competitiveness. After 12 months, the Digital & Lifecycle segment recorded an order intake of EUR 1.05 billion, which is about 4% below the previous year's level, primarily driven by currency headwinds again. Currency alone accounts for roughly EUR 30 million, masking an otherwise broadly stable and underlying demand picture.
Net sales performed roughly stable year-on-year to EUR 1.05 billion, concentrated in service and consumables. Again, materially impacted by currency effects of around EUR 30 million. This was partially offset by solid performance in narrow web, which helped stabilize the top line. Adjusted EBITDA stable at 6.8%, reflecting deliberately reduced cost base and disciplined cost management. In the HEIDELBERG Technology segment, order intake and net sales showed a slight improvement versus prior year. Driven by e-mobility, industry business remained stable, providing a steady baseline. In e-mobility, Heidelberg achieved a significant improvement in the cost position. However, given the current scale and ramp-up status in security and defense, this improvement was offset. Overall, the adjusted EBITDA margin is still negative. Let's move on to the regional view.
In EMEA, the absence of last year's drupa effect, combined with challenging economic conditions, was clearly felt, resulting in an 11% decline in order intake to EUR 1.1 billion. Net sales, however, reached EUR 1.17 billion, representing a 3% increase. Wi th weaker performance in Lifecycle, partially offsetting stable equipment demand. Regionally wise, to highlight the performance contribution of Italy, which was backed by a governmental sub-program. Across Greater China and Asia Pacific, order intake decreased about 6% to EUR 600 million, while i n Greater China, order intake showed underlying improvement towards the second half, partially offset by significant currency headwinds of overall EUR 40 million. Net sales were with EUR 583 million, 8% below prior year. On a currency-adjusted basis, performance was largely stable.
The reported decline mainly reflects currency pressure and weaker sheetfed demand in Asia Pacific. With EUR 535 million order intake in Americas was 2% below prior year, impacted by U.S. trade-related uncertainties and a significant negative currency effect of EUR 30 million, despite an improving order trend since third quarter. Net approached the prior year, driven by strong demand for Boardmaster and sheetfed, more than offsetting adverse currency effects of EUR 32 million. Now, let's turn to our EBITDA bridge, which highlights the key drivers behind the year-on-year change in operating profitability. In the prior year, reported EBITDA amounted to EUR 137 million. In December 2024, we recognized a provision of EUR 29 million for future transformation measures, which was adjusted for in EBITDA.
In March 2025, this provision was adjusted to a total of EUR 25 million. During the year, operating performance was impacted by a challenging external environment. The outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East led to a sudden weakening of investment demand alongside supply constraints, order delays, higher energy prices, and tariff effects. In addition, persistently negative currency impacts reduced EBITDA by around EUR 20 million, w hile the product mix was less favorable compared with the prior year. Such pricing, combined with the EUR 20 million negative currency impact and stable capacity utilization, weighed on profitability. At the same time, efficiency initiatives generated measurable productivity improvements, while disciplined cost management further reduced the operating cost base. In addition, the absence of drupa trade fair costs benefited the period, partly offset by expenses related to this year's Print China.
Overall, adjusted EBITDA came in at EUR 151 million for the fiscal year 2025/2026. Next page, we show the cash flow, starting with a decreased operating cash flow, which was at EUR 36 million compared to EUR 113 million in prior year, due to lower customer down payment and reduced EBITDA after 12 months. Tax and interest slightly improved year-on-year. Net working capital effect declined year-on-year by EUR 48 million, primarily due to lower down payments, which more than offset operational improvements from reduced inventories. Restructuring-related payouts increased to EUR 26 million, reflecting the implementation of the so-called Zukunftsplan. Further, year-on-year movements were driven by pension effects and other operating changes. This included a mix of cash and non-cash items and had an overall negative impact to operating cash flow.
The decline was mainly due to working capital-related effects, including personnel accruals, timing differences between payables and receivables, higher commission payments, and tax-related items. Let's finish the cash flow section by looking at our free cash flow. The cash flow from investments amounted to - EUR 76 million after 12 months. CapEx was below prior year, despite POLAR Group acquisition of the EUR 11 million as the prior year elevated by demo machine investments. Divestments income of around EUR 22 million was lower in the prior year, which had benefited from strong sales of demonstration machines around drupa. After 12 months, free cash flow was - EUR 19 million compared to +EUR 51 million in the previous year, mainly due to a slightly weaker operating result, w hile inventory reductions did not fully compensate for lower customer down payments.
To conclude, let me briefly highlight how we further strengthened our balance sheet and financial position over the year, underpinned by a higher equity ratio, a solid net financial position, and the early extension of our revolving credit facility, clearly demonstrating our financial leeway and flexibility. Equity increased over the past 12 months, supported by strong net income growth of approximately EUR 15 million and a higher pension discount rate. Accordingly, the equity ratio improved by 210 basis points to 27.2% with total equity amounting to EUR 568 million. This positive development was partially offset by currency translation effects of EUR 13 million recorded directly in equity. Pension liabilities stood at EUR 605 million, reflecting the increase in the German pension discount rate to 4.2%.
The net financial position decreased to EUR 39 million, mainly as a result of negative free cash flow of EUR 19 million. Nevertheless, the continued positive net financial position underpins Heidelberg's strong financial discipline. During the year, we further reinforced our financial flexibility by upsizing our syndicated credit facility to EUR 436 million and extending its maturity. As a result, liquidity remains with substantial headroom as the revolving credit facility was drawn at only almost 15% of its EUR 436 million capacity at the end of March 2026. I now want to hand back to Jürgen Otto to wrap up the achievements of fiscal year 2025/2026.
Thank you, Volker. Let me now wrap up our presentation by summarizing our key achievements for full year 2025/2026. Overall, we made strong progress on both our strategic initiatives and cost measures, which translated into improved structural cost indicators as well as a better result before tax and after taxes, laying a solid foundation for our future development. Among the key structural highlights within our Zukunftsplan, we concluded more than 550 exit agreements to structurally adjust our personnel cost base, mainly in Germany. We implemented significant cost reduction and efficiency measures, including the consistent relocation of CX 104 in China and the launch of our low-cost country footprint in North Macedonia. We advanced key digitalization initiatives. In addition, we made substantial progress in executing our strategic transformation.
We further expanded our digital business, including the ramp-up of digital print through strategic partnerships with Canon and Ricoh. We signed a strategic partnership agreement with Masterwork, significantly expanding the scope and the depth of our collaboration beyond the previous sales cooperation. And we completed the integration of POLAR, further enhancing our market position and operational platform while striving for further M&A to even extend our position as a leading player in our industry. We successfully transformed Amperfied's business model from a hardware-focused player to a fully integrated solutions provider in charging technology. And very important, we established a further pillar in security and defense, successfully initiating our activities in high growth and future-orientated markets. Taken together, these measures have started to improve our cost base and earnings profile, reinforcing the foundation for sustainable and profitable growth going forward. With that, thank you very much for listening.
Let me hand it back to the operator.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star nine and the pound key on your telephone keypad. If you would like to revoke your question, please press star three and the pound key. You can also use the dial-in function in the webcast and raise your hand if you would like to ask a question by phone. So, please press star nine and the pound key on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask a question. The first question comes from Stefan Augustin from Warburg Research. The floor is yours.
Yes. Hello, gentlemen. Thank you very much for taking my question. I have a couple of ones. The first one is actually a little bit a question if you can elaborate more on where the sudden shortfalls in Q4 on the profitability side actually came from versus your budget. I mean, I see if I look in the segmentation that Europe and Asian business has been quite weak and the sales has been quite weak in the fourth quarter while the U.S. was okay. You highlight the FX impact, so p ossibly, a little bit reframing the question, is it fair to simply assume that the pricing in the North American sales was not up to your expectations?
Good morning. Mr. Augustin, David Schmedding speaking. I will try to answer your question. Especially talking about the shortfall in Q4 is a sudden one. Of course, we are faced with the outbreak of the conflict in Middle East, led to, of course, a sudden weaker, let's say, situation of investment. Yes, this came for us as surprise and this speed and this, let's say, heaviness. Of course, there are some other explanations behind causing some other delays, of course, which were now reflected in the figures. Talking, of course, about the situation in Americas, yes, the order momentum increased. This is what Volker Herdin was talking about starting in Q3.
Yes, it improved. Nevertheless, the situation is still uncertain, due to the tariff situation.
Hello?
One moment please. I will bring them back.
Oh, thank you.
Please wait one moment. Yes, the operator [audio distortion].
Hello.
Hi. Hi.
Okay. You're back in the conference. Please go ahead.
Mr. Augustin, have we got the answer or?
Most of it probably. Maybe, [crosstalk].
We were lost. We were, y eah, we were lost in the connection.
I was talking about the currency situation in Americas. I don't know if you got the answer here.
No.
We are talking about the heavy FX impact headwinds in the U.S. economy causing also some delays in investment decisions, plus the tariff situation. It's causing a lot of troubles. The customers are delaying investments. Of course, nevertheless, we saw an improving order momentum starting in Q3. Customers ordered again, but it's still not on the level that we were expecting. The tariff situation is still an issue for us. Of course, especially in the service business, we increased prices significantly over the last quarter here to compensate for the shortfalls caused by tariffs. This will compensate the loss over the next quarters as well. Overall, the situation as it is, and it's reflected now in the numbers.
I want to add one thing. We had a mix effect. As you already mentioned, we had weaker sales in China. In China, we have better profitability in our machines. The mix effect hit us. Additionally, we had some clean out effects on the year-end. Certain warranty claims and other topics which amounted to EUR 3 million-EUR 4 million, which also came together, it all came together at the year-end, and that's why we had this weakness.
Okay, thank you very much for the explanation. Couple of others. The first one is actually on the joint venture. On that, is it possibly to give us a little glimpse of how you plan to progress here? The next one is then an update on Manroland and your entry into the very large format. What will you make out of the situation with Manroland? I mean, there is possibly a service business to be finished up. The last one is a small housekeeping question on the deviation between the free cash flow and the change in the net cash position. Is it all IFRS 16 lease or is there a couple of other elements in there?
Let's say, is there one mainly big element in there or is it just a couple of smaller ones? That would be the question. Thank you.
Yes, Stefan. Thank you. I think we will give you a much deeper outlook at the 10th of June regarding all our security and defense activities. There will be some news also presented to public at this 10th or latest the 10th of June. We will give also a deeper outlook for our own back activities at that date. Secondly, Manroland, yeah. Thomas?
Can I answer your question about Manroland? As per the Heidelberg plan remains to continue the VLF business. But economic relation and shareholder value creation are key. Accordingly, we follow the current situation at Manroland and might adapt our internal defense strategy if needed. Looking for your understanding that we don't comment, of course, on any market speculation, but be sure that we will communicate immediately as soon as we have some updates about the VLF strategy.
Okay. Thank you. The statement on the net cash and the free cash flow?
Yeah. Stefan, we will answer your question. We have the experts here.
Yeah, your assumption was basically correct. It's mainly due to IFRS 16 lease effects and minor FX effects due to currency translation of around EUR 2 million.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Stefan.
We have one more question from Sven Sauer from Kepler Cheuvreux . The floor is yours.
Hello. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. Just one from my side and a follow-up on the impact of the Iran war in Q4. I'm a bit confused because on the one side you say that there has been a weakening of investment demand due to the war, which was pretty much one month in your last quarter. On the other side, the Q4 order intake was even up year-over-year. Does that imply that you would have expected a higher order intake in Q4, or were there some cancellations? Yeah, would be great if you could provide some more color on this.
At the end, it depends of course on the regional development which were really different globally. Talking about the regional development, we saw a strong momentum coming from China in the last months of the last fiscal year, so, helping us in this fiscal year of course with these orders on the same way. Yeah, we saw we are short falls in the order intake which were expected on a high level in Europe, and this is exactly reflected in the total number. The effects coming from the different global development.
China was performing on an OK level the last quarter of the last fiscal year and compensated for falls in other regions, especially in EMEA where our Iran and Middle East businesses included.
Okay. Thank you.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star nine and the pound key, or you can also use the dial-in function in the browser. At the moment, there are no further questions.
Yeah. Thank you, everybody, and see you back on June 10th with some exciting news. See you then. Bye-bye.