Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Jenoptik conference call regarding the results of the H1 year of 2024. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. Stefan Traeger. Please, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, and a very warm welcome from Jena to everybody out there. With me today, as always, is Prisca Havranek-Kosicek, our CFO, and we're more than happy to present to you the results of Jenoptik in Q2 or H1, if you combine the first two quarters. Second quarter actually has been a very good quarter for Jenoptik. We're very pleased with the development. By and large, all our KPIs are developing in the right direction. We're particularly pleased to report that demand picked up as anticipated. We saw a Q2 order growth quarter-over-quarter versus the Q1, 2024 of almost 17%, 16.7% quarter-over-quarter earnings, order intake growth versus the Q2 of last year. The order intake grew by 7%.
However, for the combined two quarters of the H1 year, order intake is still slightly below prior year. But as you can see from the dynamics, the anticipated order intake and demand pickup is actually unfolding. We also saw substantial increase in sales, which we're very pleased of. Again, quarter-over-quarter, Q2 over Q1, saw a growth of a bit more than 11%, versus Q2 of 2023, a bit more than 5%. And if you take the H1 of the year, 2024 versus 2023, we saw a growth of +7%. And again, we're very pleased with that development in sales. A bit of a sort of, yeah, input from what's going on within the business.
Really very important for us is the construction of our new fab in Dresden. We all know that, very important fab for us to be able to cater to demand out there, in particular on microoptics business for the semiconductor manufacturing segment. That construction goes according to schedule. As anticipated, we're fully on track to move into the new fab, and we'll be up and running next year. We continue to anticipate back-end loaded order intake. In other words, we continue to anticipate that the order intake in H2 will be higher than in H1. If you combine all of that, we can fully confirm our guidance for the fiscal year. We guide for mid-single digit sales growth, and we can confirm that.
And we guide for an EBITDA of about between 19.5% and 20% of sales. We can also confirm that, including a 0.5 percentage point of negative effect, that we will or that at least we anticipate to see from the move into the new factory in Dresden that I mentioned earlier. So overall, Q2, very pleased with that. Continue to see the dynamics unfolding in the demand pattern as we anticipated at the beginning of the year. Not quite at last year's level in order intake, but we're getting there. And yeah, good, good growth in sales and margin expansion. With that, I would hand over to Prisca, and Prisca is going to take us through the numbers in way more detail. Prisca, over to you.
Thank you, Stefan, and good morning to all of you on the call. We have, as Stefan just mentioned, delivered again a solid set of numbers, and I would like to now cover our performance in greater detail, as always, starting on page six with order intake and order backlog. First half year order intake came in at EUR 524 million, still down some 4% quarter-over-quarter. However, after an overall weak start to the current fiscal year, as Stefan just mentioned, we saw demand picking up in the Q2, led by our semiconductor equipment business, and also a certain order intake normalization within our NPC segment after the project postponement we have seen in Q1.
Still, our demand in our optical test and measurement business, as well as in certain areas of our life science and medical applications, remained subdued in the H1 of 2024. As a result, our book-to-bill ratio on a group level has reduced to slightly below one, with our NPCs being the main driver here. Now, moving to order backlog, which overall remains on a continuous high level. The slight decline you see here quarter-over-quarter of 1.5%, it's mainly attributable to the situation around our NPCs, as mentioned before, so the effect from Q1. We anticipate to convert roughly 57 or in absolute terms, around EUR 420 million of this order backlog into revenue within the fiscal year 2024. Now, turning to revenue and profit development on page seven.
Looking at the left graph, you can see that top line development remains strong in the H1 of the year, with revenue up by around 7%.... We had no effects from portfolio changes, hence this growth is purely organic. Also foreign exchange rate fluctuations had no meaningful impact on the top line development within the first six months of the year. The main growth drivers in this period were once again our Advanced Photonic Solutions division, as well as our MTC segment. Now moving to profitability on the right side of the slide, as you can see, we have again improved our profitability and the strong top line growth converted into substantial profit and margin improvement. Group EBITDA came in at EUR 101.4 million, and the respective margin was up 70 basis points, mainly driven by scale effects.
However, looking at profits from a divisional perspective, the main contributor in absolute terms were the non-photonic portfolio companies, but also our APS division performed at a robust level. Please note that per our unchanged EBITDA margin guidance for the full year, we continue to expect margins to be largely flat quarter-over-quarter for two reasons, mainly. Firstly, our EBITDA margins of our MTCs in the H2 of last year was very strong, so we do not expect a positive quarter-over-quarter margin effect from this business in the H2 of this year. Secondly, we expect certain tailwinds from the next step of the union tariff agreement, driving our personnel expenses in the remainder of this year. Stefan will talk about our divisional performance in greater detail a bit later in this call. Moving on to page 8.
Here, I would like to give you a little more color on the drivers behind the evolution of our margins. In H1, we saw gross margin approximately 100 basis points down year over year, which from a line item perspective, was influenced by higher depreciation on the one side and material costs. Looking into functional costs, as you can see here, we remain disciplined in our OpEx despite the labor cost inflation we're seeing and our continuous investments into R&D. As a consequence, functional costs are growing at a lower rate than revenue. Our other operating results improved year over year, primarily as we recognized an impairment, as you know, relating to the sale of our equity stake in Telstar-Hommel in Korea, which we reported about a year ago.
In addition, we recognized lower FX losses in this year compared to 2023 H1. Moving on to the EBIT line, you see a marked increase both in absolute terms as well as margin wise. Further down the line, our financial result was at -EUR 8.5 million, compared to -EUR 7.8 million in the prior year, primarily due to net negative impacts from exchange rates. Finally, earnings per share reached EUR 0.69, up around 23% quarter-over-quarter. So overall, we reported a very solid set of earnings in the H1 of 2024. Now turning to page nine, looking at cash flow and balance sheet data. Starting with cash flow, as you can see, operating cash flow pre-tax was broadly in line with EBITDA accretion.
Our net working capital intensity reduced 100 basis points quarter-over-quarter, but slightly increased versus fiscal year-end 2023. Moving on to CapEx, we are continuing, as Stefan also mentioned, to invest into our capacities as planned, and as you know, also into our semi fab in Dresden, which is our most important project. However, we have a bit of a phasing effect here, so for the first six months of the year, our cash CapEx was at around EUR 35 million, so somewhat lower than a year ago. So for the remainder of the year, we expect to see a certain catch-up in investment. Finally, our net debt position was broadly at the same level as we reported for the end of 2023.
And of course, please have in mind that this also affects our annual dividend payment of around EUR 20 million in Q2. Leverage remains unchanged versus fiscal year 2023 at 2x EBITDA. And with this, let me turn back to Stefan to cover our divisions and our outlook.
Yeah, thank you very much, Prisca. As always, let's start with our APS business. So if you would follow me on to page 11 of our deck. You'd see that order intake in APS is essentially flat. We had a good momentum in semiconductor equipment industry, which of course, for us is important. We did see some lower ordering activities in the OTM arena and optical test measurement, that includes the traffic business, but also some other businesses which are together in that area, and in certain life science applications in the medical sector. But as I say, overall, good order intake, not phenomenal, but good order intake. Book-to-bill is just a tad below one, is 0.99.
We were very pleased to see in particular that the semiconductor activities are, you know, having good dynamics for us. Revenues are up by 8.2%, which is great, and as a result, we've seen slight increase in profitability in APS. Margin, though, is below last year. I think that's something to point out, and I'm pretty sure we're gonna get questions around that later on in the Q&A session. But overall, I think APS has performed nicely in the H1. And again, the demand pattern, which is important again for us, in particular in semicon, given the current circumstances and the market noise out there, we're pleased to report that semicon for us is stable.
Let's go to Smart Mobility on page 12. Here we have to always remind ourselves, and I would like to remind you, that Smart Mobility is a project business, and thus things can be quite lumpy. If you take order intake in the Q2, in the isolated Q2 this year versus prior year, we actually saw a very good order intake in the Q2 of +43%. Again, that's the sort of the effect of the small, small, small numbers, basically. The percentage is huge, but in absolute terms, compared to the group, that's not as much. But nevertheless, the demand in the Q2 has been strong. However, quarter-over-quarter is basically flat, balancing out the weak Q1 in order intake. As a result, revenues are down.
That is to do with, yeah, lumpiness of business, but in particular, actually with, you know, missing orders and issues that we had coming in to the Q2 and then into the year. So that needs to pick up in the H2 in terms of sales. And, yeah, that's as a result of that, we also basically miss operating leverage here. With the volume being lower, we do see the fall through basically into the profitability. As a result of the missing volume, we do see a reduction in EBITDA of a bit more than EUR 1 million. That's basically the fall through from the volume that's missing. Now, the maybe to some, the biggest surprise, if you want, the Non-Photonic Portfolio Companies, Prodomax and Hommel.
Now, here, we gotta be really sort of segmented down and look into the details to understand the dynamics. In terms of order intake, again, we had a very, very weak Q1 order intake for Prodomax, and you might remember that we called out that Prodomax in the Q1 basically had almost no orders from project delays and moving around in projects. We had a bit of a discussion about that in the Q&A session in the Q1 earnings call. Second quarter had been good, not huge, but still there was some growth in the Q2. Quarter two this year versus quarter two last year grew by around 3.5%, I think.
So there has been growth in order intake in the Q2, to some extent, compensating, but obviously not fully compensating the order intake weakness in the Q1. Nevertheless, sales grew significantly, and you see that sales grew by 12.1%. And that is, on the flip side, if you want, a growth that we see, in particular in Prodomax, you know, in over way more than the growth that we see in Hommel, although Hommel is well on the way. But we see particular growth in Prodomax in terms of closing out projects. And since Prodomax is obviously pretty profitable, the EBITDA, so the operating profit of NPC, of the NPC segment, has been developing, well, really good.
We're really proud of that and really, really happy to report the EBITDA margin of NPC overall is at 18.5%. And without going into any numbers, but the big driver here is the profitability of Prodomax, that Hommel is also developing nicely. As you know, we're making money with Hommel nowadays, and that's a good, a good message, given that we spent some money on restructuring in the past. Let me point you to the last bullet point on that slide number 13. We have made the decision to keep Hommel within the group and develop it internally.
We do see the opportunity to form a cluster of metrology businesses, Hommel and our OTM business, mainly, but not exclusively, Trioptics, but Hommel and Trioptics together with some smaller businesses. We intend to form a cluster of businesses that will cater to the broader metrology and inspection arena. We believe that there is a better future for Hommel internally than from what we at least have seen from other bidders, if you want, in discussions that we had in the last year or two. And therefore, we intend to develop Hommel internally and use the asset we have there for supporting the internal of the growth in that segment.
In particular, the site there, our operations assets, the people, they're very knowledgeable people, very good people that we have. And we believe that we can make more out of that asset if we combine it and put it together with other metrology activities that we have, then, yeah, basically, to give it into external hands. With that said, we, on page 15, laid out that we can fully confirm our outlook for 2024, for the fiscal year. We do believe that revenue growth will be in the mid-single digit percentage range. We believe that EBITDA will be between 19.5% and 20% of that sales number.
That does include an expected negative impact of about half a percentage point from the move to the new site in Dresden. You guys are all aware of that. We believe that capital expenditure will be, yeah, slightly higher at largest level or slightly above. And, of course, all of that is based on our strong order backlog. We still have some, Prisca pointed that out, around, I think EUR 734 million of backlog in our books. We do see a pickup in demand. We still need a good H2 in the order intake, but in particular for next year. But for this year, we can rely on good, good backlog, pick up in demand.
And of course, it does or it goes without saying that our guidance is subject to certain assumptions that we've laid out on the page. I don't want to read it out to you, but I want to caution everybody. So if macroeconomics do deteriorate, then we have to have a second look at that. But at the moment, we don't have any reason to doubt that we can make our guidance. So with that, I think we'll pause here. Thank you very much, and looking forward to your questions.
Thank you very much. Dear ladies and gentlemen, if you are dialed in the conference call and have a question for our speakers, please press nine followed by the star key on your telephone keypad. Now, to enter the queue. To cancel your question again, please press nine star again. First question comes from Adrian Pehl, Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Actually, three questions from my side. The first is, a little bit more, complex, maybe. So maybe start with that one, then one by one. On the, demand side, I mean, I sense that actually, what you say now in comparison to Q1 is much more, upbeat. So I was wondering where that is actually coming from. I mean, obviously, you alluded to the semi business, and, that's relatively clear, but I was wondering, is that a broad demand that you see on the semi side, or is that largely, driven by one specific front-end client? And maybe you could also elaborate a little bit on the exit rates you had in the quarter.
So orders being much better until the end of the quarter, which gives you some hope on Q3, or how should we see it? And then lastly, on that complex, could you give us an idea on the, let's say, non-semi side of things, on the more industrial segments? I mean, obviously, you have spoken about the weakness in electro-optics and some medical applications, but is the demand also picking up in APS, in the more industrial segments? That's my first question, and then I have two follow-ups.
All right, then let me, let me take that, that first one. I don't know. I don't actually think that we see that we've—we, we are more upbeat than in the Q1. I think what we see is, and how we see the world is a continuation. We, I think, always said that we expect order intake patterns to pick up throughout the year. And maybe, maybe the, the -14% or so in Q1 was, was a downer for all of us. But we did know that it's due to a particular reason in, in, in ProtoMax at the time. And maybe we are pretty much of a, I don't know, a, conservative bunch, maybe. That could also be. But I would say I, I, I don't think that we have any additional information or any change.
I would think it's continuation of what we have seen and what we held throughout the full year. And yeah, full stop. I don't think there's a big change. I would not interpret too much into it. I think we're basically sticking to what we said all the time. Obviously, I cannot sort of comment on Q3 yet. We're gonna do that, and we're gonna cross that bridge when we come to it. But what I would say is, we don't see any slowdown or anything either. So I think same that I said to the first part of the question applies to the second part. We're anticipating higher order intake in the H2 than in the H1, and that does mean that yeah, you can basically conclude from that.
We do believe that the pickup in demand is real and continues to be real in the H2. On the more industrial parts of the business, those are the ones that are more sort of it all, but in the more industrial part of the business, we have our issues. I mentioned, you mentioned, and you repeated that TRIOPTICS, when I say parts of the medical business, then that is also to do with more, like, laser activities and stuff that are basically lump under the medical headline. So the more industrial applications are the ones that are under pressure, indicating that semicon activities are well on the way for us. And I think, I hope that basically covers your first question.
Right. So, the demand in semi is broad, I believe, right? So it's not only, let's say, one specific customer, but it's also, let's say, the other top clients that you have, they are still quite strong in demand, right?
Please do understand, I cannot comment on particular customers.
Okay. And then, the two follow-ups are really rather short ones. One's actually, in APS, CapEx was not really that much in the Q2, so I was wondering if there is a lot to come, or should we take it, actually, the CapEx spending throughout 2024 will be a little bit lower than you have envisaged before? And the last question is pretty much on Trioptics. I recall it, that obviously, that you are considering taking out further costs, given that the top-line development is not as good as possible in the new businesses. So is there still significant work to do, or where do we stand with taking out costs? Not necessarily calling it restructuring, but maybe you could elaborate on a little bit on this one. Thank you.
Let me take the Adrian, the question on CapEx. So that's pretty easy. We stick to our CapEx guidance, we set slightly above previous year. That was around EUR 110 million. And as I also mentioned a little bit in my comments, there is a phasing effect there, that you of course see in the group, but you also see it in the APS. So, I wouldn't change. Our estimates haven't changed there, you know, so that's a catch-up effect that we'll see in the H2 of the year. And obviously, Dresden, you know, has a big impact on that one.
On TRIOPTICS, yes, we are running down capacity somewhat, but not, I mean, we're not like having a big, like, social plan or anything like we would see in Germany. It's more like attrition that we use.
Mm.
But we anticipate lower headcounts in Trioptics versus prior year. And again, that's basically achieved by... In Germany, we would say, "...," whatever that would be in English, I don't know. But, you know, using attrition and things like that. So we're not running a big social plan or anything like that, but we do run down headcount a bit, slightly in Trioptics, given that we have lower demand than anticipated. But if demand picks up, which we all hope and anticipate, we will fully be able to execute any, any orders that we get.
All right. Perfect. Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you. Thanks for your question.
Thank you also from my side. The next question comes from Michael Kuhn, Deutsche Bank. Please, go ahead.
Yes, good morning. A few questions also from my side. Starting with the first one on Hommel Etamic, where you now plan to develop the company internally. Is that applying to Hommel Etamic as a whole, or is there, let's say, different plans for the plants in Bayeux and in Villingen? Because my understanding always was that Villingen being more photonics-driven is quite a good fit, whereas Bayeux, which is more climatics-driven, is kind of different animals. So maybe a few more details on how you want to develop the asset and maybe also by the two sides.
Yeah. Thanks for the question. Please, again, do understand, we cannot go into that detail at this point in time.
All right. Understood. Then, another tricky one, which is probably difficult to answer, but still, Prodomax still not reported as a discontinued operations. So any kind of update or very rough indication you can, you can give us here on how you're, you're progressing, with, with the disposal of that asset?
As you say, it's another tricky question. Let me answer it this way: We will obviously inform our investors and the public at the point when it's the right point in time. So at this moment, what we said last time, we're not reporting as IFRS 5, and but I should say as it is.
Understood. Thank you. And then one on smart mobility, which I got your comment on, let's say, your slide, volume losses and that translating into profitability. Still, this segment slipped into an EBIT loss in the H1. This used to be a close to 13% EBIT margin generator. Is there any perspective that it can reach that level again anytime soon, or is there specific measures underway? And then most specifically, I also had a look at the regional sales development. Americas was down 40% quarter-over-quarter. How are you making progress with the new sales organization? And is there a perspective for improving sales in the Americas also in the foreseeable future?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you, you hit, here as well, you hit the nail on the head. That is the issue basically in North America. Us investing into our own sales activities, sales not falling fast enough, and that's not compensating fast enough. The sales we had via Verra Mobility in the past, our distributor of the past. And that is a drag on the margins as well. Obviously, we do anticipate it to get better, but it develops slower than we would have hoped. That said, as I say, obviously, we invest with the anticipation to get return from it. So we need to get better margins or better sales out of North America, which would turn into better margins for the SMS as a whole.
That needs to materialize, and we really can't wait for, like, 5 years for that, obviously. But, yeah, we would have... We anticipated it faster, and it takes a while. Maybe that's us being overly optimistic at the time, but, and it does take time to develop, you know, customer relations in this business and, and so on and so forth. But it's got to get better, in the not-too-distant future.
Okay, but it sounds like it's not just for now sales that is down, but the order intake hasn't picked up yet in North America as well.
We do not comment on particular order intake patterns in regions for divisions. But let me just point out that we do have nice—we won nice businesses there, nice centers, large businesses. The order intake pattern in this particular business, though, we don't sort of record the order and post the orders once we get frame contracts, but it comes in over time. So we would post orders and say it's almost like it's the same second, if that makes sense. Because it's TSP business largely is where we're like running the show and then the whole thing. So in other words, what we post as orders in our reports is sometimes a bit different from contracts we won in SMS, and particularly in North America.
I hope that gives you the color you're looking for.
Yeah, that is a good indication and a very smart question. More kind of technical. Cash tax rate, relatively low in the H1 of the year. Is there also a timing effect involved, or should we expect that to continue into the H2? Thanks.
Yeah, I think that's a question for me. I wouldn't read too much into, you know, a quarter-over-quarter deviation there. I think we'll we are broadly in line with what we have guided for, and I that I have no reason to believe that there should anything change in the H2 of the year. Maybe just to add a little bit of color that, you know, that our cash tax rate last year was slightly higher because of the impairments that we had in the group, right? So that has that I would see should be wearing off.
Perfect, thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Lasse Stueben, Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I just wanted to follow up briefly on your comment on H2 profitability. I wanted to ask if you could just repeat those comments that you made. I didn't quite catch it. And I guess in the same vein, just to give us a feeling for the cost outlook for the H2. I mean, costs have been remarkably stable, particularly in Q2, sequentially. So I'm just wondering how to think about the cost in the H2, I guess, also especially related to the Dresden headwind. So some comments around that would be great. Thank you.
Yeah. Let me try to give you a bit more flavor there. So I think what I was trying to say is that we expect the margin to stay basically flat, which we have also guided for. You know, last year we had 19.7, this year we're guiding from 19.5-20, from an EBIT point of view. And what I tried to point out also to give you some cautious cautiousness, I would say, into the H2, is that if you look at just the H1, you see basically an uplift from MTC. Stefan talked a lot about in particular ProtoMax, where we really see very nice margins at the moment.
That will basically be analyzed in the H2 of 2024, because we already saw that in the H2 of 2023. So that's number one. And the other reminder is to note that our tariff agreement, you know, had two phases, and phase number two is only effective mid-year 2024, which means an additional increase that we have not seen in the H1 of the year. That's what I tried to point out as two sort of drivers of margins into the H2 of the year. But overall, as Stefan said, we guided for 19.5%-20%, that's unchanged. And maybe last question, you mentioned also Dresden.
We stick to our assumption that we have roughly 0.5 percentage point of negative impact of Dresden in this full year.
Understood. That makes sense. That's very helpful. And then just on Hommel, if you can just give us, again, a reminder of, I mean, the rough size. I mean, on my estimates, I'm guessing it's somewhere around EUR 50 million of revenues. I just want to get a feeling for if that's the right ballpark, or not. If you can comment, that'd be great.
It's the right ballpark, ballpark, and it's on the lower end of the ballpark. On the entry level ball the ballpark. So, yeah, you're, you're right. It's roughly, it's a bit more than that, depending on whether you put the optical end of the rate. But, so it's, it's the, it's, it's, it's the right ballpark, maybe a bit higher, but not, not EUR 100 million.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Next question is from Pal Skirta, Metzler Bank. Over to you.
Yes, good morning. First of all, congratulations on a strong quarter, and thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions, both related to your semicon business, if I may. The first one concerns your exposure to possible U.S. restrictions on chip exports to China. I mean, I think we all know that the most advanced chips are already banned from being exported to China, but I'm kind of concerned that the change in U.S. politics could lead to even stricter controls in chip exports. And my question is, if you see, if you see this as an indirect risk to your future volumes, any insight on this would be appreciated.
Then if I may, the second question, which pertains to Germany, with Intel and TSMC establishing their chip factory in Germany, maybe you could provide us with some insight into whether this localization of chip manufacturing in Germany is already reflected in your current order backlog. And if not, should we anticipate a positive one-off effect on your order intake going forward as the fabs are being constructed? And if so, if so, maybe, maybe you can give us a timeline when we should expect this positive one-off. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for that question. Let me start with reminding all of us that we're not selling to chip manufacturers. Our customers are equipment builders. So basically, you're talking about the customers of our customers when you talk about Intel and Infineon and others, TSMC, Bosch, all building factories in Germany and other parts of the world. And that said, whether a particular factory will be built here, there, or elsewhere, doesn't really make a difference to us because we don't sell to those factories. As long as factories are being built, our customers, the manufacturer of machines, have good demand, and as long as they have good demand, then we have good demand, basically.
So whether a particular factory in Dresden or elsewhere will be built doesn't really make a difference to us, as long as the world in total continues to build factories. On the particular China issue, in a way, the same comment applies. We don't sell our products to semicon customers in China. Our customers are in the broader area here and obviously in the US and in other places. But we don't sell product for semi customers into China, and therefore we're not affected in the first order. But you are right, there can be a discussion whether or not sort of there could be a second order effect.
And that question, you basically would have to ask our customers, but from what we can tell, from what we can see in our, in our own pipelines and in our discussions with the customers, I mean, it's still the case that overall, the geopolitical tensions that we do see in a way actually help us. I know that's almost, like, pathetic, but given the whole geopolitical tension around China and in Taiwan and other issues, the world is building factories for chips. And as long as the world is building factories for chips, our customers have good demand. And you guys know what our customers have posted as order intake in the Q2, which is really strong. And obviously, that ends up in order intake for us.
Does that make-
I will-
Does that make sense? I know it's a bit of a long-winded answer to a clear question, but it's a nice way of saying, you don't ask me, ask my customer. But, I hope it does at least give you some color.
Yeah, I was referring to the second order effect, actually. Thank you, that's very clear. Thank you.
All right.
... Thank you very much. We are moving on to the next question. Next question is from Craig Abbott, Kepler Cheuvreux.
Yes. Hi, everyone. Yeah, I have a couple still. My question on the sustainability margin MPC, you actually already partially answered, so thanks for that. And secondly, my second next question, you also just discussed, basically, but I was going to ask how comfortable you feel at this stage with us now nearing the date where you start to move into the new production plant . You told us, it's all on track, so that's encouraging. But looking beyond that, in terms of, you know, being able to, you know, fill that capacity in 2025 and 2026, I mean, could you just give some color on what... I mean, is your confidence level as high as it was before? That'd be the first question, and I have two other quick ones. Thank you.
Yeah. Let me take Jason first. As you say, we're fully on track to move in time. We do have the opportunity to build a second phase if we need to. Not executed at that moment, but we can, if need be, still expand that factory, and could almost double it again if need be. But at this moment, yeah, we'll focus on finishing our project here, and we can decide in the next, yeah, 25, 26, if we need to expand race beyond the capacity that we anticipate in 25, 26. Margin MPC, yeah, yeah, basically, Hommel being okay, ProtoMax being very strong, result in good margin development at MPC. Is nothing more to it, really, than just that.
ProtoMax develops nicely in terms of sales, not quite as good in terms of order intake, but we knew that. Basically, the hangover effect, if you want, or the rollover effect from the Q1, from that particular in the US electromobility issue that we discussed in the last earnings call, and there isn't really much more to it, actually.
No, but my question was, Chris, Chris, I've been reading, I understood you correctly. You suggested we should expect a normal- normalization in the MPC margin in the H2. I, I was just trying to get a feel for how sustainable a level around 20% is. For me, it sounds like, it was perhaps a little bit, you know, related to final bookings on a, on a very profitable ProtoMax project, but we probably shouldn't be thinking around that kind of margin level going forward. That's my question.
No, I think what Chris refers to is that the comparator for MPC in the H1 was much easier than in the H2. Just a comp, basically. MPC last H1 last year has been very, relatively speaking, weak, and H2, relatively, relatively speaking, strong.
Ah, okay.
The comp for MPC in the H2 is much harder than in the H1.
Okay, understood. Thank you. Yeah, and then I have, I just want to ask quickly, on Hommel, I realize you're not going to give us a lot of details at this stage, but I want to make sure I understood you correctly. You said you want to build this new business unit, and did I understand you, that you want to bring Trioptics into that unit as well? And if so, I'm just trying to understand a little bit what kind of competitive advantages you, you envision for, for that unit. Thank you.
Yes, that's correct. And the thought process is basically this: look, I mean, both Trioptics and Hommel cater to customers measuring things, basically. People at Trioptics, our Trioptics business is focused on measuring the quality of production or inspection, if you want, or during the production process of optical parts with optical means. The friends and colleagues in Villingen-Schwenningen cater to people measuring mechanical parts with mechanical and optical means. And so while customers are not quite the same, there is some overlap. In particular, the more you see, you know, optical modules also in mechanical parts and then, like, in cars and other things. So optics is ever more important.
What we see is some synergies, if you want, where we can help each other on, on the sales side, but much more on operations. It's more on operational leverage than the market leverage, if you want. Customers are somewhat different, but production is fairly similar. If you look at a box from Hommel produced in Villingen-Schwenningen versus a box from Trioptics produced in Hamburg or Wedel, they look fairly similar. And we can... We hope that, we believe that we can basically cross-utilize our production facilities across these two businesses. That's the main effect. There's more of a, you know, cost, quote, unquote, "synergies." Don't read too much into it, but more on the cost side, on the operation side, on utilizing existing capacity better than on the sales side.
There is some overlap on the markets, but more on, you know, shared software platforms, shared operational resources, and that type of stuff.
... Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you. My last one, a real quick technical question, for modeling, looking at the group EBITDA, the holding elimination line is basically, in the meantime, negligible, in Q2, which actually contributed more than EUR 2 million to the group EBITDA progression. If I understand correctly, I think this has been primarily due to cost reallocation to the segments. I just want to know, should we take this current level sort of the runway, or were there some special factors in there?
Yes, correct. So you're right, this is primarily, or this, this is purely, related to cost allocation. And I would more say that last year was maybe a little bit off, you know, so I would basically take this year's progress, for, for the full year, that effect comes from last year. But it's nothing operational, it's just, allocation based.
Okay. That's a very clear answer. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Then the last question in our queue is from Finn Kemper, HA IB. Over to you.
Hello, everyone. Thank you and congratulations on the strong results. A lot of questions have already been asked, but I have one more regarding the weakness in life science and med tech. Could you provide a couple more details on what sub-sectors are stronger than others? And finally, when we should consider a recovery to take hold? Thank you.
Yeah. We have a certain product line under the within this strategic business unit that basically produces in a way it's high power lasers. So laser diodes with a lot of power output that are used to, for example, bleach tattoos, if you wanna, if you want to, it's a dermatology application here, skin treatment. If you do have a tattoo and want to, for whatever reason, don't like it anymore, want to get rid of it, you can take a high power laser and basically destroy the ink, if that makes any sense. I'm not an expert in that, but I can build the lasers. So strong lasers are used for that. But they're also used for other applications, non-medical applications, obviously non... More like industrial applications.
And that's with the comment that you know has been made earlier. With the weakness is more in the traditional industrial fields and segments. We report that business under medical because yeah for historic reasons and it needs a home and and a large part of the application is a medical application. But I'd say probably half of it is actually non-medical. So you need a strong laser power for lots of things and that half is weaker or actually very much down due to increasing competition out of China. And it has been a business that was strong in China and or a product line that is strong in China. Now let's not read too much into this. I mean we're not talking about a EUR 100 million business here.
It's, well, around, I'd say around EUR 30 million or so, product line that's under pressure. But of course, our medical business, it has an impact.
Okay. Thank you. Very clear.
Thanks a lot. With that, I would like to close the Q&A session for now, since there are no more questions in the queue. Over to the host.
Well, and thank you very much again for being with us today. We're pleased with that. Pleased with the results of Q2. Onto Q3, we're continue to work hard to deliver a good Q3 and obviously anticipate to fulfill our gains for the year. Thank you very much.